D&D 5E Mike Mearls is back on the D&D RPG Team

Three weeks ago, WotC's Jeremy Crawford told us that Mike Mearls was no longer working on the tabletop RPG, and hadn't since some time in 2019. Today, the (newish) D&D head Ray Winninger said on the company's Twitch livestream that Mearls is now back full-time on the tabletop game.

Mike Mearls is back full time on the RPG again. He was splitting his time working on some computer game stuff for us, but he’s back.

He still doesn't appear to be back on social media since his final tweet back in 2019.

 

[billd91]

The idea that you can’t trust any eye witness accounts because bots exist is specious, either way.

Maybe, but eyewitness accounts are highly variable in quality anyway. Different people see the same event in different ways and attention to detail is usually bad. It is not any form of gold standard for what's going on, whether via an unfiltered Twitter feed or not. At best, it's a form of information that requires careful review and critical thinking to assess.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's not really normal, though. High-ranking employees typically have well-defined purviews, specifically to stop them clashing with other high-ranking employees and potentially causing issues.

It really depends on the business. My job was dramatically changed last year to respond to corporate needs.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hillarious.

Compare with Facebook. It's not even close.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Maybe, but eyewitness accounts are highly variable in quality anyway. Different people see the same event in different ways and attention to detail is usually bad. It is not any form of gold standard for what's going on, whether via an unfiltered Twitter feed or not. At best, it's a form of information that requires careful review and critical thinking to assess.

Of course it is. That's the information age. But instead of having to have their voices be filtered through gatekeepers, who are often imperfect themselves, this gives people the chance to report what they see and know immediately.

Those gatekeepers are there, too, if you prefer to get the vetted accounts. But if you're looking for, say, live coverage of a California wildfire, you can get it from the people actually driving away from it, rather than someone in a studio 50 miles away.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Rhetorical question, because this is otherwise a derailing - don't answer this publicly, but... Really? You honestly think events like that don't attract politically-motivated misinformation?

Do you really think the existence of bad actors means something has no value?

Because it's going to be hard to find something that's not tainted that way.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't think we're going to see Gamma World in 5E. The 4E version did what, okay? But it wasn't some sort of mega-hit. And culturally, the sort of gonzo mutation-centric deal that Gamma World was all about, that was huge in the 1980s and even still a bit in the 1990s is just not something that's really cool or interesting anymore, I'd suggest. I see no evidence that it's coming back, either.

People who are pining for a modern incarnation of Gamma World aren't going to do much better than Mutant Crawl Classics from Goodman Games or Mutant: Year Zero from Free League.

Goodman has also brought Metamorphisis Alpha back into print and expanded it with new official content by Jim Ward, so those who prefer their Gamma World really authentically old school can scratch that itch, too.

 

[mjsoctober]

Since some people here don't use Twitter, or aren't watching the various Mearls' hashtags, here are some handy links, and the evidence that has been shared. IF evidence is correct, then Mearls received private allegations from victims that he passed on to the abuser against the wishes of the victims, and the victims then allegedly received more harassment from Zak. In addition to these below, there are threads that can be found by some of Zak's alleged victims that detail more.

Ultimately, it's either true or not. The question is: If it's true, would you still support Mearls being employed by WotC and working on D&D?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

At this point, I don't even really want a new edition of D&D, regardless of who does it. I rather, want a supplement that fundamentally changes how D&D plays, from the ground up.

I want bolt-ons for a lifepath, classless, skill based system with gritty/realistic death spiral mechanics that can be scaled (limit spells like so to have a more gritty feel or do this to add more complicated mechanics.)

So, a DMG2?

 

[Nikosandros]

Yeah, Goodman Games had a Known World Gazeeter in that book. Same as the original.

Given that Sernett's job was to be the Lore guy who made Lore nerds happy, getting into a fight with the lore wonks over not knowing the lore might have been a no-go for his role.

Following your link (thanks for posting it, BTW), I watched the segment on YouTube. Yes, he did fumble that one, but it seems a bit excessive to fire him for that. I don't know, maybe there were other issues and that was the proverbial straw?

 

[darjr]

And where did the snippet of Mearls private email to Zak come from? If you guessed Zak, I’d bet you were right!