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. "

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

Haha, remember “person-first language”? I was a bit surprised myself when I learned that had fallen out of favor. But, hey, no skin off my back to refer to people how they want to be referred to.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

For one thing, there are two parties in each of these relationships. If two different freelancers are having similar-but-not-identical issues and the commonality in each case is WotC, it's reasonable to look at what's happening in Seattle. It would be especially worth knowing (for WotC; I don't think the public will ever know, and maybe shouldn't) whether it was the same staffer in each case. If that's the case, that's actually good news: There's sensitivity training and an HR discussion that ought to be able to address it if there was no intentional malice. (And again, I've had plenty of run-ins with editors, including some with genuine malice in their hearts, but most of the time, they screw up due to time crunches or not realizing the way they've done things before ought to change.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As soon as I looked him up, I had the same feeling.

It's worth noting that in what is now the next-to-most recent Dragon Talk, everyone talked about what a tough editor Mohan is and his ability to hurt writers' feelings, although they suggest it's all meant well. (Which may be true, but it's also often an argument used to justify abusive behavior by managers.)

 

[Sacrosanct]

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.

One of my hobbies is bushcrafting, so the word "primitive" comes up a lot. Firebuilding tools (ferro rod, friction bow, etc), shelters, etc. Primitive is used to describe those without any connotation tied to any particular person or culture (since all cultures had used those tools at one point). I firmly believe that word has it's place and can be used, and even be used in D&D material in certain contexts and be just fine. Taking a writer's work who explicitly is against that word and inserting into their work is not such a place. Pretty big mistake on WoTC's part.

 

[Mort]

It's worth noting that in what is now the next-to-most recent Dragon Talk, everyone talked about what a tough editor Mohan is and his ability to hurt writers' feelings, although they suggest it's all meant well. (Which may be true, but it's also often an argument meant to justify abusive behavior by managers.)

Wow, that sounds like someone you pair with a more experienced writer.

Not one who doesn't know the realities of the business on their first time out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just seems weird that he thought the back and forth was great (to the point where he was promoting the adventure right up to publication) only to learn after the fact that that whole section was cut. But I don't know the writing/publishing business - seems from some of the posts in this thread, this kind of thing is not that uncommon.

Not knowing Mohan or Panzer personally, or having worked with either one of them, one of the things that sequence of events could suggest is that Mohan didn't think the editorial back and forth was terribly productive. It could have required a lot more back and forth than other contributors required or requested changes weren't satisfactorily made, etc.

It could also mean that this back and forth dragged on past the point where there was time left to fiddle with things and Mohan had to just get things done to get it ready for the book in time.

I've experienced and witnessed both of these scenarios.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

I think more likely would be allowing him to rework the unused material as its own thing.

But they are within their rights not to do so, which is a good object lesson in not getting overly ambitious with a freelance assignment. If he had just sat on those ideas, he could have worked up the other stuff right now and put it on DMs Guild and likely gotten plenty of people picking up a semi-official expansion to something in Candlekeep, by the original author.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wow, that sounds like someone you pair with a more experienced writer.

Not one who doesn't know the realities of the business on their first time out.

I would agree, but from his days on Dragon, Mohan has worked with a lot of first time writers. At this point, I think everyone in TSR/WotC just likely takes this as "the way things have always been."

 

[Mort]

I think more likely would be allowing him to rework the unused material as its own thing.

But they are within their rights not to do so, which is a good object lesson in not getting overly ambitious with a freelance assignment. If he had just sat on those ideas, he could have worked up the other stuff right now and put it on DMs Guild and likely gotten plenty of people picking up a semi-official expansion to something in Candlekeep, by the original author.

I remember, way back in college, in my first serious computer science class. We were asked to write a program that did x. Some of the more gung ho students wrote a program that did x,y,z.

They were surprised that not only were they not rewarded, but that they were penalized on their grade.

The teacher called it out saying something like "you were asked to do x not x,y and z - you write what you are asked to write."

It was a sobering, if possibly overly harsh, lesson.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I remember, way back in college, in my first serious computer science class. We were asked to write a program that did x. Some of the more gung ho students wrote a program that did x,y,z.

They were surprised that not only were they not rewarded, but that they were penalized on their grade.

The teacher called it out saying something like "you were asked to do x not x,y and z - you write what you are asked to write."

It was a sobering, if possibly overly harsh, lesson.

Totally agree. It very much is a case of "You were asked to write an adventure. You've done that, but you've also written a lot of lore, written a lot on these cultures (Yuan-ti and Grippli), and wrote up rules for a new race. We will only use the adventure."

Should WotC told Panzer what they were cutting? Sure. But they were also well within their rights to do so, as PanzerLion seems to have gone way off-scope of the project's intent.