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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 1666406" data-attributes="member: 3586">More InterviewFurther to what I was just saying, here's one additional excerpt.Q. One of the raps against D&D was that it was too flexible, and one of the great difficulties, particularly in going to conventions or tournaments and such, was: anyone could say, “I’m having a D&D game, and a person from one side of the country would go, he’d sit down at the table, and within ten minutes, he knew he was in trouble, because he didn’t recognize it as any kind of D&D he had ever played. How flexible, or how inflexible, is AD&D in this regard, compared to D&D? Can a player from California go and find a group in New York and at least have some reasonable assurance that he or she is at least going to understand the guidelines and the framework? Or are you going to encourage the massive variants and do-it-yourself additions that D&D was noted for?Gary: D&D was noted for massive additions and variants that we encouraged, to some extent, without fully realizing the inventiveness of those people who were going to get it, and because it was done over a short period of time, and we didn’t realize how unfamiliar many of the players who would begin D&D were with miniatures and boardgames. And so . . . we encouraged a monster . . .and we are like Frankenstein and D&D is our monster. It’s grown and we want to throw it into the lime pit now and let it. . . . No, in reality, it’s a monster that brings so many people so much fun and enjoyment, even though, as you say, and is also true, that each group plays much differently than the other. We want to still keep D&D going as long as anybody is interested in it, because it is fun, and although you get wild variants, if you’re enjoying the game. . . .after all, that’s what it’s there for. AD&D is designed specifically to answer this lack in D&D in that the players will not be so able to bend the rules nor will the DM be able to bend the rules. There are strong admonitions against tinkering with the integral systems, and what we are trying to do is establish a game that will be recognized from coast to coast, from the Arctic Circle to the Mexican border, or beyond if they read English and play AD&D. This will give fellowship to all the AD&D players, and also enable us to do something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, that it to establish an international tournament for AD&D, which will allow players from all over the country and maybe even the U.K. and Australia and everyplace else it’s played to get together and compete in a recognizable game where they’re on relatively equal footing for—someday—substantial prizes, perhaps.</blockquote>

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