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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, not just at the end. If the PCs in your game get to a town and discover that bugbears have kidnapped two kids, when all is said and done(if they succeed), there is the story of the PCs and how they rescued the kids from the big furry bugbears. Basically your game is a bunch of short stories and at the every end, you can put them together into a larger story.

Story isn't something that just waits until the end of the campaign, though.

That is certainly a viable way to look at it. I just prefer to see the story as a whole piece once play is over. I could maybe compromise and get behind emergent stories as TV seasons as opposed to a whole series.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't agree. To me, how do we succeed is a story. If we succeed is a game. I love stories more than just about anything outside my family, but stories are not games.

That's just my opinion of course. I know some folks would strongly disagree.

There are games that don't involve failure. They may not be your cup of tea, but they are still games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can't say it's not a game and then expect "If that how they like to spend their time" to be your out. What you are saying there is that they aren't playing a game, and not playing a game is how they like to spend their time.

I'm saying, and I'm correct in this, that they are still playing a game, and that game is how they like to spend their time.

This whole thing is pretty subjective on all sides. How can you simply claim your opinion to be objectively correct?

 

[Micah Sweet]

There are games that don't involve failure. They may not be your cup of tea, but they are still games.

Can you provide an example? Maybe I missed something.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

In my experience the threat of death in 5E depends on if there is a healer (especially a cleric) to get someone back up when dying. My only TPK in running 5E so far happened on a session the Cleric player couldn't make, and the closest I came to a TPK otherwise happened when the healer was down for an extended time. If you want to add some more danger to 5E easily have getting downed inflict exhaustion or some other penalty that is removed with a long rest or greater restoration.

 

[Azzy]

Still don’t know what participation trophies have to do with TTRPGs to begin with.

It's a distraction and a talking point that has little to nothing to do with the reality of modern RPGs. Different people want different things from their games, but this kind of talking point tries to assert some form of superiority. It's sad.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Why do you think I’m shooting the messenger?

You quoted my post that was simply a link to answer another user asked. I am simply the messenger, I am not siding with anyone in in this particular debate. If you weren't throwing me in with a group it wasn't very clear.

 

[Faolyn]

I think it's a matter of expectation more than anything. While I know that D&D lends itself to heroic fantasy more than any other genre, that's not the same as being the main character(s) in an epic tale, where narrative fiat will make sure that deaths are always dramatic and impactful to the story. It's part of why I keep saying that D&D isn't a storytelling game, and shouldn't be presented as one.

A better way to look at it, in my opinion, is to think of your character like a cast member on The Walking Dead. You might be Daryl, or you might be Dale, but either way new people join the group (i.e. your next PC) and the campaign keeps going.

That's a really weird comparison. I could never imagine ever wanting to play in a game done in that TWD style, unless the game was about building a community over a long period of time, so the individuals weren't the focus.

 

[TiQuinn]

You quoted my post that was simply a link to answer another user asked. I am simply the messenger, I am not siding with anyone in in this particular debate. If you weren't throwing me in with a group it wasn't very clear.

 

[occam]

no, I did not make one either, I talked about probabilities

Ay ay ay. Your claim that WotC intended a meaningful distinction between "book" and "product":

WotC intentionally differentiated between book and product, so they too drew a distinction there, whatever it is.