What does Veeky Forums think of Mike Mearls?

Mearls is a sexist piece of shit who hates women.
He even said that women are too dumb to play 3e and 4e, and that 5e is dumbed down for them.
I'm not even joking

user, that's not how grammar works.

Yeah, that's probably exactly what he said and it's true in your mind.

I dont know who he is. But what I do know is his smile is awful.

He's digging D&D's grave deeper. He also seems to want to dumb down the game even further so I won't be DMing it anytime soon.

Fuck off Mike. Go post SJW shit on Twitter you rainbow avatar’d faggot.

I like him, even when he does stuff that I might not like or agree with.

He's a nerd, he has passion for his work, and seems like an okay guy.

Kind of want to check out his fun time hour stream tonight to see him live design a subclass for one of the child's play auction winners.

I know the last one of those he did was a Kraken Warlock, were there any others yet?

he reminds me of my uncle

It's very hard not to hate him.

Not the same user, but what does it look like he's saying here?
>Rules complexity means having trouble with women in table top gaming
Hmmm, really makes me think.

That's not what it means, that's what you want it to mean.

Oh, how about you explain it to us then, Mike?

I want to defecate on his bold spot.

>muh alternate initiative

>Tomb of Battle
Oh the overcomplicated 3.x weeb trash that Veeky Forums only sucks off because it made martials "interesting."
>Essentials Bestiaries
LMAO
Also we all know that Mearls is a martial fag. He wrote Iron Heroes after all (which is kinda shit but has some cool stuff.

It's true, pic related. He seems to think "gatekeeping" is a real thing, and in doing so falls into one of the GSF traps, that ostracism is evil and should always be avoided no matter the cost.

Everyone got up his ass for not doing his fucking job, and while I enjoy 5e, he hasn't responded to the extremely valid criticism of the system ans he's been dropping the ball on the UA stuff pretty hard. So his way of trying to avoid the hate was to pander to SJWs in the most clumsy way possible, and he rightfully got mauled for it. Mearls has done some good work, but he needs to go, he's fat on his own reputation, and its made him deaf to any criticism, constructive or otherwise.

Not him, but what I take from reading the tweet is that it's the people who hold complex rules and deep lore as king are the ones that want to keep women out of the game, not the rules complexity and lore in itself.

It seems that he is just telling the 3.x and people who believe having more people playing is killing D&D should chill. In a very badly worded way

>this point it's even clear that Crawford is the caster-wank
He and Mearls are, Hexblade is Mearls baby and it has definitely started the power creep in caster favor. Not to mention the continued attempt to shoehorn in the Raven Queen and both of them refusing to back down on Lore Wizard, new iteration is the Invention Wizard, he is just as guilty.

I dunno about that, man. I mean, let's say it is the people who hold complex rules and deep lore above all else are keeping women out of the game, is it because those women have vaginas or is it because many of those women, on an individual level, either can't or don't keep up with the rules and the lore? 'cause if it's the latter, I'd say it's fair game.
After all, if those rules and lore are part of what make the game enjoyable to the playerbase, I'd say that playerbase has every right to keep people who can't keep up out of their games.

youtube.com/watch?v=lfbHKyk3p2Q
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to keep women out of TTRPGs.

He's a misogynist shitlord who's trying to pass as a SJW.

His ideas suck honestly. He is still 10 years behind the curve, and he tries to be hip and progressive to pretend that he has kept up with it.

Not really, there are many instances of games with complex rules and impenetrable lore that could detract of the enjoyment. There is a quality to streamlining of rules and lore, specially when lore complexity can run away and become really impenetrable to anyone trying to join the hobby.

The playerbase got into the game when the bloat was not as bad and kept getting a drip feed of complexity creep. It may be harder to see how difficult to get into it it has become, with a simplification of rules and lore you open a new door to refresh the playerbase and you get the chance to close some lore threads and open new ones.

Because no man has ever been stupid in an RPG. C'mon, even without changing group you can see good exemples. Laura is killing it in the new campaign.

who?

>is it because those women have vaginas or is it because many of those women, on an individual level, either can't or don't keep up with the rules and the lore?

Based on actual shit I see posted here on Veeky Forums on a daily basis probably the former feeding into the latter. Gatekeepers don't want to allow women in gaming because they're social retards who never learned how to interact with the opposite sex outside of anime and porn, which means there's a lot of women who are unfamiliar with complex lore and rules, which gatekeepers use as an example of why keeping women out of their secret hobby.

It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

He's saying that the people who want to keep the game purposefully obtuse and inaccessible to most are the same that want to keep women out of gaming

He's saying gatekeepers gonna keep gates.

But you knew that.

>TLDR: "Talking about character optimization is boring so we decided to make the game have barely any interesting character options at all, so instead of character building people will instead share their epik natural twenty XD XD stories on Redddit for lots of upvotes!!"
Nice fucking job. Here's a protip: no one wants to hear your fucking D&D stories. Those Veeky Forums greentexts that get passed around? Those are a big part of why our hobby is getting so cancerous. "Le funny D&D story" is becoming more and more popular among players and turning the game into a bullshit comedy hour. Simplifying the rules is one thing. Actually what should be happening is STREAMLINING the rules, which is what 5e did. It then took the modular character creation of 3rd edition and the dozens of nascent good ideas that were horribly-executed yet still have potential, chucked them in the trash, then replaced them with boring-ass archetype shit because they are too lazy to balance. And they still failed. Two-handed fighting is still the best combat strategy, Power Attack (or Great Weapon Mastery, as it's called now) is still overpowered. So is sharpshooter. And shit like Nuclear Druid and light-speed tabaxi exist, so clearly they still cannot balance the game. They have not learned any lessons. They are still shit and always will be.

What he's saying isn't completely retarded, but he even admits to being "on a perch" as a designer. He doesn't get why people bash Critical Role so hard.

Also,
>(((Mike Mearls)))
topkek

Funny thing Mearls is two-faced as fuck and doesn't believe anything the PR team at Hasbro forces him to tweet out, we already know his hometable plays a homebrew that resembles 3.5e more than 5e.

>complex rules
No version of D&D has had rules that prohibitively complex. Nor has the learning curve ever really been that steep. For a DM? Sure. For players? Maybe in 3.5. But that's not why trap options were bad. They were bad because they made perfectly cool character ideas irrelevant. Confusing that with "you need to make your game accessible to women, shitlord" is just confusing the narrative, and if anything he's almost arguing against his own goals inadvertently by being a fucking retard on Twitter.

But he is not saying that, he is saying that people who want to keep those parts like trap options are the same people who also begin spilling their spaghetti and screeching when there are women on the table.

>we already know his hometable plays a homebrew that resembles 3.5e more than 5e.
Source? I believe you but I'm curious.

>He doesn't get why people bash Critical Role so hard.
Probably has something to do with the fact that it portrays D&D as a spectator sport and makes it more accessible to normalniggers who don't have a shred of creativity and simply want to laugh at epik natural 20s and treat the game like it's Cards Against Humanity.

>he is saying that people who want to keep those parts like trap options are the same people who also begin spilling their spaghetti and screeching when there are women on the table.
And he has no proof of it. I don't screech autistically at having women players at the table. BUT that's because the ones I've had have either been older and actually mature, or have been younger but actually good roleplayers. But no I do not have tolerance for most female players who aren't actually into the game, and are just there because their boyfriends brought them in. They can get the fuck out. They act disinterested and are on their phones, and then act like it's my fault for not being entertaining enough. Bitch you are the only one not paying attention. That said the good female players I've known have outweighed the bad. I just understand completely the reluctance to have female players at the table.

He setup a straw man to pander to his pussified fans and it fell flat. I respect the work he's done but he just looks like a fucking idiot trying to attack this made up character denying women the right to play.

I don't know a single d&d group that doesn't have females in it these days. Nobody gives a shit anymore stop acting like women need your guys protection from the neck bearded boogy man.

>Source? I believe you but I'm curious.
I actually had the youtube link bookmarked, he fucking deleted it.

media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAGreyhawkInitiative.pdf

This is the kinda homebrew he runs on his home table.

First off, if all you've got is a personal anecdote and stereotypes to sling around, you really don't have me convinced, partner. Second, neither "gatekeepers" nor anybody else are stopping women from buying/downloading and reading rulebooks. Third, do you really think that if a woman signs up for a game that she knows the rules for and the pillow-humping, sweat-stained cheetoh dust singularity you've constructed goes full autistic rage and demands that the woman vacate the premises, the rest of the group is likely to side with him? 'cause that's some nonsense. Veeky Forums isn't the entire tabletop gaming community, and propping up dumb shit people say on an anonymous image board renowned as being a cesspit of ironic and unironic stupidity as proof of a serious issue in the tabletop community is nonsensical.

And to add onto that, the REAL reason why a lot of gatekeepers are adverse to women is becasue there are just too damn many "Long time player's girlfriend" types out there. You know the ones who keep asking which one the d20 is, who the players (especially her BF/Husband) can't help but treat favorably becasue it's just social norm, who screeches when she gets a nat 20 becasue that's what they did on the episode of Critical Role her BF showed her, who don't participate in the RP outside of combat and arguing over loot, and who you're just trying to politely work with but it's so fucking hard and you know she'll get bored after a few sessions and leave but until then you just have to grit your teeth and bear it. Those kinds.

I've had to deal with a DM who's wife burned all of his campaign materials, several of his rulebooks, and a 300 dollar suit over being jealous of some whore hitting on him.

And I'm not saying all girls are like this. I have one at our table and she's a fucking riot who knows the systems we play and RPs just like everyone else.

He's not wrong. People think the game was supposed to be about builds and character optimization all along.
When in truth the hobby was closer to "le epic nat 20 xD" bullshit ( culture doesn't arise from a vacuum ) but character build faggots weren't exposed to it because they never actually got to play so to them the game WAS nothing but building characters.
Seriously, look at all the faggots complaining about how overpowered hexblade dips are ().
Meanwhile in actual play across 20+ people in multiple different the only one even aware of GWM/PAM/Hexblade multiclass cheese is me ( I don't even know anyone else who even uses great weapon master even though martial are everywhere ), and I'm only aware of it because I'm in contact with these build-characters-but-never-actually-play people in the generals. The only thing they are right about is to the point even casuals realize is beastmaster ranger being bad, I have not seen any player actually play one of those besides myself.

You don't even play loser. The game is closer to nat 20 gamism then it ever was to narrative based social encounters. Stop imagining d&d as more than it is because you are the one gatekeeping. You just made all these stereotypes up.
Truth. See above.

I remember reading a good post on Veeky Forums ages ago (which I still think the person who wrote it had personal experience with the CR crew) detailing how channels like Critical Role purposely avoided any women with previous experience in RPG's because it'd hurt their oppression narrative.

>Doubt.jpg
The issue with that is you can sit there and watch one of the women get better at the game while the other stays the same. Then again Felicia Day is the one who originally go this whole thing started so who knows.

>a DM who's wife burned all of his campaign materials, several of his rulebooks, and a 300 dollar suit

Jesus H. of Nazareth, reading this on top of all the That Guy/That DM threads makes me ask this: what sort of fucking nutters do you play with? I've played for 25+ years and I've never met one "fatty with an odour problem and Cheetos dust" or any other stereotype. Fuck, I still play Runequest and 2E AD&D with people I met in the university way back then, and we're teaching our kids to play RPGs as well, and every one of them is a completely normal human being, with no arson, body odour or other shit.

Nail on the head. The worst fa/tg/uys hate women in their gaming groups because at a fundamental level they're scared of women & change in general.

I think he's fine.

>You don't even play loser
100% incorrect.

>Stop imagining d&d as more than it is
>hurr hurr DnD is about being retarded like me becasue I say it is

>You just made all these stereotypes up.
No I didn't. These are based off of 3 years DMing and playing mostly 5e and Pathfinder.

Well, this was about 3 session into a game with a guy we talked about PF with at work a lot. I was thinking about dropping becasue he had 3

His opinions on what constitutes "gatekeeping" are overwhelmingly scattershot to the point of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but he's a fine game designer for the most part.

>Pathfinder&5e
Have fun killing yourself trying to turn d&d into something it's not. When the only way to experience progression is killing things I wonder how much incentive your players have to make interesting characters...

My main group has a girl in it and she is great. I am still slightly worried when there is a girl in the group though for this reason.

Please players: don't bring your pussy to play.

>3 years DMing
Whoa look out, experienced bad-ass over here. Tell us grandpa, where were you during the great 3.5/PF schism?

>people who hold complex rules and deep lore as king are the ones that want to keep women out of the game

Ok, lets say this is 100% correct. Does that mean complex rules and deep lore are to blame? That we shouldn't have it? That it drives women out? What was his point in making this claim? To say "everyone who doesn't like lighter rules and lore hate women"?

To accept that complex rules and lore are the issues preventing women from playing assumes women are too stupid to participate. Anyone see the issue with this?

>y-you don't play TT
>okay so you play TT but you're not playing the right way
Keep moving the goalposts, faggot.

>When the only way to experience progression is killing things
I have a sneaking suspicion that you are actually the one who doesn't play you fucking cock goblin. The majority of DMs I've played with has done character level by plot milestone instead of making us count every nickle and dime we get from every goblin we've killed. You clearly don't play D&D systems so stop bitching about how people are playing them the wrong way, dipshit.

Yeah! Anyone who hasn't been playing since they were in diapers isn't allowed to have an opinion.

Sounds like you just really suck at making good friends/ finding good players. Aka a personal problem.

Well you play the two most cancerous editions, then complain that your players are cancerous. I think there is a connection you are not seeing here...

Both of you are cuck beta males and should leave this thread now, as well as all mentions of critical role.

I made a little jab as a joke no need to take it personal sir. I know it hurts to hear the truth.

Play d&d however you want but at least be honest with yourself that you are playing a natural 20 simulator.

I've played almost every d20 game that exists (currently running Star Wars sagas). Pathfinder alone I've spent three years on. I don't say these things to bash but just enlighten people like you who wish everyone would play a chaotic evil golbin orphan with deep emotional problems in their shitty rise of the runelords campaign. You are the gatekeeper sir!

>playing D&D
>in 2018

It's illogical to think that it's my fault bad players are bad. My current groups aren't bad, I just had to sort through piles of garbage people through sheer trial and error to find ones that I like and I'm just explaining why gatekeepers are adverse to women based upon the experience of having bad players.

user, he was the one put in charge to crash 4e to the ground.

>Ha, you fool! I was merely pretending to be retarded!

He's the next Todd Howard of tabletop.

I for one welcome the Mearls as Todd memes.

Mike "Black cock is for my wife's vagoo" Mearls?

>You mentioned the bad thing I don't like, leave!
Fuck off, go get triggered somewhere else. Stop being a little bitch about what other people do and actually contribute to the discussion with arguments that aren't just "You like the thing someone told me is bad".

Also the thing is that our hobby is so decentralized, that the way one group acts doesn't reflect how all, or even most act. So it's really dumb for the owning company to come in and try to "police" the community.

I have to wonder why gatekeeping is such a bad thing. If you ever browse the dnd subroddit (yeah, yeah I know, fuck off back to Raddit, etc) it's enough to make you want to strangle yourself with your own intestines.

> look at the character portrait I had done on fiverr but I'm passing it off as my own!
> Oh, aren't we clever, we made a funny joke in game
> Look at my completely cringe-inducing homebrew character option
> Repeat until experiencing nasal vomit

I tried playing with some of these fags. It was excruciating.

We need some way of raising the bar, so that we can filter out these hipster fuckwits.

We've had (girls who became) women in our group since 1988. There was always some defining traits amongst them, but they were great.

They'd always try and use their pussies to avoid reading the rulebooks and get let off with breaking the rules, but apart from that, they're fine.

I just don't see lore density or rules complexity to be inherently. Arma 2 and Dwarf Fortress and Dark Souls aren't exactly accessible games on their face, but the things that make them inaccessible also make them unique, and I genuinely believe that they would lose something intrinsic to their being by taking away that inaccessibility. I can say the same about Shadowrun and Anima. Those games are a goddamn mess of deepest lore and strange rules that interact with each other in strange ways, but given that no game can be perfect, I think those things give those games some character.

>inherently
I mean inherently bad. Fucking phoneposting.

Pretty much.

Personally I just want complex rules so I can tweak every aspect of a character to my liking, something 5E is notoriously terrible at.

I'm considering porting over the more modular classes and feats of 3.5 into the core system of 5E because fuck every gish being a paladin.

>The majority of DMs I've played with has done character level by plot milestone
God thats such dumb shit. It just makes them whine even more about fighting difficult encounters cause they don't get more xp from it. It's also arbitrary as fuck.

Did you ever have sex with any of them?

To be honest, I have nothing wrong with gatekeeping in what are optional hobbies. Don't like the community? Go find another one, or make one. Especially in today's world, where internet means it's easier than ever to find a ttrpg game if you're willing to make the effort.

Dude you either have some monumentally faggy players or you've never run anything with D&D XP progression ever. Every player I've ever met reacted with
>you mean we DON'T have to track that shit? Sweet.

>We need some way of raising the bar, so that we can filter out these hipster fuckwits.
Choose who you teach, that is the best we can do. Oh, and stop buying products from (((((((Wizards of the Coast))))))).

What is wrong with tracking XP? It's fun and literally effortless. If your players start being murderhobos for xp just don't give them XP for it simple.

>It's fun and literally effortless
It's more effort than just saying ding dong level up.

>If people start doing things you don't like just arbitrarily decide they don't xp
>Doing simple addition is fun
Or you know like the others said, use milestones and it'll never be an issue.

I've seen someone take it.
But the group seems to ignore half the rules associated with the animal companion - it just gets its own turn and attacks normally, with no actions required from the ranger (though the GM has noted a few times that doing certain things wouldn't be appropriate for it).
And it's a bear.

Ever noticed how the people who bitch the hardest about gatekeeping are either people with a financial stake in the popularity of a game or people who would have hit the fucking gatekeeping filter ages ago?

>Probably has something to do with the fact that it portrays D&D as a spectator sport and makes it more accessible to normalniggers who don't have a shred of creativity and simply want to laugh at epik natural 20s and treat the game like it's Cards Against Humanity.

I still don't get why people are so upset about this. If you don't like normalfags than don't fucking play with them, and if the game goes in a direction you don't like than just play an older addition.

It's not like a video game where you're the developer's bitch; you can do whatever the fuck you want in a tabletop game

even without all the rumors and virtue signalling, I've never heard him say anything intelligent once, so there's that.

Playing out combat is more effort than simply rolling a d6 to see if the pcs win, then fudging the roll because you're too pussy to kill off any of your friends characters.

Yes.

Because neckbeards, like anyone else want to see a product they enjoy continue to change. Like I'm pretty sure even the neckbeardiest grognards would admit that 3.5 had problems they'd like to see fixed. Then 4e comes along and dashes that.

Neckbeards aren't adverse to progress inherently, they just don't like it when that progress is to water down something to try and appeal to casuals.

Your group has never taken casualities?

>le ebin equivalence fallacy
Now you're just being contrarian for the sake of it.

Go back to ((((((((((((((((((((/pol/))))))))))))))))))))