WotC Mike Mearls: "D&D Is Uncool Again"

In Mike Mearls' recent interview with Ben Riggs, he talks about how he feels that Dungeons & Dragons has had its moment, and is now uncool again. Mearls was one of the lead designers of D&D 5E and became the franchise's Creative Director in 2018. He worked at WotC until he was laid off in 2023. He is now EP of roleplaying games at Chaosium, the publisher of Call of Chulhu.

My theory is that when you look back at the OGL, the real impact of it is that it made D&D uncool again. D&D was cool, right? You had Joe Manganiello and people like that openly talking about playing D&D. D&D was something that was interesting, creative, fun, and different. And I think what the OGL did was take that concept—that Wizards and this idea of creativity that is inherent in the D&D brand because it's a roleplaying game, and I think those two things were sundered. And I don’t know if you can ever put them back together.

I think, essentially, it’s like that phrase: The Mandate of Heaven. I think fundamentally what happened was that Wizards has lost the Mandate of Heaven—and I don’t see them even trying to get it back.

What I find fascinating is that it was Charlie Hall who wrote that article. This is the same Charlie Hall who wrote glowing reviews of the 5.5 rulebooks. And then, at the same time, he’s now writing, "This is your chance because D&D seems to be stumbling." How do you square that? How do I go out and say, "Here are the two new Star Wars movies. They’re the best, the most amazing, the greatest Star Wars movies ever made. By the way, Star Wars has never been weaker. Now is the time for other sci-fi properties", like, to me that doesn’t make any sense! To me, it’s a context thing again.

Maybe this is the best Player’s Handbook ever written—but the vibes, the audience, the people playing these games—they don’t seem excited about it. We’re not seeing a groundswell of support and excitement. Where are the third-party products? That’s what I'd ask. Because that's what you’d think, "oh, there’s a gap", I mean remember before the OGL even came up, back when 3.0 launched, White Wolf had a monster book. There were multiple adventures at Gen Con. The license wasn’t even official yet, and there were already adventures showing up in stores. We're not seeing that, what’s ostensibly the new standard going forward? If anything, we’re seeing the opposite—creators are running in the opposite direction. I mean, that’s where I’m going.

And hey—to plug my Patreon—patreon.com/mikemearls (one word). This time last year, when I was looking at my post-Wizards options, I thought, "Well, maybe I could start doing 5E-compatible stuff." And now what I’m finding is…I just don’t want to. Like—it just seems boring. It’s like trying to start a hair metal band in 1992. Like—No, no, no. Everyone’s mopey and we're wearing flannel. It's Seattle and rain. It’s Nirvana now, man. It’s not like Poison. And that’s the vibe I get right now, yeah, Poison was still releasing albums in the ’90s. They were still selling hundreds of thousands or a million copies. But they didn’t have any of the energy. It's moved on. But what’s interesting to me is that roleplaying game culture is still there. And that’s what I find fascinating about gaming in general—especially TTRPGs. I don’t think we’ve ever had a period where TTRPGs were flourishing, and had a lot of energy and excitement around them, and D&D wasn’t on the upswing. Because I do think that’s what’s happening now. We’re in very strange waters where I think D&D is now uncool.

 

[eyeheartawk]

The name is okay, I guess, but the reason is terrible.

Hey now, after they changed those names all those angry moms were just fine with D&D, right?

 

[Remathilis]

D&D had it's moment in the sun. But I think the key factor Mearls is missing is that the people who are bored with D&D aren't leaving to go play Pathfinder or Level Up, they are leaving the hobby altogether. The market is going to contract. That covid boom and critical role fever was never going to last. Nothing ever does.

What's next? I dunno. Some people will move back to video games or board games. Maybe something new will come. I'm sure there will be others who move to OSR or 3pp games or to completely new systems and settings. Adulthood will claim a fair amount of them and time once spent gaming will be spent on work and family. The diehards will always be there. And new players will find their way into the game.

That said, I think those who were hoping WotCs influence would be waning are going to get their wish. What they're going to learn is when WotC shrinks, the room in pool doesn't get bigger, they whole pool shrinks with them.

 

[Burnside]

I do think the modern cultural D&D boom probably peaked in 2022.

However, what does he mean "where are the 3rd party products?" How can there be 3rd party 5.5 products without a 5.5 OGL?

 

[eyeheartawk]

That said, I think those who were hoping WotCs influence would be waning are going to get their wish. What they're going to learn is when WotC shrinks, the room in pool doesn't get bigger, they whole pool shrinks with them.

If that turns out to be true, and I certainly think it could be, what's ultimately going to change? Even at the very height of the boom, outside of a handful of super huge Kickstarters, the old adage of "The best way to make hundreds of Dollars in the RPG business is to start with thousands " still applied.

 

[Leatherhead]

I would dare say it's less about D&D being uncool, and more about WotC being uncool.

 

[Pedantic]

D&D had it's moment in the sun. But I think the key factor Mearls is missing is that the people who are bored with D&D aren't leaving to go play Pathfinder or Level Up, they are leaving the hobby altogether. The market is going to contract. That covid boom and critical role fever was never going to last. Nothing ever does.

What's next? I dunno. Some people will move back to video games or board games. Maybe something new will come. I'm sure there will be others who move to OSR or 3pp games or to completely new systems and settings. Adulthood will claim a fair amount of them and time once spent gaming will be spent on work and family. The diehards will always be there. And new players will find their way into the game.

That said, I think those who were hoping WotCs influence would be waning are going to get their wish. What they're going to learn is when WotC shrinks, the room in pool doesn't get bigger, they whole pool shrinks with them.

So he actually touches on this exact point in the interview, and notes that has always been the trend, that the RPG market contacts whenever D&D is on the downswing, and grows when D&D is rising.

His argument here is that this is the first time that relationship seems to have broken, and he points to the Cosmere RPG out-earning the 2024 corebooks (by his estimation) as an example.

 

[DEFCON 1]

D&D had it's moment in the sun. But I think the key factor Mearls is missing is that the people who are bored with D&D aren't leaving to go play Pathfinder or Level Up, they are leaving the hobby altogether. The market is going to contract. That covid boom and critical role fever was never going to last. Nothing ever does.

While I agree this is possible... there's also the possibility that it doesn't contract, but rather stays the same size (or even continues to just slowly grow) but because it isn't noteworthy anymore no one pays much attention to how it stays.

I mean look at something like the WWE: their "coolness" went off the charts with the advent of Stone Cold Steve Austin and his feud with Vince McMahon (along with the ascension of The Rock, Triple H et. al.)... and yet from all accounts the WWE is wildly more successful now than it was then, even though no one in common culture is all that "excited" about it in the same way people were back in 1997 or saw the massive upswing in cultural cache. The WWE isn't "cool"... it's just what it is. But what it is is massively successful.

So for all we know, D&D 5E24 might very well maintain the levels that 5E14 set... but because that would just be the status quo and not things blowing up massively past that, there's no real story to be told. We really won't know for a couple years. Let's see if/when Jeremy, Chris, and James are let go and mumblings of someone like McKenzie DeArmas beginning work on 6E start surfacing. Then we'll have a better idea the state of D&D.

 

[Staffan]

I love the name Tanar'ri.

I sometimes wonder if Zeb Cook had a couple of annoying aunts named Tammy Rae and Betty Sue.

 

[delericho]

I thought the 2024 PHB was supposed to be the fastest-selling RPG product of all time?

I do tend to agree, though, that D&D's moment of prominence in the zeitgeist seems to be coming to a close. And that's not really a surprise - geek media as a whole seems to be slipping away. Both Star Wars and the MCU are in the doldrums, "Game of Thrones" has ended and been replaced with a slew of hugely expensive but underwhelming fantasy slop, "Big Bang Theory" and its spin-off are done, and Critical Role seems to have had its moment.

None of this should be particularly surprising.

And, after the last few years, I'm inclined to think that none of it is particularly disappointing either.

That said, it is an historical oddity that both 2nd Ed and 4e removed half-orcs from the PHB and the game found itself in negative hit points. And, of course, the 2024 version has just removed half-orcs from the PHB...

(And yes, I know... and I know that too. Don't take the above paragraph too seriously. )

 

[jayoungr]

Mearls later goes on to say that he thinks D&D may never recover and that we may be living in a "post-D&D" landscape. I would think someone who's been in the business as long as he has would realize how cyclical these trends are.