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.

"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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Why, because I don't agree? Ruin Explorer didn't actually address my points. I didn't say anyone is a bad person. I said there was an error in thinking and a lack of understanding. I understand why people interpret things in a certain way, I just don't agree with it. That doesn't mean I don't understand.

You're absolutely saying anyone who doesn't agree with you is a bad person, accusing them of being wilfully blind to other views, being narrow-minded or worse, and claiming that they aren't self-critical. Those are purely negative traits you're assigning to others without any real justification. If you don't think that's "calling them a bad person", then, buddy, you are continuing to prove my point.

Same re: lack of self-criticism. I don't really have a "side" here to be clear, and I will say you at least don't seem to have assigned me one, so there's that, but you are guilty of exactly what you're accusing others of here. It's just that your position is basically "Either you believe all these viewpoints, including the ones which seek to silence the other ones, are valid, or you're unable to understand, narrow-minded and unable to criticise your own thinking!".

You say you "understand", but that's not the issue. The issue is that you say you understand, and then explain that they're bad people, based on your understanding - that they're narrow-minded, can't understand others, can't/won't self-criticise. And then claim that these negative traits you've assigned them don't mean you're saying that they're "bad people", which is just hilarious. It's like "Oh yeah, that guy is dumb, lazy, and anti-social, but I'm not saying he's a bad person!". Ummmm lol. The reality is, the people you're criticising, who I don't necessarily agree with either, do understand. Just as well as you. Equally they're no more narrow-minded nor is their "with us or against us" significantly different to your "You agree with me on this or you don't understand and are narrow-minded". Indeed, I've seen almost no evidence of a "with us or against us" viewpoint on the issues re: race and D&D and so on being discussed here.

More to the point, nothing you're doing is new. This is the same pattern that has repeated in a lot of movements across the political spectrum and outside it. In this particular case, it's the same pattern that's been clearly repeating since the 1700s/1800s, first with the abolition of slavery, then with male voting rights, then with women's rights, and so on. A bunch of white people (initially guys, initially middle or upper class) decide that the minority who are protesting, or taking a political stance, are "going too far". Even if we ignore for example the racial element, and even the gender element, and we just look at male voting rights, you have middle and upper class people insisting that working class people who want voting rights, want political rights are going too far, don't understand, are being too hostile, and need to be less angry and less divisive and so on. You say they're not trying to "silence" them but they're certainly trying to convince them to be silent, or very quiet, and to allow some sort of middle-class viewpoint, and much lesser reforms, to be pushed forwards. Historically this has actually rarely worked out well for the upper/middle-class equivalent people who are trying to "moderate" things, because they even when they get their way the issue simply comes up again not long thereafter, because they insisted on stuff that didn't amount to any actual change, and the next time, people don't listen to demands for moderation.

(To be clear, I think this is a general human trait - I'm sure it doesn't need to be white people doing it, I'm sure it occurs in all sorts of movements. Basically the part of the movement that doesn't want too much change because they're less negatively impacted in the first place, but realizes some change must happen attempts to prevent the parts of the movement asking for larger change from being heard, or just criticises them and says they should be ignored, or that their viewpoints are invalid - for example they lack self-criticism (that's a direct suggestion that a viewpoint is invalid, note). Often the part of the movement that wants less change is aligned in goals with the part that wants mainstream legitimacy and both feel they should put in a very low ask, change-wise, albeit for slightly different reasons. And then you get other, unrelated parts of the movement accidentally aligning with them - for example some may believe the issue is a mere distraction/sideshow, and they align with those asking for minimal change, and so on.)

I see that Orion has addressed this for now: doesn't mean I can't be sad to see self-immolation that can't be taken back in a different frame of mind at a later time.

Sure. I wasn't so much thinking of your post when typing that as all the others here and elsewhere where some internet genius points out their latest amazing finding which is something Orion already said in the first few paragraphs (so they clearly didn't even read that far).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Problem with the permanent hires is they've kind if earned there slot and a lot gave something like 20+ years if experience.

Between Paizo, WotC and say Kobold Press a lot of names have been doing it since the days of TSR.

All of them use feelancers. If you got a job at Paizo you can guess 3 names that aren't going anywhere until they want to short of some sort of serious misconduct.

So it's a catch 22. For a senior designer you may as well have TSR alumni on your resume. Or maybe a new person gets away with WotC alumni 1997-2002.

A lot of the senior designers also cut their teeth on Dragon/Dungeon.

So basically it's going to be very hard to hire new people when you've still got these designers floating around to hire and the younger ones are in their 40s so can still be active for the next 20 years.

I doubt someone's sitting around going bwa ha ha I'm going to screw over POC.

See I think this is of interest because to me the question is, how much does experience really help an RPG designer? The reason I ask this is that it's clearly not a discipline that's comparable to software engineers, say, nor even to many elements of video game development. What's particularly of note, to me, following the careers of a lot of tabletop RPG designers, is that many of them don't seem to significantly improve over time. They don't come up with better designs mechanically. They don't come up with more exciting or more rounded worlds/settings. That's not to say mechanics don't get revised and improved - it's just that I see zero evidence that having the original designer, or a highly experienced designer look at the rules ensures they will improve. Indeed, if I looked closely, I bet we could find examples of highly experienced designers making things worse.

Many designers come up with their best work, particularly conceptually, but sometimes systems-wise too, quite early in their careers. I can give examples if needed, but I think it's pretty obvious.

I'm not saying designers get worse when they're older, I'm not saying that they learn nothing. I'm sure a lot of them do learn a lot of skills. But what I am saying is, they don't seem to translate to experienced designers regularly turning out better-quality products in terms of mechanics-design, balance, or either sheet coolness or actual innovation (let's not say originality) in setting/world design.

So I ask, do we actually particularly want designers with 20+ years of experience? Hiring the best person for an essentially creative role like this doesn't necessarily mean hiring the most experienced individual, nor putting them in charge (or we'd only get the same few movie directors until they died). WotC has historically cut tonnes of super-experienced people, so let's not pretend there's any barrier to letting people go. Maybe we actually want a mix of people with experience, and people who are a lot less experienced, but who have stronger visions and more radical ideas about system and setting design involved.

Given WotC's famous Christmas firings and so on, I don't think "earned a slot" is really valid, and it's clear WotC knows how to "clear the decks" when it wants to. So I guess I don't see any catch-22 here. If WotC wanted younger, more diverse designers, I don't think it would actually have much difficulty getting them.

 

[Fenris-77]

Designers aren't a single thing, skills-wise. Some designers specialize in the mechanical side of things, while others might be more on the writing and setting constructions side, with lots of stops in between those two. So that hypothetical designer with 20+ years experience might or might not be the right person for the job, as it depends on the job. I don't know that long experience necessarily makes a person good at either thing. However, there is a third axis here, that of professionalism, by which I mean completing projects on time and working well within the design group and larger company. That's where the industry veteran might have a real leg up, and also where issues of representation and racism et al are probably the the most pernicious. Personally, I think the need for new voices is very much in the writing and concept department. The people designing mechanics aren't the one's driving the narrative of the game.

 

[jerryrice4949]

See I think this is of interest because to me the question is, how much does experience really help an RPG designer? The reason I ask this is that it's clearly not a discipline that's comparable to software engineers, say, nor even to many elements of video game development. What's particularly of note, to me, following the careers of a lot of tabletop RPG designers, is that many of them don't seem to significantly improve over time. They don't come up with better designs mechanically. They don't come up with more exciting or more rounded worlds/settings. That's not to say mechanics don't get revised and improved - it's just that I see zero evidence that having the original designer, or a highly experienced designer look at the rules ensures they will improve. Indeed, if I looked closely, I bet we could find examples of highly experienced designers making things worse.

Many designers come up with their best work, particularly conceptually, but sometimes systems-wise too, quite early in their careers. I can give examples if needed, but I think it's pretty obvious.

I'm not saying designers get worse when they're older, I'm not saying that they learn nothing. I'm sure a lot of them do learn a lot of skills. But what I am saying is, they don't seem to translate to experienced designers regularly turning out better-quality products in terms of mechanics-design, balance, or either sheet coolness or actual innovation (let's not say originality) in setting/world design.

So I ask, do we actually particularly want designers with 20+ years of experience? Hiring the best person for an essentially creative role like this doesn't necessarily mean hiring the most experienced individual, nor putting them in charge (or we'd only get the same few movie directors until they died). WotC has historically cut tonnes of super-experienced people, so let's not pretend there's any barrier to letting people go. Maybe we actually want a mix of people with experience, and people who are a lot less experienced, but who have stronger visions and more radical ideas about system and setting design involved.

Given WotC's famous Christmas firings and so on, I don't think "earned a slot" is really valid, and it's clear WotC knows how to "clear the decks" when it wants to. So I guess I don't see any catch-22 here. If WotC wanted younger, more diverse designers, I don't think it would actually have much difficulty getting them.

The thing with established designers is they are a known quantity. You are reasonably certain about the type and quality of work you will get from them because they have do so year after year.

Taking on a very inexpereinced designer has more risk though possibly more reward as well. Imagine taking on an inexperienced designer as a contractor to see what they have. You find that the quality or design philosophy of their work leaves something to be desired. So you don’t renew their contract. Then they blast you on social media and people make spurious allegations about your motives.

Not saying that is what happened here...Like everyone else, even if they act otherwise, I just don’t know and probably never will. But I can see if anything how an experience like this may make WoTC less likely to give new and less expereinced staff an opportunity. I doubt that is the case because I think they will want to try and undo any damage this has done but one never knows.

 

[Zardnaar]

See I think this is of interest because to me the question is, how much does experience really help an RPG designer? The reason I ask this is that it's clearly not a discipline that's comparable to software engineers, say, nor even to many elements of video game development. What's particularly of note, to me, following the careers of a lot of tabletop RPG designers, is that many of them don't seem to significantly improve over time. They don't come up with better designs mechanically. They don't come up with more exciting or more rounded worlds/settings. That's not to say mechanics don't get revised and improved - it's just that I see zero evidence that having the original designer, or a highly experienced designer look at the rules ensures they will improve. Indeed, if I looked closely, I bet we could find examples of highly experienced designers making things worse.

Many designers come up with their best work, particularly conceptually, but sometimes systems-wise too, quite early in their careers. I can give examples if needed, but I think it's pretty obvious.

I'm not saying designers get worse when they're older, I'm not saying that they learn nothing. I'm sure a lot of them do learn a lot of skills. But what I am saying is, they don't seem to translate to experienced designers regularly turning out better-quality products in terms of mechanics-design, balance, or either sheet coolness or actual innovation (let's not say originality) in setting/world design.

So I ask, do we actually particularly want designers with 20+ years of experience? Hiring the best person for an essentially creative role like this doesn't necessarily mean hiring the most experienced individual, nor putting them in charge (or we'd only get the same few movie directors until they died). WotC has historically cut tonnes of super-experienced people, so let's not pretend there's any barrier to letting people go. Maybe we actually want a mix of people with experience, and people who are a lot less experienced, but who have stronger visions and more radical ideas about system and setting design involved.

Given WotC's famous Christmas firings and so on, I don't think "earned a slot" is really valid, and it's clear WotC knows how to "clear the decks" when it wants to. So I guess I don't see any catch-22 here. If WotC wanted younger, more diverse designers, I don't think it would actually have much difficulty getting them.

Adventure design it matters.

Paizo has a very experienced group there. Kobold Press Wolfgang Bauer got his first adventure in Dungeon 1991 iirc.

Paizo took on more freelancers but there was a dip in quality as well.

Generally 5E gas been making good stuff yes? There's a reason for that.

Another factor is we might be seeing the effect of no Dragon/Dungeon for 13 years.

There's no real new way to enter the hobby the current designers used.

There's DMGuild but that's gonna take time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The thing with established designers is they are a known quality. You are reasonably certain about the type and quality of work you will get from them because they have do so year after year.

Sure. My issue that it's pretty clear that with a lot of designers with permanent roles that quality is... somewhat mediocre, and definitely not exciting. Hence my suggestion of a mix of more and less experienced designers/writers.

Taking on a very inexpereinced designer has more risk though possibly more reward as well. Imagine taking on an inexperienced designer as a contractor to see what they have. You find that the quality or design philosophy of their work leaves something to be desired. So you don’t renew their contract. Then they blast you on social media and people make spurious allegations about your motives.

I feel like anyone who is suggesting contractors are generally let go/kept on primarily because of work quality, in 2020, in a corporate environment, is being pretty silly (if it was bad enough to be notable, they'd have been kicked out before the contract was over - I've seen it happen). The vast majority of contractors in corporate environments, in 2020, are let go for one of two reasons - the project they were contracted for has finished, or the company was belt-tightening (or the department, or whatever).

I've seen this at great length in corporate law-firms. We hire a bunch of contractors. They range from the deeply brilliant and hard-working to relative slackers and everything in-between, Then they get let go. The hard-working/brilliant ones too. In fact I can't think of a single example of a contractor having their contract renewed for any reason except that their services were still needed, and again typically the slackers got renewed with the hard workers. In some cases their services were still needed but they still all got let go and entirely new bunch came in. This was particularly common when the firm couldn't decide if it still needed them until they'd already got contracted or hired somewhere else.

Of those who get made permanent (which includes me, I note), it's typically because they have some weird combo of skills and were lucky enough to get to show that off.

Not saying that is what happened here...Like everyone else, even if they act otherwise, I just don’t know and probably never will. But I can see if anything how an experience like this may make WoTC less likely to give new and less expereinced staff an opportunity.

Any company which treats this as being burned and retreats from using contractors because of it, rather than learning from it and doing a better job in future, has incompetent management, period. I feel like anyone suggesting that, and seriously believing that, well I hope to god they're not in management anywhere, because they're not suitable for management.

Generally 5E gas been making good stuff yes? There's a reason for that.

Adventure-wise? Not really. I mean, maybe you don't mean adventures, but you just mentioned them re: Paizo. 5E's adventures have been of quite variable quality. Even in terms of production values. I see them because my friends have bought some of them on Beyond and we're all content-sharing, but I've definitely not been particularly impressed by what I've seen, overall. Strahd was pretty good, so I guess there's that.

In terms of other products? I think the main success has been something @Parmandur has articulated - 5E's team have been good at picking stuff that will actually sell. I'm skeptical that has anything to do with designer experience, and I strongly suspect it's down to management decisions. The actual mechanics, spells, subclasses, races and so on have been of variable quality. UA has mitigated this to some extent, but unfortunately a lot of material that really should have gone via UA and been helped, hasn't been, and a bunch of other stuff received post-UA/playtesting changes that were not

From a financial perspective, WotC is making none of the mistakes TSR did. From a design perspective, they're still making mistakes. Not the same mistakes as 3E or 4E, but mistakes nonetheless. I think what this shows is that's there's some significant value in management experience, but much less value in lengthy design experience. 5E's arguably best mechanical designer (Jeremy Crawford) has significantly less experience than a lot of other people who have been involved in D&D.

There have also been some kind of wacky decisions about what to focus on in books, which have left me pondering the value they offer, and which very much reminded me of some the more dubious decisions White Wolf made in terms of allocating space in splatbooks and the like. And the stuff where they have seemed really solid? Like the monster books and Xanathars? They seem to have given up on that.

 

[Umbran]

Even if we ignore for example the racial element, and even the gender element, and we just look at male voting rights, you have middle and upper class people insisting that working class people who want voting rights, want political rights are going too far...

Mod Note:
@Ruin Explorer
We allow discussion of these topis as related to gaming. You are very far afield at this point, and we need you to bring it back in.

Why, because I don't agree?

@Mercurius

No, because you accuse unnamed people of having done a stack of bad things, without really having evidence for such. The accusations about self-criticism, for example, is an insult and attack on the person not on their position. In addition, there is the implication in your writing that self-critical people would not disagree with you - which is assuming your conclusion.

Both of you probably need to reconsider how you are approaching this, and similar topics, at this point. I recommend you not re-engage if this is how you intend to continue.

 

[Haffrung]

A bunch of white people (initially guys, initially middle or upper class) decide that the minority who are protesting, or taking a political stance, are "going too far".

The notion that these culture war struggles are white men vs marginalized groups is tidy and attractive. But it's not borne out by reality. Progressive activists are disproportionately white. The great majority of marginalized groups do not hold woke beliefs when it comes to language and culture (only 24 per cent of Black American men self-identify as liberal). Large majorities of all demographics dislike the policing of culture and speech that characterize progressive activism.

The culture wars aren't white men vs women and people or colour. Or 50 per cent of society vs 50 per cent of society. They're 10-15 per cent of mostly white people vs 10-15 per cent of mostly white people engaging in polarized rancour on social media, while the great majority of the rest of society, including most women and people of colour, just carry on with their day-to-day lives.

 

[Haffrung]

I'm not saying designers get worse when they're older, I'm not saying that they learn nothing. I'm sure a lot of them do learn a lot of skills. But what I am saying is, they don't seem to translate to experienced designers regularly turning out better-quality products in terms of mechanics-design, balance, or either sheet coolness or actual innovation (let's not say originality) in setting/world design.

So I ask, do we actually particularly want designers with 20+ years of experience?

When it comes to adventures, long experience as a DM almost certainly helps. 20+ years is probably unnecessary. But I think most people aren't turning out top-rate homebrew adventures until they have at least 5 or 6 years of experience of running the game and creating adventure under their belts. Then, like any professional writing job, you need a couple years experience in submissions, meeting style guides, proving you can hit deadlines, and establishing a body of work before you're trusted with larger assignments.

Prodigies do sometimes happen, but I'd be skeptical of the quality of adventure turned in by someone who started DMing three years ago and submitted their first published content a year ago.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The notion that these culture war struggles are white men vs marginalized groups is tidy and attractive. But it's not borne out by reality.

You're discussing something entirely separate from what I was discussing in the quote, I was focusing on a historical pattern of behaviour within causes (and not just on the left, or even necessarily on the left/right political axis at all), so that would all be people in your 10-15%.

I also noted later that this specifically didn't just apply to white people, and historically occurred repeatedly with any cause desiring change. However, as per Umbran's suggestion I'm not intending to discuss it further.