On Thursday, Hasbro added three new job listings for senior creative staff to its careers website, all of them attached to the new Dungeons and Dragons: Universes Beyond line, an initiative to license other pop culture franchises and turn them into D&D supplements. The toy maker is looking for a Creative Lead, Creative Manager, and Principal Game Designer – all three with salary bands that start above $100,000 – to join the D&D team in Wizards of the Coast.
The job descriptions for the three roles offer a fascinating glimpse of how Hasbro expects the team to operate. It looks like the new post holders will have a lot of leeway to define exactly what form the Universes Beyond line takes. There’s a lot of corpo speak in the actual job listings, so I’ve summarize them, with reference to DnD classes.
The Creative Lead is a Ranger. First, they’ll scout out potential partnership projects to work out what the opportunities are to create D&D products people will actually buy. To help the rest of the party understand the plan of attack, they’ll make “mockups, pitches, tone references, and narrative north stars that align teams around a shared vision”.
They’ll also ensure the party is prepared for the journey ahead, by creating “kickoff materials, guardrails, worldbuilding documentation, and brand guidelines” that set the tone and scope of the project. And they’ll need to be good trackers so they can “source and manage freelance writers, lore/IP experts, and other external creative talent”.
The Creative Manager is a Lawful Cleric, focused on organization and keeping the party working effectively. They’re in charge of all the practical stuff that comes with organising a big creative team: managing workers, keeping track of everyone’s time and availability, and they’ll need a high Charisma to communicate effectively with people inside and outside the organization.
They’re also a bit of an Artificer too, since they’re going to build processes for the team to follow. This will probably involve project management software and documentation, rather than magical Rube Goldberg machines.
Lastly, the Principal Game Designer is a Paladin. They’ll hold true to D&D’s moral code (or at least, its core game principles) while adapting it to “different worlds, genres, play styles, and form factors”. They’ll act as the diplomat, collaborating with people inside and outside WotC to ensure the IPs they’re licensing get treated with just as much respect.
They’re expected to lead and mentor game designers, as well as laying down the law (in the form of clear game design standards). And when the going gets tough they’re expected to get stuck into the thick of projects. The Principal Game Designer gets the biggest salary but it’s not clear if they’ll be the head honcho overall – but they will work with senior leadership to draw up plans for new kinds of products for new audiences, so in effect they’re helping to decide which adventures the party will go on.
Hasbro debuted Universes Beyond in its trading card game Magic: the Gathering, and it remains divisive within the fandom. It’s been hugely financially successful, with Lord of the Rings and Final Fantasy Magic the Gathering sets driving record sales. But the initiative has also produced unsuccessful products, such as Assassin’s Creed and Spiderman, and some long-term fans feel alienated by the dissonance between MtG’s fantasy setting and pop culture franchises like Marvel Superheroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
At this year’s GenCon Wizards of the Coast revealed the first two Universes Beyond titles for the DnD release schedule; World of Warcraft in November this year and Star Wars in 2027. They’re crowd-pleasing IPs, and both have precedent as D20 games. Sword & Sorcery studios published a Warcraft TTRPG based on the 3rd edition D&D rules in 2003, while WotC itself released two different Star Wars RPGs based on the D&D rules in 2000 and 2007. Given their launch windows, the Warcraft book must be close to going to press, while the Star Wars products will already be well into development.
Which franchises would you like to get official D&D supplements next? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
