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. "

 

[Justice and Rule]

We probably can't talk about the subject. As I said previously, D&D historically has made a practice of describing sapient species as "primitive." That matters in a game that is fundamentally about going into the wilderness, killing the monsters who live there, and taking their stuff. This has been criticized and I think that's a positive thing.

That D&D has used it historically isn't really a justification for using it again. In fact, it's kind of part of the problem here.

Calling the frog-peoples' ramshackle, makeshift, temporary structures "primitive" is (clearly, to me) not that. If it so obviously is that to you that you can't even comprehend a different perspective, then yeah, we're at a bit of an impasse.

I mean, this isn't just my perspective, but the perspective of a POC who specifically was trying to avoid the cultural baggage that the word "primitive" comes with. Saying a structure is "primitive" and then using the word to also describe how they decorate their dwellings is exactly the sort of usage that plays into the worst parts of the usage of the word.

To be fair, the use of the term primitive in this adventure isn't referring to a culture but hastily constructed structures.

"The primitive shelters are the new homes of grippli who escaped when the evil yuan-ti came through the village in their search for the earlier group of serpentfolk."

One of the definitions of the term primitive means..."having a quality or style that offers an extremely basic level of comfort, convenience, or efficiency."

It is also used again to describe the decoration of their dwellings. This has been gone over before, and it's just not a great argument because "primitive" puts on a cultural judgment that isn't there with other words.

 

[DM Magic]

Absolutely, but not something there was any obligation for WotC to conduct. They could do it, but had no obligation.

Again: 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.

 

[Markh3rd]

Rudimentary is a pretty good word, until some point in the future when it accumulates baggage of some sort. Words change over time, we all know this.

The degree to which something becomes pejorative or derogatory will change with time and social mores.

Or "hastily constructed" may have been better.

 

[DM Magic]

To be fair, the use of the term primitive in this adventure isn't referring to a culture but hastily constructed structures.

One of the uses of the term was to describe the decorations used on the homes.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, weirdly the episode was largely about the pain of editing content for the book for space, and adapting to playtest feedback: it is in the context of "this is normal pain for these projects" but what Perkins talks about does seem like the other perspective on this exact question. In particular, what Perkins and Lindsey say about working with playtest feedback and sometimes having to do big rewrites if playtesters are confused or frustratedsounds like what Barber is reporting he was told by WotC.

Yeah, my impression is that the changes were mostly a result of playtest feedback. I suspect a lot of the adventures in Candlekeep in particular probably got heavily edited as a result of playtesters finding them confusing or frustrating, given the mystery theme. As I’ve said several times, the fact that edits occurred really isn’t a problem. The fact that they sold the book on the premise of it featuring new voices, but in at least one case made no effort to seek input from those voices when it was found that significant changes were needed, is a problem. Also, adding the word “primitive” when they’re in the process of trying to appear more culturally sensitive is a bad look, especially when the writer whose work it was added to has a platform built on critiquing exactly that kind of thing in gaming.

 

[Markh3rd]

One of the uses of the term was to describe the decorations used on the homes.

Decorations could have just been described as "consisting of bones, teeth, and feathers" instead of using primitive as a catch all.

 

[Mecheon]

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 can't fish up the exact quotes, but I remember a few instances of people writing for Adventurers League and having a similar lack of communication

As in, one of the authors was playing in the game at a convention and was asked about some part of the module and had the answer of "I didn't write that and have no idea where it came from"

 

[Greg Benage]

Cool, but WotC is actively trying to do better in a time where we should all be trying to do better. You nitpicking at this is a strange move to me.

Yeah, as I said, I think it's great if they stop calling sapient beings "primitive." I think it's a hundred percent just fine if they refer to anyone's makeshift, ramshackle, temporary structures as "primitive." I'm not persuaded by the charge that this obvious distinction constitutes "nitpicking."

 

[Charlaquin]

Absolutely, but not something there was any obligation for WotC to conduct. They could do it, but had no obligation.

Is that really the standard we should hold publishers to? To do only what they are “obligated” to and no more? Maybe they weren’t “obligated” to communicate with Panzer before making major changes to their work, but in this instance seems like a poor choice not to do so, given that a significant part of the marketing for the book was that it featured “new voices.”

 

[Mistwell]

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.

These days a large amount of books are obtained through Roll20 and DNDBeyond.