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. "

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Okay. I love how the author is generating clicks, comments, and soon articles on this part of the book. Great marketing campaign. How many of you are going to buy the book now and burn it?

???????????

This is a very confusing thing to say. What are you trying to convey here?

 

[Bacon Bits]

And it's a fantasy race with no real world equivalent.

I think the point is that they were intended to be analogous to any indigenous people who were subjugated by external powers. There are so many examples of people who this happened and still happens to that you're kind of hard-pressed to imagine a group of people that this didn't happen to who aren't in voluntary isolation.

I mean, the Boxer Rebellion ended in the 20th Century. The Apache Wars didn't end until 1924. The Indochina Wars that led to the Vietnam War were wars of independence against colonial France in the 1940s and 50s. Part of the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the colonial aspects of it. It's not like this isn't contemporary politics.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I strongly suspect Panzer DID address some of this in the stuff that got cut. He has a Twitter thread musing about this today note which no-one seems to have mentioned.


Strongly suggest anyone who has any further comments on the matter reads it before making those comments.

Are you sure that's the right Twitter link? Because that's post #2 in this thread. It's what started the whole thing in the review thread. Morrus's post #1 here is a later summary when he split that thread, and the blog links in post #1 are a better, later summary.

The only thing newer that I see is this one, which is another post-mortem:

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Are you sure that's the right Twitter link? Because that's post #2 in this thread. It's what started the whole thing in the review thread. Morrus's post #1 here is a later summary when he split that thread, and the blog links in post #1 are a better, later summary.

The only thing newer that I see is this one, which is another post-mortem:

Sorry yes that's the right one.

 

[DM Magic]

Okay. I love how the author is generating clicks, comments, and soon articles on this part of the book. Great marketing campaign. How many of you are going to buy the book now and burn it?
Edit to add
Love how the author is working his part of the AD campaign. AKA just another OUTRAGE Twitter/Internet Marketing plot.

Yikes.

 

[grimslade]

Two things:
Graeme Barber was asked to promote his work before release, for no extra remuneration, with no idea what the final version was. His description of his work to his fans was erroneous in comparison to the final product. WotC put PanzerLion in an untenable position of selling a different experience to his audience, again, beyond the terms of the Work-for-Hire contract. This damages the author's reputation and turns the PR into Bait and Switch. It is dumb. Also, the project was sold as promoting new voices in D&D and then changed what those voices said.
The use of the word primitive is a loaded term. It doesn't matter that 30 years ago it was viewed as viable. WotC has said they want to change their products to not use loaded language. Those are their own standards and their edit to include loaded language into an author's work for a project meant to highlight different viewpoints and voices is a particularly egregious self-own for WotC.

We can argue that this is 'just how it is done' all thread, but the question is does it have to be done this way? The very least WotC could have done was give a final copy of the edited submission to authors so that they do not misrepresent their work for the free PR WotC wants from them. And get the editors some better training on the goals of removing marginalizing language. This is WotC's stated goal, follow through.

 

[Umbran]

You, in your life, may have experienced it in a different way. However, the citations I provided address the origin of the statement and indicate the definition I stated.

Mod Note:

Several people have failed to notice that this matter should have been dropped several pages back.

Stop trying to win.

 

[Umbran]

In 'many circles'? Or by a tiny number of people of a particular ideological bent?

Mod Note:

Oh, hey. Politics and dismissive words against inclusion. You are done in this thread.

Anyone else want to test patience?

 

[Scribe]

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.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Have any of the other authors for the book voiced concerns about how their work was handled, out of curiosity?