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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Well in real life I can’t feed squirrels while strolling through Arvandor
I did not say you are not allowed to do it in game, only that I would not call it an adventure, at best it is a peaceful interlude - and that I’d rather do it in real life than pretend to do it in a fantasy world for the same amount of time. In game it will be compressed / something that happens in the background while something more important is going on in parallel
 

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I had stepped away from this discussion for a bit but then I saw that Mearls himself had left a comment and wanted to see peoples reactions to this and... Nothing. 17 more pages of arguing when he's already explained what the post was about. The magic of forums for sure.
I guess you missed where I was talking about it.
 


I am not really looking for a result here, the closest thing to that is to correct misrepresentations of what Mike wrote

Good day to you too
I think you were doing a good job on that. I honestly think this particular discussion has gotten toxic enough that I need to peace out of it. Mike listed a play style preference, and that's somehow the worst thing imaginable. I don't play that way but I find myself supporting people who play very differently than I do. And shaking my head at some who play like me. That's a recipe for not having a good day.
 

Wow....you and I had very different takes on what he said. He clearly established that the type and style of the game would be set up in session 0 so every player would have already agreed to it.

He never said the entire point of the game was to kill 3 characters. He said it happened because the enemy had a vorpal sword. That is chance, not intention. He said it was a great game, not because of the character deaths, but because the threat and risk and stakes of the game were pleasing to everyone at the table.

He also said nothing about adversarial DMing. He said that it was the job of the DM to challenge the players through combat or story. In fact, that is the job of the DM. You create combat encounters in D&D and most TTRPGs to oppose the players and give them a fun game. There are cooperative TTRPGs but those are more rare.

You can focus on semantics, but he clearly defined what his comments meant that has folks up in arms.

A good DM does provide opponents, risk, and stakes for the game whether it be combat or story risks. For example, my players faces a bunch of ghouls in a pirate cave after learning about an island in the bay where people disappeared. The players chose to explore the underdark first and when they returned, a fever had infested the nearby town and people who died from it were becoming ghouls. They chose to ignore the hook and it had story consequences and a lot of townfolk died. They are now on the island facing a lot more ghouls and great undead because they had time to increase their foothold. They are enjoying the story and they all messaged me saying that they loved that their decisions were affecting the world around them.

Mearls is not saying that a DM has to be a jerk to the players. He is saying that a DM should impose risk to the players in order to have a good game.
He said this:

If the players' goal is success, the GM's goal should be defeating or foiling the players. A good system enables that by moving questions of success or failure to a die roll or some other disinterested mechanic rather than relying solely on GM fiat (though fiat has a very useful place in TTRPGs as a whole).
(emphasis mine)

For many people, including myself, that bolded bit is being a jerk. It's adversarial, bizarrely so.

Yes, a good GM can and should provide opponents, risks, and stakes, as you say, but only to the point that it makes sense within the context of the story, plot, or environment. Your anecdote, about the ghouls, seems to do that. The players made a choice and that choice had consequences. I assume that if they didn't ignore the hook, they would have stopped or at least very much slowed the spread of the ghouls. Yes?

What Mearls said, though, sounds more like actively punishing the players. Maybe it's not what he meant, but it's what he said: the game's mechanics should be about defeating or foiling the players. Not about consequences (consequences are neutral, not punitive), not about providing challenges (either "level appropriate" or not), but about actively holding the players back. And since he hasn't come back to clarify, that's all we know: he thinks games should defeat and foil players, not work with them.

And again, his example was killing three PCs at a con game, thus rallying the survivors. He doesn't talk about doing this in a home game with players who have developed their characters over many sessions. You can't compare the two at all.

I should note that what you did is GM fiat--you decided that the ghouls gained a foothold and were able to spread. It's logical that would happen as a consequence for the players choosing to go in a different direction, but unless the game you were running has mechanics that cover the spread of undead contagion, it's GM fiat, and Mearls apparently thinks that a good game shouldn't rely on that.
 

He said this:

(emphasis mine)

For many people, including myself, that bolded bit is being a jerk. It's adversarial, bizarrely so.
because you read it wrong, seriously. I rephrased it to ‘challenge players and put obstacles in their way’, which is all that really means. The DM is the only hurdle to the players just strolling to success without any challenge.

Do you really think any DM could not TPK the party if they wanted to? Do you think Mike is unaware of that? He is not saying the DM should try to kill the party, he is saying he should provide a challenge. Nothing adversarial about that.

Yes, a good GM can and should provide opponents, risks, and stakes, as you say, but only to the point that it makes sense within the context of the story, plot, or environment.
which is all Mike is talking about as well
 
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because you read it wrong, seriously. I rephrased it to ‘challenge players and put obstacles in their way’, which is all that really means. The DM is the only hurdle to the players just strolling to success without any challenge.
...maybe you're reading it wrong.

Unless he's come back and clarified what exactly he meant?
 

...maybe you're reading it wrong.

Unless he's come back and clarified what exactly he meant?
I doubt I am, as I said, any DM can TPK the party, Mike knows that. So the advice is not ‘the DM should try to wipe out the characters’, because the DM actually trying that means the DM will succeed at it. Context people…
 

He said this:


(emphasis mine)

For many people, including myself, that bolded bit is being a jerk. It's adversarial, bizarrely so.

Yes, a good GM can and should provide opponents, risks, and stakes, as you say, but only to the point that it makes sense within the context of the story, plot, or environment. Your anecdote, about the ghouls, seems to do that. The players made a choice and that choice had consequences. I assume that if they didn't ignore the hook, they would have stopped or at least very much slowed the spread of the ghouls. Yes?

What Mearls said, though, sounds more like actively punishing the players. Maybe it's not what he meant, but it's what he said: the game's mechanics should be about defeating or foiling the players. Not about consequences (consequences are neutral, not punitive), not about providing challenges (either "level appropriate" or not), but about actively holding the players back. And since he hasn't come back to clarify, that's all we know: he thinks games should defeat and foil players, not work with them.

And again, his example was killing three PCs at a con game, thus rallying the survivors. He doesn't talk about doing this in a home game with players who have developed their characters over many sessions. You can't compare the two at all.

I should note that what you did is GM fiat--you decided that the ghouls gained a foothold and were able to spread. It's logical that would happen as a consequence for the players choosing to go in a different direction, but unless the game you were running has mechanics that cover the spread of undead contagion, it's GM fiat, and Mearls apparently thinks that a good game shouldn't rely on that.
Darakhul fever from Tome of Beasts 1. It has clear rules on how it spreads.

They had multiple hints and blew off meeting people in town etc to explore the caves.

I was not comparing the con vs home game. I even stated that earlier.

I do not see the bolder part as adversarial at all. The villains goal will be defeating the players and that is my job. I do want them to succeed but it is no fun if I let them win.

That said, I have pulled my punches when it is clear that I screwed up and overturned the encounter. Just because it is my job to try to defeat the players, it is uncool to create scenarios where they cannot succeed.
 

I remember fighting with my brother over how he played with the Nintendo.

I, rightfully of course, took my gaming very seriously. I would increase the difficulty when I could, figure out how to play well, and defeat the game.

He would then come around, and plug in his Game Genie, and completely invalidate the game by cheating.

A game without challenge, is a waste of time. We came to blows over it several times as kids and brothers often will, until he got too big and the fights got too potentially damaging.
 

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