We've seen scans of the 5E D&D starter set and it confirms our worst fears. There's no hope that Mike Mearls was just banished to the time-out corner with his D&D Legos while the adults did the work on the project. His thalidomide baby, as another poster put it, is about to be discharged from the hospital after the parents promised a Gattaca ubermench that would sweep the Fitter Family Fair. So fuck it. There's no doubt that 5E D&D is going to flop and thus there's no hastiness in counting this chicken before it's hatched. In two months, Mike Mearls will have been in the hotseat for two editions of the world's largest TTRPG going down in flames.A dwarf in a steel top hat and steel tuxedo called MC Killzalot, the most famous dwarven rapper who's on the skids after a disastrous attempt at a prog rock album. Oh, his class is Fighter.
So what's next for this J. Michael Straczynski-level hack?
He's too fucking lazy to write his own system or even to learn about the systems he worked on -- let alone a brand-new one -- so a career on the OGL/GSL circuit is as likely as this guy writing a system from scratch. And I don't think that even Paizo would be idiotic enough to hire the equivalent of Rob Liefeld. But then, they hired Mr. Write Feats To Raise Money For His Kitty Cat, so who knows. Mike Mearls' golden parachute might be good for one last jump. Still, I feel equally confident in predicting that his reign will be seen as one of the most disastrous in entertainment history. He'll be on the short list of people who managed to singlehandedly derail and crash a cultural icon before its prime. Personally, I think that he's going to be for the TTRPG industry what Jack Thompson was for the legal profession and what Ken Penders was for the comics industry.
EDIT: Edited for the creation of more hatred.
