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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"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."

It seems to me that Mike has finally realized that every rose has its thorn.
Yeah, but now he can have Nothing But A Good Time.
 

Honestly, what I read in the OP article sounds 'fake' from Mike Mearls, and quite honestly, a bit dishonest. Like the D&D fanboy that got disillusioned by his obsession, especially when he now works for Chaosium (which doesn't do D&D 5e compatible products at all as far as I can tell). What I remember from Mike Mearls, pre-WotC, left a far better impression. On the other hand, the interview format is something else from forum posts, so maybe Mike Mearls and live interviews don't jive.
"I don't agree with him so I assume he is lying" is not a great take.
 

While I agree this is possible... there's also the possibility that it doesn't contract, but rather stays the same size (or even continues to just slowly grow) but because it isn't noteworthy anymore no one pays much attention to how it stays.

I mean look at something like the WWE: their "coolness" went off the charts with the advent of Stone Cold Steve Austin and his feud with Vince McMahon (along with the ascension of The Rock, Triple H et. al.)... and yet from all accounts the WWE is wildly more successful now than it was then, even though no one in common culture is all that "excited" about it in the same way people were back in 1997 or saw the massive upswing in cultural cache. The WWE isn't "cool"... it's just what it is. But what it is is massively successful.

So for all we know, D&D 5E24 might very well maintain the levels that 5E14 set... but because that would just be the status quo and not things blowing up massively past that, there's no real story to be told. We really won't know for a couple years. Let's see if/when Jeremy, Chris, and James are let go and mumblings of someone like McKenzie DeArmas beginning work on 6E start surfacing. Then we'll have a better idea the state of D&D. ;)

WWE is kinda cool again. The crowds are enthusiastic and large just like Stone Colds era. Royal Rumble this year 70k, gate was 3rd highest ever (beaten by 2 wrestlemanias). 70k crowd for a rumble not Wrestlemania.

They were making money hand over fist say 5 years ago but weren't cool.

I watched the rumble first time in 5 years hot crowd. Winner had them doing his yeet thing. Very Rock/Cena/Austin type reaction.
 
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"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."

Did.... Did he miss the whole decade where Vampire: The Masquerade was kicking ass?
Would that be the same decade where Magic was eating the lunch of all the RPGs in all the stores?
 

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.

Tbf that's less than 1% of the rpg market.

Million dollar kickstarter sounds impressive but it's probably 10-20000 backers or slightly more.

Vs millions of D&D players.
 



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