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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Eh, why not... let me just say it...

Dungeons & Dragons as a game sucks.

Dungeons & Dragons as a story rocks.

There we go... just get the other side out there in the open to balance out the "pro-game" crowd. :D
 




This whole thing is pretty subjective on all sides. How can you simply claim your opinion to be objectively correct?
Because we have a definition for game. You can't just claim "subjective!@!!!!@@!!!!!" and say something that is a game, isn't. It meets the definition for game, so it's a game.
 


If you're so unhappy with the game and the direction it's taken why continue playing? If you don't play why insist on posting on a thread dedicated to the game?
So agreeing with Mearls or the general idea that the game has reduced risk too much means you should move on and shut up? So only one side can be part of the discussion, and it is not even the side which 'started it' (by Mearls' post being copied in here)?

Maybe just accept that people can disagree and that a discussion kinda requires more than people congratulating themselves over and over for how great their opinion is
 

Is a story a game?
No, but what was described was not just someone telling a story. There are dice, rules, different players, different levels of success, and more. It meets the definition of game.
How indeed, do you define 'game'.
I mean, there are dictionaries and it's a word with a definition.

(PS: I can, I did, I do. ;))
That's true, but you are wrong to do so as it meets the definition for game.
 

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.
he wrote 'Whether it's a dead character or failure in whatever context the session presents', his example was not about death (unless you talk about his recent post, not the tweets that started this). Death can be rare, I prefer that personally, but there are still stakes
 
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