WotC Mike Mearls: "D&D Is Uncool Again"

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.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

I do. The villain wants to survive, yes, and will almost certainly do everything they can to survive. But Mearls wasn't talking about the villain trying to defeat or foil the players. He was talking about the GM and system doing that. And those are different things.

Because the system doesn't need to be one angled at defeating the players. The system already has rules in place for combats and whatnot that are, supposedly, balanced. If the GM plays the foe to be as clever and powerful as the foe should be, then the dice and system should work as they are meant to.

But saying that the system itself should be geared towards defeating the PCs means that the system itself should be unbalanced in favor of the GM, because of Reasons.

 

[Clint_L]

I am always surprised that people discuss 5e as if it is easy mode and 1e, which I cut my teeth on, as if it was super death mode. My friends and I all kept our main characters alive for years in 1e, and, as was the practice back then, played them in different campaigns run by different DMs. PCs were not dying willy nilly in 1e, unless that was the kind of campaign or adventure you specifically wanted to run (c.f. Tomb of Horrors), but there's nothing stopping you from running an incredibly lethal 5e game, either. I have done so, and we had a blast! It didn't last long, though.

It turns out that most people then, as now, tend to grow attached to their characters, so long running campaigns aren't generally super lethal (well, not to the PC; we went through our share of hirelings in 1e, where they are about as disposable as 10' poles). This also makes narrative sense; in general, I think character deaths should be rare so that they are impactful.

Edit: And I mean real deaths, not deaths that are erased by resurrection magics. That's not much different from using healing word.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What? What did I choose to not interpret because it's not convenient?

Also, shouldn't you be complaining to Mambo that they're demanding others interpret Mearls' words the way they do? Or is that OK because it follows your narrative?

I assumed @Imaro 's observation applied to everyone here, not just you.

 

[Faolyn]

The only Vorpal Weapon in Shadowdark, is on an NPC by default.

If he was using Shadowdark, which is a big if. Has he actually stated what game he was running? As I pointed out before, he also said "I made some tweaks to my design drafting off these thoughts and have been very happy with the results in play." And this means he could have been playtesting the game he's making on patreon.

Re:

Yes, the goal should be to put up obstacles, that introduce the potential of defeat. To 'foil' the players efforts.

and

Are there assumptions being made? Yes. Is any of this wrong?

Yes. Because as I said, he wasn't talking about "tough but fair." He wasn't "foiling" their plans. He was talking about killing three PCs. He stopped them from progressing by removing them from the game.

This is a con game with pregens, so the characters aren't important to the players. But he's talking about using that mentality in a home game where the PCs are important to the players.

 

[mamba]

No, here is his advice:

"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)."

The GM should defeat the players; a good game should have defeating the players be part of the rules rather than only having it be up to the DM.

And the only example he gave was killing three players in one turn.

That was an example of something that did happen in a session and how adversity made the game more interesting. It is hardly a recommendation for what DMs should try to do in a session.

It wasn't "the players had to work hard to get past traps and riddles." It wasn't "the players had a very difficult fight against the BBEG and its minions." It wasn't "the players had tough but fair fights against some monsters." It was "three PCs got decapitated in a single turn because I, the GM, somehow managed to roll really well three times in a single turn."

it also wasn’t a ‘this is what you should aim for’

Do you have another definition for the words "defeat" and "foil" that makes sense in context with "decapitating three PCs in a single turn"?

sure, challenge / threat / risk / stake

(Also: even if this is a game where you need an 18 or higher to hit, how likely is it that someone will roll that three times in a single turn?

not very, which would be a point in my favor, this was not meant to be almost impossible for the players, contrary to what you seem to see it as

If you want to intentionally misunderstand what he wrote, I won’t be able to stop you from doing so

Of course the DM is the foil to the player’s success, I explained that already. There is no other obstacle to the players just strolling to success other than the DM and whatever they put in front of the characters. The BBEG is not there to help the characters out

 

[Scribe]

But saying that the system itself should be geared towards defeating the PCs means that the system itself should be unbalanced in favor of the GM, because of Reasons.

Not at all.

Balance, actually means equal. 50 50.

Not like 5e 'balance' with an assumed 75% rate of success, before optimization.

 

[TiQuinn]

I am always surprised that people discuss 5e as if it is easy mode and 1e, which I cut my teeth on, as if it was super death mode. My friends and I all kept our main characters alive for years in 1e, and, as was the practice back then, played them in different campaigns run by different DMs. PCs were not dying willy nilly in 1e, unless that was the kind of campaign or adventure you specifically wanted to run (c.f. Tomb of Horrors), but there's nothing stopping you from running an incredibly lethal 5e game, either. I have done so, and we had a blast! It didn't last long, though.

It turns out that most people then, as now, tend to grow attached to their characters, so long running campaigns aren't generally super lethal (well, not to the PC; we went through our share of hirelings in 1e, where they are about as disposable as 10' poles). This also makes narrative sense; in general, I think character deaths should be rare so that they are impactful.

Edit: And I mean real deaths, not deaths that are erased by resurrection magics. That's not much different from using healing word.

Lethality is not a virtue, it's simply a playstyle and one that can change from campaign to campaign often within the same system.

 

[CellarHeroes]

As someone who has had the pleasure of talking with Mike and some other WotC creative folks at GaryCon, and also had the opportunity to play in some of their games...
I can definitely say that Mike is rooting for the players while they encounter fun and challenging obstacles.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If he was using Shadowdark, which is a big if. Has he actually stated what game he was running? As I pointed out before, he also said "I made some tweaks to my design drafting off these thoughts and have been very happy with the results in play." And this means he could have been playtesting the game he's making on patreon.

Re:



and


Yes. Because as I said, he wasn't talking about "tough but fair." He wasn't "foiling" their plans. He was talking about killing three PCs. He stopped them from progressing by removing them from the game.

This is a con game with pregens, so the characters aren't important to the players. But he's talking about using that mentality in a home game where the PCs are important to the players.

How important the PCs are to the player, and how they handle losing them if that happens, depends mostly on the Individual player, and only to a lesser extent on the game.

 

[Scribe]

He was talking about killing three PCs. He stopped them from progressing by removing them from the game.

With a Vorpal Blade and RNG.

Thats why we play the game, thats why dice are involved. That element of the unknown, the random, that outside of the odds experience?

Thats what is actually memorable, and noteworthy.

Not yawning your way through a game that is already tilted in your favour to a hilarious degree.