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.

​

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.

 

[DLIMedia]

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

I often wonder "why don't they say anything about that?", then wonder "what kind of response were they expecting?" when they do.

Guess they can't win.

 

[Halivar]

Then, for the sake of consistency, we must consider all freelance content is outsourcing.

 

[TheDonger]

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.

There's no "fundamental misunderstanding" of the term "outsourcing" on his part. He's taking umbrage with the negative connotation with the term that suggests WoTC simply handed off the project to a third-party and had no real involvement. He just wants to emphasize that the process was very collaborative and that WoTC was very involved.

 

[Mistwell]

Amusingly, I was just having a debate on this on the WotC forums.

I think Crawford is exaggerating the impact WotC has on the product. Their role may have been intensive, but it was still managerial. And I doubt everyone in the WotC credits in the cover of the books had a large influence on the product. They have weekly phonecalls with N-space to review and discuss Sword Coast Legends, but that doesn't mean WotC contributed a meaningful port
But that's to be expected, since they want the adventures to seem official.

Wow. So your belief, which was based on nothing other than your own personal guess, is so strong that rather than consider changing your perspective once you see new facts, you're still more comfortable suggesting Crawford is lying (you say exaggerating, but his entire point is to refute the very thing you're claiming) than reconsider your position.

Wow. OK then. I think you shouldn't complain again about WOTC being too silent (though I suspect you will). You punish explanations with accusations if the explanation doesn't match your preconceive notions.

 

[justinj3x3]

There's no "fundamental misunderstanding" of the term "outsourcing" on his part. He's taking umbrage with the negative connotation with the term that suggests WoTC simply handed off the project to a third-party and had no real involvement. He just wants to emphasize that the process was very collaborative and that WoTC was very involved.

If he said it that way it would have been understandable. That's not how he said it though. It came off as if he was saying it isn't outsourced because they collaborate.

 

[Uder]

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

Because people call them on it when they try to redefine reality? I'm fine with them being silent when it comes to BS like this. Put out good books, answer rules questions and shill for the corp somewhere else. I'll bet that somehow the word "outsourced" kept coming up in surveys linked to complaints on quality. Now they want to fix us rather than fix themselves. Hopefully this is just a misstep and they'll remember the fallout from the 4E ad campaign.

 

[Mistwell]

If they are super involved as they say they are why do they keep laying off people and "restructuring"?

From what I can tell, they've gone from 13 people to about 30 people in the D&D department since the start of 5e. Sometimes they terminate people, but when they follow that with hiring twice as many, I am not sure it's really a "layoff" as that term is normally known. It's not about reduced overall work causing them to let people go. It is, as they said, restructuring - getting rid of people with Focus X, and hiring more people (twice as many in fact) with Focus Y.

It feels like all I ever hear from WOTC is layoffs, and never new hires.

Well, I just recently noted 12 new hires, many of which are old we just never heard about them. Hiring new people doesn't necessarily catch attention such that it gets reported. I mean, if you are following someone on Twitter and they say they just got fired, you have news. But if you are not following someone (because they don't work at WOTC) and then they tweet they just got hired at WOTC, you don't hear that news (because you didn't know to follow them). Hence, we don't hear about hirings nearly as often as we hear about firings. But, once you look at the credits pages of the newer releases, and compare them to the existing list of known hires, it becomes clear they've hired a lot of people.

Bottom line, the myth that the D&D department is a skeleton crew turns out to be false - we just have not been hearing about the hires.

 

[Mistwell]

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!

If they don't manufacture the paper that goes into the books, do we claim the books were outsourced? Is there a single product that isn't outsourced under your definition, unless the company makes all physical materials in a manufacturing plant from raw materials? And I guess they have to grow/mine all raw materials themselves too? That's not what outsourcing means. If it were, then zero products are in-house.

Outsourcing is when you use another company to produce the entire product, and then you put your label on it and distribute it. These are joint ventures. A joint venture isn't the same as outsourcing.

 

[justinj3x3]

If they don't manufacture the paper that goes into the books, do we claim the books were outsourced? Is there a single product that isn't outsourced under your definition, unless the company makes all physical materials in a manufacturing plant from raw materials? And I guess they have to grow/mine all raw materials themselves too? That's not what outsourcing means. If it were, then zero products are in-house.

Outsourcing is when you use another company to produce the entire product, and then you put your label on it and distribute it. These are joint ventures. A joint venture isn't the same as outsourcing.

OUTSOURCING
verb (used with object), outsourced, outsourcing. 1. (of a company or organization) to purchase (goods) or subcontract (services) from an outside supplier or source.

2. to contract out (jobs, services, etc.): a small business that outsources bookkeeping to an accounting firm.

 

[justinj3x3]

OUTSOURCING
verb (used with object), outsourced, outsourcing. 1. (of a company or organization) to purchase (goods) or subcontract (services) from an outside supplier or source.

2. to contract out (jobs, services, etc.): a small business that outsources bookkeeping to an accounting firm.

From Dictionary.reference.com

(I hit reply with quote instead of edit. Oops!)