A job listing on the official Hasbro recruitment website for a ‘product architect’ for Dungeons and Dragons reveals that “co-created releases featuring external IP” are a priority for the firm. Though this is just one part of a senior role with lots of responsibilities, it’s a significant enough focus that it appears in the very first bullet point.
While the role description says the post-holder will “participate in playtests and analyze market trends, player feedback, and gameplay data”, they won’t be doing this to balance the DnD classes. The product architect is responsible for shaping DnD products to be “commercially successful”.
According to the listing, the role will involve collaborating with the design team, engineering, and marketing, and balancing “creative vision and game design knowledge with business objectives” to ensure that anything that hits the DnD release schedule is designed from the ground up to make money, attract players, and grow the game.
Games Journalist Christian Hoffer noticed what appears to be the same listing back in July. Though it’s possible it’s a different job entirely, as it’s a senior role it’s likely that Wizards simply hasn’t filled the post yet.
The role description says there will be a particular focus on “innovating our playable content for digital platforms, top-of-funnel new player experiences, and exciting co-created releases featuring external IP”. Decoding that corporate jargon, the priorities are:
- Ensuring that printed rules are integrated on DnD’s three main digital platforms, DnD Beyond, the simple ‘Maps’ virtual tabletop, and the deluxe ‘Project Sigil’ virtual tabletop, plus any new ones that arrive;
- Making products for people who’re new to the hobby;
- Making products that feature external IP.
That last bullet point doesn’t mean working with external parties to create licensed DnD projects, like Baldur’s Gate 3, DnD miniatures, or other merch – it’s about bringing external IP into DnD. It seems very similar to the ‘Universes Beyond’ strategy for Magic the Gathering.
To pick some IP which isn’t currently under license with other RPG publishers, this could mean DnD books focused on settings like Joe Abercrombie’s ‘First Law’ universe, or the world of Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea Saga – or anything else.
This isn’t unprecedented for the current version of DnD. The two Critical Role books that Wizards of the Coast published during DnD 5th edition use the world of Exandria, which may feel like it’s always been part of the game, but was invented by Matt Mercer and belongs to Critical Role.
Having tested the 2024 edition of DnD thoroughly for our Player’s Handbook review, we think it’s going to be able to accommodate external IP a little better than the 2014 version. Now that DnD races don’t contribute to a character’s stats, it’s not necessary for a game to feature specific core non-human species to give players the tools to optimise their characters. Matt Bassil wrote a good article explaining why that will make campaign supplements much more interesting – the same arguments apply for worlds from outside IP.
Source: Wargamer
