WotC WotC Removes Digital Content Team Credits From D&D Beyond

According to Faith Elisabeth Lilley, who was on the digital content team at Wizards of the Coast, the contributor credits for the team have been removed from DDB.

The team was responsible for content feedback and the implementation of book content on the online platform. While it had been indicated to them that they would not be included in the credits of the physical books for space reasons, WotC apparently agreed to include them in the online credits.

It appears that those credits have now been removed.

I just discovered that I have been removed from book credits on D&D Beyond for books I worked on while at Wizards of the Coast.

Background:

While at Wizards (so after D&D Beyond was purchased) - with numerous books, my digital content team and I worked directly with the book team on the content, reading through rules drafts, suggesting changes, giving ideas, and catching issues. We had a full database of the content and understood exactly how it interacted.

Given that we were contributing to the content in the books, I felt it reasonable to request that team be added to the credits, but was informed the credits section was already too crowded with the number of people involved and many of the marketing team had already been dropped from credits. I felt strongly that anyone actually contributing to what is in the printed book should be credited though, so we agreed a compromise, that the team would be added to the credits page on D&D Beyond only, as there is no issue with "not enough space" on a web page.

I've added screenshots here that I had for some of the books.

At some point recently, those credits pages have been edited to remove the credits for me and the content team. Nobody reached out to let me know - it just happened at some point, and I only just noticed.

We've even been removed from the digital-only releases, that only released on D&D Beyond, such as the Spelljammer Academy drops.

I'm not angry or upset, just yet again, really disappointed, as somehow I expected better.

EDIT TO ADD MORE CONTEXT

It's not just getting the books online. I worked with Kyle & Dan to improve the overall book process from ideation to delivery across all mediums (you should have seen the huge process charts I built out...)

The lead designers would send over the rules for each new rulebook and we'd go through it, give feedback, highlight potential balance issues, look at new rules/design that was difficult to implement digitally and suggest tweaks to improve it etc etc. We even had ideas for new content that was then included in the book.

We'd go through the whole book in detail, catching inconsistencies and miscalculations, and I'm proud to say that we dramatically reduced the need for clarifications or errata on those books.

I'm not saying anyone on the design or book team was careless - far from it, they're consummate professionals - I am just illustrating the role my team and I had in contributing to the content, quality & success of the physical books, let alone the digital versions.

We should have been in the credits section of the physical printed book. We were part of the creative process. That was something we were actively discussing when I was informed I was being laid off.

Adding the team to the credits pages just on D&D Beyond was, as I mentioned above, a compromise while we figured things out.

My team were fully credited on the Cortex: Prime and Tales of Xadia books when D&D Beyond was still part of Fandom, before the Wizards acquisition.

In fact for those books we made sure to credit the entire digital development team, including developers, community managers and so forth - everyone who helped make the book successful.

I know that Wizards has hundreds of people involved and previously hit issues with the number of people in credits for D&D books, so pulled back from crediting some roles.

Would it be so bad to have to dedicate extra space in a book to the people whose contributions made the book successful?

I really don't think it would.

 

[Incenjucar]

When it comes to a corporation with a dubious history, it is generally best to assume a negative until they prove otherwise. If it is a negative, and you assume neutral or positive, they have every incentive to hide it from you.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I mean, they say they worked on these project, but I just checked and their names appear nowhere on them.

If I were, say a prospective employer, I'd be forced to believe they were lying to me.

Hope that's not exactly how this industry works.

In almost all lines of work, there is no concept of publicly noticeable credit. For instance, I work in software development. I have run engineering departments and major software projects. Neither I, nor anyone I have worked with, has had a blurb stating that we worked on Project X. We, like most of the world that hands a resume to a prospective employer, rely on what's on our resume. If there is something in question, that employer can contact any of the previous employers on our resumes to verify that anything claimed is true.

If I am an electrician, I can't point to a job I've done and say 'see, I wired that three way switch' and have concrete proof I've done so outside of the word of the home owner. Similarly, if I am a construction worker, I can't send an interviewer to a job site and say 'look, I've scratched my name in that wet concrete I paved'.

To intimate that future employment is harmed by this... well, you'll need to explain that to me.

 

[Iosue]

From what I understand, WotC has removed the credits of the DnD Beyond team from some (all?) products. No reason has been given for the removal.

Additionally, those who were removed have claimed that they actually had an active role in the development of these products. Thus they should be credited.

Has there been any verification that those who were removed actually did have a hand in creating these products?

The fact that they were once credited indicates that WotC, at least, at one time conceded that they had made some kind of contribution.

I guess my question is, are we 100% sure that WotC is in the wrong here?

That depends on your definition of wrong, I think. Are they morally or ethically wrong? Probably not, based on what we know. It's WotC's prerogative to credit whomever they want. Is it kind of a mean thing to do? Yeah, probably.

 

[Hussar]

When it comes to a corporation with a dubious history, it is generally best to assume a negative until they prove otherwise. If it is a negative, and you assume neutral or positive, they have every incentive to hide it from you.

By the same token, if every time you assume the negative, then what incentive is there to try to do anything positive? That's the problem with assuming in either direction. Those that assume negatives come across as intransigent haters, and those that assume positive as weak kneed fanboys.

Wouldn't it be better not to assume in the first place?

 

[Hussar]

The fact that they were once credited indicates that WotC, at least, at one time conceded that they had made some kind of contribution.

That depends on your definition of wrong, I think. Are they morally or ethically wrong? Probably not, based on what we know. It's WotC's prerogative to credit whomever they want. Is it kind of a mean thing to do? Yeah, probably.

Oh, absolutely. And, obviously, they made some sort of contribution, otherwise they would not have been credited. However, since we don't actually know what that contribution was, other than on the word of a single employee, I'm going to with hold judgement until I know more.

I mean, sure, it looks like a dick move. 100% agree. But, as I said, is the removal due to some sort of internal discussion at WotC? Or was this done maliciously?

Again, I'm not defending anyone here. And, it looks like I'm sea lioning. I know that's what it looks like. But, again, every single time these sorts of things come up - changing text in the Candlekeep Mysteries adventures, the Pinkerton thing, Mike Mearl's involvement with some rather questionable individuals. So on and so forth. Every time these things come up, there this huge reaction about how WotC is bad, then more details start coming out and often it's a lot more nuanced than it might look at first blush.

 

[mamba]

See, I'm not comfortable making absolute statements based on one person's unsubstantiated claim.

I am making it on the base that they were previously credited and that all such credits were removed, not one for a single book. These are facts, not hearsay.

 

[Sulicius]

No, the saved copy of the credits page I have for Curse of Strahd does not list the D&D Beyond team members like the more recent releases do. I don't think that one has changed.

Looking through my local copies, It looks like the practice of including credits for the D&D Beyond team started in July 2022 (with Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel) and continued until at least April 2024 (Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye). The credits were removed sometime after April 2024.

Alright, well that shouldn’t stop anyone else!

 

[Vaalingrade]

To intimate that future employment is harmed by this... well, you'll need to explain that to me.

Because that's literally how the entertainment industry works.

That's why this is a big deal.

Employers want a portfolio and a list of credits. And if you say you worked on a project and it turns out you can't prove it, they're not going to assume your previous employer quietly removed your credit for no good reason; they're going to assume you padded your resume.

 

[Faith Elisabeth Lilley]

Because that's literally how the entertainment industry works.

That's why this is a big deal.

Employers want a portfolio and a list of credits. And if you say you worked on a project and it turns out you can't prove it, they're not going to assume your previous employer quietly removed your credit for no good reason; they're going to assume you padded your resume.

Exactly this.

I'm at a point in my life where the loss of these credits doesn't really hurt me personally - I know many people in the TTRPG industry who know what I have done.

The team I led though? They're all a lot younger than me and losing these credits could well be the difference between them getting other jobs in the industry or not.

At least by me using my voice to talk about this, I am ensuring they have something they can point at in the future - even if that is news articles about how they were removed from the credits of books they contributed to.

Additionally, letting things like this slide encourages repetition of this behaviour, so challenging it now is the correct thing to do.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Because that's literally how the entertainment industry works.

That's why this is a big deal.

Employers want a portfolio and a list of credits. And if you say you worked on a project and it turns out you can't prove it, they're not going to assume your previous employer quietly removed your credit for no good reason; they're going to assume you padded your resume.

Not an explanation at all.

All employers want to know that the person they are hiring is what they think they are getting. In pretty much all employment paths, this works in this way: the employer looks at a resume and decides if they need to fact check anything. They fact check by contacting previous employers.

What I asked before, and I'll ask again... why is this a concern here? And can you be specific this time? Is it a special concern for this particular industry? Why? Why is it important that a credit appear on a product, when this is not a concern or issue at all in virtually any other job?