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]

People are seizing on the word as a scandalous issue.

I don’t think that’s happening. The word choice is part of the issue, and a part that is not so easily dismissed with the “that’s just what work for hire be like” argument. Also, some people get weirdly defensive any time it’s pointed out that a word has some iffy baggage, so lots of people have tried to challenge that particular aspect of the critique, such that it has kind of overtaken the conversation. But it’s really not particularly scandalous. It’s just one part of a broader issue.

 

[DM Magic]

WotC is the company in charge. They can print, publish, edit, and change whatever the hell they want in the books they publish however they want. If the Freelancer wrote and got paid for the work and turned it in, the Freelancer's job IS DONE.

But WotC sought out different voices, specifically for this product. To take the voice out of an author's text, text that was pursuing the vision for the book set forth by WotC, is a weird choice. Especially to do so to an author who's voice carries weight in the community.

 

[Greg Benage]

But it remains unclear if the "primitive" word was brought up in this conversation and he asked them to change it, or if his entire focus of the conversation was on being edited.

If he asked the editor to change the word and they simply refused to change it, the editor is a giant tool. I would be shocked to learn this was the case.

 

[DM Magic]

butt hurt

Can we refrain from homophobic speech?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Can we refrain from homophobic speech?

Is that where it comes from?!

not from what I have read

 

[jgsugden]

But WotC sought out different voices, specifically for this product. To take the voice out of an author's text, text that was pursuing the vision for the book set forth by WotC is a weird choice. Especially to do so to an author who's voice carries weight in the community.

It absolutely is not a weird choice if the substantial edits were made for very practical reasons. The author's description of the adventure makes it sound very much like he was trying to create a broad and open experience with depth to the background and a lot that could be delivered through exposition and subtext.

The project was to create a short adventure that could be accessible to many and run in a session or two.

Those are fairly inconsistent. While a master might be able to write a sandboxy adventure that would be a session or two and be very accessible, most attempts at this would result in chaotic sessions with the characters struggling to find the end of the story. Sandbox is best for adventures and campaigns - not for one shots.

 

[Justice and Rule]

But it remains unclear if the "primitive" word was brought up in this conversation and he asked them to change it, or if his entire focus of the conversation was on being edited.

If he asked the editor to change the word and they simply refused to change it, the editor is a giant tool. I would be shocked to learn this was the case.

I mean, he found out about this once the book was in print, not during any sort of stage where he could make a difference. That's part of what people are not happy with: this is something that could have been avoided with the most RUDIMENTARY levels of communication during the editing process.

 

[Eltab]

I wonder if Panzer is the only new-hire unhappy with the experience, or if there are others. And how many other new-hires there were for this project. (1 unhappy out of 500 is more likely to be that individual's problem but 3 unhappy out of 10 is more likely to be a WotC problem, for instance.)

I also wonder if WotC's search for 'new voices' is / isn't suffering from mismatched expectations - what is the full extent of the job description and who has the authority to do what?

 

[Bacon Bits]

Okay so you missed my edit and my subsequent post where I pointed out the section. Don’t worry about it.

People are seizing on the word as a scandalous issue. In fairness to Graeme it is only a small part of what he references in his blog. The majority of which concerned what he felt was changing his adventure.

As I said, I don’t really care. I just don’t see what the furore is about. Seems quite disproportionate.

Well, remember that the volume of the discussion on ENWorld has very little to do with how important or severe the reaction to it is. This place is rather productive in terms of post number, even though very little is ever accomplished after the first 20 to 50 posts, and they generally start to become circular and retread the same ideas about... well, about 200 or so.

If you look at the threads that have hundreds of responses you'll find a lot of threads that are absolutely the nit-pickiest topics, and the threads will have devolved into excruciatingly combing a mammoth with an eyebrow comb for that one missed nit only to start over when someone blinks.

For the most part, I think people here aren't really that involved or angry or offended. People here just don't shut up. That's fine. It's a discussion forum.

Also kind of annoyed now that this is all we’re talking about rather than how awesome The Book of Inner Alchemy is, or the works of the many, many other diverse writers in the credits.

I think that's why @Morrus helpfully split and merged this discussion into it's own thread from the Candlekeep review thread earlier today. (Thanks, Morrus!)

You might want to go to the Candlekeep review thread to discuss the rest of the book.

 

[DM Magic]

It absolutely is not a weird choice if the substantial edits were made for very practical reasons.

Something that could have been helped with communication.