WotC WotC Removes Digital Content Team Credits From D&D Beyond

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According to Faith Elisabeth Lilley, who was on the digital content team at Wizards of the Coast, the contributor credits for the team have been removed from DDB.

The team was responsible for content feedback and the implementation of book content on the online platform. While it had been indicated to them that they would not be included in the credits of the physical books for space reasons, WotC apparently agreed to include them in the online credits.

It appears that those credits have now been removed.

I just discovered that I have been removed from book credits on D&D Beyond for books I worked on while at Wizards of the Coast.

Background:

While at Wizards (so after D&D Beyond was purchased) - with numerous books, my digital content team and I worked directly with the book team on the content, reading through rules drafts, suggesting changes, giving ideas, and catching issues. We had a full database of the content and understood exactly how it interacted.

Given that we were contributing to the content in the books, I felt it reasonable to request that team be added to the credits, but was informed the credits section was already too crowded with the number of people involved and many of the marketing team had already been dropped from credits. I felt strongly that anyone actually contributing to what is in the printed book should be credited though, so we agreed a compromise, that the team would be added to the credits page on D&D Beyond only, as there is no issue with "not enough space" on a web page.

I've added screenshots here that I had for some of the books.

At some point recently, those credits pages have been edited to remove the credits for me and the content team. Nobody reached out to let me know - it just happened at some point, and I only just noticed.

We've even been removed from the digital-only releases, that only released on D&D Beyond, such as the Spelljammer Academy drops.

I'm not angry or upset, just yet again, really disappointed, as somehow I expected better.

EDIT TO ADD MORE CONTEXT

It's not just getting the books online. I worked with Kyle & Dan to improve the overall book process from ideation to delivery across all mediums (you should have seen the huge process charts I built out...)

The lead designers would send over the rules for each new rulebook and we'd go through it, give feedback, highlight potential balance issues, look at new rules/design that was difficult to implement digitally and suggest tweaks to improve it etc etc. We even had ideas for new content that was then included in the book.

We'd go through the whole book in detail, catching inconsistencies and miscalculations, and I'm proud to say that we dramatically reduced the need for clarifications or errata on those books.

I'm not saying anyone on the design or book team was careless - far from it, they're consummate professionals - I am just illustrating the role my team and I had in contributing to the content, quality & success of the physical books, let alone the digital versions.

We should have been in the credits section of the physical printed book. We were part of the creative process. That was something we were actively discussing when I was informed I was being laid off.

Adding the team to the credits pages just on D&D Beyond was, as I mentioned above, a compromise while we figured things out.

My team were fully credited on the Cortex: Prime and Tales of Xadia books when D&D Beyond was still part of Fandom, before the Wizards acquisition.

In fact for those books we made sure to credit the entire digital development team, including developers, community managers and so forth - everyone who helped make the book successful.

I know that Wizards has hundreds of people involved and previously hit issues with the number of people in credits for D&D books, so pulled back from crediting some roles.

Would it be so bad to have to dedicate extra space in a book to the people whose contributions made the book successful?

I really don't think it would.
 

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Given it's history, I think lose/lose might be in Hasbro's mission statement. They seem to make bad decisions more often than they make toys.
They do have a consistent history over the last several years of finding ways to piss off their fans, show a tin ear to their community, and show that they don't care about individuals. Sounds like a big, dumb company that's interested in profit over a quality product. If you do the latter, and are smart about promoting it (which includes community relations), the former will generally come your way. WOTC, instead seems to focus on the former first, which always leads to a decline in the quality of the latter. Always.
 

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As a freelance writer for smaller TTRPG companies, credits are SO important to us because, as others have mentioned above, they are our proof that we worked on/were part of a book/team.

I know for certain that working on D&D opens more doors in TTRPG freelancing than anything else, and I feel for these people who, after getting the proverbial foot through the door, now find their contributions retroactively erased 😔

I hope that social media can make enough of a ruckus so WotC rectifies the situation and, even better, includes these people's contributions on the physical books too 🥺

We need a freelance TTRPG writers' union 💪
 

As we all know that for many readers/gamers, any names in the Credits or next to the Byline is invisible and the only people who usually care about these things are industry professionals
This is important, particularly for those trying to build resumes.

I was recently at Origins and saw the physical copies of some books I was called in to do some last minute mechanics work on. out of curiosity I looked inside to see how they credited me (I was curious if I was listed under "contributor" or "special thanks" or whatever) and discovered that I was not credited at all. That miffed me, mostly because I have been trying to stay at least a little active despite professional and education responsibilities keeping me from freelancing as much as I would like. I want to be able to be able to start looking for work when those responsibilities diminish (another 9 months or so, gawds willing) but I need a resume that shows consistent work for that to happen.

So it isn't a small thing that folks have their credits removed from anything they work on, no matter the capacity. Those little stepping stones can add up.
 




I really question why they always do such dumb things at the worst possible opportunities.
Even if it was an oversight that they removed that page in some update, it is still dumb.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that is was an oversight. The OP on Facebook has a further update not reported in the post here:
📝
SECOND EDIT:
I checked in with someone still at Wizards, because I don't want to cause drama if there was a genuine mistake made.
"Yes, the change was intentional. I can't comment further as that's above my pay grade."
🙄
 
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Who says that?
Not many, but I see it in various places from time to time. A quick search here yields an old thread:

Not to single anyone out. Most folks are cool when it is explained to them it takes work (done by people) to get it up there.
 

Games Workshop is rather infamous for not crediting the artists who illustrate their books and paint their miniatures. They used to credit their artists, but stopped at some point and many speculate the reason is to keep these artists from gaining their own popularity to prevent them from striking out on their own.
 

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