Taylor Navarro Joins Wizards of the Coast as D&D Designer

Navarro was an Diana Jones Emerging Talent Award Winner.
taylor navarro.jpg


Wizards of the Coast has hired yet another D&D game designer - this time UK-based designer Taylor Navarro. Navarro announced that she was joining the D&D team this week on BlueSky. Navarro notably was a winner of the Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award back in 2024 and has worked for Ghostfire Gaming and Evil Hat in addition to working on several DMs Guild projects. Some of her most notable works was contributing to the DMs Guild publication Journeys Beyond the Radiant Citadel and publishing Not Yet: A Romantic Duet TTRPG.

Navarro is the fourth D&D game designer to join Wizards of the Coast in recent weeks, with James Haeck, Leon Barillaro, and Erin Roberts also announcing that they've joined D&D in a similar game designer capacity. Additionally, Justice Ramin Arman was promoted to Game Design Director of the group.
 
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Christian Hoffer
Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer is a veteran tabletop journalist and Forever DM. His non-tabletop hobbies include Pokemon, Ohio sports, and building miniatures.
Zardnaar said:
Nice strawman. It was talking about a specific book.
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Yes, a book that Taylor Navarro didn't write has became your obsession in the Taylor Navarro got hired thread.
Pointing that out isn't a strawman.

As to what I've bought recently -- Core 2204, the Realms, both WotC starter sets, ToV starter set, ToV core, and Crafting Heritages, Cultures and More for Advanced 5e with other things. I buy what can be used in my main campaign or what can inspire me to be a better DM (SlyFlourish and Amman help a lot). Not a lot of adventures make that list.

I play in public and write about my games for public consumption, because I'm an evangelist for roleplaying who wants to broaden the people who enjoy the 5e ecosystem and RPGs in general.

And I remain confused why Navarro's hiring means "insult other posters and slam products she wasn't involved in."
 

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Zardnaar said:
Not sure about you but I like quality product. Ive bought more comparatively lately than late 2020-23 where I was skipping a lot of books.

Buy much yourself or just strawman ENworld?

View attachment 428474

Direct comparison what im specifically talking about. Top GV bottom RC. 6 months apart one looks like 2023 the other 2017.
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Im trying to understand where you see a difference in "quality" if anything I see a difference in aesthetics because one is a map style representation of an underground space and one is a colored semi-realistic drawing of s building above ground. Its like comparing a full color piece and a sketch both can be high quality but they have different aesthetics.
 

bedir than said:
Yes, a book that Taylor Navarro didn't write has became your obsession in the Taylor Navarro got hired thread.
Pointing that out isn't a strawman.

As to what I've bought recently -- Core 2204, the Realms, both WotC starter sets, ToV starter set, ToV core, and Crafting Heritages, Cultures and More for Advanced 5e with other things. I buy what can be used in my main campaign or what can inspire me to be a better DM (SlyFlourish and Amman help a lot). Not a lot of adventures make that list.

I play in public and write about my games for public consumption, because I'm an evangelist for roleplaying who wants to broaden the people who enjoy the 5e ecosystem and RPGs in general.

And I remain confused why Navarro's hiring means "insult other posters and slam products she wasn't involved in."
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I didnt insult other posters.

I bought the book. If youre always relentlessly posting do you realize it might not be a great idea?

I left Strixhaven, Vecna, Shattered Obelisk rotting on the shelf by comparison. FLGS has 17 copies of Strixhaven left. Mostly based on ENworld chatter.

So if you constantly hype up WotC slop (eg Strixhaven) and someone buys it and its dreck........ I'm sure Strixhaven has its fans but do you see my point? I haven't said anything bad about 5.5 Core books, Faerun, Starter set or FotA. Strixhaven could also be HotDQ, Out the Abyss etc.

Right now WotC actually on a streak no duds. Even in 2017-19 we had the occasional dud (Eg DiA). RC at least has 2 or 3 decent adventures.
 

Imaro said:
Not twisting...paraphrasing but if you cant provide any real proof to back up your claims...like I said when you first engaged with me then yeah... you should bow out. Laugh emojis only go so far without substance... Not even worth it...
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The numbers for ddi were gone over extensively years ago, i am not relitigating them for you.

And no, it wasnt a paraphrase, it was a statement with an entirely different meaning.
 



Paul Farquhar said:
Stryxhaven is far from slop. It's bad, but that's because WotC abandoned it and cut it down from a boxed set to a short book, leaving essential material out. But a heck of a lot of work went into it.

Is bad, and horribly organised, but has a bunch of pretty good dungeons that can be repurposed.
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Well my glgs has 17 copies of Strixhaven left. They've been half price more than once.
Cant verify Vecna skipped it die to chatter here. That's when I got free adventures.
 

Zardnaar said:
Well my glgs has 17 copies of Strixhaven left. They've been half price more than once.
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Sure. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's bad because it was cut to death (and the MtG lets-save-on-the-art-budget tie in was a stupid decision), not because it was made without effort, which the word "slop" implies.
Zardnaar said:
Cant verify Vecna skipped it die to chatter here. That's when I got free adventures.
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Given the sort of thing you look for it might be worth picking it up if you see it heavily reduced. The arc plot and organisation might be terrible, but it has some good stand-alone dungeons.
 

Paul Farquhar said:
Sure. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's bad because it was cut to death (and the MtG lets-save-on-the-art-budget tie in was a stupid decision), not because it was made without effort, which the word "slop" implies.

Given the sort of thing you look for it might be worth picking it up if you see it heavily reduced. The arc plot and organisation might be terrible, but it has some good stand-alone dungeons.
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I like maps. Im also after monsters, encounters, magic items etc.

Out of the Abyss was fairly terrible overall. Other meh ones like PotA and DiA also useful to some extent.

Just as well slops subjective term. Theres worse but so many of WotC APs fall into the meh can be great needs work category.
 

So how likely is it that enworld impacted the sales of Strix in a local game store or the guy in the store always tells anyone else looking at the wall of rpg books that strix is bad? I feel it’s more local influence based than a forum, as 1 or 2 people can influence a prospective buyer standing next to them than random threads on here. Just my opinion but I’ve seen it with RPGs and comics with 2 guys standing next to each other and they start talking about good/bad.
 
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