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.

 

[delericho]

Is it fair that WotC try to increase monetization the D&D brand?

I have no problem with WotC trying to monetize their brand. I have no interest in almost everything they and their licensees produce, but I don't object to them producing them.

I do object to their actions concerning the OGL. Frankly, I consider even the attempt to be unethical, and had they not seen sense and backed down they would never have seen another sale to me. (Which I'm sure terrifies them. )

 

[Aldarc]

I always wanted to do a poll of backers to find out how many actually realized it was a PbtA game and not a 5E game. It felt to me like a lot of people just assumed it was more D&D adjacent -- but that was just an impression I got. I would be curious to know for sure.

I would also be interested in knowing how many folks were actually playing it. I feel like it is fewer than backed it. If I had to guess I would say something similar will happen with Cosmere: it seems like Sanderson fans will support anything with his name on it, even if they never intend to run or play the game.

I've played Avatar Legends. It's fun. If I ran it again for my partner, I would probably pick up the Starter Set. It would be nice to play it again, but as a TTRPG enthusiast I have other games on my "to-play list" to get through first before I come back around again to Avatar Legends.

That said, I suspect that you will find that in the cases of most TTRPG Kickstarters, more people back them than actually play them... he says as he eyes his shelf of backed Kickstarters.

We had people here poo-pooing the idea that Mario was going to have a big impact. I think unless people had young kids -- who were the audience the movie was aimed at, as the howls of protest from older fans at the trailer made very clear -- it was easy to make that mistake.

My kids were up for seeing DADHAT, but really wanted to see Mario the next weekend, which we saw at the first showing of the day to avoid the crowds and it was still really well attended.

It's similar, IMHO, to how I think that a lot of (mostly male) fantasy readers underestimate how large the "romantasy" genre is in terms of sales in comparison to the fantasy authors that we think of as the giants of the past thirty years: e.g., Sanderson, Jordan, GRRM, etc.

 

[Valetudo]

Did 3.5 out sell 3rd? Or do they count them together? I own alot of wizards 5e books and alot of 3rd party and they all work fine with 5.5. So maybe the market just got over flooded. I kinda see this going on right now. The stuffs not bad but even nond20 rpgs are hoping up everywhere. They all tend to be very similar to each other(osrs). By the way pearls has said alot of iffy stuff over the years and I feel Iike he might not of left on good terms. Imho.

 

[Starfox]

In the interview, Meals referred to 5E24 as 5.5. I wonder if that's what they called it internally? Externally they have avoided that name like the plague, and even Next got changed. They are really aiming at name continuity.

Someone (sorry I am not rewinding and am bad at remembering names) asked about our personal opinions. My personal feeling about the OGL debacle was that people were over-reacting, but I no longer remember why I thought so. That companies stopped making 3rd party products and are instead making their own games is a bad thing in my book, it splits the market. When I look at people trying to publish "their own D&D" it rarely fits my tastes anyway. I actually like most of the new things in 5E24, but I have been dissatisfied with 5E14 to the point that t has turned me off 5E24. I still follow the news on Youtube, but I'm not adopting the game. Then again, I was slow to adopt 5E14, so I may pick up 5E24 in the future. I do like that WotC had to eat some humble pie.

Right now I want to try a game that doesn't treat combat as its own mini-game. A friend showed me Blades in the Dark, and I am making a D&D-esque fantasy hack of that to make another arc in my ongoing Greyhawk campaign.

 

[Valetudo]

I bought tales of the valiant. I'm not gonna use it, in fact I feel that they dropped the ball on that one.

 

[dead]

My theory is that when you look back at the OGL, the real impact of it is that it made D&D uncool again.

Is he saying D&D started being uncool when the OGL was released 25 years ago with 3E?

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?

Why is he lamenting there's no 3rd party products for 5.5E? Doesn't that require an OGL - which he thinks made D&D uncool?

 

[delericho]

Did 3.5 out sell 3rd? Or do they count them together?

It depends which measure you use.

If you look solely at PHB sales (which according to Ryan Dancey is the metric that matters), 1st > 2nd > 3.0e > 3.5e > 4e. (But 3.0e + 3.5e > 2nd.) And then 5e blows them all away.

If you look at total book sales, 4e > 3.5e > 3e > 2nd > 1st. And then 5e blows them all away. That's mostly a factor of the later editions having more titles published.

However, each individual title you publish carries a cost: it cost money to develop, advertise, and handle the inventory of multiple titles. So the optimum approach is probably to have a small number of titles, each of which sell well. Basically, early 5e had it right.

Basically, however you slice it 5e wins. For earlier editions, feel free to pick the measure that gives the win to your favourite version.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I’ve no idea about actual sales, but the vibe from the recent Con I attended was certainly different. A few years ago at least half the games being run were D&D5E. This year, I barely saw any - gamers were running other games.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I guess there is a deeper question beneath all of this which possibly goes a long way to informing how people feel about WotC.

Is it fair that WotC try to increase monetization the D&D brand?

Pro’s

• WotC bailed out TSR when they were at their lowest ebb saving the game from obscurity.
• They paid $25m for ownership of the brand
• They put all the R&D into development the game (whether you like the developments or not)
• It has been openly admitted that Ryan Dancy got the OGL out before Hasbro knew what was going on. This strongly implies that it was not in the best interests of the company - but rather the hobby.
• The hobby matters but it only exists at the scale that it does because of the investment by WotC
• Scale matters because it means a supported system and lots of players for our games.
• It’s going to cost a fortune to develop the tools to take online gaming into the future and WotC deserves some return on that investment.
• If you want to play D&D for free you can in multiple ways. Most people don’t pay anything to play D&D because they borrow books or do it through a VTT with a compendium.
• 3pp got access to the OGL for free they should stop complaining and be a bit more grateful.
• The OGL was approved on the basis it would support the game not become its main competition.
• Even the worst of Licences proposed by WotC are still better than the Lawfare under TSR.
• Nobody has to buy these products. Get them if you like them, ignore them if you don’t.

Con’s

• It’s the community that makes the game special not the company that owns it.
• Ryan Dancy was future proofing the game by saving it from its owners.
• Some 3pp work is of better quality that some official D&D products.
• WotC gave out the Licence, people took risks on the back of it, they have a right to benefit from those risks unhindered. The fact that it was a good deal isn’t the 3pp’s fault.
• D&D wouldn’t have been successful without 3pp building up the hype around the system.
• Any money WotC makes ultimately is paid for by fans. It should be as cheap as possible.
• WotC is rich, they can afford not to increase monetization of the brand.
• WotC can’t be trusted, they don’t deserve the brand, better it fail and get picked up for cheap by an independent.

I think it’s possible to agree with some arguments on both sides here but I definitely see more posted on the cons on these boards and very rarely anything about the pro’s. I get that there is a whole Robin Hood vibe, David and Goliath, up the underdog etc but for me I just want WotC to keep making products to inspire me to play D&D I think they’ve invested enough money over the years to be entitled to make good money off that and if they do, they’re likely to make a few more products.

One thing this misses is that WOTC was happy enough with the OGL to release the 5.1 SRD under it in 2016. So sixteen years later, they still supported the OGL. It wasn’t hated the minute it came out — WOTCs own attitudes (or more likely the people in power at the time) changed over the years. They liked it in 2001, they didn’t like it in 2012, they liked it in 2016, they didn’t like it in 2022, they liked it in 2023. Here’s hoping they like it enough to follow through with their intention to put out the 5.2 SRD.

I heard a theory from someone in the know recently that an intention of WOtC with the 5.2 SRD could be to get more publishers writing D&D 2024 compatible material so they can see who are successful at its and then bring them onto D&D Beyond. It’s basically what they wanted with their OGL revocation without the drama.

 

[SlyFlourish]

In the interview, Meals referred to 5E24 as 5.5. I wonder if that's what they called it internally? Externally they have avoided that name like the plague, and even Next got changed. They are really aiming at name continuity.

Someone (sorry I am not rewinding and am bad at remembering names) asked about our personal opinions. My personal feeling about the OGL debacle was that people were over-reacting, but I no longer remember why I thought so. That companies stopped making 3rd party products and are instead making their own games is a bad thing in my book, it splits the market. When I look at people trying to publish "their own D&D" it rarely fits my tastes anyway. I actually like most of the new things in 5E24, but I have been dissatisfied with 5E14 to the point that t has turned me off 5E24. I still follow the news on Youtube, but I'm not adopting the game. Then again, I was slow to adopt 5E14, so I may pick up 5E24 in the future. I do like that WotC had to eat some humble pie.

Right now I want to try a game that doesn't treat combat as its own mini-game. A friend showed me Blades in the Dark, and I am making a D&D-esque fantasy hack of that to make another arc in my ongoing Greyhawk campaign.

Check out Band of Blades. It’s a more fantasy sword and sorcery take on Blades.