D&D General “Folk” D&D vs. “Official” D&D

[Digdude]

Anytime I see generalizations of things, especially nerdy things (knowing how diverse we are), red flags go up. There is no need to take the entire community and try and distill us down to oranges and apples.

 

[Oofta]

I think the dichotomy presented is far, far too stark. I've never played with anyone, even in AL, that pushes the idea that if you don't follow the rules exactly that you "aren't playing D&D". Even the rule books don't take that stance. From the DMG "The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game."

Which fb would know if they actually read the DMG. Of course nobody reads the DMG so I'm not surprised.

It's also annoying that the strong implication is that the indie market is somehow better or that it would continue in any significant way if D&D died (which it's not going to in the foreseeable future). I'm not a game designer. Other than a handful of tweaks here and there I don't want to build a game any more than I would want to build a car from a kit. Some people enjoy that kind of thing so good for them. I think it's a misunderstanding of human nature to think that the majority of people who play D&D would want to do create their own game.

For that matter, one of the reasons I play D&D is general familiarity and access. I can go from game to game and while the tone and style can change pretty dramatically, the implementation of the rules is the same wherever I go. That's a huge benefit in my book.

If you want your custom bespoke free range indy game, that's great. It really is. But for the majority of people? Mainstream games have always been the best option and likely always will be. I will never run a completely (or largely) homebrew game, I don't personally know anyone who would.

 

[overgeeked]

I think the dichotomy presented is far, far too stark. I've never played with anyone, even in AL, that pushes the idea that if you don't follow the rules exactly that you "aren't playing D&D".

I have. And apparently Gygax agreed to some degree for some period of time.

Even the rule books don't take that stance. From the DMG "The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game."

Right. No wonder the players don’t know that when it’s tucked away in the DMG when even the DMs don’t read the DMG.

 

[Oofta]

I have. And apparently Gygax agreed to some degree for some period of time.

Experiences differ and if you look hard enough you can find people saying all sorts of things. Even when it conflicts with the advice in the DMG.

 

[overgeeked]

I see the chaos-folk mindset as taking the afterword of OD&D to heart.

“There are unquestionably areas which have been glossed over. While we deeply regret the necessity, space requires that we put in the essentials only, and the trimming will often have to be added by the referee and his players. We have attempted to furnish an ample framework, and building should be both easy and fun. In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you? Write to us and tell about your additions, ideas, and what have you. We could always do with a bit of improvement in our refereeing.”

 

[overgeeked]

Experiences differ and if you look hard enough you can find people saying all sorts of things. Even when it conflicts with the advice in the DMG.

Even the man who wrote the thing didn’t always agree with himself.

 

[Oofta]

Even the man who wrote the thing didn’t always agree with himself.

As the video points out, Gygax only started demanding fidelity to the rules when he was trying to sell his version as the official one. Bit of a conflict of interest there.

 

[Gradine]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

 

[overgeeked]

As the video points out, Gygax only started demanding fidelity to the rules when he was trying to sell his version as the official one. Bit of a conflict of interest there.

Right. He wrote an open system, told fans to DIY the rest, and use their own imaginations. Then when money was more of a concern he switched to a closed system, told fans to only use official material, and to rely on the imaginations of TSR’s writers.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Sure. Let me start with a biological example to demonstrate the idea. For this, I choose... American Bison.

We view the American prairie as "grasslands", and normally, they are - dominated by (iirc) four species of grass. Where bison graze, however, we find the diversity of plant matter increases, to include other grass species, goldenrod, and other other flora. The more diverse prairie flora is, among other things, more resistant to drought than areas of lower diversity, and has greater diversity of other animals, who feed on things other than the dominant grasses.

Bison also churn the soil when they come marching through en masse. This helps create watering holes and mud wallows that other species use.

Remove the apex bison, you have a less diverse prarie. This would seem paradoxical - having a major dominant species present would sound like it should lower diversity. But what happens is that the bison support niches in the ecosystem that they themselves don't use!

We can then look at how a larger company, like WotC, might support niches in the RPG landscape that they don't themselves fill. Those niches are apt to collapse if there's not a dominant company or two around, meaning that you'd actually end up with less diversity in games if there weren't something like WotC around. Lower diversity means less resilience to changing conditions.

As a very basic example - we should all expect that WotC is the largest force for bringing new people into the hobby, by far. Not all those people play only D&D for the rest of their lives.

While someone's particular home game may not need new people, the hobby as a whole does.

ah I see.

I think the fear is the increased monetization will either be the wotc bison eating as many niches as it can, changing the beast into something that kills the tabletop plains or it will inadvisedly kill the d&D bison thus hurling the plains in the chaos.

I am sadly ineloquent over text.