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."

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Oh, thanks. I guess I saw that posted earlier, I think, and I just assumed it was related to something else.

Hrm. Unfortunately it's even older than Dungeoncraft. And giants-as-PCs brings back some particularly poor memories of some early campaigns, so the topic isn't really appealing to me at all.

The other thing I found was the old Underground RPG, which is even older still and reads exactly like an early 90s superhero RPG might. It looks like Rob Liefeld the RPG, which was absolutely in style at the time but completely outside my wheelhouse now.

Oh, well. I guess he had been out of the industry for awhile.

He was a writer on some Basic D&D stuff too, as well as one of the writers of Castle Greyhawk but I'm pretty sure he won't advertise that one.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Underground was a very tongue in cheek game. It was meant to be that way.

Yeah, that was the style. Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns made deconstructionism cool. But by the time of the early 90s, deconstructionism was blase and worn out, so it was all satirical deconstructionism because then you could laugh at the traditional stuff and at the deconstruction.

I mean, it wasn't like reconning away Peter Parker's marriage to MJ, but it did get really irritating.

 

[cbwjm]

Are those Dungeoncraft articles available anywhere? Under proper copyright that is.

Not sure if this qualifies, it might count as fair use, but the articles are online. Found a link to a thread on enworld where someone was using them to build their campaign setting. He has a link in the first post to the articles.

Dungeoncraft - 4th edition style

Part I Okay over the next few weeks/months I’m planning on plotting out my new 4th edition campaign using, Ray Winninger’s Dungeoncraft essay’s that were published in Dragon in the late 90’s (follow the link to read the essays http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/). I’ve always...

www.enworld.org

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Oh, thanks. I guess I saw that posted earlier, I think, and I just assumed it was related to something else.

Hrm. Unfortunately it's even older than Dungeoncraft. And giants-as-PCs brings back some particularly poor memories of some early campaigns, so the topic isn't really appealing to me at all.

The other thing I found was the old Underground RPG, which is even older still and reads exactly like an early 90s superhero RPG might. It looks like Rob Liefeld the RPG, which was absolutely in style at the time but completely outside my wheelhouse now.

Oh, well. I guess he had been out of the industry for awhile.

The intro he wrote about himself for the current issue of Dragon+ says he contributed to Out of the Abyss, so that may be his most recent RPG writing credit.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sunless Citadel was fairly well regarded thought. Did 2E even have an introductory adventure?

Sunless Citadel is fun -- Meepo forever! -- although there are theme park rides that are less on rails. But it's not even in the same league as Phandalin.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, that was the style. Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns made deconstructionism cool. But by the time of the early 90s, deconstructionism was blase and worn out, so it was all satirical deconstructionism because then you could laugh at the traditional stuff and at the deconstruction.

I mean, it wasn't like reconning away Peter Parker's marriage to MJ, but it did get really irritating.

I'd love to see an Astro City RPG, which gets the balance right on examining superhero tropes. You can have the absolutely Pixar-level tearjerking of "The Nearness of You" and also straight up superhero fun.

 

[Dragonblade]

Does anyone know if Mearls left WotC entirely? Or just transition away from tabletop RPG team?

As far as Zak S, nobody cares or even knows about that stuff aside from diehard fans who frequent niche RPG forums and read about rumors and gossip.

I'm highly skeptical there is any connection there.

 

[teitan]

Does anyone know if Mearls left WotC entirely? Or just transition away from tabletop RPG team?

As far as Zak S, nobody cares or even knows about that stuff aside from diehard fans who frequent niche RPG forums and read about rumors and gossip.

I'm highly skeptical there is any connection there.

Yes he is still part of the D&D team brand overall.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As far as Zak S, nobody cares or even knows about that stuff aside from diehard fans who frequent niche RPG forums and read about rumors and gossip.

I'm the only person in my gaming groups who is a regular visitor to ENWorld or RPG.net as far as I know, and multiple people brought up the Zak S issues, since we were already planning to run the revised Death Frost Doom. I think it was more widely discussed than you might remember. I think it showed up at Kotaku and Polygon and the like.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I'm the only person in my gaming groups who is a regular visitor to ENWorld or RPG.net as far as I know, and multiple people brought up the Zak S issues, since we were already planning to run the revised Death Frost Doom. I think it was more widely discussed than you might remember. I think it showed up at Kotaku and Polygon and the like.

Yes, the story made it outside of the various forums, especially after WotC had to put out their own press release about the incident and the involvement of Zak with their products, and the subsequent severing of ties with him, I think including removing his name from all products he worked on. Their statement does not mention Mike at all, but it is still available to read on their website.