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

FitzTheRuke said:

I've run Dragon Heist twice, and while it has some structural issues, I think that it's pretty good. I think that the thing that it has going most against it, when it comes to how it's reviewed, is the simple fact that you don't get to steal any dragons. The titular heist happened before the adventure starts, doesn't have anything to do with actual "dragons", and is something that 9/10, the PCs are expected to UNDO, rather than participate in. It's a shocking letdown for most people, I think.

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My group thought for sure that they were going to be involved in a heist... or in a series of heists. They had fun with the adventure, but were disappointed at the lack of actual heisting.

Lalato said:

My group thought for sure that they were going to be involved in a heist... or in a series of heists. They had fun with the adventure, but were disappointed at the lack of actual heisting.

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WotC (or their old leadership team) doesn't really seem to get how many D&D groups want to get into shady shenanigans.

I ran Dragon Heist twice, the second time around in reverse. They were Xanathar's goons in charge of retrieving the dragons, which Jarlaxle stole. They had to reverse-engineer the whole heist to understand what happened, under pressure from their crazy boss. It was super fun — and only made possible with the inclusion of all the vilains' lairs in the book, which otherwise aren't used in the campaign if you only play it straight like it is. (But with a full gazetteer and all this fun material, it is simply begging to be stripped for parts and reorganized as you wish.)

I also ran or played Tyranny of Dragons, Curse of Stradh, Tomb of Annihilation (twice), Out of the Abyss (twice), Lost Mines and the Essential Kit, Rime of the Forst Maiden and Descent into Avernus (the first chapter twice). Oh and Shadow of the Dragon Queen and a bunch of small ones from the Anthologies.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen is the real outlier, here, as I found it to be barely playable, like the AP of old. Just a bunch of exposition scenes without any meaningful connective tissue, without any relevant choices for the characters outside of the immediate actions the set-pieces allow (which aren't especially great; at least in Tyranny of Dragons there's no forced exposition, and the set-pieces can be ran like a charm with the book on the knees and a quick reading just before the game).

All the other are quite good products and I'm happy to have them. Neither of them perfect, but all interesting in their own way. Some I played straight as is, with various degree of success, some required some work, some required a lot of work to get to something I was happy with, but I'm sure some other tables could play them straight without any trouble (like Dragon Heist). I'd say Lost Mines is probably the one with the fewest faults, but that's mainly because it's the safest, IMO. There is hardly any risks taken in there. At the opposite end of the spectrum, DiA might be the most flawed, but also one of the funniest, one of the most epic and inspiring. I had a great time with it (and I'm currently running it again and it's even better with this hindsight. We started from Elturel, this time). It's disjointed and messy, a sign of a chaotic process during production for sure, but still. Good book.

Lalato said:

My group thought for sure that they were going to be involved in a heist... or in a series of heists. They had fun with the adventure, but were disappointed at the lack of actual heisting.

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I was in the same boat. I heard about it, immediately thought Ocean’s Eleven meet D&D and we’re robbing a dragon, and when I found out no, that’s not at all what it is, I had a strong feeling of “Wait, WHY isn’t it that?”

bedir than said:

The lawsuit alleges that Hasbro has a fiduciary responsibility to uphold the value of cards on the secondary market. It's an absurd claim.

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if that is what they are suing over, good luck with that...

Mournblade94 said:

I see a TON of Radiant Citadel in my FLGS. They never reordered it. I have never met anyone offline with a vague interest in exploring it. Every Barnes and Noble around me has 2 copies at least on the shelves.

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Just so you know, @FitzTheRuke owns his FLGS. So theirs is a first hand account with verifiable data.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

WotC (or their old leadership team) doesn't really seem to get how many D&D groups want to get into shady shenanigans.

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A heist doesn't even have to be shady in itself if you're stealing from shady people!

If you don't like how wotc "d&d" is now, then multiple that times a zillion and that is what is coming up. We'll just have to see if it's a good RoI or not. For me, wotc "d&d" doesn't even barely exist for me anymore. Which is a radical change compared to how I supported 5e financially when it first came out in 2014. We've completely moved on to other systems that capture what we enjoy in D&D, it seems to me they are narrowing their appeal and focus, not broadening it. But I believe in reality that was the goal all along, we'll just have to see if that "support" remains into the upcoming years... will be interesting to watch from afar.

Sorcerers Apprentice said:

A heist doesn't even have to be shady in itself if you're stealing from shady people!

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Yep. Stealing from Jarlaxle, Xanathar, or whoever else isn't always going to be shady. But it's definitely going to be dangerous and potentially fun.

AstroCat said:

If you don't like how wotc "d&d" is now, then multiple that times a zillion and that is what is coming up. We'll just have to see if it's a good RoI or not. For me, wotc "d&d" doesn't even barely exist for me anymore. Which is a radical change compared to how I supported 5e financially when it first came out in 2014. We've completely moved on to other systems that capture what we enjoy in D&D, it seems to me they are narrowing their appeal and focus, not broadening it. But I believe in reality that was the goal all along, we'll just have to see if that "support" remains into the upcoming years... will be interesting to watch from afar.

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is it the three staffers that worked for Ghostfire Games that give you an indication that D&D is missing the boat?