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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That's not what "enshittified" means as a term. I would submit that this is a case of nostalgia, rather than a reflection of anything real. For a generation of people 5E will BE D&D, and they will be bemoaning the inevitable changes 20 years on.

The good part is that D&D will be around for another 20, probably 50, years.
Sorry; maybe that's not the right word. Maybe mass produced, or generic.
 

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What action specifically did they take?

Did they make the 'attempt'? How so?

I don't think there was ever any action actually taken.
They sent out the documents that ended up being leaked, and thus precipitated the whole crisis. Whether those were intended as their final word or, as some have speculated, as a first draft for negotiation is largely irrelevant to me - they shouldn't have even taken the first step down that road.
 

Is it fair that WotC try to increase monetization the D&D brand?
not sure what fair has to do with it

It has been openly admitted that Ryan Dancy got the OGL out before Hasbro knew what was going on. This strongly implies that it was not in the best interests of the company - but rather the hobby.
or it implies that they did not trust Hasbro to realize it is in the interest of D&D / the company, because it is not one of those moves MBAs understand

It’s going to cost a fortune to develop the tools to take online gaming into the future and WotC deserves some return on that investment.
as with fair, ‘deserves’ something for the effort put in does not really factor into it for me, either they deserve it because of the result or not

For me it all boils down to
Nobody has to buy these products. Get them if you like them, ignore them if you don’t.
regardless of what is ‘fair’ or how much effort they put into it

To get back to the ‘fair’ question, it does not matter to me, they are welcome to try. Whether I am interested in their attempt depends entirely on how much I am interested in the result
 




Even at its lowest point, DnD has been untouchable in that respect.
Pathfinder surpassed it for about 3 years, back in 2011-2014. Nothing is ever untouchable!

 

D&D may no longer be cool, but it is still the lingua franca of the TTRPG world. I've never been cool, but I still like novelty. I've moved on from D&D to WFRP as the system for my main campaign. But I can always go back to D&D, join in on a D&D game, and it is still the easiest way to get people into the hobby. Fads come and go, die-hard TTRPG hobbyists will seek novelty in new systems, but D&D will endure. That is D&D's biggest strength. It doesn't need to be cool.

It'll be interesting to see if Mearles's observation is born out and another system unseats D&D as the top game. If that happens, congrats to the new top dog! But I feel pretty safe in predicting that its time on the throne will be short lived. Many new games will bubble to the top, burst, and be forgotten. A small few will capture a large and enthusiastic enough of a community to endure for the long term. But I predict that D&D will retain its role as the default and most commonly played TTRPG, whether cool or not, for decades to come. It is just too central to the TTRPG ecosystem for me to see that changing.
I don't see D&D ever being dethroned as long as D&D is in print. The worst possible set of circumstances happened around 2010 and it didn't dethrone it. This is a drop in the bucket.
 

Sorry; maybe that's not the right word. Maybe mass produced, or generic.
It has been "mass produced, generic" literally since AD&D. Again, you are viewing it (understandably) through a nostalgic lens, not objectively. And it is fine to like what you like and lament it changing, just don't conflate that with any objective measure of quality or "cool."
 

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