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."
Agreed. There are definitely drawbacks to so much attention being placed on D&D.
 

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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.
Yea. Imagine if MCDMs fans were excited about a new MCDM 2024 D&D product.
 

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.
The irony of the OGL revision trying to justify itself by saying “the OGL was never intended to enable competitors” and then promptly making most of their former collaborators into competitors… I mean, it really is the GSL all over again.
 

These days, we have a much wider variety of people in the hobby and with that, far more ways that people want to engage with TTRPGs.
I wonder how much of that also coincides with the parallel boom of interest in boardgames as a hobby over the past +10 years? Not just in terms of the wider variety of people who entered the hobby but also the greater interest in the wide variety of product offerings in the hobby itself.
 

I think D&D will remain popular. The danger is if it dips too far for Hasbro. They might go with a 6th edition or they might shelve it and relaunch in 10-20 years. Hasbro does not sell their IPs. It'll depend on how well D&D sells, if Hasbro gets another hot commodity that leaves D&D in the dust, how well the digitalization of their products goes, etc.

There will continue to be "D&D," just maybe not Wizards/Hasbro D&D.
 

I'm not saying the idea that D&D's peak has passed it wrong, but I don't buy that the lack of supporting 3rd party products is a compelling proof point--the Monster Manual isn't even out yet. I guess you could put out an adventure that only included those handful of monsters that have appeared in a previews, but that would just be weird. I get that we live in an age where everyone wants to be first with their hot takes, but it's probably going to take a year before anyone can speak with anything close to actual evidence on the success of the 2024 rules. And as to D&D's waxing or waning cultural popularity, that may take even longer.
Maybe, but it's also interesting that we are seeing several things also ending around this time as well. Stranger Things will end this year. Critical Role is ending its third campaign, which has had some mixed-reviews by Critters, and Mercer is also stepping back for a bit. Those cultural amplifiers too will pass.
 



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.

There are a lot of people who just buy and collect RPGs. I used to get emails from collectors all the time. Not saying that is the case here but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of these kickstarter sales are people who just want to read the book for inspiration
 

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