Folk Players vs. Offical Players
I watched an interesting video tonight, talking about "folk D&D players" and "official D&D players." Folk D&D players see role-playing and the D&D rules as a means to an end. They feel free to tweak the rules, play with house rules, and develop a set of rules that work well for their group. This quote from 1975 by Gary Gygax seems to capture the spirit of Folk D&D players rather well:
"Dave (Arneson) and I disagree on how to handle any number of things, and both of our campaigns differ from the "rules" found in D&D. 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, D&D 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. My answer is, and has always been, if you don't like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players. D&D enthusiasts are far too individualistic and imaginative a bunch to be in agreement, and I certainly refuse to play god for them..." (Gary Gygax, Alarums & Excursions No.2, July 1975)
Official D&D players see the rules as a strict framework for play, and thus every development coming out of Wizards of the Coast, every new rulebook coming out, is very important. They play by the Rules as Written, and so changes made by Wizards of the Coast to the Rules as Written really matter to them. You will sometimes hear them saying that if you don't play by the official rules, you aren't playing D&D. This quote from 1982 by Gary Gygax really sort of captures the spirit of Official D&D players:
"Since the game is the sole property of TSR and its designer, what is official and what is not has meaning if one plays the game. Serious players will only accept official material, for they play the game rather than playing at it, as do those who enjoy "house rules" poker, or who push pawns around the chess board. No power on earth can dictate that gamers not add spurious rules and material to either the D&D or AD&D game systems, but likewise no claim to playing either game can then be made. Such games are not D&D or AD&D games -- they are something else, classifiable only under the generic 'FRPG' catch all. (Gary Gygax, Dragon Magazine No. 67, November 1982.)
If you really read both of those quotes, you will see that in seven short years, Gary Gygax made a complete flip in his point of view about the rules. I think it is easy to speculate, and so I will. In those seven short years, D&D became a corporate entity, and was a full-fledged business interest. It was in their interest (and Gary's interest), to protect the rules, their profitability, and the brand. In the first quote, he is a game-loving imaginative hippy gamer, and in the second quote he is a corporate oligarch of sorts. It should be noted that later in life, after having been pushed out of TSR, the games Gary ran in his house, were heavily home-brewed versions of Original D&D and more in line with his first quote.
I think I have always been a Folk D&D player, and I've mostly played with Folk D&D players. "House Rules," and making alterations to the game have always been integral to our game-play. This likely comes from the early days, when the rules were rather loose and lacking in detail. It also comes from our efforts to remove silly after-effects of the game evolving from miniature war-gaming. If something made more sense, that became the rule, and if it continued to make sense, it became a house-rule.
Now neither Folk D&D players or Official D&D players are WRONG. Neither are evil. Neither are ill-advised. People are different, and they view things differently. They have different comfort zones. But, I prefer the Folk D&D approach, if I had to define it.
In creating the Kempin 5e Rulebook, I have put that Folk D&D to paper. We are no longer tied to official Wizards of the Coast rulebook releases. We don't get caught up in the power-creep that mounts toward the end of the game edition cycle. We get to play our game, with our rules, and pick and choose what "new stuff" makes it into our game. We're free and playing our own game.
Mark
