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."

 

[teitan]

The Dragonlance AP was, what, mid-80s?

G series was in the 70s. It had direct references to D which tied directly to Q. So 81?

 

[Mistwell]

Ok, not what I'd call hard proof, but so far my searching has turned up this Twitter thread where several people replying to Mearls tweet accusing Mearls directly of sharing their emails detailing Zak S's harassment of them with Zak S himself -

I saw that Twitter feed and I don't think anyone in that feed made an accusation about Mearls sharing their emails to Zak. I saw a lot of random people making that assumption about what happened, not that it happened to them. If I missed something I'd like to see it. Though, I'd like to see their evidence that happened as opposed to just their accusation.

 

[BenTheFerg]

To be fair the "Adventure Path"-type format had been evolving since at least the very early '90s, both in D&D, and in other RPGs (you can make a case for further back, but I think it's a weaker one, because the adventure series of the 1980s tend to be less connected, and have a lot less story). It's not like Paizo plucked it out of thin air, they just gave it a specific name.

And the sandbox nature of Phandelver echoes earlier AD&D products such as Book/ Act 1 in the epic Night Below.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I sincerely hope he is having a blast. Iron Heroes was a refreshing iteration of 3rd edition rules and I was excited when he got recruited to D&D. I knew he would turn things around.

Iron Heroes is still one of the best and most underrated gems of the 3.x era of gaming and IMO still a better design of game systems than 5e is currently.

 

[the Jester]

I have mixed feelings about Mearls.

Clearly he effed up with the Zak S situation. He took Zak’s side and bad mouthed the people sharing their stories of problematic interactions with Zak. And shared their emails with Zak, allowing him to harass them in retaliation for speaking out against him.

Except, while all of that has been repeatedly bandied about, nobody has ever, to the best of my knowledge, provided even one scrap of actual evidence that it happened like that. There's lots of speculation, but every time this comes up and someone asks for evidence, the same not-evidence keeps being produced.

Ok, not what I'd call hard proof, but so far my searching has turned up this Twitter thread where several people replying to Mearls tweet accusing Mearls directly of sharing their emails detailing Zak S's harassment of them with Zak S himself -

I didn't dig too far into that mess, but I couldn't find those replies. Can/would you link them directly? I am a fan of Mearls and am happy to defend him in this matter, but if I'm wrong, I'd like to see the evidence.

 

[Jester David]

I saw that Twitter feed and I don't think anyone in that feed made an accusation about Mearls sharing their emails to Zak. I saw a lot of random people making that assumption about what happened, not that it happened to them. If I missed something I'd like to see it. Though, I'd like to see their evidence that happened as opposed to just their accusation.

Except, while all of that has been repeatedly bandied about, nobody has ever, to the best of my knowledge, provided even one scrap of actual evidence that it happened like that. There's lots of speculation, but every time this comes up and someone asks for evidence, the same not-evidence keeps being produced.

Game designer Olivia Hill was an outspoken critic of Zak and blamed him for harassment, and threats made against her and her children by Zak’s supporters.

In 2014, when Mearls asked the community for evidence of Zak’s harassment she shared her experiences with an anonymous burner email created for that purpose. After sharing her story, she was harassed by Zak at that email.
She has reported this multiple times on her Twitter feed over the last five years.

 

[Waller]

It isnt just that. Even without that, his tweets were a big problem. Stuff like this.

Which makes this somewhat ironic:

There's a blog somewhere with them all but I can't find it right now.

 

[BenTheFerg]

Iron Heroes is still one of the best and most underrated gems of the 3.x era of gaming and IMO still a better design of game systems than 5e is currently.

100% agree. I had a great blast with it. Still own all of it. May use it again one day!

 

[Schmoe]

I think it's time that someone starts asking the hard questions: What does Ray Winninger think about Bonus Actions?

And flumphs. That's the real question, flumphs, man.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

And flumphs. That's the real question, flumphs, man.

His official title is Flumphmeister, so I don't think that's a question that needs to be asked this time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Dragonlance AP was, what, mid-80s?

The DL series? Yes, 1984-1986.

DL series - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's definitely a proto-AP, because it doesn't have the focus and consistency of later APs - some of the modules are not actually adventures - but rather sourcebooks or in one case a wargame, but there's clearly the concept of a long-running adventure which is very much an adventure, with a strong plot/story that's already been written, and that the PCs will impact but probably not derail entirely.

In 1990, Taladas got three connected and pretty epic adventures too. By then I think the basic concept was established. I think other RPGs often did a bit more with it in the early 1990s (D&D kept going back to location-based, sandbox-y things, often which had a strong, AP-like story initially and then sort of when "Well here's a map and a load of stuff you could do..."), but by the later 1990s, most of the big adventures were basically AP-shaped, and often continued into another adventure or the like.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And the sandbox nature of Phandelver echoes earlier AD&D products such as Book/ Act 1 in the epic Night Below.

Yeah The Night Below is sort of a hybrid AP-sandbox, like a lot of early and mid-90s D&D. Great adventure imo.

 

[BenTheFerg]

Yeah The Night Below is sort of a hybrid AP-sandbox, like a lot of early and mid-90s D&D. Great adventure imo.

Ran it waaay back when it was published. 1996ish? Had a real blast

 

[Morrus]

It's definitely a proto-AP, because it doesn't have the focus and consistency of later APs - some of the modules are not actually adventures - but rather sourcebooks or in one case a wargame, but there's clearly the concept of a long-running adventure which is very much an adventure, with a strong plot/story that's already been written, and that the PCs will impact but probably not derail entirely.

Just two I think - DL5 was a mini sourcebook, and D11 was a wargame. I myself consider other 12 adventures taking the PCs through the War of the Lance to be the first real adventure path.

(There were a couple tagged on the end - DL15 and DL16 - but neither of those were part of the AP).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Though, I'd like to see their evidence that happened as opposed to just their accusation.

I think there's a lot of dubious commentary here. You ask for evidence, but what could they possibly have, beyond an email from Zak S that came to an address they didn't think he should have? That was actually provided at the time in at least one case. And would that even satisfy a lot of people? I suggest it would not, because it did not.

But what is clear is that Mearls acted bizarrely and unprofessionally.

Instead of acting like a responsible adult, in a senior, public-facing role in a large corporation (which is a subsidiary of an even larger one), he may some skeptical and sneering comments, took Zak S' side (which is utter madness - he shouldn't have been taking a side, that's despicably unprofessional), and generally behaved like this was some sort of minor spat, he could totally "make go away".

Who thinks like that? Just how unprofessional do you have to be to make any of the posts he made? That call people call him professional is bizarre and strikes me as clear cognitive dissonance. Professional is something he never has been particularly, in his communications, note - "affable" or "likeable" or "friendly", sure, he seemed like those things (that's part of the problem, I suspect, he was too "friendly" with a guy who is unquestionably a sleaze or much worse, and acted like a "friend", not a senior employee at a corporation). Professional? No. You want professional? Try someone like Jeremy Crawford. He repeatedly strikes the balance between human and professional with grace.

Even his "apology" post was done extremely poorly, and I doubt legal, HR, PR or anyone else was at all happy about it. I know people like to believe in "persecution" and so on, but that's not what happened here. Mearls messed up, and he messed up due to unprofessional behaviour, and deciding to handle stuff entirely outside his competence. The whole calling him a "playtester" when it said "Consultant" right there in the PHB was just face-palm-worthy.

I have friends in senior, public-facing roles in NGOs, in the NHS, in corporations, in law firms. Guess what? They're professional, they know that when something involves them or people they like, and/or which is outside their competence, they talk to other people inside the business. They talk to HR, they talk to PR (which is rarely called PR, note), they talk to people more senior than them and make them aware of the situation. This is really easy to do. It's not onerous (particularly not compared to not doing it). Then they do the right thing.

Mearls clearly did none of that. He decided to "go rogue" and handle the whole thing himself. To just "sort it out". Put people "in their place" (because he clearly didn't believe a word of the allegations, which shows he's a terminally poor judge of character). People do that. Not professional people who has a WIS above 8. But people, some of them senior. Particular people who think they're "self-made" or believe they've been promoted solely on the awesome merit of who they are, and thus never need to behave professionally or follow pesky rules or guidelines. You see this a lot in start-ups. Some of it is even totally well-meaning. Some big idiot at or near the top of a company will decide he's going to "sort out" some matter involving HR stuff, and will manage to completely heap dung on himself and his company with terminally stupid behaviour. Then he gets put in a non-client facing position. Then 1-3 years later, he's either rehabilitated, or more likely he "moves on to other opportunities". I like to think people learn from this, but I do wonder.

Lest anyone suggest I have an axe to grind or whatever, quite the contrary. I was a huge fan of everything Mearls did (as you can see if you look at my old posts here), but his behaviour here... not okay. Even you didn't believe anyone, this some real 8 WIS behaviour. And that's not okay for someone in his position. The most generous interpretation of events is still "not okay".

 

[FrogReaver]

Wow

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is surprising news. He oversaw the edition that basically saved D&D and brought the fans together again. Definitely looking forward to see what he does in the future.

 

[Parmandur]

I think there's a lot of dubious commentary here. You ask for evidence, but what could they possibly have, beyond an email from Zak S that came to an address they didn't think he should have? That was actually provided at the time in at least one case. And would that even satisfy a lot of people? I suggest it would not, because it did not.

But what is clear is that Mearls acted bizarrely and unprofessionally.

Instead of acting like a responsible adult, in a senior, public-facing role in a large corporation (which is a subsidiary of an even larger one), he may some skeptical and sneering comments, took Zak S' side (which is utter madness - he shouldn't have been taking a side, that's despicably unprofessional), and generally behaved like this was some sort of minor spat, he could totally "make go away".

Who thinks like that? Just how unprofessional do you have to be to make any of the posts he made? That call people call him professional is bizarre and strikes me as clear cognitive dissonance. Professional is something he never has been particularly, in his communications, note - "affable" or "likeable" or "friendly", sure, he seemed like those things (that's part of the problem, I suspect, he was too "friendly" with a guy who is unquestionably a sleaze or much worse, and acted like a "friend", not a senior employee at a corporation). Professional? No. You want professional? Try someone like Jeremy Crawford. He repeatedly strikes the balance between human and professional with grace.

Even his "apology" post was done extremely poorly, and I doubt legal, HR, PR or anyone else was at all happy about it. I know people like to believe in "persecution" and so on, but that's not what happened here. Mearls messed up, and he messed up due to unprofessional behaviour, and deciding to handle stuff entirely outside his competence. The whole calling him a "playtester" when it said "Consultant" right there in the PHB was just face-palm-worthy.

I have friends in senior, public-facing roles in NGOs, in the NHS, in corporations, in law firms. Guess what? They're professional, they know that when something involves them or people they like, and/or which is outside their competence, they talk to other people inside the business. They talk to HR, they talk to PR (which is rarely called PR, note), they talk to people more senior than them and make them aware of the situation. This is really easy to do. It's not onerous (particularly not compared to not doing it). Then they do the right thing.

Mearls clearly did none of that. He decided to "go rogue" and handle the whole thing himself. To just "sort it out". Put people "in their place" (because he clearly didn't believe a word of the allegations, which shows he's a terminally poor judge of character). People do that. Not professional people who has a WIS above 8. But people, some of them senior. Particular people who think they're "self-made" or believe they've been promoted solely on the awesome merit of who they are, and thus never need to behave professionally or follow pesky rules or guidelines. You see this a lot in start-ups. Some of it is even totally well-meaning. Some big idiot at or near the top of a company will decide he's going to "sort out" some matter involving HR stuff, and will manage to completely heap dung on himself and his company with terminally stupid behaviour. Then he gets put in a non-client facing position. Then 1-3 years later, he's either rehabilitated, or more likely he "moves on to other opportunities". I like to think people learn from this, but I do wonder.

Lest anyone suggest I have an axe to grind or whatever, quite the contrary. I was a huge fan of everything Mearls did (as you can see if you look at my old posts here), but his behaviour here... not okay. Even you didn't believe anyone, this some real 8 WIS behaviour. And that's not okay for someone in his position. The most generous interpretation of events is still "not okay".

As someone who also enjoyed his work, this is spot on. He went way out of his depth, and did not interact with the public responsibly. Hence, no more interaction with the public...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And the sandbox nature of Phandelver echoes earlier AD&D products such as Book/ Act 1 in the epic Night Below.

Technically, Keep on the Borderlands is a sandbox, although most of the adventure is dedicated to one dungeon (which itself is a sandbox, since there are so many entrances into it).

Phandelver isn't great because it's a sandbox adventure. It's not great because it's an "adventure path," which seems like a strange label to put on a single adventure.

It's both a great teaching tool, for both players and DMs, while also being a genuinely good adventure, showing all sorts of things that can happen in low level D&D and avoids the trap of using the same monsters most DMs (and designers) have been using in low level adventures since the 1970s. (I don't believe anyone wasn't surprised to see a freaking nothic in that adventure.)

Yes, there are other good low level adventures, too. I enjoyed the Sunless Citadel and Against the Cult of the Reptile God and the Secret of Bone Hill and am about to run my family through Into the Borderlands. But Phandelver is in a different league than all of these.

 

[Mistwell]

Game designer Olivia Hill was an outspoken critic of Zak and blamed him for harassment, and threats made against her and her children by Zak’s supporters.

In 2014, when Mearls asked the community for evidence of Zak’s harassment she shared her experiences with an anonymous burner email created for that purpose. After sharing her story, she was harassed by Zak at that email.
She has reported this multiple times on her Twitter feed over the last five years.

Right but Zak said he got that email address elsewhere and not from Mike Mearls. And as far as I know Hill never said she shared it only with Mike. Indeed as you say she was a loud critic of Zak and I think she shared it with many people (but I do not know that and if someone has something to the contrary please post it). Now Zak is a scoundrel to be sure, but where is the evidence it came from Mike Mearls other than Hill making that accusation with, as far as I can tell, no evidence other than simply making the accusation?

I think this is the third time this topic has come up where someone asked for this evidence, and the third time people have kinda shrugged, claimed it's truth because the accusation was made, and then moved on as if it was true because the accusation was made and "they heard" it was supported or "they think they saw evidence long ago which they can no longer find" that it was true.

The only email I've ever seen is the one Corrosive posted. And I think it's perfectly fine that people object to it. But it's also not nearly as bad as the allegation he shared emails and names of accusers with Zak. That later accusation - doesn't it need real support to feel secure that it's OK to spread that allegation around?