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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But the whole thing started ...on social media, and you think it's logical to assume he's oblivious to the replies, videos, etc... especially as a public figure in the D&D community with 70k followers... ok.
he probably saw some replies, depending on how many there are he might not have seen all, I would not bet on videos at all. I have not had any in my recommendations for example.
 




It's funny because we lived through it and people complain about stupid crap now. It really sucked btw.

Do this or else was essentially the start and end of it.

I got the strap once for throwing stones. It was my mother's big no no ( her brother was killed by a thrown stone).

If you said something nasty cake of soap in mouth was also a thing. Only got that once from sister.

Once.

There's no soap for social media unfortunately.

I had a Latin teacher in high school (in the late 80's) that was a relic from a past era.

If you were caught chewing gum you had to come up to the front of the class where she had a jar full of old, already chewed gum on her desk. You had to swap yours with one from the jar and chew that for the rest of the class.

It might make a good story, but I don't think it was ever funny.

My dad talks about being beaten in school by his teachers for writing left handed in class, and how that shattered his confidence for a long time in his life.
 

I had a Latin teacher in high school (in the late 80's) that was a relic from a past era.

If you were caught chewing gum you had to come up to the front of the class where she had a jar full of old, already chewed gum on her desk. You had to swap yours with one from the jar and chew that for the rest of the class.

It might make a good story, but I don't think it was ever funny.

My dad talks about being beaten in school by his teachers for writing left handed in class, and how that shattered his confidence for a long time in his life.

That was the older generation. My mother got strapped across the face. Her other brother say a guy get caned in school. 6 of the best with head under the desk or 12 of the best no desk.

He chose the desk and head would hit the bottom of the desk after each strike.

From the sounds of it the war made things worse. Troops got sent away never saw hone for 5 years some of them. PTSD or come home wife has 2 year old kid or no wife anymore things like that.

Lots of alcohol abuse, rage etc. Drinking in bars age 15/16. Lots of abuse, broken homes. I dodged the worst of it but had friends cone stay for a day or two leave 6 weeks later sorta thing.

Free medical trip from school though. My 1st government health record lol it's still on file.
 




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