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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It is not uncommon, but I am still surprised by the amount of force of the assertions in this thread based on, at most, personal anecdotes.

Please direct me to the stats that show is the number of players that have joined the hobby via D&D over the past 10 years, including their demographics as well as how many still play D&D. Provide me with numbers of players of other games and how and when they entered the hobby. Also give that sweet, sweet info on how much money they spend, what tech they use to play, and how much they do or do not engage in the wider D&D community (here and elsewhere).

It's okay to talk about your preferences and experiences, of course, but some of you seem to think you KNOW things that you literally can't because the data doesn't likely exist.
 

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Yeah, even my coworkers who got into D&D through Critical Role and had no reason to have even known what the OGL was were upset about it. They didn’t fully understand what was going on with it, but they got that WotC was trying to change their licensing structure in a way that was very anti-consumer, and they were ready to move to a new system over it.
Influencers have changed the dynamic. A good chunk of players used to get their gaming news from their DM or social group or would actively look online if it mattered enough.

You now have a huge YouTube market that informs people with low time cost. It is much easier to sub to Dungeon Dudes than search for builds on reddit or actively search for info although the more engaged DM will still be a primary news source.
 

I believe Mike overstates the impact of the OGL debacle. Does the average player really care (No, not really).
it still was the biggest detrimental thing that happened in the last decade, and it’s consequences continue to play out. People moved away from 5e, 3pps moved away from 5e. Is it enough to kill 5e, no, obviously not, but it had and continues to have more impact than anything else

I also don’t think D&D is “uncool” now. What we have is D&D fatigue.
is there an effective difference between the two? Also, WotC definitely is not cool, and that reflects on its products
 

Here's an interesting data point... The Grimhollow Transformed kickstarter is labeled as 5e 2024 and has funded with close to a million dollars... I know it's just one kickstarter but it seems to go in the opposite direction of the doom and gloom predictions around 2024 D&D...
I think you are overestimating the doom and gloom gloom. The theory is D&D has peaked and is losing its stranglehold on the TTRPG market, not that it is in risk of imminent collapse

Mike said he believes it was below 50% of the entire market in 2024, not that it is about to hit rock bottom
 


I'd expect to see a bit more of a goldrush mentality, with larger publishers jumping in with big products. Fundamentally, the OGL pushed people like Kobold Press to create their own games. They're now interested in getting you to buy a competing product, rather than something for D&D.

As another example, Flee Mortals! has replaced the Monster Manual for me, but rather than MCDM doing a follow-up they're off doing their own game.

I think that takes some air out of a launch.
That is a REALLY good point.

Which is why I write for 5e-compatible games rather than trying to spin off another game.

After all: You can't copyright the rules!
 

After all: You can't copyright the rules!
Very true.

But as we learned during the OGL debacle, in practice, where the rubber meets the road; not so much.

Everyone told WotC you can't revoke the OGL, it says so right there. But before they blinked for PR and shareholder reasons they were just betting that nobody would fight them over it legally because they have a legal department with the backing of a multi billion dollar corporation.

Not being able to copyright rules doesn't mean they can't bankrupt you through years of court proceedings, motions etc.
 


Good point... this game isn't out yet but Avatar the Last Airbender was another million dollar kickstarter that it feels like no one is playing.
I backed it, but just because I wanted the setting info. The mechanics were always going to be too narrative for my tastes.
 

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