The company behind Dungeons & Dragons has issued a public apology following allegations made by a former freelancer regarding their treatment while working on the game. The apology was made to Orion Black, who released a scathing statement on Twitter about their time at Wizards of the Coast.
Orion Black is an indie tabletop game designer who created titles like Mutants into the Night and plot Armor. Black was hired by Wizards of the Coast as a narrative designer in 2019, but they recently announced on Twitter that they were no longer working for the company.
Black released a lengthy statement on Twitlonger that accused Wizards of the Coast of a number of things. According to Black, liking or interacting with a tweet that criticizes Wizards of the Coast is a quick way to lose your job with the company. Black believes that they were a diversity hire, due to being non-binary & black, and that their opinions and criticisms were ignored by the company.
What Orion Black Has Said Regarding WOTC
Black says that there was a lot of internal talk within Wizards of the Coast about how there was going to be a greater focus on diversity and treating the staff better, but they hired two cis white men for leadership positions, one of whom admitted they weren't qualified for the job. The most scathing accusation in Black's post involves one of their ideas being stolen. According to Black, they submitted an idea for a project, which led to another individual within the company pitching the ideas as their own and having them included in the project.
One thing that prompted Black to speak out was a statement issued by Wizards of the Coast in June regarding changes to race-related content in Dungeons & Dragons and expanding the staff of the company, with contributors that reflect the more diverse audience of the game. It was around this time that Wizards of the Coast also removed Magic: The Gathering cards that were deemed racist, even though they had been issued many years earlier. Black accused Wizards of the Coast of paying freelancers a 1/3 of what the contracted staff make, and that freelancers who are people of color are never hired.
What Wizards of the Coast Has Said
Wizards of the Coast Senior Communications Manager Greg Tito responded to Black's post back on July 4 with an apology, and he promised to work harder to make sure another situation like this doesn't happen again. Screen Rant had spoken to Tito back in June, where we discussed diversity in tabletop games and the growing audience for the game.
Today, Wizards of the Coast has issued an apology to Black on Twitter and has resolved to follow up on their statement regarding their treatment within the company. The Twitter account links to the diversity statement made by the company on the official Dungeons & Dragons website in several comments, though fans have criticized them for their inaction and the statement being meaningless.
Recently, Dungeons & Dragons game had its best-ever year of sales in 2019, which many have attributed to the growing influence of the game on streaming sites. Wizards of the Coast has a chance to expand the brand in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, and a big part of that is reaching new audiences and making the game as inclusive as possible. Orion Black's experiences should neither be ignored, nor forgotten, and Wizards of the Coast needs action instead of words if it wants to prove that Dungeons & Dragons has evolved from the days when it was an exclusionary hobby.
Sources: DungeonCommandr/Twitter, DungeonCommandr/Twitlonger, Gregtito/Twitter, WizardsDnD/Twitter, DnDWizards