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. "

 

[DM Magic]

I think he expected to be able to write about the days of Thunder and exposition for why Yuanti are evil and was then miffed when this wasn’t used.

That's awfully reductive.

The majority in CM are new authors. I checked out a few other peoples Twitter feeds and what I saw over and over again we’re smiling faces with CM photographed in their hands, not a slew of complaints about WOCs practices. That’s not evidence that bad stuff didn’t go down. But it should make us wary about jumping to conclusions.

This is not concrete proof that no one else had a problem.

 

[DM Magic]

Last time I went camping.

Yes, I'm sure you and your camping companions often refer to structures such as tents and log cabins as primitive. This seems extremely likely and totally normal.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Honestly, how many words are we going to make taboo and excise from the English language because someone somewhere used them in an insulting way? And who are the arbiters of these new linguistic standards? Are there formal bodies who make rulings? Committees? Votes? How often should publisher's style guides be updated, and what source should they use as the authority on the use of language?

Welcome to the English language. It's a trash fire.

And yes, there are formal bodies that discuss style changes based on the changes in the way language is used, including when people ask that certain words not be used. The Associated Press Stylebook committee, for one, regularly updates the standards for its book, which is used in most US newsrooms (and is influential in all of them).

We've been through this before and it's never stopped as long as you've been alive. Depending on how old you are, you may have lived through two to five different ways that Black and African American people preferred to be referred to as. There are certainly people who decide they don't want to honor that, but most people agree that it's a harmless change worth honoring.

Likewise, how the disabled prefer to be referred to, terms they'd like us not to use for people with mental disabilities, and so on.

You can certainly choose to ignore these requests -- I think we all have a grandparent who does -- but when a commercial enterprise decides that a significant portion of their customer base would prefer they respond to changing times, being mad at them for switching over, even if only for purely commercial reasons, is a bit silly.

Unless you are very unusual, your English language usage has changed repeatedly throughout your life. If you made all those other changes, is there a good reason to not honor these requests now?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Could they not just replace the word "primitive" with something else in future printings?

Given that they will almost certainly incorporate errata in future printings, it'll be interesting to see if they'll do something as trivial as this. (Or, has been pointed out, just delete it from the book altogether, which wouldn't meaningfully change either of the sentences it appears in.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Honestly I'm more interested at this point that the author apparently wanted to use his adventure to introduce the grippli as a PC race in 5E and give them more background via decades old lore than the dragonborn and tiefling PC races in the 5E PHB have gotten since 5E was released.

Didn't tieflings get a write-up in Mordenkainen's?

 

[Charlaquin]

Zero people who have read your posts are surprised you are plugged into academia.

Careful, your lack of surprise may be taken as a stereotype!

 

[Scribe]

Given that they will almost certainly incorporate errata in future printings, it'll be interesting to see if they'll do something as trivial as this. (Or, has been pointed out, just delete it from the book altogether, which wouldn't meaningfully change either of the sentences it appears in.)

I would put money on it being removed via errata and the next printing.

 

[Dausuul]

I hope Wizards addresses this issue by allowing PanzerLion to publish his original version, perhaps on DM's Guild. It would be interesting to compare the two.

 

[DM Magic]

I hope Wizards addresses this issue by allowing PanzerLion to publish his original version, perhaps on DM's Guild. It would be interesting to compare the two.

This would be amazing, but I don't see them doing anything that could make it seem like they might have been in error over this situation.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Looks like, mostly a few failures.

1. Incomplete or inaccurate expectation setting. The 2nd post mortum seems to capture this.

2. Failure to communicate the scale of changes to the authors work.

3. Inclusion of language that really just didn't need to be there.

Faults over a number of steps, and imo it's on Wizards to hold the hands of free lancers who have not already worked within the confines of the D&D process.

Working with new freelancers/contributors is hard. Any time a bunch of new ones are brought in, companies know they will need extra help. It does seem like, in at least one case, that didn't happen and that's definitely on WotC.