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.

 

[Mistwell]

@Mistwell
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt once, then I'm done with you. I'm not interested in any whataboutist sealioning, thanks.

What we know:

She used a purposefully made email to email Mearls about Zak. She says that she didn't use that email address to email anyone else.
That email address was subsequently sent harassing and abusive emails from Zak and his thugs.

Show me how we know this. That's my question. When you say she says she made an email address just to send to Mearls, where did she say that? When she says that email address subsequently received harassing emails from Zak, where does she say that? I cannot find it, and nobody so far has been willing to provide a link to that. Will you?

It might behoove you to consider your position and ask yourself why you're so quick to jump in to defend someone

Defending?

I keep asking "show me the evidence of X" and I keep getting responses of these four types:

1) No that's been discussed already
2) No you can research it yourself
3) Here, this is a link that doesn't even vaguely show the thing I claimed it shows
4) It's true you just have to trust me because I cannot be bothered to provide evidence for a variety of reasons.

Is that defending, to ask to see what people are referring to before making up my mind?

And I see you're planning to not respond to me again. So, chalk it up to just one more time I have asked for a link to this allegation, and one more time where someone does not provide the link with a variety of excuses (this time "I'm Outraged!" is the excuse apparently?)

 

[Parmandur]

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?

Yeah, I'm sure there were other factors...but this was at the tail end of his time there.

 

[KainGuru]

I'm an atheist but, allegedly, there was once a man who said 'he who is without sin may cast the first stone'

All this judgemental BS from internet avatars that claim to be faultless and, therefore, have the moral high ground; and that that. in passing, gives them the right to extract punishment is tiresome. If someone should be punished there is a due process and law. Not a single person knows what actually happened except those directly involved. Anything else is just social media dogpiling and rabid entitlement demanding that their opinion be validated by seeing enacted a punishment that they believe is satisfactory.

REAL World - it's none of our business, the collective 'we' have no rights . . . the collective 'we' don't have a dog in this race. It's between those involved and NO ONE ELSE. It's called privacy and the right to a private life without having 10,000 twatter users wanting to put their personal brand on things. Seesh, however did we manage in the olden days before twatter* Criminal and Civil Justice Systems must have been handicapped? Maybe we should add a mobile phone to the statue of Justice's scales to reflect this stunning leap forward in human social development? (read with dripping sarcasm)

If someone says to me they've:
never done anything wrong,
they've never broken a single law,
they've never made a mistake,
all their interpersonal relationships have been perfect,
I'll burn all my human psychology textbooks and cancel my subscription to the Psychological Research Database, because it's obviously wrong. Though, in world full of such perfect examples of human existence, why do we need so many therapists?

Again, same mythological (I must stress IMHO, so absolutely no offence intended to those who choose to believe) person also once said something about 'to err is human to forgive is divine'. . . .

TL;DR it's all just twatter nonsense and not worth considering. Mr Mearls is back on the team (if he even ever left) judge the merit of your D&D products simply by whats between the printed covers.


* I am aware this is not twatter but this storm in a teacup comes from that nasty corner of the internet

 

[3catcircus]

So, a DMG2?

More like an Unearthed Arcana on steroids.

 

[cbwjm]

Robocop, why are you posting this? Unless it’s said during a criminal court case, your words have no relevance. Is your programming on the blink? Should we call a mechanic?

ONLY THINGS SAID IN CRIMINAL COURT HAVE MEANING ROBOCOP

Would he even be able to log in? What happens when he's asked if he's a robot?

 

[3catcircus]

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?



View attachment 122232
View attachment 122233

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.

 

[Dausuul]

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.

</snip>

Unless I missed something, the evidence in those links for the allegation about Mearls doxxing victims to Zak S is this: "When we say Mike Mearls passed a long information about harassment complaints to the abuser himself & people say 'what proof do you have' well i literally know victims, I have victim testimony which is enough for me."

This is the closest thing that I have seen to someone saying "Mike Mearls doxxed people and here is how I know that it happened." But... it's still one person summarizing their recollection of a claim made by another person six years ago.

I guess it doesn't really matter what any of us thinks about it, but my experience has been the same as Mistwell's: When you try to follow this specific accusation--that Mearls, intentionally or not, doxxed Zak's accusers to Zak himself--back to some kind of firsthand source, it never seems to get there.

Lots and lots of accounts of Zak S abusing women--no shortage of firsthand evidence there. I have zero doubt those claims are true. Many screencaps of Mike Mearls defending Zak initially and more or less saying that the accusers were a hysterical mob, which... ah... yeah. He deserved to be haled in front of WotC HR for that alone, and if WotC conditioned his future employment on "You will get off social media and stay off," they were entirely justified. (Pro tip: Any time you are about to use the phrase "lynch mob" to refer to anything other than a bunch of people physically hanging another person from a tree by the neck, do not say whatever it is you were going to say.)

But the doxxing thing? That always seems to get lost along the way. I don't think it's too much to ask for firsthand evidence before giving credence to that one. Not ironclad proof, not testimony under oath in a court of law, just... someone who can describe actual evidence that they themselves saw.

 

[Eltab]

Amusing? I’m hilarious!*

Bad news for you...

 

[Charlaquin]

Did Mike Mearls forward PII via email to him? Who knows - we only have anecdotal evidence. For all we know, Zak S still had access to his ex-wife's online accounts and was able to find out her email.

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.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

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.

After all the threads here about this, and on other sites, and articles on pop culture sites, and the social media, I think that everyone involved is lying about something, or should I say exaggerating? But since Mearls was not fired, or did not voluntarily resign for "personal or family reasons", and Crawford is still there and willing to work with him, the folks at WotC must believe he did nothing wrong and thus does not have a hostile work environment. The only other question I have is the status of all the female staff who were there when this came out. Do they all still work there? Have any of them moved on for whatever reasons, which may unofficially include not being able to trust Mearls or Wotc any more? Secondary effects like that can tell a lot more about a situation than anyone will ever come out and say.