Bethesda’s latest Elder Scrolls adventure taken down amid cries of plagiarism

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  In a series a comparative text samples published on Facebook, co-author Paige Leitman shows significant similarities throughout her “The Black Road” adventure and the Elsweyr adventure published by Bethesda. [credit:
  Paige Leitman/WotC & Bethesda Netherlands ]

[Update 3:52 pm Eastern: While the original Facebook post linking to the “Elsweyr” adventure has been taken down, the files in question are still accessible via Bethesda’s Dropbox.]

A promotional Elder Scrolls-themed tabletop RPG adventure released by Bethesda Tuesday contained widespread instances of apparent plagiarism from a Dungeons & Dragons adventure published by Wizards of the Coast in 2016. That adventure was pulled down from the Internet Wednesday afternoon, and Bethesda now says it is “investigat[ing] the source.”

Bethesda’s pen-and-paper Elder Scrolls “Elsweyr” adventure (archived here for reference) contains text that in total seems only slightly reworded from the D&D adventure “The Black Road,” written by Paige Leitman and Ben Heisler as part of Wizards of the Coast’s Organized Play program. The adventures are largely identical throughout their texts, aside from sometimes sloppy replacements of certain words and phrases with synonyms and the changing of certain items and locations to fit in the Elder Scrolls setting.