Wizards of the Coast Is Hiring a D&D Worldbuilder

Wizards of the Coast is looking to hire someone to build new worlds for Dungeons & Dragons. Over the weekend, Wizards of the Coast posted a new job listing for a "Senior Narrative Worldbuilding Designer for Dungeons & Dragons." The new position will help Wizards of the Coast "create exciting and inspirational new settings" alongside developing existing settings. Notably, this isn't a position limited to the D&D RPG design team - the position will also work with "ensuring narrative consistency" across video games, entertainment and the D&D RPG.

At a press event earlier this year, D&D franchise head Jess Lanzillo mentioned that new campaign settings were potentially on the way. "With Jeremy Crawford taking on the game director role and then Chris Perkins taking on the creative director role is that we were able to really reestablish a world building environment," Lanzillo said. "What does that mean? We can really establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms and also look to creating new ones again. That's something that we are working on and we don't have anything to really discuss today other than to tell you like we are re-establishing everything that we have and we are going to make some new stuff too."

The full job listing is below:

We are hiring a Senior Narrative Worldbuilding Designer for Dungeons & Dragons. In this role, you will create exciting and inspirational new settings and develop existing ones. The settings you create will become part of our ever-expanding multiverse. Working closely with others in our creative team, you will give life to legendary characters, intertwine the narratives of D&D stories across various platforms, and provide new content for internal and external partners to play with across all expressions of D&D. We need a world builder with strong writing skills, a collaborative spirit, and a focused imagination.

What You'll Do:

• Build and develop comprehensive narrative worldbuilding materials for the D&D franchise
• Design and flesh out new worlds, locations, and settings within the D&D multiverse
• Evolve and expand existing D&D settings through compelling narrative development
• Build and develop franchise-level characters, factions, and storylines
• Ensure narrative consistency across the franchise portfolio including video games, entertainment, and the RPG
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align worldbuilding elements across different media
• Develop detailed lore documentation and creative briefs for our fans, partners, and team members.
• Lead narrative development for our world bibles and style guides

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe if Hasbro figures out how to do this Disney-style, the C-suite will be more hands off on our game!!

More likely the exact opposite will happen, though, given that Hasbro has a long history of messing around with things it doesn't understand. And if we just look at corporate approaches to successful products in general, it's like, 60-75% of the time they get messed with to try and make them even more profitable or because some exec wants a bigger office and thinks the way to do that is to "make his name" by messing with something. Even if said exec fails, he likely fails upwards, either at WotC or elsewhere. Only where someone very senior decides leaving them alone is smart is there any safety in success, and I'd say that's about 25% of the time, at best.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

his is not like what a showrunner or executive producer does -- they have much more input into the actual production, including casting talent, hiring directors, set design, approving marketing, etc.

You mean showrunners and exec producers have more input, right? Because the other way around would make no sense (indeed some of those are things pretty much only showrunners do, or only eps do). If so yes I agree, videogame narrative directors sometimes have a lot less power than showrunners, but this does go beyond what a narrative director does normally on a videogame.

This is written with the similar language to a lot of video game writing roles.

You actually see a lot of overlap in language between video game roles with WotC job postings in general.

This is true though. Which is part of why I expect the hire to most likely come from that industry. Though again these responsibilities are more than what a narrative director would normally have. As such we're looking at something that's not quite either role.

 

[Queer Venger]

but will this person retain the rights to their worlds after they leave or get sacked from wotc??
(you don't need to answer, its rhetorical question).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Do people play D&D for WotC's narratives?

"Playing D&D" is probably going to be a pretty small slice of what this project is meant to cover.

Movies. Video games. Novels. Probably some adventures or setting material, too, no doubt, but those are only a part of this.

Remember when Eberron was tapped as the setting for the D&D MMO? This sounds like another iteration on that (now with the power of Marvel-ization behind them).

 

[Parmandur]

I work in the video game industry and have friends in Hollywood.

This is written with the similar language to a lot of video game writing roles. This is not like what a showrunner or executive producer does -- they have much more input into the actual production, including casting talent, hiring directors, set design, approving marketing, etc.

You actually see a lot of overlap in language between video game roles with WotC job postings in general. It's clear they view themselves as running a business that's more like video game design than traditional publishing. That's good, actually, because traditional publishing pays poorly and doesn't really understand how to build and manage multimedia IP.

I mean WotC is a video game company, most of their employees work on video games at their studios.

 

[bedir than]

He deserves to get his DL show, but for the person driving the Franchise/Setting/Lore/Metastory/World Building I honestly believe Jeff Grubbs is the best person for the job, he has the experience and institutional memory.

He (Joe M.) hasn't finished his documentary yet, despite it being announced as a 50th anniversary release.

Edit: I removed a statement about Joe that is no longer supported by evidence.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

He (Joe M.) hasn't finished his documentary yet, despite it being announced as a 50th anniversary release.
He's also been very anti the inclusive policies at WotC and was anti the statement of reality in the forward of the history book.

That's a nasty thing to say about Joe, anything to back that up?

 

[Dire Bare]

but will this person retain the rights to their worlds after they leave or get sacked from wotc??
(you don't need to answer, its rhetorical question).

If they are writing/designing/world-building FOR WotC, why should they retain any rights?

If, as a creator, you want to retain the rights to your work (which is reasonable) don't do work-for-hire.

 

[MNblockhead]

Yeah I'm afraid @Sorcerers Apprentice is 100% correct in correcting you here.

This is a job which is likely to be:

1) Going to tons and tons of meetings.

2) Reading and sending a ton of email.

3) Updating a lot of documents and databases (possibly SharePoint!)

4) Doing some creative writing but more likely deciding on which elements of other people's creative writing to use/go with/make canon - and then having to explain and defend those decisions in aforementioned meetings and emails.

I'm not saying it would be a completely unfun job, but like, it's probably going to be quite a lot of hard work, and probably less emotionally and creatively rewarding than one where you were being paid to work on something original, rather than this huge stack of an IP. Also, if your direction doesn't work out, you'll probably get the boot after a year or three.

And you have to deal with D&D fans and pretend that you appreciate their feedback.

 

[bedir than]

That's a nasty thing to say about Joe, anything to back that up?

My memory was that he had retweeted support for the brigades that objected to the foreword in the history book. Now, after logging into Twitter for the first time in months I'm not seeing that. Nor am I seeing the tweets from Weis that sided with the brigade.

I am seeing his claim that he was hired for a DragonLance treatment.