Issue #006: Chaosium’s Call of Mearls?

Welcome to Issue 6 of Critical Hit News. Why are people mad at Chaosium for hiring a former Fifth Edition developer? A longer look at the tale of Mike Mearls.

Chaosium’s Call of Mearls?

Call of Cthulu creator Chaosium announced six new hires last week. Most hirings are unremarkable to most people, but one name seemed to draw the ire of several TTRPG creators on social media: Mike Mearls, who will now be the executive producer for RPGs at the company.

Mearls’ hiring seems reasonable, considering his long history of writing RPGs and his work as a decades-old veteran of the TTRPG. However, his presence also appeared to cause several people on social media to swear off Chaosium content, a decision that caught me off-guard. What did Mearls do? So here’s my deep dive into Mike Mearls’ history.

In 2014, Mearls was involved in helping play-testing for the Fifth Edition of DnD. During this period, he hired consultants from the Old School Renaissance movement of TTRPG writers to provide their perspective. (OSR is an older approach to TTRPG game design and likely requires a bit more explanation than I can offer.) But two specific hires earned attention from fans and observers: John Tarnowski, aka “RPGPundit,” and Zak Smith.

• Tarnowski, a Uruguay-based writer and RPG creator in the OSR space, appears to be alt-right based on his Twitter/X account. He’s also affiliated with white supremacists and promoted several far-right talking points on his blog and elsewhere.

• Zak Smith is best known for his work in adult media, penning several art books and RPGs and hosting a video series titled Dungeons and Dragons with Porn Stars. Smith has been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and sued by his victims for it. He was also known for being critical of diversity conversations on a number of forums, which led to him being banned from RPG.net for “serial derail[ing] threads with bad-faith arguments.”

Smith and Tarnowski’s presence as consultants was a firestorm of drama when Fifth Edition initially came out in 2014. It eventually escalated in 2019 after several women came forward to accuse Smith of abuse. Wizards removed Smith’s name from all print and digital editions of the Fifth Edition Player’s Handbook in response. The board game convention GenCon also banned Smith from attending based on the accusations.

So, what’s Mearls’ role in this? This has been hard to find since many TTRPG internet discussions and history are buried in ancient websites that have either deleted the posts or are phased. So please take what I’m writing with salt, as I’m newer to this story than older veterans of the TTRPG space.

Some people on Reddit and other forums have alleged that Mearls received reports from Smith’s victims and sent them to Smith for his review, thus outing them to Smith (I’m still looking for the primary source of this claim.)

Mearls did claim in 2014 that reports of the pair using slurs and engaging in harassment were forwarded to him (based on quotes from the Failforward blog referencing now-deleted Google+ posts) but found no credible evidence of slurs and appeared to evade queries around harassment.

Mearls issued a response to the allegations against Smith in 2019, although it was a very corporate statement. The former Wizards employee was also sued by Smith, who alleged that Mearls had done him harm by removing his name from the 5e text. The suit was eventually dismissed due to a lack of grounds.

Assuming all of the above is accurate (let me know if I got something wrong!), then Mearls appears to have mishandled the claims of sexual harassment at the very least. Perhaps he did forward the messages to Smith, but I’ve yet to confirm that claim.

It’s been at least ten years since 5e was first published and five years since the accusations against Smith went public. I don’t know if Mearls has realized his error or changed his way. But only time will tell if his presence at Chaosium will have any impact.

THIS WEEK IN TTRPGS:

• The 2024 DnD book covers continue! This week, the UK-based newspaper The Mirror got a sneak peek at the new Dungeon Master’s Guide, which features classic villains Skylla and Warduke in the mid ground, Venger from the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and a dracolich! Lots of spooky bad guys to see.

• Foundry, one of the more popular virtual tabletops on the market, just hits its fourth year anniversary. As part of that anniversary, the company’s developer also decided to unveil plans to release EMBER, a new virtual roleplaying system. Not much is known yet beyond plans to raise funds for it on Kickstarter, but if the people behind Foundry are working on it then I am eager to see what comes of the product.

• Paizocon, an online convention dedicated to Pathfinder and Starfinder, unveiled new details about a number of new products that it was working on. These include Pathfinder Remastered books, the hotly anticipated Tian Xia sourcebooks, the War of Immortals event, the Howl of the Wild supplement, and Starfinder Second Edition. There’s a lot of cool stuff involved for those who really enjoy Pathfinder. TechRaptor has all the details.

Game Deals

1. If you’re a fan of the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, Square Enix has released the quick start guide for it for free! Lin Codega of Rascal News got an early look and is displeased with the game, but you should give it a look yourself.

2. Cyberpunk Red is available for free on Roll20 as an introductory set. There are also several free DLCs available if you already have the source material. Check out the Free DLC 2022, Free DLC 2023, and Free DLC 2024.

3. A number of Pathfinder books are available on Fantasy Grounds through the latest Humble Bundle. Fantasy Grounds isn’t my preferred virtual tabletops, but I’ve no doubt that some players may find it valuable.

4. Kids in Capes, the latest expansion for the Stranger Things-esque RPG Kids on Bikes, is raising funds on Kickstarter. The game’s already raised the funds it needs but no better chance than to get in on it now!

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