Celeste Conowitch hired by Wizards of the Coast as Senior Game Developer for Dungeons & Dragons

TTRPG designer Celeste Conowitch has joined the Dungeons & Dragons design team. Conowitch announced on her social media that she had joined Wizards of the Coast as a Senior Game Developer. Conowitch previously worked for Kobold Press as a senior game designer and was the lead game designer of Tales of the Valiant, a 5E spinoff billed as an alternative to Dungeons & Dragons in the aftermath of the Open Game license debacle. Conowitch has credits in most Kobold Press books dating back to 2022 and previously worked on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

Wizards of the Coast has been building up its D&D design team, hiring names like James Haeck and Erin Roberts among others. Justice Arman serves as the game design director of the group, with the design team ultimately reporting to Dan Ayoub, who leads the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.

While Dungeons & Dragons has seen growth on its design team, the overall group took a hit yesterday when community manager LaTia Jacquise was let go as part of wider Hasbro layoffs.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm familiar with some of her work, and it's top-notch (Rime, in particular, is excellent, as is ToV). Good hire by WotC. Best of luck to her!

 

[Umbran]

Unless you have some evidence that it's faked, then yes, we can take it at face value that she wrote that. How much weight you place on that is entirely up to you, but you can't expect an assertion that it's faked to be taken seriously if you can't demonstrate anything to that effect.

The trust each of us give to the assertion should be no greater than the trust we give to the reporter.

In the modern world, some skepticism of reporters who have financial stake in a particular presentation is healthy.

 

[Alzrius]

The trust each of us give to the assertion should be no greater than the trust we give to the reporter.

In the modern world, some skepticism of reporters who have financial stake in a particular presentation is healthy.

In which case it would be helpful to know who the reporter is, which is difficult to do when the video in question (presuming that's where it's from) has been taken down with no reference to who they were. "Trust me, bro, he's a bad guy" isn't sufficient.

 

[nyvinter]

In which case it would be helpful to know who the reporter is, which is difficult to do when the video in question (presuming that's where it's from) has been taken down with no reference to who they were. "Trust me, bro, he's a bad guy" isn't sufficient.

Not linking, but

Spoiler

Diversity & Dragons on yt, and weewheaton on twitter

.
He's built his whole identity around being a gamergater cultural warrior.

 

[Alzrius]

Not linking, but

Spoiler

Diversity & Dragons on yt, and weewheaton on twitter

.
He's built his whole identity around being a gamergater cultural warrior.

Thank you for providing something more substantive than "it could be faked, and the reporter is a bad guy, so we should presume it was faked."

EDIT: On that note, this seems like a good point to exit the discussion.

 

[Gradine]

Here's the thing; I can't think imagine the type of person who thinks that tweet is disqualifying who isn't saying significantly worse things on the regular.

"Diversity and Dragons" is the poster child for exactly that.

 

[Silam]

She supposedly made some Twitter posts that were not particularly diplomatic.

Like this oneView attachment 449589

This was 6 years ago, though. Maybe she feels differently today.

I was getting a bit tired of the endless back and forth about whether it’s fake or not, so I put in a few minutes (which I’ll never get back, I might add) to do the research and end the speculation. So here you go:

The twitter/x account is closed so we can’t verify the source. But the web archive has it. It also has a bit more context as it was (from what I can tell) the opening tweet of a short thread:

Celeste Conowitch @ Consult Bookings Open on Ko-Fi on Twitter

“@adam_dewees Lol sure! I'm pretty sure that's a preexisting saying..?”

web.archive.org

If you believe Area 51 and the construction of the pyramids are connected, then you may be inclined to believe that an elaborate conspiracy has led to the archive being fake. For the rest of us, it confirms that the tweet is real.

I don’t think it’s a very big deal though. But each can form their own opinion of course.

And before anyone asks: no, I’m not digging up anything else from the archive. It’s slow and takes way too many clicks. You go ahead and do it if you want more

 

[Doctor Futurity]

This news makes me genuinely hopeful for the future of D&D. I am excited! Loved her Kobold Press work.

 

[Zardnaar]

No idea who she is. Thats an awesome name for a D&D designer though.

 

[...m...]

No idea who she is. Thats an awesome name for a D&D designer though.

...whenever i meet someone with an alliterative name, i presume that they're the secret identity of a mysterious superhero...