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.

 

[Morrus]

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

 

[justinj3x3]

English is my second language and I clearly doesn't understand it as well as I thought. Please tell which part of the two quoted sentences (repeated below for easy reference) counts as doublespeak.

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

Sure! See that part where he says "team effort", meaning WOTC and GR or Sasquatch or whoever. That means an outside company is working on the product, which means work was outsourced.

So to insinuate that the product is not outsourced (the "I'm confused" part) and proceed to explain how the product is done by them and an outside company (which is outsourcing) is doublespeak.

 

[justinj3x3]

That's some Stark-level newspeak.

Edit: lol, should've read before posting. Hilarious to see people already essentially saying "He says right there what he wants us to believe, so we have to believe it!"

There's a term for that. 'Sheeple'.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's a bit of semantic dramatics going on here.

In the Day Job, I work really closely with the group we have in India, who does some of our more "churn through it with brute human effort" stuff. I'd definitely consider that outsourcing - we're letting them do it because they're cheaper than having a full-time employee do it.

I also work really closely with that group, seeing their daily output, adjusting it, making sure it conforms to our internal standards. It's a managerial role for them, and a vital one, but they're the ones actually doing the brute-force involved.

This is neither good nor bad per se - it's a mix of both. In WotC's case, I think it's probably more good than bad, though it does carry with it that stigma of a dramatically shrunk D&D RPG team that has some of the community concerned that the RPG is going to get mothballed or something.

So I think at least some of the cries against this...relationship?...are less concerned about the term "outsourcing" and more concerned that WotC's D&D team isn't big enough to do this themselves. Which isn't the most insane concern, though it can be a little Chicken-Little-y at its most extreme.

 

[Ashran]

Who cares if it's outsourcing, half in-house or less than that... What's important is the final product and the fact that all parties are credited in it. I enjoyed the books to various degree (I think Princes of Apocalypse was strictly better than the other two, but there are nice things in all three books so far). Is it really that important to know exactly how they produced those books ?

 

[pedr]

Indeed, Morrus. This thread confuses me.

Clearly there's likely to be a significant difference between WotC selling T-Shirts (actually licenced to another company to create and sell) where it's likely that their involvement is specification and approval; and WotC creating an adventure where the detail of the story, the plot, the feel, the specific new mechanics, and many other elements will be both specified in outline at the start of the project and updated, clarified, etc during it - potentially with hands-on development or editing at certain points.

Maybe some people would still describe that as outsourcing but I expect most would interpret that word closer to the first situation than the second and using it to imply that WotC doesn't have meaningful involvement with these adventures is using it to give an inaccurate impression, and thereby to criticise WotC for something they're not doing (or, to be precise) to criticise them for not doing something which they are, in fact, doing.

That's separate from the point: why does this matter at all? Some consumers want to buy more official WotC stuff. Most WotC stuff isn't written by full time WotC staffers anyway, and hasn't been for a long time, so what's the problem. Theoretically this model should produce better adventures than if one freelancer did the first half, another the monster design, etc and only communicated via their WotC contact.

 

[Maggan]

Is it really that important to know exactly how they produced those books ?

Maybe not important, but interesting. I wonder how this compares to how Paizo is producing content? Is that all in-house or outsourced? Stuff like that are fun to know.

 

[Zaukrie]

That's not fair Morrus. What he describes is literally the definition of outsourcing part of the work. To say it isn't shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the word. Just talk about the process, and don't take umbrage at a word that everyone else uses the way he doesn't like. If he had come out and explained the process, without being all offended, things would be great.

 

[justinj3x3]

That's not fair Morrus. What he describes is literally the definition of outsourcing part of the work. To say it isn't shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the word. Just talk about the process, and don't take umbrage at a word that everyone else uses the way he doesn't like. If he had come out and explained the process, without being all offended, things would be great.

Exactly! The explanation is completely appreciated, but telling me outsourcing isn't outsourcing insults my intelligence.

 

[Mistwell]

The D&D team just isn't large enough to handle publishing a lot of content... and I'm pretty sure that's because it's not profitable enough. Working with smaller companies allows them to put things out in a way that makes sense and money with the team they have. I imagine it works well for the companies involved, since they get to reach a broader audience and don't assume all the risk themselves. The fact that they are opening this relationship up with companies to produce setting material suggests this will be the model going forward and that the only type of products that are made solely in-house will be core books (like a Monster Manual 2).

So the most recent count, from what I can tell, is roughly 30 people in the D&D department. Why is that not large enough?