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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My opinion, YMMV....

It sounds very judgy and gatekeepy. It sounds dismissive and not all that nice.

It was posted on X, and not bluesky, so he was aiming this at a certain demographic, which makes me believe more that this not good......
Maybe he was aiming it at the demographic that's always ragging on "kids today" wanting a softer game?
 

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Death may not be the only risk but according to Mearls it has to be significant and meaningful.
yes, I see nothing wrong with that, an insignificant risk tends to not be meaningful either.

If the risk is whether Bob the farmer harvests 50 apples or 49 because some goblin stole one, then there is no meaningful stake

if people don't like playing a high stakes game I don't see why it matters to anyone but the other than the people at the table.
agreed, if you are happy with next to no stakes, knock yourself out. I am not expecting this to be the norm however, it is certainly not the risk in published adventures
 

As for his tone, I mean, I just don't see the big deal. As I said up-thread, he's taking a more persuasive tone than forming an argument, so it comes across as emotive. I can see why people would feel irked by that, but I think your "Dude, chill out" applies equally not only to Mearls but to those making more of it than necessary.

It may apply, but not equally.

One's responsibility to use one's rights well increases with the scope that exercise implies. He, somewhat influential in the hobby, has more responsibility to use his words well than some 14 year old playing the game with is friends after school.
 

Well, that's the problem - that's isn't what is present in the words he's writing. One only gets that if one includes some fairly major assumptions.

If that is what he intended, he could have been several hundred percent more clear about it with three or four words.

It's a fairly common complaint about 5E.
I play multiple editions an had an stinker encounter for 5.5.

Exploding zombies, multiple casters (5) with level 3+ spells prepared battlefield glyphs of warding, spellbuffed BBEG appearing mid combat vs fully rested PCs at level 8.

They won. All the buffed healing, bonus action healing, misty steps to hide, 4/5 PCs being primary caster.

In official content you can do the equivalent of roll your face across the keyboard and win. Level 6 PCs cleared a level 9 dungeon.

5E easy mode. 5.5 even worse. I don't think that's particularly controversial take.

I've had 2 players deaths since 2019. One of those was essentially suicide/idiot and that's with DM special type encounters, throwing out encounter building guidelines (haven't used them since 2015).

I've been running Castles and Crusades and will be starting 2E on Thursday. Some players are in both games so it's not nostalgia or whatever or drastic differences in pkayer skill.

There's not much risk via instant death a nasty poison is just buckets of damage and healing word exists.

Subjective what you like or prefer objectively see roll face across keyboard comment. DM has to design stink encounters or strike PCs while they're down to really threaten them imho.
 

It also feels a little hypocritical since 5e 2014 wasn't exactly a game designed to put PC's through the meat grinder and he was one of the lead designers for it.
let’s see how much of a meat grinder his game is, to me this is more about your interpretation of what he said than what he actually said. For all I know he is fine with the threat in 5e 2014
 

It may apply, but not equally.

One's responsibility to use one's rights well increases with the scope that exercise implies. He, somewhat influential in the hobby, has more responsibility to use his words well than some 14 year old playing the game with is friends after school.

He's being blunt. With how things gave been turning out world probably needs more of that.

What people want to hear vs what they need to hear is twi different things. First parthasnt worked out so well.
 

The detail is in how you define loosing. If it's not just death then newer DnD has just as much risk in it as older DnD and it becomes a silly contrast to make.
he did not define it as death in his posts, quite the opposite. If your games still have ‘enough risk’ then that sounds more like you agree with him than disagree about the need for risk to exist…
 


I'm sorry, but that's not relevant to the issue at hand.

It's relevant to Mearls comments and content.

He's a game designer at a high level. He's not aiming his comments at casuals.

If you play a lot of 5E it's meta after 10+ years is fairly clear. If your players aren't newbies risk of death is very low.

Inexperienced players sure they won't know the combos or efficient actions to use. CR 14 critters getting owned by level 1 spells or how to heal isn't clear.
 

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