It seems as though veteran games design Mike Mearls has left Wizards of the Coast and has been replaced by none other than Ray Winninger. If the name sounds familiar to you, it should! Ray sports an impressive resume having worked for the original publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, TSR. He also wrote a regular column for Dragon magazine and has been an Executive Producer for WotC since August 2018. His influences have impacted many games outside of D&D, having wor🍸ked for Mayfair Games and West End Games – both publ𒉰ishers of RPGs in the '80s and '90s.
Here's what we know so far. At the time of writing, no official word has come from WotC regarding Mearl's departure and his LinkedIn page sꦜtill states that he is "Franchise Creative Director - Dungeons & Dragons." We do, however, have an interesting Twitter exchange where the WotC designer Christoper Perkins answers a question about Winninger's job. The reply clearly states that he "heads up the current D&D RPG team.'' If that isn't clear enough, a follow-up exchange featuring another designer, Jeremey Crawford, says that Mearls has not worked on D&D for some time having left "sometime last year."
All this points to some pretty major changes for D&D's leadership and this will no doubt🔜 have an impact on their strategy mo𝔉ving forward.
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