Justice Ramin Arman Promoted to Game Design Director of Dungeons & Dragons

Game designer Justice Ramin Arman has been internally promoted to the position of Game Design Director for Dungeons & Dragons. Arman announced the news yesterday over on Linkedin, and later specified what the role entails over on Discord. As Game Design Director, Arman will be responsible for directing the game design department as a whole. Previously, Arman was a Managing Game Director, which was a leadership position but not one placed in charge of the entire D&D department.

Arman has worked for Wizards of the Coast since 2022 and has led several projects, including the most recent Starter Set and Quests From the Infinite Staircase. Prior to that, he worked as a game designer for Beadle and Grimm's.

Several months ago, Wizards of the Coast announced that they were hiring a principal game designer for Dungeons & Dragons, seemingly to replace Jeremy Crawford (who left Wizards earlier this year), so it appears that Arman is stepping into that role at least in some fashion.

In a statement provided to EN World, a Wizards representative noted that they are thrilled to see Justice continue his great work with D&D.

 

[Parmandur]

James Haeck also just announced they are joining WotC as a Senior Game Designer for D&D. Announced it on the latest Eldritch Lore podcast.

That’s fantastic, Haeck has done a lot of great design work, such as for Exandria.

 

[mearls]

James Haeck also just announced they are joining WotC as a Senior Game Designer for D&D. Announced it on the latest Eldritch Lore podcast.

Awesome! I'm glad to hear that.

 

[Retros_x]

The gap between survey results and online discussion was vast. The fighter is a great example. A lot of online people consider the class incredibly weak and lame, but it was always one of the most popular and well-liked class in surveys.

The second point was a big reason why studying the market was important. Online feedback is good for tactical problems, like resolving ambiguity for specific rules. It’s terrible for strategic directions, like how complex the game should be.

Thx for confirming in D&D what is the same problem in every online forum: Active members massively overestimating their alignment with the general audience & customership.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think the methods are different - they seem to use D&D Beyond a lot more, rather than open calls for anyone to fill out a survey - but they still do that stuff. I know that they sometimes send marketing surveys to Beyond users. I received one a few months ago.

This is kind of what I feared. Neither of these methods is going to touch potential but not yet players, or very casual/occasional players who might potentially spend more - or at least encourage their DM to spend more.

There are some market research experts on these forums - how do you go about finding out what would appeal to the core D&D uptake age of current 12 year olds who are not current D&D players?

 

[AstroCat]

Lol... Quests From the Infinite Staircase, bahahahaa

 

[bedir than]

Lol... Quests From the Infinite Staircase, bahahahaa

In the Haek thread you suggested you quit WotC products in 2019 or so.
How was Quests laughable if you never read it?

 

[Parmandur]

This is kind of what I feared. Neither of these methods is going to touch potential but not yet players, or very casual/occasional players who might potentially spend more - or at least encourage their DM to spend more.

There are some market research experts on these forums - how do you go about finding out what would appeal to the core D&D uptake age of current 12 year olds who are not current D&D players?

We know from Arman's interviews for the new Starter Set that more traditional intense market testing us being done, like bringing in families and children unfamiliar with the game to play it out.

 

[mearls]

We know from Arman's interviews for the new Starter Set that more traditional intense market testing us being done, like bringing in families and children unfamiliar with the game to play it out.

FWIW, the Barnes & Noble I visited over the break was sold out. I think it's doing really well. It's a great product!

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think so personally, I think it's much more likely it was the result of the particular risk-averse corporate leadership being worried that it wouldn't fit with D&D's ultrasafe image.

I don't think the social media climate is overall more positive re: the particular issues Dark Sun covers - if anything, some of them are riskier topics now than they were 3 years ago. Maybe you'd get slightly less pushback re: slavery, but climate change and authoritarian leaders? I think you're much more likely to get Elon Musk to make a Very Angry (and definitely not all 100% ketamine-induced) post about how mad he is WotC have made Dark Sun all about climate change and toppling dictators (somehow completely ignoring these being major themes of the original) now than then, whilst throwing around the w-word. It'd hardly be out-of-character.

What I think is more likely is WotC have decided D&D playing it ultrasafe is probably not going to be successful longer-term, and that a little bit of controversy is probably a good thing, so long as it's not just the accidental result of dumbassery like the Hadozee stuff.

I could be wrong. The proof will be in the pudding. It's certainly possible for example that the turnaround on Dark Sun had nothing to do with changing risk assessments - it could be they think they've found some genius way to sanitize the hell out of it, and probably in reality make just about everyone mad with them!

1. Who cares what Elon Musk thinks.

2. If its in the original I dont think it will upset anyone that matters if they're overthrowing authoritarian rulers and slavery. As long as its not to on the nose eg Athas.org making a North Korea stand in.

Most of tbe really stupid stuff came later. If you reread the OBS there's not to much in it thats actually a problem. Slavery well they have that in FR books. Muks maybe but they could also make it clear the slavery are evil for it.

Probably/shouldn't get around the environmental destruction. Big part of the original.

Most things blow over in about a week online. Ignore it and stick a label on it if its potentially a problem.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

One thing I'm happy for with Justice who was the designer of 5e Planescape, was that he understood the setting quite well and that in the interviews about the product, he showed a distaste of the Harmonium (who's philosophy is authoritarianism) as a faction.