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. "

 

[Justice and Rule]

I feel like the defense of "That's just what happens as a freelancer & in editing" misses the point that WOTC wants to avoid this sort of thing happening again. I get that this situation might not be uncommon, but given that it seems to have lead to the discussion we are currently having, making it less common would seem to be the ideal choice.

It's worth remembering that you don't just change this stuff with sensitivity training: changing your habits and how you think of things takes time. One of the things that really helps with it is to have other people check over your stuff because people looking from a different perspective will see what you won't. Obviously that's not what happened here and apparently doesn't happen often in regards to WFH gigs, but again: maybe that needs to change.

WOTC has already had problems in the past with this. I know that Chult has been something of a sore point in how it's been realized, while the Orion Black situation clearly showed that there are some internal culture problems that need to be taken care of. This instance isn't really as big as either of those, but why it happened should be instructive, and how they move on from here to stop this sort of thing from happening again.

 

[Sunsword]

Editorial cuts are part of the business and if this is a new freelancer to WotC they might not know the drill. Editors don't always tell you the changes they have to make. From my limited experience, I think you have to decide "do I want more work for this company" and remain quiet or "I'll burn this bridge and move on" and raise your voice.

It does seem that no matter what WotC does there is some issue that comes up. Is that them being the 800 lb gorilla in the room, being jerks, or somewhere in the middle?

 

[jgsugden]

Maybe RPGs and/or freelance work is a different beast. I work in a large organization and do a lot of hiring. I would never consider someone for a job that airs their grievances on Twitter. Just never. I don’t mind disagreement and or conflict, in fact I encourage dissent in meetings to avoid groupthink, but publicly airing grievances to me is bush league.

Please note I am not referring to abusive or illegal behavior in any way. That is something altogether different.

I'm pretty confident that asking to have your name removed from future prints of the work pretty much puts an end to any chance of him ever working for them again. That might not be true of a big name, but...

While I'd find it interesting to compare his final submission and the end product (along with the full specifications that WOTC provided to him before he submitted), this isn't something that would tick my radar as unusual. Even if the additional material omitted would have made the work better, it may not have made it more cost effective. This is a commercial product. A 4 hour cut of a commercial film may be a better film than the 2 hour cut, but it takes twice the number of theaters to serve the same number of fans. Adding 2 pages to the book has additional art costs printing costs, etc...

Additionally, reading his summary of the situation raised some flags that there are more facts to consider for parts of this discussion. They're not huge red flags, but they're flags nonetheless.

After asking that his name be removed, and after calling out WOTC for changing his materials very publicly, he then claims that whether they work with him in the future is up to them. When you're in a relationship (professional or personal) with someone (real or corporate) and you speak poorly of them (publicly) and then say that it is up to them whether the relationship continues, you are not taking personal responsibility for your part in the situation. WotC may be the forgiving sort, but his response, at a minimum, was initiating conflict at a point when WotC likely did not see conflict brewing.

Further, when I read what was changed, and how he described the changes, I think it is very possible that the majority of these changes were made in an effort to streamline the adventure and make it more accessible by giving it clearer tracks for players to follow. This is a short adventure - and short adventures need to be more 'railroady' to avoid turning them into a lengthy endeavor that spans several sessions. If, for example, during playtesting they had received notes that players felt that they'd made wrong choices when given the choice between routes and waffled back and forth, or that the lore and descriptions of the creatures in the book were interesting background but did not come through to the players and were essentially only something the DM knew at the end of the adventure, the edits may have been made for good reason. In short, the "DM style" for the adventure and lore may have been too expansive and "sandbox" for a short adventure. I could be wrong about this, but that is what it seemed to me based upon the very limited information.

As for the use of "primitive" to describe the Grippli and their culture, that is language well enmeshed with the Grippli. Primitive is found directly in the FR page for Grippli, for example. See: Grippli

Grippli were generally peaceful, shy, and primitive.

This description of Grippli as primitive is not unique to 5E WotC, however. Google Primitive and Grippli. The association is well established and pervasive throughout older materials for D&D, as well as in Pathfinder. The author elected to use Grippli when it was clear that this language was commonly associated with it. If that was offensive to the author, there was a proactive responsibility for the author to make it clear that they were intentionally avoiding the term and description, and felt it insensitive to have it associated with the race in the adventure. To be clear: I'm not defending WotC for using the term, but I am saying that the author also had a duty to take significant steps to make sure a loaded term intrinsic to the content was avoided or handled properly. IP comes with baggage.

Introducing a new playable race, additionally, may not be something they were capable of doing for this product due to contractual obligations elsewhere and other financial concerns (adding a playable race puts WotC in a position that requires their 3rd party partners (such as D&DBeyond) to support, and also puts them in a position where they are envisioned to have a 'gap' in their D&D miniatures line), or the version provided may have been determined to require more playtesting than they had budget to cover on this project. It may have been determined that it would be too duplicative of the Grung, and thus unnecessary and an acceptable 'budget cut' for not providing enough value to warrant the cost of printing it. I am not surprised that it was cut.

 

[Greg Benage]

It does seem that no matter what WotC does there is some issue that comes up. Is that them being the 800 lb gorilla in the room, being jerks, or somewhere in the middle?

There's another option. Without pointing at anyone in particular (sincerely), there are people on both the right and left who make it their hobby (or their job) to be outraged. Issues will always "come up," even if they have to, like, blame the February power outages in Texas on the nonexistent Green New Deal or something.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

And herein lies the issue with the word. To call a log cabin primitive in comparison to board and beam construction implies a hierarchy of building design, in which board and beam lies above log construction, despite not necessarily being more structurally sound. On what basis is this hierarchy defined? What makes one construction method more or less “advanced” than another? Historically, the answer has been that the methods typically used by white folks are the ones that get placed higher on that scale.

On the basis of time. It comes earlier in the stages of history. It's much more basic in how its built and what it can accomplish.

Making mud huts is definitely a more primitive way of making a building then building a castle. Is one inherently better than the other? I don't think so. A castle is much better in many ways. But in others, a primitive construction is better. If you need to build something quickly, with few materials on hand, a primitive construction is better.

 

[Schmoe]

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.

I can see the author's outrage at adding words and descriptions that he didn't intend. No argument there.

That being said, I find the particular outrage at the word in question hard to understand. Is primitive a bad word somehow?

primitive
1. relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.
"primitive mammals"
2. having a quality or style that offers an extremely basic level of comfort, convenience, or efficiency.
"the accommodations at the camp were a bit primitive"

How should rudimentary dwellings be described? What if the dwellings really are, you know, primitive?

 

[Sunsword]

Looking on DriveThruRPG & DMsGuild I only saw 2 credits for the author's work, does anyone know if they have more?

It can be really jarring on your earlier jobs especially if an editor isn't a great communicator.

Its a shame it didn't work out better for him.

 

[Schmoe]

They did use the word ramshackle earlier. They switch to primitive as an adjective to avoid reusing the same word twice.

Here is the boxed text:



Followed immediately by:



So they use three different descriptions for the new structures: ramshackle, makeshift, and primitive. This is all in the context of a non-ramshackle, non-makeshift, non-primitive central structure which is described as a permanent, fortified, decorated, edifice.

In context it's very clear the word is not being used to describe the people, their culture, society, customs, or building skills. It's used to contrast the nature of a temporary structure with the permanent one.

Thank you for providing primary material so we don't need to struggle through the conversation with theory and conjecture. I, for one, really appreciate it!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This does seem likely to be the reason for the edits. But again, the problem is not that it was edited, but that they edited it in a way that runs directly contrary to the perspective they pat themselves on the back for elevating.

There are a lot of editors out there who view freelancers as interchangeable word-creators. We don't even know that the person who made these cuts was the person who hired Panzer. It is entirely possible they don't know or care why he was hired.

That's not to be dismissive of his feelings here: I have had equally baffling cuts and changes made to my work, making me wonder why the company in question approached me at all.

But I think it's dangerous to think the collective "they" necessarily has good internal communication. Evidence would suggest just the opposite, in fact.

 

[Sunsword]

There's another option. Without pointing at anyone in particular (sincerely), there are people on both the right and left who make it their hobby (or their job) to be outraged. Issues will always "come up," even if they have to, like, blame the February power outages in Texas on the nonexistent Green New Deal or something.

Sadly that is a very astute observation. I honestly think this is a fairly new freelancer who desired or required a different editorial commitment to help them through the process. Assuming there is no malice on WotC's part I'd go so far as to say that they didn't want the mechanics of a new race in an adventure anthology and it would have been better if they had been more upfront about it.