D&D 5E Orion Black No Longer a D&D Designer [UPDATED!]

WotC employee Orion Black announced yesterday that they were no longer working for the company or on D&D, citing the corporate culture at the company.

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WotC employee Orion Black announced yesterday that they were no longer working for the company or on D&D, citing the corporate culture at the company.

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"It's July 3th and I no longer work for Wizards of the Coast. I no longer work on D&D, the little that I did. This is going to be a long thread and my last for quite a while, so bear with me.

I took the job for two reasons. The first was for the dream. To escape poverty doing what I love, writing and making games. The second was to make D&D welcoming to the millions who are scorned by it.

A lot of people had hope for D&D that they carried with me. While some people were upset to see me work for a corporation that overshadows indie, others hoped that I would be able to make real change. I tried. I failed. And I lost a lot.

Liking a tweet or post, RTing, or even following people who speak ill of WotC can lose you your job in an instant. That's why you never see it happen. @Zbeg is 100% correct. It's a silencing tool. I can say more now.

Kindness doesn't replace respect. Working within your comfort zone doesnt support change. Most people in that group were not ready for me to be there, a nonbinary Black person who would actually critique their problems. Idk what they expected.

I worked hard for a very long time. I got a lot of smiles and vocal support, but it was followed by inaction and being ignored. My coworkers were frustrated for me, and still are now. I confided in them often, cried on shoulders on a few occasions.

I realized at one point that leadership had given me 2 assignments over about 5 months. It was mostly me asking project leads for work, searching out opportunities. Leadership didnt really care about me or my growth. I had to.

I firmly believe that I was a diversity hire. There was no expectation for me to do much of anything. I probably disrupted them by being vocal and following up. It didnt matter if I was supported by seniors and positive.

I think genuine people proposed me as an option and it was accepted because it would look like a radical positive change. It would help quiet vocal outrage. And because I had to stay silent, it was a safe bet.

I started to lose all of my confidence. I started to lose trust in myself. After finding out that I wasnt getting an extension or FTE, I resolved to just finish things out and take care of myself. To stop fighting and to just survive, quietly. But it just kept getting worse.

They would talk about how they're going to start working on treating staff better, retaining contractors, actually answering questions. How much they were invested in diversity and change even though they hired two cis white dudes into two big leadership positions during this. One of whom claimed that he doesnt know what he's doing. No naughty word. I never want to hear "maybe they just hire the best person for the job" again.

I found out that some of my work was stolen, which destroyed me. It lined up with a project they were going to do and I had sent it in to someone in leadership months ago. The project was announced and this person who contributed "forgot" that we had a meeting where I gave them my ideas, and then a follow up document the day after. I knew nothing was going to be done about it. Someone else told me that the person said sorry that they forgot. That's it.

I was really losing my ability to do much of anything. I have depression and anxiety and ADHD, all of which I manage pretty well. But those parts of me were under the pressure of being ignored, disrespected, "forgotten", and not being able to say a word to the world.

Then, as social unrest continued global due to BLM, the D&D team comes out with their statement. It was like a slap in the face. How much they care about people of color, how much changing things (that I and others had been pushing for months, if not longer) was just going to happen now. It took weeks of protesting across the globe to get D&D to do what people they hired have been already telling them to fix. You cannot, CANNOT say Black lives matter when you cannot respect the Black people who you exploit at 1/3rd your pay, for progressive ideas you pick apart until it's comfortable, for your millions of profit year over year. People of color can make art and freelance, but are never hired. D&D takes what they want from marginalized people, give them scraps, and claim progress.

I spent my time in that building worrying about how much people hated me for working there. I spent a lot of time thinking about how much it hurt to work there. I had and still have supporters, and many. Thanks to you all for being my voice and speaking out when I could not. But I felt so isolated and alone. If not for some coworkers who checked in on me, who were going through the same things? I would've quit. Every angry statement about D&D felt personal because I couldn't fix it. Because I failed, whether it was my fault or not. I felt like I was being trashed by everyone because I could not disconnect what I set as a personal responsibility from the state of the game. That part IS my fault.

But I wound up as I am now because of all of this and much, much more. I am depressed. I am unable to write. I constantly question if anything I create is worth anything. I feel like I let everyone down, and no matter how much people tell me I didnt, that doesnt change. I feel guilty for not being what y'all needed me to be, what I wanted to be, and betrayed for how I was treated at that company. It's an exceptionally kind place on the D&D team. People are very nice to each other in a very genuine way that I truly enjoyed. However, that doesnt replace respect. That doesnt delete how I was treated. It doesnt change the fact that I honestly never want to play a trpg again and am definitely not working in that field anymore.

I know that I'm probably losing a ton of opportunities writing elsewhere because of what I've said here, as well as what I've sent in internally. It may mean that I will return to poverty, which makes me feel like a failure to my race, my family, and my partner who I want to provide the world. But under all these things, I have my integrity. I worked my ass off. I did my best for as long as I could. And I didnt let them treat me like that without telling the world what needs to be said.

Trust actions, not words. Not "look at how much we freelance so and so", because freelancing is exploitation of diversity with no support for the freelancer. Not "here we finally did what we KNOW we should've done a long time ago", because they only care about how optics turn to dollars. EVERYTHING involving D&D will continue to farm marginalized people for the looks and never put them in leadership. They wont be put on staff. They will be held at arms length. I hope they prove me wrong.

A lot of BIPOC and other marginalized people are trying to make their way by using D&D. Dont shame them for that. Think about how much, and when you wield your anger, that it is done righteously.

That said, I dont recommend to anyone, working for the D&D department of Wizards of the Coast."


Orion's Tweet about this. They also cite this statement, The Wizards I Know, by Zaiem Beg.

WotC's PR person, Greg Tito, commented publicly on the issue.

This should not have happened the way it did & I'll continue to fight so it does not happen again. I'm sorry if I let you down, Orion. You deserve better.


In response to an observation that this required more than just a PR statement or donation, and that it required diversity at the executive level he continued:

I have said almost these exact words for years, and more recently to executives put in charge of a community they don't understand. I am in the awful position of saying things I believe without the company making even a single, simple action of real change.


UPDATE! WotC has issued a short statement:

We sincerely apologize to Orion Black for the negative experiences they had as a contractor with the D&D franchise team. Their statement is being taken seriously and is an opportunity for us to improve the experiences of all those who contribute to our company and community. We're not perfect and we know there is more work to do. The ongoing dialogue with our community is critical to make meaningful change. We remain committed to making D&D a more inclusive community by supporting voices from people of all backgrounds.
 

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MGibster

Legend
Not sure if someone else noted this is in the 18-odd pages before I posted, but the undeniable issue is claiming to support diversity and be diverse and then not actually hiring many people aren't white guys as a permanent employee in the D&D division. That seems to be a matter of fact rather than opinion or perspective.

I couldn't agree more. As far as diversity goes, it really doesn't matter who your contractors are because those people aren't employees. My company is required to complete the annual EEO-1 report, which contains a breakdown of our employees categorized by race/ethnicity, gender, and job. Because contractors are not my problem, they're not employees after all, I do not include them in the EEO-1 report I file.

I suspect WotC may be the former - a lot of big talk about diversity but no actual effort to make it happen. We can only hope this sort of thing will help kick them in the behind about it, and maybe they'll actually listen to people like Greg Tito.

You most definitely need a plan and you're right, it's got to be a plan driven from the very top of the company otherwise nothing will be done. But I don't know how WotC goes about hiring permanent employees for their D&D LOB or even how many they staff. I think the company as a whole has a little under 1,000 employees.
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend
The Gygax, et. al., IP disasters of the 1970s through 1990s are the result of it NOT being a corporate environment.

True: I work for a large corporation myself, and it has real benefits for the individual and the work. It can be a bit of a meat grinder: I was one of seven people hired as contractors at my current job. The trainer was fired within two weeks, two of us made it to full employee positions, and the other was let go in a big Reorg. Not always pretty, or friendly. But it is what it is.
 

clearstream

(He, Him)
I should clarify that I don't mean Orion attacked anyone specifically, because certainly that's not the case. But bridges to any future opportunities that those recommendations could have opened up in the future are unfortunately burned to the ground: no way anyone in the RPG industry will hire Orion in the future, no matter if things change emotionally, which is sad.

I am cynical, so I don't think this will effect any sort of change per se, other than harming a promising career.
I am emphatically not saying this is your intent, but thinking about the line of argument objectively. A problem with the kind of statement you frame above is that it implies a punishment for speaking out. It seems to say - if you speak up outside the company, you will have your career stifled.
 


Parmandur

Book-Friend
I am emphatically not saying this is your intent, but thinking about the line of argument objectively. A problem with the kind of statement you frame above is that it implies a punishment for speaking out. It seems to say - if you speak up outside the company, you will have your career stifled.

You ought not have a career stifled in that way... but pragmatically, that's the reality of the society in which we live. Particularly since this wasn't a whistle blowing situation, but venting frustration at unfortunately typical BS.
 

ZeshinX

Adventurer
I am emphatically not saying this is your intent, but thinking about the line of argument objectively. A problem with the kind of statement you frame above is that it implies a punishment for speaking out. It seems to say - if you speak up outside the company, you will have your career stifled.

Indeed. Consequences are real. Unduly harsh or outright unfair ones are to be avoided, certainly, but if one cannot accept the consequences of their actions, then I find I have little in the way of sympathy for the effects those consequences have upon a person. I can certainly empathize with frustration with an employer, as I'm sure just about anyone can. It's exceedingly likely we've all felt that to varying degrees throughout our various careers, in whatever field.

Trashing one's former employer publicly carries with it all manner of consequences. You've the right to freely speak it, naturally (short of libellous/slanderous statements or breaking NDA's and things of that sort)...but it does make potential future employers more wary of what you may say of them should your employment there not work out to your personal satisfaction. Again, you're free to voice your opinion publicly, but they are also free to not hire you if they feel the risk to their reputation, business or internal culture (or anything) would be unacceptable. There's a reason companies rapidly started creating policies on how employees engage with social media. Doubtless the main intent is to protect the company, but also to protect its employees.

If the reasons for a termination or dismissal are on questionable legal ground, to whatever degree....social media is NOT the environment in which to deal with that.

I empathize with Orion, but what they did was not the wisest course to vent their obvious extreme frustration.
 
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Mercurius

Legend
I would just like to throw out there that there is a common misperception that people who don't agree with the interpretion that sees orcs as racist or who want OA shelved etc, are all politically or culturally conservative. That simply isn't true; there are many on the left who feel like certain sub-sets of the left are going too far. Meaning, there is a diversity of outlooks on the left.
 
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