WotC Is Mike Mearls Happy Hour still a thing?

Eubani · Mar 3, 2019

Is Mike Mearls Happy Hour still a thing? Or has he gone into hiding after the controversy of late?

Staffan · Mar 3, 2019

Mike posted back in early January that it was going on hiatus for a while because he had a lot of actual work to do at work. At the time he said it would be for a month, but the hiatus might very well have been extended. He also skipped out on the Heroes of the Vale game, leaving the DMing reins to Todd Kenreck.

Hussar · Mar 3, 2019

Controversy?

Eubani · Mar 3, 2019

Hussar said:
Controversy?

Apparently a consultant back in 2014 was taken on despite warnings of domestic violence, sexual assault and abusive online behaviour. When face with this MM asked for information and many who had dealings with the consultant emailed Mike on their personal experiences with the consultant. Apparently Mike took the view that things were exaggerated or made up only after forwarding the emails to the consultant. Mike of late made a statement that the consultant was only a play tester and that WotC has stopped dealing with him. The consultant known as Zak S has a credit in the PHB as a consultant which is separate to play testers mentioned. Many were upset with Mike trying to low key his part in this and for him failing to take any personal responsibility. His twitter account with the message and the responses is probably more enlightening.

Eubani · Mar 6, 2019

So back on topic, here we are in March with no word one way or another.

DEFCON 1 · Mar 6, 2019

Well, Mearls ran through most of the material he originally was intending on talking about on Happy Fun Hour... how to create new subclasses and the like. He end up doing new subclasses for almost(?) all the the classes in the game, as well as entirely new classes like the Warlord. I also want to say (although I could be misremembering) that one one of the last ones he did he said something along the lines that the show would need to change a bit if it was to continue since he did go through most of the stuff he originally intended to talk about.

Now that being said... if we want to go all conspiracy theorist here, Mike hasn't done a new HFH since December, he stopped DMing the Heroes of the Vale show after like 2 episodes(?), and he hasn't posted on Twitter at all the past month (with the last one being his post about Zak). I also don't recall seeing him in any of the other D&D streams or YouTube videos recently either.

So on the one hand he could just be really busy like he's said... while on the other hand, there might be some behind-the-scenes stuff going on that we just haven't heard about and he's been "off" for the last month. Whatever might be going on, it hasn't been so monumental that Nathan Stewart has had to make a statement about what has happened (like if WotC had fired Mike or something)... but there might be some internal wiping down of the walls going on right now by the D&D Dept/WotC and/or Hasbro.

Speculating is kind of pointless because we haven't a peep from anyone about anything so who knows what may or may not be going on. But I do think that Mike being completely radio-silent since the 12th of last month is curious.

Morrus · Mar 6, 2019

Looks like he’s down periscope since his tweet about the Zak S abuse allegations. I expect he’ll poke his head above the ramparts again soon.

ParanoydStyle · Mar 6, 2019

So what uh...is Mike Mearls happy hour?

Vael · Mar 6, 2019

ParanoydStyle said:
So what uh...is Mike Mearls happy hour?

[video=youtube;ZHOnfAFsNrY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHOnfAFsNrY[/video]

Basically, Mike Mearls does design work on Twitch (and later Youtube) and talks about his approach to RPG design. It's interesting, I have found the vids occasionally useful.

Eubani · Mar 6, 2019

I was hoping to see the Apocalypse barbarian cleaned up and in usable form. As to the other issue I have seen corporations fire people for far less and I hope this is not the case and he comes out the other end a little wiser.