20.10.2020

The creators of the Dragonlance universe sued Wizards of the Coast for over $10 million

The creators of the Dragonlance universe sued Wizards of the Coast, which suddenly canceled the release of their several new books. The authors want to recover over $10 million from the company and believe that the termination of the contract is connected with racist scandals around the publisher.Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss, 2008

Brief chronology of the conflict

Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, who have written many books on the Dragonlance universe they created in the 80s, believe that Wizards of the Coast illegally terminated their contract with them;

  • In 2017, the company approached Hickman and Weiss with a request to write a new trilogy on the universe.
  • The parties signed a contract, and Del Rey Books was to act as publishers;during this time, the authors completed the first book “Dragons of Deceit” (Dragons of Deceit), which was fully approved by WotC, and wrote a draft version of the novel “Dragons of Fate” (Dragons of Fate);
  • On August 13, 2020, WotC unexpectedly announced that it would no longer accept new versions of manuscripts.
  • “We are not going to terminate the contract,” but we will no longer approve further drafts,” the company said in its explanation, which the authors called meaningless.;On October 16, Hickman and Weiss filed a lawsuit against WotC, because due to the actions of the company, they can neither publish their new books, nor receive the advance and fee guaranteed to them under the contract.
  • Why did WotC suddenly cancel the release of books?

Hickman and Weiss are sure that WotC’s decision is connected with several scandals that broke out around its products this year and coincided with the moment of the cancellation of the books;

  • the company was accused of racism, sexism and bad attitude towards employees.
  • At the same time, none of the scandals were directly related to the Dragonlance universe or the activities of its authors;Hickman and Weiss believe that WotC made the decision together with its parent company Hasbro to prevent possible image damage from new novels.
  • The history of scandals surrounding Wizards of the Coast

In June, WotC removed seven cards from Magic: The Gathering that were considered racist.

  • The company promised to make its games more inclusive and removed mentions of items from its database.;In the same month, the company admitted that some elements of the Dungeons & Dragons universe are built on racist stereotypes.
  • In particular, it affected two races — Orcs and Drow. The company stated that the fifth edition of the D&D rules will be more diverse in terms of the nationalities represented, the sexual orientations of the characters and their religious beliefs;In July, game designer Orion D. Black left the WotC department responsible for Dungeons & Dragons and accused the company of exploiting African-American employees, silencing system problems and stealing ideas.
  • As a result, the company apologized to them (Black identifies himself as they/she) and promised to listen to the problem;Lawrence Harmon, creator of the Cozy Gang Podcast, accused WotC of ignoring black players and called on the company to make the community of their games more diverse and friendly towards different groups of people;
  • Zaiem Beg, former editor-in-chief of the ChannelFireball website, also spoke about his experience with the company.
  • He stated that there was discrimination against blacks. According to him, WotC regularly denied employment to African-American authors, while constantly hiring white employees for the same positions.The lawsuit claims Hickman and Weiss that because of the actions of WotC, they lost years of hard work, the results of which cannot now be published.

The company itself said it would not comment on the upcoming lawsuit.

At the same time, it is unknown whether Hasbro’s concerns will affect game projects under Wizards of the Coast licenses.

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