Wizards of the Coast Is Hiring a D&D Worldbuilder

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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
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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One of the requirements is "5+ years of professional experience in narrative design or worldbuilding". But experience with tabletop RPGs is only "nice to have".

There are a lot of video game designers looking for work at the moment. We could see someone in that role who was former Sony Interactive, etc. Not sure if that would be good or not.
There are folks who work in the story/quest side of MMOs applying for this job right now (just had a conversation with one yesterday) and they all, to my knowledge, are long time tabletop players.

It's certainly possible that they'll hire someone who doesn't play tabletop for this job, but I'd bet against it.
 

They published boxed sets for Karameikos and Glantri under 2E, along with Mark of Amber (Castle Amber sequel) and a few smaller boxed sets. The line wasn't well regarded and didn't sell well and it was cancelled, with a boxed set for Darokin scrapped.

(For the record, I thought the Karemeikos and Glantri boxed sets were fine. Moving them from BD&D to AD&D was the real problem, I suspect, that upset so many fans.)
Wow TIL, huh! I don't remember that at all. Maybe they just didn't carry it at Virgin Superstore or Orc's Nest (which were the main places we got RPGs in the 1990s).
 

Wow TIL, huh! I don't remember that at all. Maybe they just didn't carry it at Virgin Superstore or Orc's Nest (which were the main places we got RPGs in the 1990s).
The 2E line was pretty obscure, as the 2E fans weren't in the market for a BD&D conversion (or were doing it for themselves already) and the old school Mystara fans were mad at TSR abandoning BD&D.

I think all of the Mystara 2E boxes also had the dopey sound effect and narration CDs -- which were more cringeworthy than useful -- which didn't help.
 

One of the requirements is "5+ years of professional experience in narrative design or worldbuilding". But experience with tabletop RPGs is only "nice to have".

There are a lot of video game designers looking for work at the moment. We could see someone in that role who was former Sony Interactive, etc. Not sure if that would be good or not.
Given the job requirements and goals I'm not sure anyone with primarily TTRPG experience would actually be very well-positioned to take it. Its actually a lot more like what's happened with a lot of videogames, but I don't think many/any RPGs have really taken this approach before.

And yes tons of layoffs in videogames mean there are an awful lot of potential candidates from all over.

But as @Whizbang Dustyboots says, it's unlikely they won't have TT experience, at least as a player - a huge proportion of videogame people do, especially in the writing departments. I'm struggling to think of one from BioWare or Obsidian who doesn't.
 





Many of the layoffs were from companies with success. Big tech in the US decided to give themselves a recession by laying off 7% or so without any concern for profit, revenue or critical success.

I'm specially talking about the kind situation like Firewalk studios which failed so hard on Concord that they closed the studio, not folks who got random tech bro layoffs.

Don't give the position to someone who keep failing upways. I want a genius with great taste in the role that gets fans and shst they want.
 

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