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. "

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They hired a newb with very little experience that turned in a below average Adventure from what people are saying.

This is an incredibly bizarre and frankly offensive take that displays zero knowledge of the facts of the matter. It's not even opinionated - just totally ill-informed.

Can't change the system if you're on the outside, doesn't really have the design chops or profile to do your own thing.

Wow. Just rude and mean-spirited. There are no other words.

FYI I'm pretty sure he's actually about to release his own game or supplement.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To be entirely fair though, if you can go through, what, 5000 words in an RPG supplement and you can only find a single example of problematic language, then that, right there, is a heck of a win. Particularly in light of the module itself which lends itself so easily into falling into the traps of using colonialist language. Both the writer and the editor should be pretty damn proud of what they did here, rather than focusing on the negatives.

No.

You don't get prizes for making things worse. The editor should be feeling at least mildly bad for putting bad stuff in that wasn't there originally. Feeling proud of yourself for only jamming in a little bad stuff, where zero was present previously, is beyond ridiculous and into the realms of parody and satire.

Also the second usage of "primitive" unfortunately has the effect of clarifying the former usage and making it worse.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Just to clarify, the Christmas firings were a 3e thing that stopped during the 4e era.

Oh! God! the past is farther away than I remember.

 

[jgsugden]

You are excruciatingly incorrect.

You, in your life, may have experienced it in a different way. However, the citations I provided address the origin of the statement and indicate the definition I stated. It may very well be that both connotations are used commonly today. I think a lot of people use it without thought as well as to what it actually references or where it originated.

However, the point here is that someone should not be accused of using at is an inherently homophobic term when the context of use does not inherently invoke homophobia, as the term doesn't inherently tie to homophobia.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You, in your life, may have experienced it in a different way. However, the citations I provided address the origin of the statement and indicate the definition I stated. It may very well be that both connotations are used commonly today. I think a lot of people use it without thought as well as to what it actually references or where it originated.

However, the point here is that someone should not be accused of using at is an inherently homophobic term when the context of use does not inherently invoke homophobia, as the term doesn't inherently tie to homophobia.

You have only one citation not "citations", and it's Knowyourmeme, and it offers no valid citations or support for it's claim re: the meaning.

Quora citation is merely citing Knowyourmeme, that's why it uses the same language.

It's an inherently homophobic term that has always implied sexual assault or alternatively, has implied pain being complained about after consensual sex, if we're being generous (to be fair the second meaning fits the usage better). That some nerd on Knowyourmeme is trying to white-wash it is kind of funny, but it doesn't retroactively change the meaning nor way it's consistently been used across the internet for decades. People have been trying to white-wash it for a decade or so, as it became less acceptable to be openly homophobic, even in video game culture. Usually the white-wash involves simply claiming they don't know where it came from (possibly true) rather than presenting a false origin as being about spanking, which doesn't even make sense to how it's used.

It's notably that KYM isn't even accurate about memes a lot of the time, let alone phrases.

 

[jgsugden]

...The editor should be feeling at least mildly bad for putting bad stuff in that wasn't there originally. ...

It was there. It wasn't on the pages he submitted, it seems, but the Grippli have a history that had to be considered.

Grippli are well established. The author elected to use them. He was not told to use them. He has stated it was his choice. He had the opportunity to originate a new humanoid type with no history, or to use a different humanoid that was already established. He made the choice to use Grippli.

If you look through the source material covering the Grippli, the term primitive is used often. Older editions used it. The FR wiki uses it to describe them. The pathfinder wiki uses it to describe them. It is pervasive and inherently tied to the Grippli through the established lore. Just Google primitive and Grippli for many examples. If you took all the language written about Grippli and made a word cloud of it, primitive would not be small.

Whether primitive is inherently offensive or not, the author certainly considers it to be so. As such, when the author made the decision to include the Grippli in the module, he had a duty to make sure that he addressed the unacceptable elements of the history of the Grippli. When he decided to use the Grippli, he had a duty to vet their origins and take the steps necessary to avoid past mistakes being repeated by him in the material that he originated.

If someone were to write a sequel to Song of the South, that author would have a duty to consider the problems of the first Song of the South and make sure that those problems were addresses in an acceptable way if the work were to move forward. Making a Song of the South 2 that didn't 'include anything offensive' in the author's last draft before handing it over to editing is not enough. Intellectual property has baggage, and that baggage travels with the IP. (Yes, any attempt to make a Song of the South 2 would be ridiculous, but that illustrates the point further. Ask why it is ridiculous, and who should know it is ridiculous. Answer: Everyone.).

Once again, I am not defending WotC for including it. It is unnecessary and offensive to a significant number of people, so the better choice would have been to exclude it. As pointed out, it offers nothing beneficial to the final product. I am saying, however, that the author also needs to be aware and proactive to make sure that historically offensive elements of the IP they elect to use is identified, addressed, and avoided - not just in their drafts, but throughout later steps. If the author had included notes for WotC noting the historic use of a term he found as offensive, and stated (at a minimum) that the offensive elements were intentionally omitted, then an inclusion of it by WotC would be entirely on their heads. Unless that step (or a more aggressive step) were taken, then both the author and WotC share responsibility.

 

[jgsugden]

You have only one citation not "citations", and it's Knowyourmeme, and it offers no valid citations or support for it's claim re: the meaning.

Look again. There are two. Read them both.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It was there. It wasn't on the pages he submitted, it seems, but the Grippli have a history that had to be considered.

Grippli are well established. The author elected to use them. He was not told to use them. He has stated it was his choice. He had the opportunity to originate a new humanoid type with no history, or to use a different humanoid that was already established. He made the choice to use Grippli.

If you look through the source material covering the Grippli, the term primitive is used often. Older editions used it. The FR wiki uses it to describe them. The pathfinder wiki uses it to describe them. It is pervasive and inherently tied to the Grippli through the established lore. Just Google primitive and Grippli for many examples. If you took all the language written about Grippli and made a word cloud of it, primitive would not be small.

Whether primitive is inherently offensive or not, the author certainly considers it to be so. As such, when the author made the decision to include the Grippli in the module, he had a duty to make sure that he addressed the unacceptable elements of the history of the Grippli. When he decided to use the Grippli, he had a duty to vet their origins and take the steps necessary to avoid past mistakes being repeated by him in the material that he originated.

If someone were to write a sequel to Song of the South, that author would have a duty to consider the problems of the first Song of the South and make sure that those problems were addresses in an acceptable way if the work were to move forward. Making a Song of the South 2 that didn't 'include anything offensive' in the author's last draft before handing it over to editing is not enough. Intellectual property has baggage, and that baggage travels with the IP. (Yes, any attempt to make a Song of the South 2 would be ridiculous, but that illustrates the point further. Ask why it is ridiculous, and who should know it is ridiculous. Answer: Everyone.).

Once again, I am not defending WotC for including it. It is unnecessary and offensive to a significant number of people, so the better choice would have been to exclude it. As pointed out, it offers nothing beneficial to the final product. I am saying, however, that the author also needs to be aware and proactive to make sure that historically offensive elements of the IP they elect to use is identified, addressed, and avoided - not just in their drafts, but throughout later steps. If the author had included notes for WotC noting the historic use of a term he found as offensive, and stated (at a minimum) that the offensive elements were intentionally omitted, then an inclusion of it by WotC would be entirely on their heads. Unless that step (or a more aggressive step) were taken, then both the author and WotC share responsibility.

Saying the author is responsible, in any way, shape or form for an editor using "primitive" is obviously not reasonable. WotC are a modern organisation and have vaunted their modernity, in fact, this is part of that. Watching words like this is part of that.

I strongly suspect Panzer DID address some of this in the stuff that got cut. He has a Twitter thread musing about this today note which no-one seems to have mentioned.


Strongly suggest anyone who has any further comments on the matter reads it before making those comments.

But anyway it's beside the point, because my point was that the editor shouldn't be "proud" of his work. That's just bizarre to me.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Look again. There are two. Read them both.

I did.

Read my post.

The Quora one selected as the "Answer" merely cites Knowyourmeme - literally it does. Click on the "Source" at the bottom of the post! And the KYM one offers absolutely no citations or sourcing for it's claim re: the meaning, further KYM's claim re: the meaning conflicts with the actual usage (again, for two decades or more) of the phrase. It's simply an attempt to white-wash a term in much the way in the late '90s people attempted to defend using the homophobic f-word on the grounds that they were merely referring to a "bundle of sticks" (which from context and usage, was absolutely clearly not true). It's remarkable only in that the "spanking" meaning claim is apparently original to the KYM article (or relatively so - as I noted, the usual white-wash attempt is to claim either you don't know, or more expansively, that nobody knows where it came from).

 

[jasper]

Okay. I love how the author is generating clicks, comments, and soon articles on this part of the book. Great marketing campaign. How many of you are going to buy the book now and burn it?
Edit to add
Love how the author is working his part of the AD campaign. AKA just another OUTRAGE Twitter/Internet Marketing plot.