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. "

 

[Mecheon]

Grippli honestly strike me as redundant when we've already got bullywugs and grungs, and trying to introduce a new PC race in a freelance adventure is a bit much.

Grippli are tree frogs, whereas bullywugs are toads and grungs are poison frogs. They stand out compared to the others

They also live a really long time

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 isn't an isolated incident, quite a few people who've written for Adventurer's League have similar experiences. It wasn't as bad the previous times, but unfortunately this time the editor did exactly the wrong word choice to the wrong person and, well, it exploded

Which would have been avoided if the editor went back for a final check rather than leaving him in the open with a 'Yeah that looks good' and no feedback following

 

[Mistwell]

Yikes.

If by that you mean "What's with the wall of text dude!" that's...well...a totally fair point. Sorry about that.

 

[TheSword]

Yes. I'll include page numbers as well as directions. Maybe that will help you and others find them.

Spoiler: Minor spoilers

On page 93, under the heading "Helping the Grippli" there's a section called "Trading Post". The start of the second paragraph below that begins, "The primitive shelters are the new homes of grippli who escaped[...]".

Later, on page 95 begins a section called "Village". Later, on page 97, there's a subsection called "Homes and Storage". The descriptive text in the highlight immediately below that subsection title says, "[...] Mud-brick with wicker roofs, they're modest affairs, primitively decorated with giant crab claws. [...]"

I think the second one is worse. It comes across as a value judgement on the art of the grippli culture. Like we're not talking about their hastily made emergency homes. These are the homes they lived in for generations. Back on page 95 under the "Docks" subsection, they describe their construction as "sturdy planks of wood tightly fastened together and treated to make the structure waterproof." Does that sound like something a primitive culture made? Not to me. So why do they describe the rest of it that way?

Yes, but the point is that the homes had to be made quickly, not that their builders lacked skill or were primitive. The mud brick structure is just the structure that's been there for many years and wasn't built while there were aged, injured and young grippli risking exposure to the elements. It's an important structure, but it's not a defensive or culturally significant place. It's a trading post that's become the center of a makeshift village.



Sure, and a woman's dress might be unflattering. That doesn't mean you describe it that way to her face. There's tact, right? And someone can call a person "ignorant" and they might just mean "uninformed" but it also connotes stupidity. It's probably best to avoid the word "ignorant" entirely, right?

Part of communication is understanding that when you speak you need to consider how the words you use will be received. Language is fuzzy even when it's between close relatives who share the same experiences and culture. Imprecise language helps explain miscommunication, but it doesn't excuse it. You can't come back and say, "Well, I understand this word also means this, but that's not how I meant it so you're wrong." You need to use words and phrasing that are difficult to misinterpret. That's what editors should be doing.

The whole adventure is basically a colonialism reference, right? Even with just the story in the printed book I think it's pretty clearly making a reference to colonialism. If someone writes a story and it's an allegory for Montezuma, Quetzalcoatl, and Cortez, they might get a small bit of criticism if they start out by calling the equivalent of the Aztecs "primitive". People can read subtext. "Primitive" is one of the words used by colonial powers to justify their colonialism: conquering and subjugation of indigenous people across the globe for wealth extraction. It should probably just be avoided entirely.

Okay so you missed my edit and my subsequent post where I pointed out the section. Don’t worry about it.

People are seizing on the word as a scandalous issue. In fairness to Graeme it is only a small part of what he references in his blog. The majority of which concerned what he felt was changing his adventure.

As I said, I don’t really care. I just don’t see what the furore is about. Seems quite disproportionate.

Also kind of annoyed now that this is all we’re talking about rather than how awesome The Book of Inner Alchemy is, or the works of the many, many other diverse writers in the credits.

 

[DM Magic]

If by that you mean "What's with the wall of text dude!" that's...well...a totally fair point. Sorry about that.

In no way is that what I meant.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

While I am not a fan of WotC in any way in this I will be on their side.

WotC is the company in charge. They can print, publish, edit, and change whatever the hell they want in the books they publish however they want. If the Freelancer wrote and got paid for the work and turned it in, the Freelancer's job IS DONE.

The Freelancer has no say in what the finished result will be. That is 100% up to WotC to do as the company see's fit.

This person has zero grounds to be butt hurt.

Me, I'd have preferred WotC edit out the OSHA dungeon for safety approved wheelchairs, but that's just me.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

WotC can change what they want. IMO.....they should have let the designer know what they were doing. IMO....they should not brag about including inclusive voices, then, not really do that (esp. adding in not communicating that to the author). Hope you all saw the IMOs there.....

Why should WotC have let him know the edits? They paid him for his work, right?

 

[Mistwell]

OK I had not read the full information from the author. This part, to me at least, changes my perspective:

I contacted Wizards about it, and after a short email exchange, I was informed that there had been issues in playtest, that the changes made were done to preserve the best parts and the story; and that to make space, it had been pruned. Mine in particular had the lore focus and cultural information targeted to make it more adaptable to non-Forgotten Realms home games and because it apparently is not the job of a short adventure to introduce a people or their place in the world. I was informed that while Wizards had the ability to reach out during the editing and development phase, they had no obligation to do so. What made this worse was the knowledge that other writers on the same project had been meaningfully engaged to various degrees through the editing and development process right up to some seeing a final release copy of their adventure.

After confirming my larger unedited adventure could not be released, I respectfully requested that if possible, my name be removed from future printings of the book, as the end result was closer to the vision and style of the editors than my own.

OK so he did contact WOTC, by email, it seems before he took to Twitter.

But it remains unclear if the "primitive" word was brought up in this conversation and he asked them to change it, or if his entire focus of the conversation was on being edited.

As the entire focus of his rather lengthy and detailed explanation of what happened is focused on "I am upset they edited me!" I suspect he didn't really focus on that "primitive" issue. I don't know that for sure, but given the level of detail he provides is pretty high, it sure seems like that objection is coming in Twitter rather than to WOTC.

Which, if that's the case, I am sympathetic only insofar as I am sympathetic to all freelancers who see their word edited and cut. At least he got that feedback, which so many freelancers never get.

But, I am also appreciative of the details he provides. There are some helpful insights in what he wrote in those two parts. So at least future writers have the opportunity to read about his experiences.

Except...I note his very first point is, "Accept the offer, signing an NDA and providing payment information." To which I say "Uh oh!" I have not seen a WOTC Non-Disclosure Agreement in a long time. But, I would be surprised if it doesn't include "Don't discuss our process publicly."

 

[jgsugden]

Yeah, I've written about sensitive subjects about which the accepted language has changed in recent years. In those situations, I put that in as an all-caps note at the beginning of the file explaining that, linking to the appropriate usage guide, then circle back around repeatedly during the process to make sure the language hasn't reverted to a dated usage and sometimes it still gets through, since I don't have access to everyone in the editorial chain.

...but when it does, I feel that you're in a position to address it with the publisher, and if necessary, express it outwardly to the public. It would still cause a wedge with the company, but you'd have been in the right position from an ethical position.

 

[Justice and Rule]

No, not being dishonest. With "primitive," we're skipping over the usage as:

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"

But I'm not "skipping" over them: that's the second definition, not the first. Order does matter here.

...even though that is the obvious usage in context, in order to run with the other usage:

relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.
"primitive mammals"

Dare I say that using it in a scientific context is different than using it in a cultural context where it refers to the works of sentient beings.

If someone can construe the usage of "primitive" in this way, context be damned, I genuinely don't understand why they wouldn't/couldn't construe the meaning of "rudimentary" as well. I guess it's a broader question about which I'm truly curious: Scrutinizing language is good, but how do you set up your guidelines in advance? How do you know someone will construe "primitive" in an unintended way BUT ALSO feel confident they won't construe "rudimentary" in an unintended way?

From my perspective, it sure looks like the construing is happening after the fact, with the context obfuscated (as originally) or set aside (when people posted the passage). I personally believe that the intentions of this exercise are good BUT ALSO that the language is intentionally construed in a way to sustain the outrage.

This isn't "context be damned", this is literally all about context. Your examples are the ones devoid of it, while what we have before us is full of it. Using "primitive" in reference to both their huts and decoration are cultural judgments, not scientific comparisons to other organisms. They carry with them years of cultural baggage, being used to refer to colonized people as being less developed than European colonizers.

This is also why your comparison to "rudimentary" falls apart: there's just not that cultural context. I can say a child has "rudimentary reading skills" on an educational evaluation and it won't seem insulting or out of place because "rudimentary" refers to norms and doesn't make a cultural judgment. If I said a kid had "primitive reading skills", though, I'd get ripped apart because "primitive" has been used for years to dehumanize and demean people outside of a Eurocentric norm: when used to refer to people and their works, culture, etc, carries an insulting connotation that isn't there when I use it to describe an amoeba's relative level of evolution.

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?

 

[jgsugden]

I don’t disagree, but they didn’t exactly have the opportunity to do so, given that the changes were made after they turned in their final draft, and WotC didn’t contact them about the changes. They wrote it not to include language they found offensive, and didn’t expect what they wrote to be changed without notice.

This is why I said it was a proactive situation. It needed to be addressed when the first submission was made, with the concerns raised and clear. The author, by deciding to use charged IP, had a duty to initiate the remediation.

Read Panzer’s blog post, folks. The PC race stats got cut between the first and second draft, the part Panzer was involved in.

Yes. And he raised it as one of the significant changes between the two versions, and seemed frustrated by it being cut.