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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Initially I was willing to lean that way but that doesn't seem to be what Mearls actually says but I am am sure that is possible.
Not sure what specifically you are referring to… Are you wondering whether it was related to the OGL at all, or whether they meant the OGL debacle from two years ago vs the OGL itself? If it is the latter I am 99% certain that it is the debacle, not the OGL itself (which is as good as it gets when I am not sure what you are referring to ;) )
 

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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.
Wait -- do you actually believe that it is the 20-somethings running the show at WotC? Or Disney? Or Netflix? Or Larian?
 

So BG3 is a bit too horny for my tastes, but it is unabashedly nerdy cool. D&D 2024 has none of the charm, none of the pizzazz, heck, absolutely NONE of the edge that that game has. Hasbro/WoTC have made D&D soulless, and yes I sound like I’m on repeat here, but i am understandably bothered by this when you consider the thousands of dollars and manhours I’ve put into pursuing their game.
 

So BG3 is a bit too horny for my tastes, but it is unabashedly nerdy cool. D&D 2024 has none of the charm, none of the pizzazz, heck, absolutely NONE of the edge that that game has. Hasbro/WoTC have made D&D soulless, and yes I sound like I’m on repeat here, but i am understandably bothered by this when you consider the thousands of dollars and manhours I’ve put into pursuing their game.
When you make mainstream entertainment aimed at tweens and teens, you really can't afford any "edge." That is what 3PP are for.
 

So BG3 is a bit too horny for my tastes, but it is unabashedly nerdy cool. D&D 2024 has none of the charm, none of the pizzazz, heck, absolutely NONE of the edge that that game has. Hasbro/WoTC have made D&D soulless, and yes I sound like I’m on repeat here, but i am understandably bothered by this when you consider the thousands of dollars and manhours I’ve put into pursuing their game.
I disagree with this post and your previous one. WoTC hasn’t made it soulless as I’ve been enjoying their editions, rules and adventures just as much as I did with the TSR days and their products.
 


I do wonder if the DnD movie would have done better if released a month later so that it wasn't directly competing with Mario, I feel like people only have so much entertainment money to go around. Perhaps they'd checked online and saw the Negative Nellies talking trash about Mario and thought it wasn't going to be as much of a hit and decided to risk it.

IMO there was a potentially tough movie nearly every week it would have needed to compete against.
 

I doubt that is his motive
It feels like he’s out from under an NDA that just ended and is sour for how things were handled, fired, quit moved, let go and has a small chip on his shoulder for the old company and airing the grievance anytime he can….the timing of the responses after a long gap of social media presence and follow up interviews skews my mind slightly as to the reason behind the verbose posts and that back and forth with Ray in that other thread made it feel like a chip on his shoulder from an ex employee.

Mike, your more fun when it’s happy fun hour Mike, not the dnd is dying Mike as of late :)
 

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.

Welcome to the internet.
 


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