Let’s start this week’s post with Gary Gygax’s response to some criticism he received in the very first issue of the most influential zine in the history of the tabletop RPG hobby.
Dave and I disagree on how to handle any number of things, and both of our campaigns differ from the “rules” found in DandD. If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, DandD will have become staid and boring indeed. Sorry, but I don’t believe that there is anything desirable in having various campaigns playing similarly to one another.
Gary Gygax- Alarums & Excursions #2
Gary decided to take Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in a different direction.
Dictums are given for the sake of the game, only, for if Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole.
Introduction to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide
There’s a clip from Dragon magazine going around on blogs and social media this week.
There were several reasons that Gary intended AD&D to encourage uniformity of play.
Those reasons were mostly about money. Gary didn’t want to pay Dave Arneson anymore royalties. Uniform rules were needed for the lucrative tournaments at GenCon. “Official” rules means “official” products that you must own to be playing “official” AD&D and not a shabby knockoff.
AD&D is a complete system with little need for alteration, if you want to play it as Gary intended.
Gary intended for you to play the game as he wrote it sell TSR’s products, make TSR’s tournament at Gencon more appealing, and bring more revenue into TSR’s bank account.
He was poking the customer’s ego and fear of missing out.
If you didn’t play the game like Gary told you to play it then you weren’t really playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and if you weren’t playing AD&D, then your game was inferior.
What DM wants to run an inferior game?
There were many DM’s who recognized that the idea that their game was inferior because Gary said so was a ridiculous assertion.
Gary believed his own bullshit.
“You are playing something else,” wasn’t only a cynical argument to raise the top line revenue for TSR.
Gary was concerned about future of D&D as a hobby. He intended for Dungeons & Dragons to be a heroic adventure game that felt like the sword-and-sorcery fiction he enjoyed. Many DM’s were taking their campaigns in directions Gary didn’t intend.
The original game had many gaps and encouraged DM’s to create whatever they wanted. Gary assumed that the DMs running D&D had the same ideas about heroic fantasy he did and would fill those gaps in ways that aligned with Gary’s beliefs and values. The play reports and homebrewed rules spread through the early ‘zines and Amateur Press Associations told him that was not true. He didn’t like the direction those weirdos were going with his game. He resented how they were screwing up D&D as he intended it to be.
Gary wasn’t entirely wrong to say that those sorts of experiments can go bad. I’m sure he wanted gamers to enjoy the game and wanted to help them avoid obvious pit traps. The way he communicated that rubbed a lot of gamers the wrong way.
I am convinced Gary sincerely believed variation between campaigns was to be encouraged. He also believed that there were lines that should not be crossed for the good of the hobby, the brand, and TSR’s bank account. Whether you were having a good time with your weird Not-AD&D variant was immaterial to him.
I don’t want to play AD&D as Gary intended.
I disagree with 1979 Gary that wild experiments should be avoided.
I disagree with 1979 Gary that a game that diverges too much from the intended play of AD&D are inferior.
I am not Gary.
I have a different set of experiences than Gary did.
I have a different worldview than Gary did.
I have different priorities than Gary did.
It’s not 1979. It’s 2022.
So what?
If you alter the game and can’t run a TSR published module without major alterations to make it fit your house rules, then yea, you’ve made a variant or different game entirely. Fair enough.
You will certainly get a different experience if you deviate from Gary’s ideal.
Is it possible that your campaign might implode?
Yes.
Good!
You’ll learn lessons that can’t be taught unless you wreck stuff. Start over and do better. Most of us blow up a campaign or two before we figure it out.
Maybe you’ll discover something you like better and stick with it, or create something totally new that other people will like too. That’s how D&D was created! Experiments! Failures! More experiments!
I don’t see failed experiments as a bad thing. Arneson’s experimentation with wargames is what created the roleplaying game hobby in the first place.
The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide is something I think every Dungeon Master should read cover to cover at least once. I own two copies and a PDF of it. I get something new from it every time I pick it up.
However, I reject the absurd notion that nobody has improved on Gary’s ideas since 1979.
I reject the absurd notion that common campaign structures and adventure scenarios that worked in 1979 will work the same way in 2022. We have a different culture. Different technology.
We’ve learned a few things about game design since 1979 too.
This week’s heresy in a nutshell.
I’m going to do my own thing when my interests, priorities, and values diverge from Gary’s interests, priorities and values.
When I run AD&D I run it the way I run it. If that makes it Not-AD&D, so what? If I am enjoying myself and the people playing in my game are enjoying it then I don’t care.
AD&D came from Gary’s experiences of trial and error. He learned the hard way and from correspondence with other designers and DMs. They are good rules for the game Gary thought was the best way to run the game he thought we should run.
I am not working from the same set of experiences or assumptions Gary had in 1979.
Sometimes my alterations work. Sometimes not. I enjoy the experience of tinkering and learn something when I try things that Gary did not intend.
Gary created something amazing and shared it with the rest of us. That doesn’t make his work without fault, without opportunities for improvement, or creative variation he didn’t think were worthy of his game.
I reject the admonition that I “should” just follow Gary and disregard my own experiences, knowledge, and intuition.
I’ll do what works for me and my game.
Grumpy Wizard 
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