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

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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.
 

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No fad stays on top forever, and I think it is fair to say that the current popularity of D&D is a fad. I don't think that means that D&D is going away anytime soon, but I also don't think that is it going to maintain any sort of cultural prominence. Which, as far as I am concerned, is a good thing. One of the problems with "cultural prominence" is scrutiny, and with scrutiny you get "tanar'ri."
 

I've played D&D when it was cool and when it wasn't and I and my friends still enjoyed the game so to me it doesn't really matter. No product can grow forever and it's inevitable that there will be a stabilization if not an outright slowdown. Social trends come and go hem lines lower and rise cool becomes old. If the company is lucky at some point it becomes retro so it's cool once more.

I doubt that many more than 1 in 20 D&D players even heard or cared about the OGL idiocy. I have no idea what 3PP people are thinking, but unless you are publishing books about custom races I don't see that you really need to do much one way or another to adjust to the new rules. Am I missing something? I respect and appreciate the work Mike has done in the past but he doesn't have a crystal ball and at times it feels like he's a bit biased. I have no idea what the future will bring, I just don't put a lot of faith into reading the tea leaves.
 

I don't see much to disagree with here.

I'll say on a purely anecdotal level I have found it easier to drum up support to play games that aren't 5E for the last little bit now, which is nice.

So whatever that means more broadly I don't know. But hey, I want to play a whole bunch of games so I'll take it. D&D will be just fine.
 

A thing to keep in mind is that oftentimes being "cool" is connected with being small, not known/popular with the average public, and with room for growth. Those people that get in "on the ground floor" as it were get to ride alongside this thing as it gains popularity and cultural cache, helping to drive its "coolness" factor up and up and up. But at a certain point... the thing just becomes so popular and ubiquitous that it's not "cool" anymore because everyone likes or knows about it. Mainstream is not "cool".

Thus as a game 5E24 really had no way of ever being considered "cool", because it was just a revamp and adjustment of something already at the peak of its popularity and cultural cache. People have been playing D&D, will keep playing D&D, and will maintain its status in popular culture... but it won't go back to being "cool".

Shadowdark can be "cool" because it is small, not known/popular with the average public, and has room for growth. Those people who are all-in on Shadowdark can help build the game by emphasizing its "coolness" to both people within the TTRPG audience as well as people outside of it, and hopefully can drive its popularity and cultural cache forward. But eventually it to will reach its saturation point with both the gaming and non-gaming public and lose its "coolness"... or it'll crash and burn way before that if it just can't keep its footing.

Vampire was cool when it first started, but isn't cool anymore. Pathfinder was cool when it first started, but isn't cool anymore. Critical Role was cool when it first started, but isn't cool anymore. They all of course still have their audiences... audiences large enough to perhaps keep the lights on and stay in business... but no one is going to go out of their way to highlight them anymore because most people already have a passing familiarity. And that's where D&D 5E24 is now as well.
 






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