Mike Mearls is firing you from D&D

[JeremyR]

Is this really that different than what the Sword & Wizardry guy did with the latest version of that? Hire an all woman production team who had no experience with S&W or OSR games? And I guess that single saving throw nonsense is to make it easier for women as well, because more than one type is just too complex for them (and old people).

SJWs have to virtue signal. So they do. To be surprised by it is silly.

Though I guess Mearls is probably not also covering up the drunken harassment of women by a fellow WOTC designer

[Llew ap Hywel]

All I'm getting from this is Mike Mearls doesn't think women can handle complexity...bit insulting really.

Oh and he gets to decide who plays 'his' game.

Hmm

[S'mon]

So Mearls hired a young woman without design credits, apparently for Virtue Signalling and/or "Gamma Thirst" reasons, feels vaguely guilty about it, and is lashing out on Twitter? He would hardly be the first middle aged guy to make this mistake.

I suspect the wise thing to do would be to ignore his two mistakes and let the results speak for themselves. Maybe the hiree is actually super talented and it will all work out. Maybe he's begun Transitioning WotC to SJW-WoTC in the Marvel Comics model.  I don't think poking him will help, it'll just firm up the dominance of his SJW side (as seen in the tweet), which is what the SJWs want. If you're going to say anything to him it should be along the lines of "There is Good in you, Anakin/Mike, I can feel it! Come back to the Light!"

Edit: Oops can this thread go to Pundit's Forum? It's inherently political IMO.

[Warboss Squee]

So Reddit spurgs out over the new higher (I've no idea who she is and frankly don't care, I never pay attention to the credits) and Mearls looses his shit. It's Reddit you asshole, what did you expect? It's the troll vacation spot.

Between this and his NRA equals ISIS shit, Mearls can suck a dick, get cancer and die.

[S'mon]

But the other groups were mostly university-aged, and they were a pretty even spread of men and women, and of ethnic groups, too.

That's my experience. Certainly 5e is bringing in lots of new players of both sexes and many ethnies. 5e is simpler than 3e-4e and more attractive to new players generally I think. 4e & 5e I found equally relatively attractive to female players; 0e-2e and 3e somewhat less so, but for different reasons.

FWIW I find the kind of women interested in playing D&D average about the same level of rules mastery as the kind of men interested in playing D&D. I see about* as many gear-head crunchmaster female players as male players - for some reason the female ones I know particularly like 4e D&D.

*TBH I think I personally know more gear-head female players than male gear-head min-max types, but it's pretty similar distribution.

[S'mon]

Though I guess Mearls is probably not also covering up the drunken harassment of women by a fellow WOTC designer

That's news to me - are you thinking of Bill Webb of Frog God, who was accused of harrassing a Con goer? Mearls & Perkins don't look like they could harrass a begonia, and that kind of thing (harrassing women) wouldn't interest Crawford at all...

[video=youtube_share;q95t2ulrXW4]https://youtu.be/q95t2ulrXW4?t=70[/youtube]

[Armchair Gamer]

Wasn't it Mike Mearls who was a big proponent of complex system mastery being a nigh-mandatory part of 3.x?  

Isn't he basically whining about his design choices right now?

No, that was Monte Cook, who did help give Mearls his start. And Mearls has been all over the place in design philosophy over the years.

I'm just wondering whether WotC or Paizo will be the first to start requiring players to burn an American flag and trample a crucifix before playing their games.

[RPGPundit]

This is a valid thread to be on the main forum as it relates to a major even IN the RPG hobby.

However, and everyone note what I'm saying AS AN ADMIN: that is NOT a license to change this into a larger discussion about politics.

You are to keep comments here STRICTLY LIMITED to the subject of Mike Mearls, his tweet, and the hobby. No veering off into any discussion that has to do with outside the hobby or that isn't specific in relation to the hobby.

People who can't do this will end up being moderated.

[RPGPundit]

Here's what I said about this elsewhere:

It's funny how Mike Mearls believes that women aren't capable of liking "rules complexity" or "Lore".

Way to dismiss women gamer's abilities, Mike!

(to say nothing of painting a whole swath of male gamers who like those things as sexists for liking those things)

[RPGPundit]

The point is Mearls, in his attempt to virtue-signal, is actually engaging in grotesque stereotypes of both male gamers who like rules-heavy systems and of all women gamers in general.

Not to mention that the idea that women don't like "lore" is just absurd. There's a reason that games like Vampires, Lords of Olympus (and its inspiration, Amber), and other lore-heavy games tend to have a disproportionate number of women fans.

[Omega]

Right. Its such a weird statement. But I think the main point Mearls was trying to say was that these "gatekeepers of heavy rules and lore" are somehow against women playing.

Where the heck is he getting this from? Lots of women really like Vampire/WOD and Ive met an oddly high number that like Shadowrun.

[under_score]

Is this really that different than what the Sword & Wizardry guy did with the latest version of that? Hire an all woman production team who had no experience with S&W or OSR games? And I guess that single saving throw nonsense is to make it easier for women as well, because more than one type is just too complex for them (and old people).

SJWs have to virtue signal. So they do. To be surprised by it is silly.

Though I guess Mearls is probably not also covering up the drunken harassment of women by a fellow WOTC designer

Stacy Dellafano and her team did a new presentation for S&W - art and layout only.  Doesn't require any experience, but I believe Stacy plays S&W a lot and that's why she wanted to do that game.  The idea being that maybe a different visual style could attract a new demographic for Frog God Games.  It was backed by a kickstarter, so pretty much zero risk for FGG, and who doesn't want to expand their market?  From what I've read, it got the same backers all the other S&W stuff gets and failed to attract anyone new and there have been no further collaborations.

Really don't know why that upsets people so much.

As for the drunken harassment cover up, I assume you're referring to the accusations against Bill Webb and Matt Finch's response?  They looked into it, acknowledged it, apologized for it, released a public statement regarding it.  Quite the cover up going over there.

[Omega]

The main complaints I heard, and had myself to a degree, was that it came across as virtue signalling or something when there wasnt any need and it just rubbed people the wrong way during a time when this was rampant. No one would have cared otherwise.

[fearsomepirate]

Here's what I said about this elsewhere:

It's funny how Mike Mearls believes that women aren't capable of liking "rules complexity" or "Lore".

Way to dismiss women gamer's abilities, Mike!

(to say nothing of painting a whole swath of male gamers who like those things as sexists for liking those things)

It's especially dumb to try to associate rules spergs with WOMAN-HATING BIGOTS when Paizo is anything but a hive of reactionary conservatism.

[Steven Mitchell]

Side initiative is weird. I tried doing it once, but it didn't really feel that much different. I still had to go around the table asking each person what their final answer was, so to speak. So even though it would be resolved in order, the actual process of the players announcing their moves was not that different.

Emphasis by me, highlighting half the reason why it didn't work.  Now, you may or may not like it if you give it a fair try, but you also can't be too wedded to every little detail of the way it worked before.  There is a natural give an take to determining what players want to do, and you need to find that to make side-by-side initiative work.