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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I feel that "because we're all suckers" is somewhat degrading, but it ain't far from the truth...
Do you not think the books stand on their own merit? If you hadn’t played D&D before and were buying for the first time would you not think the books were worth their price tag?

The core books are made for everyone new players and old. I just want them to make the best version of the game they can at any given point. If I buy new core books once every ten years I’ll consider that the best bargain of my life.

Our groups followed the playtest as it went and feel 2024 is an improvement across the board. An incremental improvement sure but we didn’t really want a revolution. I’m looking at the books and really struggle to understand folks who 2024 has betrayed the ideals of 5e. I’m like, are you reading the same book? The most drastic changes really just embed things that were already afoot like the race changes. Otherwise I don’t get the drama.
 

Man, I am sorry for bringing up Disney as a joke.

Anyway, D&D doesn't have to be "cool" to be successful. It can just be The Standard.
I really wish there wasn't a standard at this point. WotC 5e IMO is hanging on beyond the point of relevance to their "big dog" status. They're no better on any metric other than profit than anyone else.
 


Do you not think the books stand on their own merit? If you hadn’t played D&D before and were buying for the first time would you not think the books were worth their price tag?

The core books are made for everyone new players and old. I just want them to make the best version of the game they can at any given point. If I buy new core books once every ten years I’ll consider that the best bargain of my life.

Our groups followed the playtest as it went and feel 2024 is an improvement across the board. An incremental improvement sure but we didn’t really want a revolution. I’m looking at the books and really struggle to understand folks who 2024 has betrayed the ideals of 5e. I’m like, are you reading the same book? The most drastic changes really just embed things that were already afoot like the race changes. Otherwise I don’t get the drama.
If you already agreed with 5.5's ideals you are naturally not going to understand another viewpoint on the matter. From what I'm reading most folks who are full-throated supports of WotC's current products were already in favor of what they did before it became as obvious as it is now.
 

coughs in 2008 collaterized debt obligations

Joking aside, to your broader point, there is nuance there. I'm not saying there are no long term-investments made by anybody in late-stage capitalism or whatever. It's just that in the quest for endless growth demanded by shareholders we've sort of reached what can be achieved in alot of areas without alienating the consumer with practices they do not care for.

I think if you ask alot of people, that you know personally in life, they feel something similar I imagine you'd find it's a pretty widely held sentiment. Or not. Who knows, man, I've fully embraced our inevitable corporate overlord. I've made peace with the fact that within 20 years I'll be living in a hive city, toiling in a manufactorum and being paid in corpse-starch rations and Meta Bux.
I agree the sentiment is widespread. Some of that is because a lot of folks (not you) aren’t necessarily aware of where money comes from. They don’t understand the concept of return on investment and have unreasonable expectations.
 
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If you already agreed with 5.5's ideals you are naturally not going to understand another viewpoint on the matter. From what I'm reading most folks who are full-throated supports of WotC's current products were already in favor of what they did before it became as obvious as it is now.
Agreed. Xanathar's did little to nothing for me and Tasha's, imo, was even worse. The designers of 2024 just continued taking the game in a direction which I have no interest in playing/running/supporting in terms of both mechanics and the direction of fantasy.
 

Disney tried its own fantasy franchise but the sequel of Willow was only one season.

Batman reached the peak of popularity with the first Tim Burton's movie, but today he keeps being the most popular DC superheroe.

D&D doesn't stop to be cool when players enjoy it and have fun. We are talking about a produce where members of different generations are playing in the same board. The link you feel with other playes sharing adventures isn't like playing multiplayers with players you will not meet again in a long time.

When a dressing style becomes too popular then it gets old-fashioned. People want to feel they aren't like the rest.

D&D is not a franchise for little children only, and they Hasbro has to understand D&D players can't be tricked so easily with products of worse qualty.

The second edition of Hero Quest has released more expansion than the original. This should prove the players are willing to buy a dungeon-crawler game if the product is good, fun and not too expensive.

D&D is not only when you are in the tabletop throwing dices but also when you publish in internet your homebrew setting or your homemade class, or writting fanfiction with Dragonlance characters.

* I had to await several years to can buy the translated edition, and I don't hurry to buy the 2024 corebooks. I would rather to buy them in the end of 2025 or after .
 

I still feel like 5e only succeeded in spite of Mearls and the general trend under his watch for WotC to only put out half-assed adaptations of things written decades previously along with what felt like corporate-enforced MtG settings no one wanted. Plus the way he behaved around the Zak S accusations that led to his social media presence vanishing... I'll take what he has to say about it after being off the team for several years with a barrel of salt.
 

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