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

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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.
 

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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.
As someone directly affected, maybe you can answer the post directly above this one. Removing credits when they are already present is weird. I don't like it. I can see it being the act of a clueless individual though. What I would like to understand is how this harms those whose credits were removed.
 

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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.
It is important you speak up. Curious if you have received a response yet from WoTC?
 


Stated like someone who does not do creative work.
Why the personal attack? Does my opinion not matter to you if I'm not a creative? And if it doesn't, why not just state that rather than attack me?
(Not that it matters, but you are wrong, I am, among other things, a creative.)

In almost all lines of work, there is no concept of publicly noticeable credit.
Exactly. In my main industry it's generally illegal to provide meaningful proof of prior work. Because that work is owned by the previous employer and is considered proprietary. And with the litigious nature of things these days, employers will only provide dates of employment, and not usually even job titles. Certainly not proof of any project or work I did that may or may not exist in the public realms.
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.
Faith, thanks for posting here and interacting. I do hope you are able to resolve this to your satisfaction and it's admirable that you are looking out for those who worked for you.

Could you educate me (and others that have voiced the same interest); in the RPG industry, what is the typical standard for receiving credit on a work? I'm guessing it is varied not only by publisher, but also by type of contribution. But is there a generally accepted expectation such as; Either, an image or artwork used, a 100 words, an editorial review, draft layout, or perhaps even 100 hours of playtest and feedback? (I know those examples are inaccurate if not poor, but hence why I'm asking for your input.)
 

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.
Since it sounds like it might be useful, I compared snapshots of 22 releases that had D&D Beyond staff credits at some point with their current credits pages.

First, it is interesting that there are nine releases which still have D&D Beyond credits in place. So if WotC was purging credits as part of some change in policy, they haven't done a particularly thorough job of it. Here are those nine releases, linked to the credits:
For the other thirteen releases, here are screenshots of the deleted credits, for reference:
1722357990473.jpeg
Dragonlance - Shadow of the Dragon Queen.jpg
1722358010057.jpeg
Keys from the Golden Vault.jpg
Misplaced Monsters Vol 1.jpg
Monstrous Compendium Vol 2 - Dragonlance Creatures.jpg
Monstrous Compendium Vol 3 - Minecraft Creatures.jpg
Phandelver and Below - The Shattered Obelisk.jpg
Planescape - Adventures in the Multiverse.jpg
Spelljammer - Adventures in Space.jpg
Spelljammer Academy.jpg
The Book of Many Things.jpg
Thieves' Gallery.jpg
 

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?
What your advocating is the omission of pattern recognition.
The flinch response is based on previous data. My wife reaches for my face, I have a positive outlook on the result possibilities. A person who has hit me, even once, in the past? Not positive.

In this case, we have a baseline of them saving d&d a long time ago, making the ogl, buildingbtrust…

And lighting that trust on fire. Dragonlance novel was a warning. The ogl fiasco undid most of the goodwill in a single day, especially based on the forced and underhanded method they used.

This? This is just a reminder to not trust them.

They break faith. Its simple. I can not trust them professionally. And yes, that means they have no material reason to stop the behavior…

Except maybe, not being crappy? Do things because its right, not for rewards?

This is a massive problem in corp America. They just don't care. This isn't even the worst company for this behavior.

But wotc provides a luxury, and I can choose to support other, less problematic, companies and creatives.
 

What I would like to understand is how this harms those whose credits were removed.
I'm a little confused, as well. I know freelancers depend solely upon the credits they get in individual projects, but it doesn't sound like any of the people affected by this incident were freelancers.

I've never had the privilege of working as a full-time employee at an industry-leading game design company, but I always assumed having that on my resume would be more important than credits in individual products the company produced while I was working there. So maybe any harm caused by WotC's behavior can be mitigated by polishing up any affected resumes?

Then again, maybe not. Office politics involving project leads and C-suite folks are well above my pay grade. I don't have any frame of reference for how badly WotC is treating people in this case. I do believe they're being rather rude, but that's the most I can say as an outsider looking in.
 

Why the personal attack? Does my opinion not matter to you if I'm not a creative? And if it doesn't, why not just state that rather than attack me?
That wasn't an attack. it was an assessment based on your flippant response.
(Not that it matters, but you are wrong, I am, among other things, a creative.)
Then you should understand why this matters and not dismiss it by wondering why signing up for a website did not merit you credit.

You can feign offense all you want, but you were blatantly dismissive of the issues at hand and I merely called you on it.
 

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.
Is it possible that industries involved in publication have different expectations and traditions around publication credit than, say, electricians do? Perhaps you have noticed publication credits in the music, magazines, comics, games, books, movies, and so on that you have consumed?

Here, I googled it for you:

 
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Since it sounds like it might be useful, I compared snapshots of 22 releases that had D&D Beyond staff credits at some point with their current credits pages.

First, it is interesting that there are nine releases which still have D&D Beyond credits in place. So if WotC was purging credits as part of some change in policy, they haven't done a particularly thorough job of it. Here are those nine releases, linked to the credits:
For the other thirteen releases, here are screenshots of the deleted credits, for reference:
I can’t see the credits page on beyond since I don’t own that content. Were there different people listed in the beyond section? Or same names we are seeing in the removed screenshots?
 

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