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'll never understand all of the anti-story people.

Play the game how you like of course....but in the end....don't you have a story to tell that you were all part of?
I think this article does a good job of showcasing the "anti-story" side of things (though honestly I wouldn't phrase it that way):

 

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I'll never understand all of the anti-story people.

Play the game how you like of course....but in the end....don't you have a story to tell that you were all part of?
Only in the end though. Before that, it's just a bunch of stuff that happens. I don't play my PCs with a story to tell, just goals they may or may not accomplish. Just like real life.
 

I'm not anti-story. The game develops a story, the story emerges from your trials, success, and yes failures.

If the 'difficulty level' shifts so far in one direction that you will ALWAYS play through the story, and failure is not really in the cards, it ceases to be a game at all. At that point you are just playing through the content provided to you, to experience the story.

Which is 100% fine, if thats how one likes to spend their time.
I don't agree with that. While that's not the kind of game I like, it's still a roleplaying game. The goal of the game just shifts from "if we succeed" to "how do we succeed." There can be resounding successes, barely squeak by successes, solid successes, successes with huge costs, etc.
 

I don't agree with that. While that's not the kind of game I like, it's still a roleplaying game. The goal of the game just shifts from "if we succeed" to "how do we succeed." There can be resounding successes, barely squeak by successes, solid successes, successes with huge costs, etc.

Sure, as I noted if thats how one likes to spend their time.
 


Only in the end though. Before that, it's just a bunch of stuff that happens. I don't play my PCs with a story to tell, just goals they may or may not accomplish. Just like real life.
No, not just at the end. If the PCs in your game get to a town and discover that bugbears have kidnapped two kids, when all is said and done(if they succeed), there is the story of the PCs and how they rescued the kids from the big furry bugbears. Basically your game is a bunch of short stories and at the every end, you can put them together into a larger story.

Story isn't something that just waits until the end of the campaign, though.
 

I don't agree with that. While that's not the kind of game I like, it's still a roleplaying game. The goal of the game just shifts from "if we succeed" to "how do we succeed." There can be resounding successes, barely squeak by successes, solid successes, successes with huge costs, etc.
I don't agree. To me, how do we succeed is a story. If we succeed is a game. I love stories more than just about anything outside my family, but stories are not games.

That's just my opinion of course. I know some folks would strongly disagree.
 

Sure, as I noted if thats how one likes to spend their time.
You can't say it's not a game and then expect "If that how they like to spend their time" to be your out. What you are saying there is that they aren't playing a game, and not playing a game is how they like to spend their time.

I'm saying, and I'm correct in this, that they are still playing a game, and that game is how they like to spend their time.
 

but that is the point, Mike was not talking about death only, just about the possibility of failure
Sure (although his example was about death), but I think that's a bit of a strawman. Or at least an oversimplification of the not-issue. Many people assume that if death is rare or nonexistent, that means there's no fail state. Or worse, that the GM or game itself makes it so the players can never fail at anything. I doubt there's many games that are like that. Not even games where it instructs the GM to be a fan of the PCs are like that.
 


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