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.

 

[Belen]

He didn't really explain anything. He threw in a comment about a session 0 that I agree with and then ignored the statement with the rest of the comment. But this was in a game where he thought the whole point of his game was to kill of 3 characters because everybody rallied around it. In a 1-shot with throw-away characters I might enjoy that kind of game if I knew what was happening going in because it has zero long term impact. Then he just goes back to doubling down on old school adversarial GMing " the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players. " Which is one way of playing the game but is not the one true way that he touts.

He also said nothing about calling other types of game a time-wasting slop if you don't play his way. There wasn't anything new here. There was a bit of explanation of the game he ran and then he doubled down on his statements that a good game will always be adversarial and made it clear that killing off multiple characters was an example of a great game. There wasn't anything new.

For reference it's here WotC - Mike Mearls: "D&D Is Uncool Again"

Wow....you and I had very different takes on what he said. He clearly established that the type and style of the game would be set up in session 0 so every player would have already agreed to it.

He never said the entire point of the game was to kill 3 characters. He said it happened because the enemy had a vorpal sword. That is chance, not intention. He said it was a great game, not because of the character deaths, but because the threat and risk and stakes of the game were pleasing to everyone at the table.

He also said nothing about adversarial DMing. He said that it was the job of the DM to challenge the players through combat or story. In fact, that is the job of the DM. You create combat encounters in D&D and most TTRPGs to oppose the players and give them a fun game. There are cooperative TTRPGs but those are more rare.

You can focus on semantics, but he clearly defined what his comments meant that has folks up in arms.

A good DM does provide opponents, risk, and stakes for the game whether it be combat or story risks. For example, my players faces a bunch of ghouls in a pirate cave after learning about an island in the bay where people disappeared. The players chose to explore the underdark first and when they returned, a fever had infested the nearby town and people who died from it were becoming ghouls. They chose to ignore the hook and it had story consequences and a lot of townfolk died. They are now on the island facing a lot more ghouls and great undead because they had time to increase their foothold. They are enjoying the story and they all messaged me saying that they loved that their decisions were affecting the world around them.

Mearls is not saying that a DM has to be a jerk to the players. He is saying that a DM should impose risk to the players in order to have a good game.

 

[Imaro]

He didn't really explain anything. He threw in a comment about a session 0 that I agree with and then ignored the statement with the rest of the comment. But this was in a game where he thought the whole point of his game was to kill of 3 characters because everybody rallied around it. In a 1-shot with throw-away characters I might enjoy that kind of game if I knew what was happening going in because it has zero long term impact. Then he just goes back to doubling down on old school adversarial GMing " the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players. " Which is one way of playing the game but is not the one true way that he touts.

He also said nothing about calling other types of game a time-wasting slop if you don't play his way. There wasn't anything new here. There was a bit of explanation of the game he ran and then he doubled down on his statements that a good game will always be adversarial and made it clear that killing off multiple characters was an example of a great game. There wasn't anything new.

For reference it's here WotC - Mike Mearls: "D&D Is Uncool Again"

Well duh, didnt you see the earlier suggestion... apparently he's totally oblivious to social media, the comments in this thread and the audience he seems to be playing to and someone was supposed to specifically request he clarify posts he decided to tweet publicly because... well he's just not aware of anything happening around them.

 

[Kromanjon]

He didn't really explain anything. He threw in a comment about a session 0 that I agree with and then ignored the statement with the rest of the comment. But this was in a game where he thought the whole point of his game was to kill of 3 characters because everybody rallied around it. In a 1-shot with throw-away characters I might enjoy that kind of game if I knew what was happening going in because it has zero long term impact. Then he just goes back to doubling down on old school adversarial GMing " the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players. " Which is one way of playing the game but is not the one true way that he touts.

He also said nothing about calling other types of game a time-wasting slop if you don't play his way. There wasn't anything new here. There was a bit of explanation of the game he ran and then he doubled down on his statements that a good game will always be adversarial and made it clear that killing off multiple characters was an example of a great game. There wasn't anything new.

For reference it's here WotC - Mike Mearls: "D&D Is Uncool Again"

I guess we just read the post in different ways. I was just surprised no one decided to engage with him when he finally posted something himself.

 

[SteveC]

D&D Beyond does not require a subscription to access the books you pay for.

Also I linked the thing that explicitly states they are the best selling books now.

I definitely get that WotC has said it's the best-selling book now; another poster made that abundantly clear to me.

I hope Beyond is able to keep up with whatever metrics are required to not get it shuttered too.

 

[Imaro]

Because he doesn't owe any of us an explanation. It's clear from the context, if you read all three of those posts, that he was talking about in-fiction danger to the PCs. Why would he need to explain what is clear? Especially when people who want to think the worst about him aren't going to change their minds based on his "clarification." They'll just start shouting him down for backpeddling.

No he doesn't but in being a prominent figure in the ttrpg community and posting publicly he very much opened up his comments to being interpreted and used by the general public and in turn bears some responsibility In making sure the message he was trying to deliver was the received correctly.

Edit: including the implications of other playstyles being slop.

 

[mamba]

He didn't really explain anything. He threw in a comment about a session 0 that I agree with and then ignored the statement with the rest of the comment

not really, there are parts that go back to how threat is needed / good for the game

It fascinates me, because at Gary Con I noticed something in the Founders & Legends tournament I helped run. The groups I ran for that suffered a severe setback - losing three characters in one round to a vorpal sword, for instance - each rallied and absolutely crushed the adventure with inventive, teamwork driven play. The threat of defeat rallied them, rather than deflated them.

 

[Imaro]

I find the account from Gary Con interesting... I wonder how many PC's were in that party as going off everything I've read about Old School and principles of skilled play... 3 PC's in the party getting their heads chopped off would have been a definite telegraph that our party should retreat.

Again this was a Con game with (assuumedly) throw away characters so maybe extrapolating from it should be taken in context.

 

[Belen]

No he doesn't but in being a prominent figure in the ttrpg community and posting publicly he very much opened up his comments to being interpreted and used by the general public and in turn bears some responsibility In making sure the message he was trying to deliver was the received correctly.

No, he is not responsible for other people.

It looks like he did clarify in this very thread but people will still use their own lens to interpret the comments. He can choose chess or thermonuclear war.

 

[mamba]

I find the account from Gary Con interesting... I wonder how many PC's were in that party as going off everything I've read about Old School and principles of skilled play... 3 PC's in the party getting their heads chopped off would have been a definite telegraph that our party should retreat.

no idea, if 3 are down and you keep going I assume at least 6. Notice that he wrote groups (plural) that suffered a severe setback, losing 3 party members was an example, and probably the most extreme one

Again this was a Con game with (assuumedly) throw away characters so maybe extrapolating from it should be taken in context.

the takeaway isn’t that you should kill off half the party to make it interesting…

 

[Belen]

I find the account from Gary Con interesting... I wonder how many PC's were in that party as going off everything I've read about Old School and principles of skilled play... 3 PC's in the party getting their heads chopped off would have been a definite telegraph that our party should retreat.

Again this was a Con game with (assuumedly) throw away characters so maybe extrapolating from it should be taken in context.

Depends on the game. If it is a one-shot con game, then it could have been the final boss, which means that retreat probably ends the session. Even in a home game, I have seen players refuse to retreat because they feel like they can win, and they usually do even when people start to go down.

The session sounds like a fun con game.