Bethesda Pulls Elder Scrolls Tabletop Adventure After Accusations of Plagiarism of 'Dungeons & Dragons' Adventure

Bethesda pulled down a Elder Scrolls tabletop adventure meant to promote its upcoming Elder Scrolls Online expansion after a Dungeons & Dragons' writer pointed out alleged extensive plagiarism of her 2016 adventure. Yesterday, Bethesda's Elder Scrolls Online Facebook page promoted a D&D Fifth Edition compatible adventure called "Elsweyr" that was set in the continent of Tamriel. However, it was quickly discovered that "Elsweyr" was almost a direct copy of the 2016 adventure "The Black Road," which was published for use in D&D Adventurer's League back in 2016. Bethesda quickly pulled the adventure down and stated they were "investigating" the source of the adventure, which was credited to a "Karrym Herbar" that was hired by Bethesda Netherlands.

The co-writer of "The Black Road," writer Paige Leitman, pointed out numerous similarities between her work and "Elsweyr," some of which were almost word for word reproductions of her work. "There's nothing like the desert to make people feel small and insignificant. In every direction, huge dunes roll across the landscape, and an even bigger sky looms above," reads the opening sentences of "The Black Road." Meanwhile, the opening line of "Elsweyr" reads "Nothing beats the desert to make people feel small and unimportant. In every direction enormous dunes roll across the landscape, and an even larger empty air skies above it." In other places, it appears that the writer of "Elsweyr" crudely changed a sentence or two and swapped out D&D races for ones found in The Elder Scrolls. We'll also note that the module wasn't published under the Open Gaming License, which allows third party companies to use D&D rules in their own manuscripts.

The "Elsweyr" adventure has been pulled down, as was the Facebook post originally promoting it. ESO's Facebook and Twitter both have posts explaining that they pulled down the tabletop adventure.

Leitman is a writer of some fantastic D&D work which is available on the DMs Guild. Meanwhile, Elder Scrolls Online's newest expansion (also named "Elsweyr") comes out later this month.

(via ArsTechnica)

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