D&D 5E [Merged] Candlekeep Mysteries Author Speaks Out On WotC's Cuts To Adventure

In an event which is being referred to as #PanzerCut, one of the Candlekeep Mysteries authors has gone public with complaints about how their adventure was edited. Book of Cylinders is one of the adventures in the book. It was written by Graeme Barber (who goes by the username PoCGamer on social media). Barber was caught by surprise when he found out what the final adventure looked like...

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In an event which is being referred to as #PanzerCut, one of the Candlekeep Mysteries authors has gone public with complaints about how their adventure was edited.

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Book of Cylinders is one of the adventures in the book. It was written by Graeme Barber (who goes by the usernames PanzerLion and PoCGamer on social media).

Barber was caught by surprise when he found out what the final adventure looked like. The adventure was reduced by about a third, and his playable race -- the Grippli -- was cut. Additionally, WotC inserted some terminology that he considered to be colonialist, which is one of the things they were ostensibly trying to avoid by recruiting a diverse team of authors for the book.

His complaints also reference the lack of communication during the editing process, and how he did public interviews unknowingly talking about elements of an adventure which no longer existed.

"I wrote for [Candlekeep Mysteries], the recent [D&D] release. Things went sideways. The key issues were that the bulk of the lore and a lot of the cultural information that made my adventure "mine" were stripped out. And this was done without any interaction with me, leaving me holding the bag as I misled the public on the contents and aspects of my adventure. Yes, it was work-for-hire freelance writing, but the whole purpose was to bring in fresh voices and new perspectives.

So, when I read my adventure, this happened. This was effectively the shock phase of it all.

Then I moved onto processing what had happened. ~1300 words cut, and without the cut lore, the gravity of the adventure, and its connections to things are gravely watered down. Also "primitive" was inserted.

Then the aftermath of it all. The adventure that came out was a watered down version of what went in, that didn't reflect me anymore as a writer or creator. Which flew in the face of the spirit of the project as had been explained to me.

So then I wrote. Things don't change unless people know what's up and can engage with things in a prepared way. So I broke down the process of writing for Wizards I'd experienced, and developed some rules that can be used to avoid what happened to me."


He recounts his experiences in two blog posts:


The author later added "Wizards owns all the material sent in, and does not publish unedited adventures on the DM Guild, so there will be no "PanzerCut". I have respectfully requested that my name be removed from future printings. "
 

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Really, I don't even see how this is an argument. If you don't understand how "primitive" carries decades of baggage from European colonization and imperialism, being used to demean and dehumanize indigenous peoples so that they could justify conquering them out of obligation to bring civilization to them... well, how can we even talk about the subject?
We probably can't talk about the subject. As I said previously, D&D historically has made a practice of describing sapient species as "primitive." That matters in a game that is fundamentally about going into the wilderness, killing the monsters who live there, and taking their stuff. This has been criticized and I think that's a positive thing.

Calling the frog-peoples' ramshackle, makeshift, temporary structures "primitive" is (clearly, to me) not that. If it so obviously is that to you that you can't even comprehend a different perspective, then yeah, we're at a bit of an impasse.
 

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jgsugden

Legend
Can we refrain from homophobic speech?
It comes from spanking, which is not an acceptable form of punishment in present day, but is not homophobic. You might wish to retract this accusation.

 

Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
Wow, this episode of Dragon Talk goes into a lot of detail about the "extensive" cuts made in the development of Candlekeep. This was a really prescient episode (since it was filmed last week -- I listen to it as a podcast).

Ooh, good to know. I’ll have to check it out when I have time.

Yeah, weirdly the episode was largely about the pain of editing content for the book for space, and adapting to playtest feedback: it is in the context of "this is normal pain for these projects" but what Perkins talks about does seem like the other perspective on this exact question. In particular, what Perkins and Lindsey say about working with playtest feedback and sometimes having to do big rewrites if playtesters are confused or frustratedsounds like what Barber is reporting he was told by WotC.
 


jgsugden

Legend
Something that could have been helped with communication.
Absolutely, but not something there was any obligation for WotC to conduct. They could do it, but had no obligation.

And, quite frankly, if you think there is a risk that someone is going to raise issue and call you out for changing their text, you may not want to risk provoking that before the release of your product. You may rather take the lumps after preorders are complete - even if you feel 100% justified in your actions and feel the complaints have no merit.
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
It comes from spanking, which is not an acceptable form of punishment in present day, but is not homophobic. You might wish to retract this accusation.

Huh, I had no idea that was the nature of the reference.

shooting star GIF
 


Markh3rd

Explorer
To be fair, the use of the term primitive in this adventure isn't referring to a culture but hastily constructed structures.

"The primitive shelters are the new homes of grippli who escaped when the evil yuan-ti came through the village in their search for the earlier group of serpentfolk."

One of the definitions of the term primitive means..."having a quality or style that offers an extremely basic level of comfort, convenience, or efficiency."
 

SkidAce

Legend
Supporter
This definition is where the issue lies. Denoting “an early stage in the development” of human civilization is an inherently Euro-centric, colonialist concept.

Call me crazy, but I think rudimentary is a pretty good word to use to describe rudimentary dwellings. Radical, I know.
Rudimentary is a pretty good word, until some point in the future when it accumulates baggage of some sort. Words change over time, we all know this.

The degree to which something becomes pejorative or derogatory will change with time and social mores.
 

I mean, he found out about this once the book was in print, not during any sort of stage where he could make a difference. That's part of what people are not happy with: this is something that could have been avoided with the most RUDIMENTARY levels of communication during the editing process.

Yeah, it would be nice if freelancers were always allowed to review the finished work in its final form. In my second commercially published novel (with an imprint of what is now HarperCollins), I used a bit of nerdy internet slang in dialog. Someone--after the "final" proofreading pass--obviously didn't understand the slang and changed the dialog to what they thought it must mean, which was really strange because the result was complete gibberish.

It would have taken max two minutes to work it out on a phone call. Someone, probably overworked and underpaid, was in a hurry. It happens.
 

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