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.

 

[collin]

I am glad you created this post. It explains a lot to me as far as what can be perceived as a slow release of materials, such as adventures for the D&D brand. With this much to-and-fro between WotC and Company X, it would seem to me to take quite a bit longer than if 1 company were simply creating the material from start to finish, and if a 3rd party then getting the blessing from WotC. "More cooks in the kitchen making the soup", as it were.

 

[Celebrim]

It's not "outsourcing". It's a focus on expanding the brand experience.

By outsourcing.

 

[Evenglare]

If they are super involved as they say they are why do they keep laying off people and "restructuring"? It feels like all I ever hear from WOTC is layoffs, and never new hires. I mean.. I KNOW they have to hire, or else they'd have like... negative people working there. It's just all I ever hear is the exit of people very rarely do I hear about the hiring of new people.

So, relating to the supposed involvement... I'm kind of scratching my head. There's only 3 scenarios that can be considered here.
1. WOTC bears the brunt of the work. Which is clearly not the case.
2. The 3rd party does much of the work with a bit of WOTC oversight. This is what I and many others assumed. This article clearly tries to dissuade that thought.
3. There's about a 50-50 partnership, which is what is being pitched. So if both companies are putting in equal time then why is wizards laying people off? The claim is they make concept art and stories... but they just laid off an artist and several other people right after 5e came out such as editors etc.

So if they make these stories/ art and they require a team... then lets say that the 3rd party and the WOTC team do things 50-50. This assumes that each company has about half the work input on story and art and mechanics etc. So now the WOTC team is down an artist. From what I can tell the WOTC D&D team isn't big to begin with so I have to imagine that every person on the team is working pretty much fulltime with these collaborations. If you lose an artist then the work has to get shifted to someone or else your modules aren't going to reflect your earlier works.

So the art must either be shifted to ANOTHER WOTC member, which I can't imagine another artist could take the extra work load (god help their soul if this is the case, that work load must be immense) or they shift the art to the 3rd party, in this case how can a person possibly say that both companies do equal work? If the 3rd party is doing much more work than wizards than how can you possibly say it isn't "outsourcing" as we talk about (most of the work is being done by the 3rd party which is overseen by wizards QA and such.)

There are only so many cases here and when you start laying off people work loads start to shift around. I feel like we are not being told entirely the whole story.

 

[pedr]

This is what' got me confused, specifically about Sasquach... They are creating a WotC licensed product, yet they don't have their own license and are proceeding with the expectation that their upcoming Thule 5E product can be published under the OGL. Those two things seem a bit contradictory... Is Sasquach licensed to create 5E content or not?

The arrangements leading to the creation of these D&D adventures does not have any licensing at all, as the partners are not publishing the adventures. They are contractors, providing their adventure writing services to WotC. That isn't at all connected with what the companies do as publishers in their own right.

Now, if we can assume a close working relationship between the companies, and key decision-makers in the companies, it may be an indication that WotC have no objections to the third-party publishing activities of their partners, but that's an extrapolation from the facts. Nothing in the relationship which governs the creation of Princes of the Apocalypse is likely to do anything to permit or prohibit work which Sasquatch does for its own publishing.

 

[JeffB]

This is what' got me confused, specifically about Sasquach... They are creating a WotC licensed product, yet they don't have their own license and are proceeding with the expectation that their upcoming Thule 5E product can be published under the OGL. Those two things seem a bit contradictory... Is Sasquach licensed to create 5E content or not?

It's not that complicated.

They were licensed to write a D&D Fifth Edition product for WOTC, and they did it.

They are now doing a book based on their own IP, using the OGL to intend compatibility with the 5th edition of the worlds greatest rpg , or whatever they want to say for legal reasons.. Just like Frog God, and Goodman have done with their 5E compatible products.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

It seems to me that this seemingly new practice of hiring these exterior studios to work on these products is akin to the prior, and likely ongoing, practice of hiring freelancers for projects. It's not so much outsourcing as hiring an established team of freelancers instead of hiring them on piece-meal. These freelance employees, or sub-contractors, are doing work that they need right now, but that they can't rationalize hiring on as full-time employees of WotC. Hiring the established team of freelancers ensures that they work well together and have already developed a rapport -- WotC doesn't have to worry about potentially poor working chemistry between independent freelancers mucking up their product quality.

 

[justinj3x3]

I call doublespeak on Jeremy Crawford. He says he is confused by us saying they are outsourcing then proceeds to tell us how they collaborate on the products that have been outsourced. If work goes out to another company it is outsourced. Its like the Elemental Evil Players Handbook not being cancelled because it was never announced. These guys should run with Hillary and Jeb with these kinds of proclamations!

 

[Zaukrie]

As someone that outsources parts of the projects we run here.....what he describes sounds like outsourcing to me.

 

[justinj3x3]

It seems to me that this seemingly new practice of hiring these exterior studios to work on these products is akin to the prior, and likely ongoing, practice of hiring freelancers for projects. It's not so much outsourcing as hiring an established team of freelancers instead of hiring them on piece-meal. These freelance employees, or sub-contractors, are doing work that they need right now, but that they can't rationalize hiring on as full-time employees of WotC. Hiring the established team of freelancers ensures that they work well together and have already developed a rapport -- WotC doesn't have to worry about potentially poor working chemistry between independent freelancers mucking up their product quality.

Which is fine. I think they just need to communicate more (which they seem to be starting to do) and stop with the corporate BS which is insulting to the fans (well fan, speaking for myself).

Nice avatar BTW. I was pumped when I saw his cameo in Walking Dead!!

 

[machineelf]

Perhaps "sub-contracting a bulk of the work" is a more apt description. I don't really care how they get it done, as long as they produce quality adventure material.