Who Makes WotC's Adventures?

There are now three large hardcover adventures for D&D 5th Edition. There's the two-part Tyranny of Dragons campaign produced by Kobold Press; there's Princes of the Apocalypse, from Sasquatch Game Studios; and there's the imminent Out of the Abyss, from Green Ronin publishing. All of these are official, hardcover adventures produced for WotC by third party companies. But how does that actually work? What is the relationship between the company producing the products and the company publishing them? WotC's Jeremy Crawford told me yesterday that the term "outsourcing" is innacurate when it comes to describing this arrangement.

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If we go back a bit to when I asked Kobold Press' Wolfgang Baur about the process, he told me that "the 5E adventures are produced as a combination of studio work and WotC oversight." He went on to describe it in a little more detail, highlighting a to-and-fro between the companies -- "we'd do some portion of the work, then we would get feedback from WotC on Realmslore, or story beats, or mechanics. Then we did more of the design, and got feedback from swarms of playtesters. Then we turned over another version for feedback on the art and layout. And so forth. It was iterative..." So collaboration clearly takes place all the way through the process.

He describes Kobold Press role as "the heavy lifting in design, development, and editing" with WotC having "crucial input and set the direction for what they wanted".

Moving ahead to now, WotC Jeremy Crawford observes that "It's bizarre to see a few posters on ENWorld mistake our [D&D 5E] collaborations as outsourcing. Each book has been a team effort." The input from WotC isn't just greenlighting the book at various stages; as Jeremy tells us "Our reviews are deep. We create the story & the concept art. We write portions of the books. We design mechanics. Etc.!" As he also points out, the credits page of each book tells us who contributed to each.

So there we have it. These books aren't outsourced to third parties in any traditional sense of that word; the books are written as a collaborative effort with writing and more done by both companies.

 

[pemerton]

when all I hear is corporate talking points and mention of nothing other than APs every so many months it's concerning. I'm so happy to hear about the Sword Coast book (which I may not buy at all) and wish they had said something like that was an intention (not a definite but an intention) earlier. I know it's paranoia, but like I said the tight-lipped approach leaves me with nothing but my own imagination.

I guess I don't see the cause for concern. Mearls is executing the plan he outlined. He has been clear what the plan is and the entire staff has been consistent with the messaging. I can understand not liking the plan, but I can't understand why anyone thinks WotC hasn't communicated the plan to the player base.

I guess that, like Celtavian, I don't really understand the concern/"paranoia"? What is there to be paranoid about? They wrote some books, you bought them, they are writing/commissioning some more books - which they announce from time to time - and, exactly as they announced a year or more ago, there is very little splat.

It just seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

[SuperTD]

I just like to give credit where credit is due. The WotC team did an effing amazing job with the core rulebooks and should feel super proud. But I'm not going to praise them for books they only had a partial role in creating.

"Our reviews are deep. We create the story & the concept art. We write portions of the books. We design mechanics. Etc.!"

So how much do they have to do for you to consider them at least partially praiseworthy? Sounds like they had a pretty hefty hand in creating the books.

 

[Hussar]

I'm finding the rather wide eyed innocent routine to be rather suspect. If you read posts, the only time someone drops the outsourcing bomb in the post to be negative. You never hear anyone say, "Hey, isn't it great that WOTC is outsourcing this adventure?" It's always, "Well, X sucks, and that's only to be expected since WOTC's decision to outsource everything".

If you find yourself being put off by Crawford's words, perhaps a bit of self reflection might be in order because, AFAIC, you're exactly who he's talking about. "Outsource" is just a shorthanded way of criticising the "corporate suits that run D&D" instead of the true fans who should be in charge of producing D&D. And anyone trying to claim that they are using the term while completely ignorant of the connotations is blowing smoke.

 

[justinj3x3]

And this, ladies and gents, is why WotC prefers not to ever say anything.

And THIS quote annoys me to no end. I'm sorry is WOTC a school kid getting picked on by a bully or a company getting negative feedback? WOTC is a company. Companies, especially on the internet, have plenty of negative feedback. ALL companies get it. So WOTC can either put on their big boy pants or a helmet or get out of the business if they can't take it.

 

[pedr]

If a company's employees feel that every word they use will be scrutinised for a perceived inconsistency and lead to a new focus on something the company "has done wrong" then they will stop using new forms of communication to interact with fans and fan media.

I am sure that it is annoying to feel that someone in a company is trying to refute a criticism which one has made of it, by clarifying something which the criticisers appear to be wrong about. But if the reaction to that feeling of annoyance is to attack the wording of the message then there will be consequences. The criticism in this thread seems to be focused on whether something is "outsourcing" rather than the criticism being "WotC isn't really involved in these adventures so they can't take any credit for them and we can be rightfully critical of WotC for abandoning support of the TRPG".

Jeremy Crawford's casual, Twitter-limited response to try to engage in good faith with those he assumed had a genuine misunderstanding over the role of WotC in these products is a good thing for many who read it or who read Morrus's write up of it. We would be worse off if he hadn't done it. But this thread hasn't been about the substance of that clarification - about whether those critical of what they perceive as outsourcing have a better view of WotC's involvement now. It's been about whether what WotC is doing "counts" as not outsourcing.

And this focus on tangential matters seems to happen every time (the "can't cancel an unannounced book" keeps getting brought up, despite what Mike Mearls was saying being entirely accurate - WotC didn't announce a book despite it being clear that they were considering and preparing for it, so cant "cancel" it, and players got everything WotC wanted to publish from that product for free and yet the criticisms remain!). So the foreseeable effect is that WotC employees may stop communicating. And I don't think any of us want that, so everyone has to choose to stop doing the things which will lead to it.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Fights about definitions are the best fights.

Define "fight"?

I see nothing wrong with outsourcing products and calling it what it is. At the end of the day, the product will still be judged on its own merits regardless of how many hands shaped it and what companies those people work for. I don't care if a product in development was passed around by 30 people like a bong as long as the finished product is something I like. As a long time player and DM, I am not really liking the current adventures and it has nothing to do with who is making them and their relationships with each other.

The thing that is making them suck is that they are trying to sell stories. In a role playing game, someone else's story sucks. The reason all adventures are being written as storylines? To tie into other products to promote the Global Brand Experience!

 

[Hussar]

And THIS quote annoys me to no end. I'm sorry is WOTC a school kid getting picked on by a bully or a company getting negative feedback? WOTC is a company. Companies, especially on the internet, have plenty of negative feedback. ALL companies get it. So WOTC can either put on their big boy pants or a helmet or get out of the business if they can't take it.

But, see, that's the thing. It's not that they can't "take it". It's that no matter what they say, how they say it, how often they say it or how loudly they say it, the same voices are going to "call them on it". I mean, it's pretty straightforward from this thread alone. Jeremy Crawford talks about how criticisms based on "outsourcing" are rather baffling. And they are. Good grief, RPG companies use freelancers all the time, and very many products are developed outside of the house with the final bits being done in house. That's just how things get done in publishing.

But, when WotC does it, it's apparently bad. Quality suffers because they are "outsourcing". We're not seeing any products because they are "outsourciing". WOTC isn't capable of doing whatever book I want right now because they are "outsourcing". It's utter and complete ballocks. If someone is collaborating on a daily or even weekly basis with another company, that's NOT outsourcing. That's collaboration. Yet, critics will continue to use loaded, negative words like outsourcing since it's easier than actually trying to make a valid point.

I mean, good grief, several posters in this thread have flat out accused Crawford of flat out lying. Never mind dredging up ridiculous past crap like "they can't cancel something they didn't announce".

It's every single time WOTC says anything public. Not just once in a while or sometimes, but every single time. And, typically by the same posters as well.

Again, as i said earlier, if you find Jeremy Crawford's comments to be somewhat pointed at you personally, then perhaps it's not all on his side of the fence.

 

[Hussar]

Define "fight"?

I see nothing wrong with outsourcing products and calling it what it is. At the end of the day, the product will still be judged on its own merits regardless of how many hands shaped it and what companies those people work for. I don't care if a product in development was passed around by 30 people like a bong as long as the finished product is something I like. As a long time player and DM, I am not really liking the current adventures and it has nothing to do with who is making them and their relationships with each other.

The thing that is making them suck is that they are trying to sell stories. In a role playing game, someone else's story sucks. The reason all adventures are being written as storylines? To tie into other products to promote the Global Brand Experience!

Sorry, but, could you define what you think is "suck"?

We've got two full adventure paths so far, one that is so so and mediocre. The other has been widely praised and very highly regarded.

Batting 500 so far. I'd say that's pretty far from "making them suck".

 

[Morrus]

And THIS quote annoys me to no end. I'm sorry is WOTC a school kid getting picked on by a bully or a company getting negative feedback? WOTC is a company. Companies, especially on the internet, have plenty of negative feedback. ALL companies get it. So WOTC can either put on their big boy pants or a helmet or get out of the business if they can't take it.

Those are not WotC's only options. There's the third option, the one they take - don't engage with the fans because this happens. And that's a worse situation for all of us. There's a reason there's that saying "don't read the comments!" This isn't "negative feedback"; it's people calling Jeremy Crawford a liar about something as trivial as a definition of a word. It's not reasonable behaviour by any metric. To be honest, I regret reporting on the tweet, and feel sorry for the man. He was only making an impromptu comment on Twitter - something he may now be less inclined to do.

WotC may be a company. The people we're directly discussing are human people, and members of our very small niche community. You're not at war with them. Not everything has to be phrased in combative terms.

Maybe the mistake was mine, writing a quick news article about it. I thought it would be interesting to share their PoV on the relationship.

And I think it's disingenuous to pretend the word "outsourcing" doesn't come with its own set of baggage which goes far beyond any dictionary definition. Quoting dictionaries is not the way to win any points in this discussion, as it completely misses the point.

And yes, I know I'm spitting into a hurricane. People will do what they want to do, and that's what they want to do, I guess.

 

[justinj3x3]

Those are not WotC's only options. There's the third option, the one they take - don't engage with the fans because this happens. And that's a worse situation for all of us. This isn't "negative feedback"; it's people calling Jeremy Crawford a liar about something as trivial as a definition of a word. It's not reasonable behaviour by any metric. To be honest, I regret reporting on the tweet, and feel sorry for the man. He was only making an impromptu comment on Twitter - something he may now be less inclined to do.

WotC may be a company. The people we're directly discussing are human people, and members of our very small niche community. You're not at war with them. Not everything has to be phrased in combative terms.

Maybe the mistake was mine, writing a quick news article about it. I thought it would be interesting to share their PoV on the relationship.

Ok fine. I'm wrong for feeling that what they are doing IS outsourcing and expressing that. I never attacked him or used the word liar. Clearly things are much too sensative around here for people to have a thing called freedom of speech, to express their views. I'll just stop posting ANYTHING negative and conform to the hive mind.