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This was a super fun interview with wonderful people about some work of mine I'm really proud of, in a product I think is really slickly and smartly put together. If you're interested in D&D or in Theros, check it out! But I need to give a caveat to one thing I said. https://twitter.com/TheVorthosCast/status/1295316774171348993
You might notice a couple spots where I sort of awkwardly emphasized that *I* had a very good experience working on the book. Why put it that way? Bluntly: because at least one other person credited in the book did not have a good experience at Wizards. https://twitter.com/DungeonCommandr/status/1279208531103629312
I should have decided before the interview whether I wanted to talk about Orion's open letter and discussed it with my hosts. I didn't even think about it--and getting to prep for an interview without having to think about it is just one more way that my path is easier.
Not having cleared it with my hosts--and, frankly, not being particularly courageous when I'm caught flat-footed--I punted. I did not directly address it in the interview. I wish I had. And again, this was solely my own omission.
I think a lot about this comic by @nathanwpyle. Is the owl a predator?
I really did have a good experience working on the book. It would be easy for me to assume that experience is universal--or, if it's not universal, that it's somehow due to my quality or character rather than all the ways I'm privileged to exist without scrutiny.
Orion's letter lays out some serious issues--issues that Wizards can't fix with a tweet or a job posting, issues that can only be fixed by doing the long, hard work of actually fucking fixing them. And even then, it's not my place to say if they've succeeded.
Absolutely everything that somebody like me--straight, cis, white, male--has to say about working for Wizards, or anywhere else, is useful only inasmuch as it applies to somebody like me. I can't speak for anyone else except to say, listen to them. And it doesn't sound good.
Wizards needs to do better, in ways I am not qualified to prescribe or evaluate. I don't even know whether it's ethical for me to keep taking their money, when others are unfairly denied that opportunity. But it's where a lot of my professional contacts are, and I need to eat.
Anyway, that's my long-winded caveat: I am aware of the issues surrounding Wizards in general and D&D in particular. I don't know what to do about them. But acknowledging those issues is literally the least I can do. In this interview I didn't do it, and I regret that.
Go give Orion some money. https://twitter.com/DungeonCommandr/status/1279210462182178817?s=20
