Back in 2019, Dungeons & Dragons designer Mike Mearls left the D&D team to work on Magic: the Gathering. This move happened shortly after a controversy regarding abuse allegation within the TTRPG industry and the way many people alleged that Mearls handled the complaints and investigation, with a common rumour being that he was moved from the D&D team in order to move him out of the spotlight. In this recent interview with D&D historian Ben Riggs, Mearls denies that this was the motivation for the move, stating that Wizards of the Coast was moving D&D in a direction he no longer wanted to work on, and that the opportunity came up to work on Magic: the Gathering.
Ben Riggs: Since you brought up X and your return to it, I’ll ask about your departure from it. For three years, people were like, "Mike Mearls was fired from D&D in some way, shape, or form." So—were you fired from D&D?
Mike Mearls: I was not fired from D&D. And, you know, I don’t want to go into too many details about everything that happened back then because it was, like—oh, you know what? That was four or five years ago. But no.
It was actually kind of interesting. And I wonder if part of my social media thing is that a lot of the people who really latched onto that and all this weird conspiracy theory—like, I don’t know—maybe they’re all on some other social network now? Or maybe it just isn’t as interesting if the guy isn’t working. But no, no—I left. And I don’t really want to get into it too much, and honestly, there aren’t really any great details. But I moved over to Magic: The Gathering. I had the chance to work on Magic.
I’d been working on some digital tools for D&D, and I—well, I know there was this thing where someone publicly said I was no longer working on D&D, and I was like—no, that never happened. I have no idea why that happened, but I’m not even going to touch that. But I was working on digital tools, and then the company was looking at, "What do we want to do with digital? What’s our next step forward?" I was in favor of a very DM-centric approach. Let’s make tools for DMs. We have D&D Beyond—that’s great for players—but I want tools that will make running D&D faster and easier for me. And, you know, it became a decision about which direction we wanted to go. The company didn’t want to go in that direction. So I was like, well, I’m not really interested in working on something that’s so far from what I want to work on. And that’s why I got the job offer to go work on Magic.
So that was not like, at no point—to be clear—if like a quarter of what people talked about had happened, I would not have kept my job. Like, I really even know what people think happened. But yeah—that was never even close to being on the table.
Mike Mearls: I was not fired from D&D. And, you know, I don’t want to go into too many details about everything that happened back then because it was, like—oh, you know what? That was four or five years ago. But no.
It was actually kind of interesting. And I wonder if part of my social media thing is that a lot of the people who really latched onto that and all this weird conspiracy theory—like, I don’t know—maybe they’re all on some other social network now? Or maybe it just isn’t as interesting if the guy isn’t working. But no, no—I left. And I don’t really want to get into it too much, and honestly, there aren’t really any great details. But I moved over to Magic: The Gathering. I had the chance to work on Magic.
I’d been working on some digital tools for D&D, and I—well, I know there was this thing where someone publicly said I was no longer working on D&D, and I was like—no, that never happened. I have no idea why that happened, but I’m not even going to touch that. But I was working on digital tools, and then the company was looking at, "What do we want to do with digital? What’s our next step forward?" I was in favor of a very DM-centric approach. Let’s make tools for DMs. We have D&D Beyond—that’s great for players—but I want tools that will make running D&D faster and easier for me. And, you know, it became a decision about which direction we wanted to go. The company didn’t want to go in that direction. So I was like, well, I’m not really interested in working on something that’s so far from what I want to work on. And that’s why I got the job offer to go work on Magic.
So that was not like, at no point—to be clear—if like a quarter of what people talked about had happened, I would not have kept my job. Like, I really even know what people think happened. But yeah—that was never even close to being on the table.
