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.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

I wasn't taking about you.

I thought you were because you quoted my post, how does your comment tie into my post?
I am not following how the fallacy is relevant.

 

[Faolyn]

not really, the BBEG tries to foil them, that does not mean the BBEG regularly succeeds at that, but they hopefully provide a challenge

<sigh> And I'd really hoped you could tell the difference between the BBEG and the GM. Or the difference between "challenge" and "defeat." Do I need to pull up dictionary definitions? Because they defeat and challenge do not mean the same thing at all.

yes, and neither does the DM intend to actually foil them. As I said, if the DM really attempted it, they easily could, without breaking a sweat. The goal is to make it challenging (and by extension memorable), not to make it impossible

And here I have to wonder if you ever read Mearls' post or any of the times I directly copypasted from it because he literally said that the game should do that, not (just) the GM. Here, let me quote him again; it's in the second sentence of the first paragraph:

That then dovetails to the purpose of rules in gameplay. If the players' goal is success, the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players. A good system enables that by moving questions of success or failure to a die roll or some other disinterested mechanic rather than relying solely on GM fiat (though fiat has a very useful place in TTRPGs as a whole).

If you accept all that, then the purpose of TTRPG design is threefold:

1. Create a mechanism to establish the stakes of the game (what are we risking?)
2. Provide the obstacles to put those stakes into question (how do we risk it?)
3. Create rules to allow players and the GM to apply themselves in opposition to the resolve the stakes (what happens?)

In his words, the GM and the players should be opposed. The GM's goal should be to defeat the players. The game system should work towards that.

And his only example in this post is killing three PCs in one round. Let's actually look at that. In the systems I'm aware of, you need a really high roll (natural or modified) to be able to decapitate someone. Possibilities:

1. He rolled really well: This is luck and has nothing to do with either the system or GM fiat. His premise fails.
2. He cheated to make things dramatic: This is GM fiat, and an expletive-deleted move on his part. His premise fails.
3. The system is written in such a way that the wielder can choose when to decapitate on any hit, say, 3/day. This is GM fiat, unless the system is also written to allow the target a defense against it. His premise possibly succeeds, but is quite likely OP unless there's a defense.

It's notable that he said he had several games where the PCs suffered setbacks, but this was the only example of the type setback. What happened in those other games? I honestly want to know.

no, he literally did not

He very literally did, as I quoted above. "the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players. A good system enables that"

It's convenient that you decided to not quote the part of his post that actually said it, too.

No he absolutely isn't, he is saying if there is no chance of failure the game is pointless, death is not the only consideration. You all just misrepresent what he actually wrote to bash something he never said

Dude, you're the one who is selectively quoting him in order to pretend he said something a lot nobler than what he actually said. You're misrepresenting him in order to... what, exactly? Why is defending him so important?

 

[Faolyn]

I do have the correct interpretation, and trust me, I'm laughing.

How do you know you have the correct interpretation? Did he tell you that?

 

[Scribe]

How do you know you have the correct interpretation? Did he tell you that?

 

[Faolyn]

I thought you were because you quoted my post, how does your comment tie into my post?
I am not following how the fallacy is relevant.

Look at all the people defending him for whatever reason and deciding that he said something completely other than what he said. Would they do that for just any rando that wasn't a known game designer? That's how it's relevant.

 

[Faolyn]

And you don't know. Because he didn't tell you, which means you decided that your interpretation is correct.

 

[AlViking]

One last time. I'll just reiterate even though it doesn't really seem to matter what I say.

On his posts on X Mearls states that "the bigger the threat, the more meaning the game has to us ...". I disagree. If you go all out guns blazing all the time with big threats it's boring. There's so much more to it than go big or go home, there's so much more to making an interesting game than threats. Also? The only meaning to a game for a lot of people is that we're playing a game and it doesn't have to mean anything else.

He then tries to elevate that statement continuing with "...emotionally and spiritually". I'd probably let that go but then he concludes with "Removing it from the game turns it into time-wasting slop." The combination there just comes off as preachy and condescending to me.

In his posts on this thread he only talks about the adversarial role of a GM "the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players [goals]" (bold added). I disagree because the adversarial role of a GM is only one part of a good game, whether it's how it's run or how it's designed. He made no other effort to clarify that what he's stated is only part of what a game should support, just doubled down on threat and opposing player goals.

All of this in context of his ideas on gaming and what the rules of a game should support. That's it. I make no comment on him as a person, what he does, what he "really" means because we all know better.

 

[KYRON45]

One last time. I'll just reiterate even though it doesn't really seem to matter what I say.

Would it surprise you that what you say matters just as much as what Mearls said?
What outcome are you looking for?

He said what he said, you said what you said....you know....more than a few times. The question now is.....what are you looking for?

 

[AlViking]

Would it surprise you that what you say matters just as much as what Mearls said?
What outcome are you looking for?

He said what he said, you said what you said....you know....more than a few times. The question now is.....what are you looking for?

My opinion is no more valid than anyone else's. I just wanted one post where I clearly stated my opinion and thoughts. Why do you keep asking me questions if you don't care? What are you looking for?

 

[KYRON45]

My opinion is no more valid than anyone else's. I just wanted one post where I clearly stated my opinion and thoughts. Why do you keep asking me questions if you don't care? What are you looking for?

I find human behaviour fascinating. I'm always curious what people are interested in with these discussions.

I often can't relate with these conversations. There are like 8 billion people on earth. It's my guess that more than a few of them are going to disagree with me. Who has the time to argue with them all?

What am I looking for? No one has ever asked me that before.
I guess i just enjoy seeing all of the different points of view and how people react/over react to the conversation.

Really i'm here because i can't play video games at work and if i'm reading and typing at my desk, it comes off to my boss that i'm diligently working when she walks past.