WotC Ray Winninger Is Head of D&D RPG Team; Mike Mearls No Longer Works on RPG

People have been wondering where Mike Mearls has gone for quite some time. It seems that he has not been working on the D&D tabletop RPG since some time last year, and the new head of the team and Executive Producer is Ray Winninger.

Winninger is an RPG industry veteran. Amongst other things, he was co-designer of DC Heroes and Torg, and wrote the Dungeoncraft column for Dragon Magazine. He has worked at a number of RPG companies including TSR, Mayfair Games, West End Games, and more.

Winninger is Chris Perkins' and Jeremy Crawford's boss. And in further comments, Chris Perkins says that Mike Mearls has not been part of the tabletop RPG team since some time last year.


That explains why Mearls' Twitch shows, like Happy Fun Hour, have disappeared. Although he's made a couple of retweets since, his last tweet on Twitter was February 13th, 2019. He still works at WotC on the D&D brand in some capacity, but not the tabletop RPG itself (he did an interview about Baldur's Gate 3 on Polygon last year).

Ray Winninger introduces himself in the latest issue of Dragon+, WotC's online magazine. "My name is Ray Winninger and I’m the new Executive Producer in charge of the Dungeons & Dragons studio at Wizards of the Coast. In just a few months on the job, I’ve already been impressed by the skills and the passion of the designers, artists, editors, and production staff who bring you our terrific D&D products. They are a uniquely talented group, and it is an honor to work alongside them."

 

[tetrasodium]

interesting, I wonder how this will affect things going forward & if it means we might see something with a more tactical slant going forward

 

[Ruin Explorer]

He helped design 4e so I don’t think he hated 4e. It seemed like the people involved in 4e have a special place for it and in the lead up to 5e were hypercritical as part of a “why didn’t this work” manner and explaining why in contrast to the more old school 5e design.

I don't think "the people" is true. The other articles I can think of that were critical of 4E were both less "under the bus"-y and not by people who actually worked extensively on 4E (Mearls was in charge of it for almost the entire time it existed, from 2009 onwards). Hypercritical is about right though. And it seemed really odd given 4E was specifically criticised for criticising previous editions. I guess whatever works though.

No he was part of the 4e design team.

This is true but the reason people think otherwise is that Mearls himself claimed he wasn't "there at the start" of 4E development, didn't understand why certain decisions had been made, and so on. This was all part of the "under the bus"'ing of 4E though, so take that as you will.

interesting, I wonder how this will affect things going forward & if it means we might see something with a more tactical slant going forward

Why would you expect that from Winniger's background?

The two RPGs he created - Torg and Underground, were anything but tactical, and his columns have always been more about ideas, stories, and good DMing than anything else. If anything, from his background, you'd expect more of a focus on risky/daring settings, and better DM advice (neither of which will actually happen, I suspect, but if we're going by background).

 

[Bacon Bits]

If this WAS about the whole ... controversial incident ... then I wonder why WotC waited so long to announce that Mearls was being replaced.

Because they did not terminate employment entirely. The Internet outrage machine isn't exactly tolerant of half-steps. There will always be pitchfork salesmen out there claiming anything less than literal public execution is insufficient, and those kinds of people don't shut up. People are freaking crazy about things even when absolutely nothing that happened directly affects them or anyone they know. That doesn't mean that what happened was remotely acceptable in any way, I'm just pointing out that some people turn into sharks when they sense blood in the water and won't ever stop.

So you don't say anything. You quietly move him to a less impacting role and out of public scrutiny, tell people he has a different role with D&D, and then move him again to another department a little later on.

Personally, I think it was a combination of the Zac S controversy happening and Mearls' response to it, and then the way that Dice, Camera, Action imploded like two months later. Something had to give there; there was no way corporate wasn't going to make some management changes after all that.

I mean, I absolutely suspect that there were changes at WotC after the Autumn Burchett basic land controversy and the horribly botched War of the Spark: Forsaken novel last November, too. But we haven't heard anything about that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

the horribly botched War of the Spark: Forsaken novel

Just read about that, wow, what a car crash - it reminds me of what happened with the incredibly terrible Mass Effect: Deception novel, which made pretty much all the same sorts of mistake. I guess don't hire people who aren't going to read and properly take notes on the previous books involving your characters/story, and instead just assume it's all junk and write whatever they feel like.

 

[teitan]

.



This is true but the reason people think otherwise is that Mearls himself claimed he wasn't "there at the start" of 4E development, didn't understand why certain decisions had been made, and so on. This was all part of the "under the bus"'ing of 4E though, so take that as you will.

Except he was there and even threw chunks of 4e into The Book of 9 Swords. He was part of the Orcus project. The argument you are making doesn’t hold water unless you can show where he said “he wasn’t there at the start” because he obviously was.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Except he was there and even threw chunks of 4e into The Book of 9 Swords. He was part of the Orcus project. The argument you are making doesn’t hold water unless you can show where he said “he wasn’t there at the start” because he obviously was.

Who are you arguing with, yourself? Because it's not with me or anything I've said. Mike Mearls is the one who claimed that, and people took him at his word, which is why they think that. You seemed confused about why people thought that. I've explained that. You want someone to argue he was actually not there? Find someone who thinks that. Maybe read what I actually said a bit more carefully - I specifically suggested it should be taken skeptically - "take that as you will".

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, Mearls was still fronting for WotC at Gameholecon in November, and was with Stewart in Canada when they bought that one game company. He's still involved in brand stuff, just not the game. This also probably explains the changes in UA strategy the past year.

Exciting times.

 

[teitan]

Who are you arguing with, yourself? Because it's not with me or anything I've said. Mike Mearls is the one who claimed that, and people took him at his word, which is why they think that. You seemed confused about why people thought that. I've explained that. You want someone to argue he was actually not there? Find someone who thinks that.

No I thought we were discussing so I put it out there that he very much was a big part of the design of 4e. Using “you” isn’t a direct “you” but a general “you” meant to anyone who says otherwise. I’ve never even seen him make such a comment because his name is right there in the credits of the books and all over the early 4e BTS. So I apologize for the inartfulness of my response.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's the thing about social media... it is exceedingly hard to have a presence online when you are a person of interest. Anything you post can and will be seen, even when meant to be for smaller circles or not taken seriously or not intended to be considered some sort of political comment or stance or just dumb comments from not thinking things through before posting. Any presence will have a potential response, so at some point a person might realize that it is no longer worth having that presence and they just step away altogether.

I'm strongly disagree.

I have been on Twitter, for professional reasons, since 2009 and have my blue checkmark. I have promoted my work, my colleagues' work and discussed topics of interest to my audience and also to prospective future employers. I've also talked about all other aspects of my life and my hobbies and interests.

Tens of thousands of tweets later, I have never run into trouble, even though, in my professional life, I regularly have people upset with me, due to the nature of my job. (I've weathered numerous unsuccessful calls for me to be fired at different times in my career, for instance.)

If you are on social media, everything you put out into public should be something you could say in front of your bosses and your customers/audience. That's it. It's not rocket science.

People who can't manage this minimum standard haven't run afoul of some sort of dastardly trap. At a minimum, they messed up. But more likely, when someone spits out something toxic and the public goes "whoa, what the hell, dude," it's because they don't seem to get that they are the problem.

Watch the language, please.

 

[Bitbrain]

I just hope we continue to see more of the old settings officially updated for 5e.