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.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It wasn’t Zak’e ex-wife who’s email Mearls “allegedly” forwarded to him. It was another individual towards whom Zak and his fans have a long history of online harassment and bullying. And the email in question was sent from an email address which she created specifically for the purpose of sending it to Mike Mearls. She did not use that email for anything else or tell anyone else about it, and shortly thereafter she received harassing emails from Zak at that address. Literally the only plausible explanations are that Mearls forwarded the email to Zak, or she was lying.

I give anything you write a fair amount of credibility, so my level of skepticism just declined, but if this in fact happened, another completely plausible (even more plausible?) explanation is that Mearls discussed the case with multiple people, and forwarded an email, and through one or more hops it eventually got forwarded to Zak. It doesn't have to be directly victim -> Mearls -> Zak.

Now, if she said, "This is a burner email address that I only use for communication with you; please don't share it with anyone" then he deserves some blame for...carelessness.

Anybody know why the victim allegedly created an email address for that one specific purpose? Was she trying to email MM anonymously? That details seems weird to me.

 

[Charlaquin]

Newsflash - that's not proof. Not even evidence. It's a tweet calling Mearls a POS for posting a tweet stating that he looked into allegations that weren't a smoking gun. No more, no less.

Umm... It’s a tweet from Olivia Hill, in which she calls Mike Mearls a liar, and cites a tweet he (Mike Mearls) made about WotC’s relationship with him (Zak S.) and a snippet of an email Mike Mearls sent to Zak S, accusing “dudes like [redacted] Hill” (this is what we call a context cue) of being a lynch mob.

 

[billd91]

Literally the only plausible explanations are that Mearls forwarded the email to Zak, or she was lying.

Or Mearls forwarded it to one or more someone else(s) who passed it on to Zak?

 

[darjr]

Because of hordes of zak fans were harassing her?

 

[Parmandur]

It wasn’t Zak’e ex-wife who’s email Mearls “allegedly” forwarded to him. It was another individual towards whom Zak and his fans have a long history of online harassment and bullying. And the email in question was sent from an email address which she created specifically for the purpose of sending it to Mike Mearls. She did not use that email for anything else or tell anyone else about it, and shortly thereafter she received harassing emails from Zak at that address. Literally the only plausible explanations are that Mearls forwarded the email to Zak, or she was lying.

We'll never get the whole story, but it seems to me the most likely scenario is that Mearls confronted Zak about the emails and didn't scrub the metadata. Mearls is a techie, but he's not a sociopathic cyber-bully, so probably didn't know what steps Zak would or could take to dig up sort on his victims.

Naivë and kind of dumb move, but probably not an intentional dox.

Still, it wasn't exactly hard to find evidence of cyber-bullying behavior from Zak S so fairly ridiculously handles all around.

 

[Nikosandros]

So, I'm not quite clear on how the hierarchy works at WotC. Mearls used to lead the group that works on the the RPG side of D&D, he later worked on the franchise side of things and now is back into RPG, but is currently reporting to Winninger.. is that correct? Is that some kind of effective demotion?

 

[Charlaquin]

I give anything you write a fair amount of credibility, so my level of skepticism just declined,

I appreciate that.

but if this in fact happened, another completely plausible (even more plausible?) explanation is that Mearls discussed the case with multiple people, and forwarded an email, and through one or more hops it eventually got forwarded to Zak. It doesn't have to be directly victim -> Mearls -> Zak.

I’ll admit to not knowing the full story, and from what I do know, this may be a possibility. I do know the victim in question, though not well. I’m a fan of her RPG work and had an opportunity to work with her on a freelance basis at one time, but missed out on it due to some other unfortunate circumstances involving Zak S’s harassment of her that I’m not going to discuss here. But there’s my bias disclosed.

Now, if she said, "This is a burner email address that I only use for communication with you; please don't share it with anyone" then he deserves some blame for...carelessness.

Anybody know why the victim allegedly created an email address for that one specific purpose? Was she trying to email MM anonymously? That details seems weird to me.

From my (again, admittedly incomplete) understanding, Mike Mearls was investigating accusations of Zak S’s harassment of several people, including this victim. I don’t know if this was on behalf of WotC or personal. She made this burner account to send Mike Mearls evidence of Zak S’s past harassment against her. That’s all I know.

 

[3catcircus]

Umm... It’s a tweet from Olivia Hill, in which she calls Mike Mearls a liar, and cites a tweet he (Mike Mearls) made about WotC’s relationship with him (Zak S.) and a snippet of an email Mike Mearls sent to Zak S, accusing “dudes like [redacted] Hill” (this is what we call a context cue) a lynch mob.

Again not proof of his having doxxed anyone. Its her calling him names because he didn't believe an accusation she made. We don't know what investigation occurred back then. We don't know what the facts are - posting something on the internet is not proof.

A snippet of an email she didn't write isn't proof.

Is there a screenshot of a complete conversation showing he forwarded their emails to Zak S or an email where he lists the PII of people he is accused of doxxing?

Context cues? Stating a belief that people were baited into being a lynch mob needs no context. It is plainly clear to anyone with a grasp of the English language what he meant. Twitter mobs are lynch mobs nowadays.

Whether or not Zak S is a POS doesn't change the fact that no actual proof has ever been made available by anyone in a forum accessible to you or I. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it so. Proof that would stand up before a court or a corporate HR/Legal department is required. Some other dude posting a twitter feed years later stating he has seen a victim testimony? Ok show us the affidavit, a corporate complaint form, or court transcripts. "She told me what happened and I believe her" is not testimony.

 

[Charlaquin]

We'll never get the whole story, but it seems to me the most likely scenario is that Mearls confronted Zak about the emails and didn't scrub the metadata. Mearls is a techie, but he's not a sociopathic cyber-bully, so probably didn't know what steps Zak would or could take to dig up sort on his victims.

Naivë and kind of dumb move, but probably not an intentional dox.

Still, it wasn't exactly hard to find evidence of cyber-bullying behavior from Zak S so fairly ridiculously handles all around.

This seems the most likely explanation to me.

 

[Parmandur]

So, I'm not quite clear on how the hierarchy works at WotC. Mearls used to lead the group that works on the the RPG side of D&D, he later worked on the franchise side of things and now is back into RPG, but is currently reporting to Winninger.. is that correct? Is that some kind of effective demotion?

We don't have all of the details, frankly, but there was a fairly recent Reorg where they broke WotC up into "Studios" focused on different products. So it used to be there was a Magic team that did everything Magic, with different departments, like art and R&Dand such, for the whole Magic brand. Now, there is a Magic CCG studio that just does the card game, with it's own art team and design team that don't deal with things like the upcoming Magic TV show, whereas the Magic Franchise Studio has it's own teams that just focus on things like developing license deals with TV or Movie or video games and whatnot, who don't worry about the card game itself.

It seems that Mearls is in charge of the Franchise Studio for D&D, and spent a lot of time in Belgium working on BG3, but is now back in Seattle. Effectively, promoted.