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.

 

[Imaro]

Well, what do you think an appropriate goal for a GM is if the player's goal is success? Are they not supposed to set up challenges capable of foiling that goal?

To set up engaging and fair challeges to the PC's pursuit of success that make the game more interesting.

IMO sometimes deadlines can make a game interesting but othertimes not so much (especially when overused). I don't necessarily equate fear of death or even fear of general failure with interesting or engaging challenges.

 

[billd91]

To set up engaging and fair challeges to the PC's pursuit of success that make the game more interesting.

IMO sometimes deadlines can make a game interesting but othertimes not so much (especially when overused). I don't necessarily equate fear of death or even fear of general failure with interesting or engaging challenges.

But are those "engaging and fair challenges" capable of actually foiling the goal? Of causing PCs to fail at achieving them? Should they not be capable of doing so?

 

[Jensaarai]

Well, what do you think an appropriate goal for a GM is if the player's goal is success? Are they not supposed to set up challenges capable of foiling that goal?

Challenges, yes. Having a challenge to overcome lends weight to success, since they aren't 100% assured. It's a genuine skill to balance the challenges with victory so things aren't impossible or a cake-walk.

But it's the specific phrasing of "defeating or foiling" that I kinda run into. It emphasizes too-adversarial of a relationship between the GM and Players, which he elaborates on later about how the system itself should be adjudicating that conflict.

Now, he does clarify all this should be hashed out in the session 0 on expectations and stakes (I'll absolutely give him that, it's an incredibly helpful practice), and normally I would have no issues at all with that specific style of play. I wouldn't entirely agree with it, but that's okay.

But... in context with him calling it "time-wasting slop" to remove that challenge, which he later defined as the GM's goal being to defeat and foil the players? That's iffy.

 

[Imaro]

But are those "engaging and fair challenges" capable of actually foiling the goal? Of causing PCs to fail at achieving them? Should they not be capable of doing so?

Some maybe, which I stated in my previous post but there is more than enough room for challenges that when failed aren't so binary that they must result in a fail state. Setbacks come to mind.

Do you think the only challenges that can be engaging and fair must result in a failure state of the PC's goals when they aren't overcome successfully...

 

[mamba]

I've definitely noticed how often you've fallen back to the defense that any and all dissenters are liars cherry-picking quotes

it’s an observation, and don’t claim that you didn’t do exactly that, and the same sentence as the others too. If that one sentence were all he had written, I’d agree with you, but he wrote a whole lot more, and you are ignoring all of it

 

[Scribe]

But... in context with him calling it "time-wasting slop" to remove that challenge, which he later defined as the GM's goal being to defeat and foil the players? That's iffy.

Its not iffy at all. Its simply charged language which seems to hit a nerve, resulting in the rest of what he says being taken in the least charitable way possible.

It's extremely simple, and easy to see.

"He calls my preference slop, therefore he must be a mustache twirling Killer DM, and oh look where he posted it, of course its all just a dog whistle because, well, he called my preference a bad word."

Tiresome.

 

[Jensaarai]

it’s an observation, and don’t claim that you didn’t do exactly that, and the same sentence as the others too. If that one sentence were all he had written, I’d agree with you, but he wrote a whole lot more, and you are ignoring all of it

If that's what you want to believe, that's within your prerogative. I know at least that I've gone back several times to reread what Mearls said earlier in this thread so I can try and keep all my ducks in a row.

 

[Jensaarai]

Its not iffy at all. Its simply charged language which seems to hit a nerve, resulting in the rest of what he says being taken in the least charitable way possible.

It's extremely simple, and easy to see.

"He calls my preference slop, therefore he must be a mustache twirling Killer DM, and oh look where he posted it, of course its all just a dog whistle because, well, he called my preference a bad word."

Tiresome.

Another failure of society on your tally, right?

 

[Scribe]

Another failure of society on your tally, right?

Which part?

 

[billd91]

Some maybe, which I stated in my previous post but there is more than enough room for challenges that when failed aren't so binary that they must result in a fail state. Setbacks come to mind.

Do you think the only challenges that can be engaging and fair must result in a failure state of the PC's goals when they aren't overcome successfully...

There are going to be a variety of levels of goals, some immediate, some longer term and there should be challenges, some immediate, some cumulative, that should be capable of foiling those goals and leading to a fail state. Exactly how they do so is going to be complex, and what exactly constitutes a fail state could vary.

Suppose the goal is to beat the BBEG at the end of the dungeon - the challenge of getting to that BBEG and defeat them should be one that ends in some kind of failure state - mainly that they failed at that goal. But it wouldn't need to be a single trial with a binary result. Intermediate challenges along the way might setback or otherwise divert, but the cumulative effect of those intermediates and the final challenge probably should be a failure state - TPK, BBEG escape, party capture/imprisonment, whatever.
If the challenge is just sneaking past a sentry, then yeah, I would think the failure to overcome the challenge means being spotted by the sentry - a failure state. Exactly what happens then... would still vary.

Ultimately, I'm not sure that a setback isn't also some kind of failure state. It's just not what I would consider a critical failure state in which all forward progress toward the bigger end goal, of which this current challenge was a component, is thwarted.