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. "

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

Two people apparently couldn't drop it, even after a couple of warnings, and will no longer be responding this thread.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I do think the guy probably would have had an easier time if he'd focused more on the good yuan-ti faction against the evil yuan-ti faction as opposed to also trying to introduce the grippli into 5e, recontextualize them from their prior presentation, bring in a bunch of obscure Realms-specific lore about the Batrachi, and make them a PC race.

I dunno, I'm hideously biased on that particular bit of obscure Realmslore because I have loved the Days of Thunder since I was young enough to still be obsessed with dinosaurs. So I am 100% for anything that brings it in.

 

[TheSword]

In situations like this, where you're only ever going to get one side of the story, IMO you get a clearer picture by looking for patterns. Have we heard similar stories from others?

In this case I'm thinking back to Orion Black. There are definite echoes.

Anyway, I agree with those saying that if you're going to use somebody's name and claim to be elevating their voice, you damn well ought to make sure they've at least had a look at the final product.

To be fair, Orion Black’s own accounts really don’t read very flatteringly to him. There seem to be some similarities... inexperience with writing for a large company and expectation that their voice will be unrestrained. Graeme seems to be pretty philosophical about it in the messages since taking the learning. Orion just comes across as belligerent particularly in response to Graeme’s situation.

 

[DM Magic]

expectation that their voice will be unrestrained

Cite, please.

 

[TheSword]

Cite, please.

Orion Blacks twitter. Don’t want to have a big row about it though, and thought better of posting specific messages. If people are interested they can read it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To be fair, Orion Blacks own accounts really don’t read very flatteringly to him. There seem to be some similarities... inexperience with writing for a large company and expectation that their voice will be unrestrained. Graeme seems to be pretty philosophical about it in the messages since taking the learning. Orion just comes across as belligerent particularly in response to Graeme’s situation.

I think it's fair to say WotC probably have some issues where their desire to engage with a more diverse community of writers is running up against old-fashioned ways of doing things which worked "just fine" with some of their older authors. I don't think it's necessarily helpful to spin it as these writers being "inexperienced" or whatever - I mean, every writer was once, but it's a lot less likely to be a bad look if the people failing to communicate properly with you and so on are the same sort of background as you in terms of race/age/gender/etc. which I think was previously the case.

I also don't think "unrestrained" is at all correct with Panzer. If you read his more recent thread, as I think you may have re: philosophical, it doesn't seem like he expected to be "unrestrained", he just expected communication. Given he was publicizing the book for free for WotC I don't feel like it's unreasonable for him to expect to have any major changes communicated to him. If you only meant Orion, well, that's arguable but the way you've written it makes it look like you believe it applies equally to Panzer.

This is a challenge a lot of organisations, including liberal-as-you-could-want ones are facing, note. I have a friend who works at a charity with a basically left-wing cause (though one so broad they have a lot of mildly right-wing supporters, mostly of a kindly religious bent) and they've seen this issue in multiple ways. Ways of doing things need to be updated, and the realization that sometimes something that would seem fine to do to another white dude might not read the same way when done to someone else, esp. if you engaged them with more diverse voices/input in mind.

 

[wicked cool]

Its funny but do we as a community know who the editors are at WOTC and how many there are? I would think there cant be that many? how many adventures are they editing at the same time (was Rime edited at the same time but released on different dates) I'm assuming the editors who edit D&D stuff don't edit books/commercials for other products such as magic the gathering or board games

Plus I would assume these authors all signed a contract for their work-that contract I would assume has language in in that allows WOTC to do whatever they want with the material. the author get credit but I bet not to do whatever they want. Its like an actor they film the scenes but no guarantee the scene they worked for actually got put into the movie/show. the editor decides what makes the cut. they don't reach out to the actor.

you can be interviewed by the news and they edit what you say

the bottom line is x employee got paid to write something. Its no longer theirs once its submitted

 

[DM Magic]

Orion Blacks twitter. Don’t want to have a big row about it though, and thought better of posting specific messages. If people are interested they can read it.

It's an outrageous accusation and has no place in this discussion.

 

[Charlaquin]

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?

None. That would be a stupid thing to do. Some folks who would have otherwise bought the book now won’t, if it’s that important to them. I imagine some will buy it anyway.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

None. That would be a stupid thing to do. Some folks who would have otherwise bought the book now won’t, if it’s that important to them. I imagine some will buy it anyway.

Yup and note that Panzer isn't telling people not to buy it or anything like that, nor even hinting at it. It took Candlekeep from a must-buy to a "maybe buy sometime" for me. Like, literally I was about to buy it when I found this out. I'm not hugely offended or something but if they're doing this kind of thing it seems like maybe I don't need to be as excited as I was.