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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What people "need" to hear? Ok, ill bite... please elaborate on what people "need" to hear about the way they choose to play ttrpg's...

I think you need to use every day language not the "purifed" filtered online fluffy bunnies language or the opposite toxic crap. Both are bad in their own ways.

People don't talk like that irl. The purity type stuff needs to stop it's not achieving anything I would argue it's making things worse with how things are turning out.

Last I heard everyone absolutely loves getting lectured after all. People can't even comprehend what someone's saying in some cases because they can't even communicate effectively.
 

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In my most recent game I had two people grappled, restrained, unconscious and being taken off to be eaten in quiet at a rate of speed nobody in the party could match. When we left off after a different encounter, I had two characters that were a saving throw away from being turned into statues. The game is what you make of it.
This is true now and has always been true; at the end of the day, we are all free to play the game how we want at our table (subject only to the agreement of those at the table).

But... it is also true that over the last 50 years, there has been a general trend in D&D of "buffering" characters from the "sense of risk." This has been a design trend that probably jumped a notch in recent years. Not saying it is inherently good or bad; I for one was very glad when 1st level magic-users couldn't be killed off by a particularly nasty gust of wind. But the trend has continued, and largely in one direction.

Of course if we circle back to "make the game as you will," this can be adapted to suit one's needs. I think Mearls is mostly complaining about the assumptions that are hardwired in the design.
 

In my most recent game I had two people grappled, restrained, unconscious and being taken off to be eaten in quiet at a rate of speed nobody in the party could match. When we left off after a different encounter, I had two characters that were a saving throw away from being turned into statues. The game is what you make of it.

That's fine older edition you're probably dead or turned to stone outright.

Inconvenient condition are exactly that. Getting knocked prone, paralyzed and yeeted into a hunger of hadar isn't that risky.

Better than getting paralyzed vs a 5.5 barbarian in your grill.
 

This is true now and has always been true; at the end of the day, we are all free to play the game how we want at our table (subject only to the agreement of those at the table).

But... it is also true that over the last 50 years, there has been a general trend in D&D of "buffering" characters from the "sense of risk." This has been a design trend that probably jumped a notch in recent years. Not saying it is inherently good or bad; I for one was very glad when 1st level magic-users couldn't be killed off by a particularly nasty gust of wind. But the trend has continued, and largely in one direction.

Of course if we circle back to "make the game as you will," this can be adapted to suit one's needs. I think Mearls is mostly complaining about the assumptions that are hardwired in the design.

I've seen swings from meat grinder to never say die in all editions of the game. Depending on the game even death wasn't permanent if you could drag the bodies back to town. Mearls is clearly and openly saying that if the game doesn't make you take risk significant risks it's a waste of time and that his preference is better because it speaks to some internal truth of humanity. I don't care how you try to spin it.
 

I've seen swings from meat grinder to never say die in all editions of the game. Depending on the game even death wasn't permanent if you could drag the bodies back to town. Mearls is clearly and openly saying that if the game doesn't make you take risk significant risks it's a waste of time and that his preference is better because it speaks to some internal truth of humanity. I don't care how you try to spin it.
Mearles has an account here....has anyone...you know....asked him to clarify?
 

Sarcasm on:
Oh, I see. So, games should be hard. But real life? Folks should not face consequences there!
Sarcasm off.

Without the sarcasm - the nature of social media is well known. You cannot get its benefits without also risking its detriments. With power comes a cost, and all that.
Well, I didn't really say your sarcasm piece. But...I will say that at a cursory glance of his twitter feed, I found some of the responses a lot more deplorable than what Mearls said, and not at all proportional to what he said...which is pretty much par for the course in our day and age: things taken out of context, misinterpreted, wildly exaggerated, taken too personally, and the response often far worse than what it is responding to.

I also don't agree with the implication that the audience is always right - whatever response they have is free from the same consequences that evidently only the "Names" face. It sort of ties into the consumerist adage that the customer is always right. Sometimes the customer is just a jerk.

More to the point, I think scale and context matters. This isn't some billionaire making light of the impact of a missed social security check; this is a D&D nerd, albeit a well-known one, talking about how he thinks D&D should be in a tone that some find off-putting. Yet the response seems more in line with the former than the latter.
 

That's fine older edition you're probably dead or turned to stone outright.

Inconvenient condition are exactly that. Getting knocked prone, paralyzed and yeeted into a hunger of hadar isn't that risky.

Better than getting paralyzed vs a 5.5 barbarian in your grill.

It is not "inconvenient" to be turned to stone when your group is 6th level and the greater restoration spell requires a 9th level caster. In this particular game if the characters are turned to stone I'll be handing them pregens so they can continue playing because there's special things going on in the world they haven't learned yet.

As far as overall difficulty if the threats aren't risky and your players want a higher level of challenge it's time to increase your XP budget for your encounters and possibly consider changing tactics.
 


It is not "inconvenient" to be turned to stone when your group is 6th level and the greater restoration spell requires a 9th level caster. In this particular game if the characters are turned to stone I'll be handing them pregens so they can continue playing because there's special things going on in the world they haven't learned yet.

As far as overall difficulty if the threats aren't risky and your players want a higher level of challenge it's time to increase your XP budget for your encounters and possibly consider changing tactics.

I've been doing that for 10 years.
 

I think you need to use every day language not the "purifed" filtered online fluffy bunnies language or the opposite toxic crap. Both are bad in their own ways.

People don't talk like that irl. The purity type stuff needs to stop it's not achieving anything I would argue it's making things worse with how things are turning out.

Last I heard everyone absolutely loves getting lectured after all. People can't even comprehend what someone's saying in some cases because they can't even communicate effectively.
Wait...what?
 

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