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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Maybe I am missing something but blaming the OGL for D&D being uncool seems way off base. Wasn't it around the year 2000 that the OGL was first released and afterwards D&D rose in popularity? D&D 3.x sure seemed more popular than it's predecessors. I can't speak for 4E since I paid no attention to it but 5E certainly seemed to be the height of D&D's popularity. Maybe it's becoming less cool now, I can't judge since I haven't played D&D since the release of 4E, but blaming the now 25 year old OGL on D&D becoming less cool seems to be ignoring other possible factors.

It's probably s multitude of factors. Meh product since 2020 or so, WotC actions, can't stay cool forever etc.
 

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Maybe I am missing something but blaming the OGL for D&D being uncool seems way off base. Wasn't it around the year 2000 that the OGL was first released and afterwards D&D rose in popularity? D&D 3.x sure seemed more popular than it's predecessors. I can't speak for 4E since I paid no attention to it but 5E certainly seemed to be the height of D&D's popularity. Maybe it's becoming less cool now, I can't judge since I haven't played D&D since the release of 4E, but blaming the now 25 year old OGL on D&D becoming less cool seems to be ignoring other possible factors.
The idea is that the OGL kerfuffle hurt D&D's popularity, not the existence of the OGL.
 

Maybe I am missing something but blaming the OGL for D&D being uncool seems way off base. Wasn't it around the year 2000 that the OGL was first released and afterwards D&D rose in popularity?
I assume they meant the attempt at revoking the OGL two years ago rather than its creation / existence
 

A lot of folks here seem to be trying to talk about how other people feel about D&D which we can't really know in the end. I expect many attribute their own feelings to others. The OGL didn't bother me that much – I bet it didn't bother other people that much.

But we can talk about how we feel about it. My own feelings are complicated.

Something broke for me with my feelings towards Hasbro and WOTC has stewards of D&D and it has and likely will never recover. One should never trust a corporation. I said "don't let WOTC determine your happiness with D&D" for a long time before the OGL. I had a four-quadrant theory about what they'd do with the next version of D&D. They'd either

  • come out with a compatible version and support a new license – thus we can all write for it.
  • come out with a compatible version but don't offer a new license – but we can use the old one so it's ok.
  • come out with a new version and offer a new license – in which case we can write for the new one or old one.
  • come out with a new version and don't offer a new license – in which we can continue writing for the old one.

But they found a new option: attempt to revoke an assumed irrevocable license. I never expected them to do that. I didn't believe it for like two months when I started hearing rumors of it. Then they did it and something just snapped in my head.

I still love D&D. I still love 5e. I think the new D&D 2024 books are really good (I have my quibbles but we all always have our quibbles). But I'll never trust WOTC to act in the best interests of the hobby again without continual verification. Recently they have acted in the best interests of the hobby (and their own interests as well but that's ok with me) by:

  • releasing the 5.1 SRD in the CC in five languages.
  • having a good free version of D&D for school kids.
  • releasing D&D 2024 on multiple competing VTT platforms – including two that let you download and keep local versions.
  • Continue releasing their products as physical books we can keep forever.
  • Continually stating their intention to release a 5.2 SRD with D&D 2024 rules in it.

I think, in the end, WOTC is winning the OGL war by bringing third party publishers into D&D Beyond and that's the area where I raise a suspicious eye-brow. Lots of people think this is good for the hobby. I don't. Centralizing more of the hobby under a company that proved they can act against the interests of the hobby seems dangerous.

So yeah, for me, I'll never forget what happened at the OGL and I'm always worried about what's next. I never predicted they'd try to revoke the OGL – I thought it was just impossible. So what else am I missing now?

For my own work and my own handle on the hobby, I've diversified a lot. I've stopped running WOTC published campaigns unless they really speak to me. I've run a lot of campaigns in other systems: Cypher, Shadowdark, Tales of the Valiant, A5e, and Blades in the Dark. I renamed my talk show and my podcast away from D&D and towards RPGs. I think a lot about the baseline of the hobby and how we can ensure our own grasp on it is independent from the whims of any company. I look for companies that make Ulysses pacts – things they do to help the hobby that they can't take back. WOTC has quite a few (listed above).

I always thought that we shouldn't trust WOTC with our happiness with D&D. I feel that twice as strong now. I'm really glad they're making all of these great moves now but I'll always be watching for the bad ones from now on. I simply can't help it.
 



A lot of folks here seem to be trying to talk about how other people feel about D&D which we can't really know in the end. I expect many attribute their own feelings to others. The OGL didn't bother me that much – I bet it didn't bother other people that much.
it bothered me quite a bit. If they had not changed course, I would have jumped ship because of it. As it stands they are on parole, at a minimum until the new SRD is in CC

Something broke for me with my feelings towards Hasbro and WOTC has stewards of D&D and it has and likely will never recover.
same, they lost that goodwill, and for a company creating completely optional hobby stuff going from ‘is there a reason not to buy it’ to ‘is there a reason to buy it’ will drastically decrease my purchases. I do not see them coming back from this, but at least they are not boycotted completely
 

DnD has become incredibly lame under Hasbro /WoTC, it isn’t really debatable. D&D 2024 so far is a huge disappointment to me and my players, and I’m the only one at my tables that one could call old school / hardcore. It’s just so banal; all the distinct character from it has been drained for corporate product tested blandness. When it comes to DnD style games, we are moving completely Kobold Press products.

But what’s so funny to me is that when I run non Wizards games, my players are much more likely to buy the products. I’ve inadvertently sold a lot of copies of DCC, Mothership, and Shadowdark this way.
 

DnD has become incredibly lame under Hasbro /WoTC, it isn’t really debatable. D&D 2024 so far is a huge disappointment to me and my players, and I’m the only one at my tables that one could call old school / hardcore. It’s just so banal; all the distinct character from it has been drained for corporate product tested blandness. When it comes to DnD style games, we are moving completely Kobold Press products.

But what’s so funny to me is that when I run non Wizards games, my players are much more likely to buy the products. I’ve inadvertently sold a lot of copies of DCC, Mothership, and Shadowdark this way.
#1 advantage any game has is having a GM who loves running the game and whose players love their work!
 

People in their mid forties and older have nearly always been the people that make and define what's cool.
Lol, no, but they do run companies. And those companies copy upstart competitors run by people in their 20s or they hire someone to tell them what’s cool.
 

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