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 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:

• What happened? Writing for Wizards Part 1
• What Happened? Writing for Wizards Part 2

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. "

 

[Haffrung]

Writing an adventure for Candlekeep Mysteries isn't matched by creating Call of Cthulhu in terms of credibility (whatever that's supposed to mean) and exposure?

I very, very strongly disagree.

When was Call of Cthulhu designed? When was the last time a new RPG of that popularity and commercial success was designed?

We’re talking about the industry today, not 35 years ago.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Based off of another tweet, it seems that Panzer got Warlorded.

Please translate for the Olds.

 

[Greg Benage]

Alternately, it could just be a failure of vocabulary and sensitivity, wanting to describe a striking difference between the more-established buildings and the buildings built by the refugees.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

For the love of Pete, why is it a "failure"? Why does it suggest "stupidity"?

I'll admit that I'm often irritated by both the woke and anti-woke crowds in equal measure. That said, the claim that describing the frog-peoples' temporary structures and decorations on said structures as "primitive" constitutes "colonialist language" is...unpersuasive.

 

[Reynard]

That's what bothers me. Like, for exactly what reason was there to feel the absolute need to insert the word "primitive?" What was the goal of that, exactly? I'm going to wager it wasn't anything wholesome or innocent at all.

Does anyone have the book on D&DB, to do a search for "primitive" in the module. Upthread there is a post suggesting it is a term to describe some buildings (and not the typical or main ones). It seems if folks are hung up on one word we should know the context of that word's use.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When was Call of Cthulhu designed? When was the last time a new RPG of that popularity and commercial success was designed?

We’re talking about the industry today, not 35 years ago.

Vampire: The Masquerade (1991) and, with a significant drop-off in popularity and name recognition, Apocalypse World (2010) and Blades in the Dark (2015).

VtM, at least, has made it into the top tier and at least somewhat mainstream awareness, putting it ahead of Call of Cthulhu. (Sorry, dread Cthulhu.)

 

[Reynard]

Yep, that sucks. It also is not uncommon or necessarily indicative of anything other than a swamped editor, an individual bad editor, etc.

It's also possible that the work turned in was poorly written and/or far too ambitious for a freelancer. WotC doesn't want you fundamentally changing something in the game with your one shot adventure.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For the love of Pete, why is it a "failure"? Why does it suggest "stupidity"?

I'll admit that I'm often irritated by both the woke and anti-woke crowds in equal measure. That said, the claim that describing the frog-peoples' temporary structures and decorations on said structures as "primitive" constitutes "colonialist language" is...unpersuasive.

You apparently missed nine months of WotC agreeing that D&D had done poorly by minority groups over the decades and promising to do better.

When you take indiginous refugees in a story and describe their buildings as "primitive," there are going to be a lot of people who find that to be a value judgement on those people. WotC has allegedly gone through training and in-house discussions about this -- see the very light updates to the Vistani in Curse of Strahd. Describing indigenous peoples and their works as "primitive" is the kind of thing you'd expect a company trying to do better to have prevented.

 

[Morrus]

When was Call of Cthulhu designed? When was the last time a new RPG of that popularity and commercial success was designed?

We’re talking about the industry today, not 35 years ago.

You asked what the pinnacle of RPG writing was. My answer has not changed.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's also possible that the work turned in was poorly written and/or far too ambitious for a freelancer. WotC doesn't want you fundamentally changing something in the game with your one shot adventure.

Yeah, I had a big post about that up-thread. There have been times when major surgery was done to something I wrote and it was because of me, not because of the editor. (Other times, though, terrible editor's fault, 100%.)

 

[Greg Benage]

Describing indigenous peoples and their works as "primitive" is the kind of thing you'd expect a company trying to do better to have prevented.

But...they didn't describe the "indigenous peoples" as "primitive," right? They described their temporary structures as "primitive," to contrast them with their usual architecture and construction.