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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The only conclusion I have come to is that you want to make this into a big issue for reasons that I can't fathom.
I care very little about this, believe it or not. I am mostly responding to people either misrepresenting what I wrote or trying to make a case that it is wrong. If people did not try to do that, this would have ended with the first post, instead I keep explaining the reasoning…

My conclusion is that sales are probably moving to digital, as I wrote a while ago. I am not sure why everyone has to turn this into ‘unless the 2024 PHB sold more print copies the sky is falling and we cannot have that, so I need to post’ and keep posting about it as if that somehow makes the interpretation any less valid / probable
 
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depends on what your definition of a book is.
no, not at all… is a car a product? Pretty sure a car is not a book though… it’s really not that hard to understand that every book is a product but not every product is a book, basic set theory

Could it also be that this production of the book outsold not just other book productions; but also all products and as such they want to brag about the fact that (yes this is a run on sentence) this book they produced outsold all the Stuff they manufactured?
that is not what they bragged about, not even close. So your theory is incompetence in writing press releases got in the way of them saying it is the best selling book, which is what they really wanted to say?
 
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no, not at all… is a car a product? Pretty sure a car is not a book though… it’s really not that hard to understand that every book is a product but not every product is a book, basic set theory
You left out the emoji from my quote.
You’re misrepresentation of my biting wit could lead people to believe that I care about this topic more than I do. Surely that’s some kind of slander. Or is it liable? 🤔
 


DDB copies of the PHB, VTT copies of the PHB


no, the printed books, DDB licenses and VTT licenses combined outsold what Tasha’s sold across these lines after release. That is the product vs product comparison, as opposed to printed books where Tasha’s still outsold the 2024 PHB, in my interpretation, which also aligns with Tasha being on some bestseller lists longer and at higher ranks than the new PHB
So, if they sell a copy of the PHB on DDB, which, I'd point out, they sell Tasha's there as well, it doesn't count as a sale? Seriously?

If I understand you correctly, you are insisting that because the print version of Tasha's may have sold faster than the print version of the 2024 PHB, WotC is somehow lying and massaging the truth? Is that the long and the short of what you are trying to say?
 


I said nothing of the kind. I didn't say it was right.

I said it was well known. You get pushback on open social media. In other news, people who swim in the ocean get wet - film at 11.

It is like you are arguing that, instead of telling people to be careful when they go swimming at the beach, we should instead get the water in the entire ocean to change its basic behavior.

If you want to control how wet you get, you need to do some considered engineering of your water experience - you need a swimming pool, a bathtub, maybe a shower or a bidet, and plumbers to maintain the system



Well, no, they aren't. They just get less of it.



1) Please do not refer to real-world politics again in this discussion. Thanks.

2) No, he is not "just a D&D nerd". He's a high-level professional nerd. High-level professionals, if they have a lick of sense, curate their public presentation, and have done so for centuries before the internet was invented.

3) He's a high level professional nerd speaking on the topic of his profession. If a finance exec trash talks the rival of their favorite football team, nobody cares. If they publicly trash-talk the rival to their own financial firm... that's apt to get them fired.
By whom? That last point makes no sense to me.
 

I figure if he wanted to clarify his statement he could. He’s been on the board several times and has participated at length in discussions. But I’m also not a reporter seeking clarification on a comment for the record.
A person can easily see when he was last on and reading….so let’s say he may be playing catching up to this very thread….
 

So, if they sell a copy of the PHB on DDB, which, I'd point out, they sell Tasha's there as well, it doesn't count as a sale? Seriously?

If I understand you correctly, you are insisting that because the print version of Tasha's may have sold faster than the print version of the 2024 PHB, WotC is somehow lying and massaging the truth? Is that the long and the short of what you are trying to say?

Obviously it's all a nefarious plot to refer to one of products they sell, a book that can be purchased in multiple formats, as both a product and a book! What dastardly scheme are they plotting? Only The Shadow knows. :hmm:
 

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