I've talked about why it's destructive to RPGs to implement a rule of "if you don't like it, change it!" But if you talk about this with RPG fans you will be met with resistance. Isn't it the case that the utlimate rule in RPGs is that the Game Master can do whatever the hell he wants? Well, there certainly are many modern (post 90's) games that explicitly say this. But I contend that this is not how things were understood in the early days. Gygax is actually very explicit about this at many points in the 1st Edition AD&D rules. However, his statements are scattered across the books, and many people pretend not to be able to understand "High Gygaxian." Therefore I will start by discussing what the Black Box (i.e. the lead-in to the Basic D&D Rules Cyclopedia) calls the "last rule." This is "if you don't know how to handle something, make up rules for it."
Now I'm sure that there's a lot of RPG fans who hear that and say "that means that I can make up whatever I want!" But this is due to not carefully reading. It's not "make up rules whenever." It's "if you don't know how to handle something, make up rules for it." That is, making up rules is something that you do when you run into an unexpected situation, or when the rules exist but it would disrupt the flow of the game too much to look up the specifics. Implicit in this statement is the fact that in other situations you follow the rules. That is, the license to ignore the rules is not because the rules are only suggesitons. Rather, it is an admission that the world of role playing is far too expansive for rules to cover all situations (or to cover all situations that do arise logically and fairly.)
Think of baseball. Suppose that the infield fly did not exist, but a team consitently tries to get double plays by dropping easily caught infield fly balls whenever the players stayed on the base (allowing for forced outs.) The umpire can see that this is not technically against the rules, but so outside the spirit of baseball that it shouldn't be allowed. So he declares that in this situation play continues as though the ball had been caught, regardless of whether it actually is caught. This is how a good DM acts; he sees a situation that is clearly not normal and makes a judgment call.
And in fact this sort of situation is exactly what the Black Box is talking about. In one of the "dragon card" tutorials for DMing, they give the example of yanking a rug out from someone. How do you handle that? This certainly is not covered by the rules; keep in mind that we are dealing with Basic D&D here which has very limited systems outside of spells and combat. It suggests that maybe you do a saving throw (perhaps against Dragon Breath, representing dodging?) Or maybe you do an ability check to get under the character's dexterity score. Or maybe you have a percentage check determined by the DM on the spot. Any are valid options, though once you have picked one you should try to be consistent if the same situation arises in the future. In contrast the last rule would not apply to something like whether a character is shot by an enemy archer, or if a character can resist a Charm Person spell, since there are clear rules for these situations.
The modern understanding of a DM would be like an umpire who arbitrarily decides halfway through the game that you need to run counterclockwise around the bases, or an umpire who is upset that the game isn't tense due to one team being up by 10 runs, and so giving 8 free runs to the other team. No one would enjoy baseball if the umpire acted like this. Remember "Dungeon Master" wasn't even the original term for the position; the original white box rules call instead for a "referee."
Indeed there are many places in the 1st Edition source books where it is clear that Gygax really does want the DM to function primarily as a referee, meaning that the DM has some leeway with the rules but cannot ignore them at will. Now obviously any playgroup can ignore the rules regardless of what Gygax says, but you can do this with any game. Just because people give out money for landing on Free Parking in Monopoly, that does not mean that the game is intended to be played that way. When it comes to AD&D we actually have a lot of words from Gygax himself in the books, which I will detail here. (I believe that Gygax's intent was slightly different in the original rules, but not as willy-nilly as modern play. We'll get to that after looking at AD&D.)
In the preface to 1st edition's Dungeon Master Guide Gygax is quite up front about the impossibility of covering all possibilities in the rules:
Naturally, everything possible cannot be included in the whole of this work. As a participant in the game, I would not care to have anyone telling me exactly what must go into a campaign and how it must be handled; if so, why not play some game like chess? As the author I also realize that there are limits to my creativity and imagination. Others will think of things I didn’t, and devise things beyond my capability. As an active Dungeon Master I kept a careful watch for things which would tend to complicate matters without improving them, systems devised seemingly to make the game drag for players, rules which lessened the fantastic and unexpected in favor of the mundane and ordinary. As if that were not enough hats to wear, I also wore that of a publisher, watching the work so as to make sure that it did not grow so large as to become unmanageable cost-wise
A little bit later on he talks about how rules will vary from playgroup to playgroup:
With certain uniformity of systems and “laws”, players will be able to move from one campaign to another and know at least the elemental principles which govern the new milieu, for all milieux will have certain (but not necessarily the same) laws in common. Character races and classes will be nearly the same. Character ability scores will have the identical meaning — or nearly so. Magic spells will function in a certain manner regardless of which world the player is functioning in. Magic devices will certainly vary, but their principles will be similar.
Something to note here: he is not saying that rules will vary because the DM will arbitrarily change how things work from session to session. Rather, he is saying that different playgroups may modify things like character races or magic spells due to flavor, balance, or reasons of personal taste. But presumably within each playgroup these changes remaing consistent. Note too how even while Gygax is talking about the variations that will happen, he is also stressing how minor they will be. Maybe there are different magical items, or slight modifications to how much strength you need to bash down a door, or maybe elves can advance further in level than in the base rules. This isn't a free for all, but a modification of a stable base. Gygax further expounds upon why allowing too many changes is a bad idea:
The danger of a mutable system is that you or your players will go too far in some undesirable direction and end up with a short-lived campaign. Participants will always be pushing for a game which allows them to become strong and powerful far too quickly. Each will attempt to take the game out of your hands and mold it to his or her own ends. To satisfy this natural desire is to issue a death warrant to a campaign, for it will either be a one-player affair or the players will desert en masse for something more challenging and equitable.
Without a stable set of rules to work from, the game devolves into the whims of someone or other. It may be the DM, or it may be the player who complains the loudest. Or maybe the DM tries to accommodate everyone, and ends up satisfying no one. In any case, it isn't an environment where players can plan and strategize, since any rule they base their plans on could easily change. In fact, the best metagame is to convince the DM to favor you, whether that be by complaining, flattery or even bribery.
Moving onto the introduction (yes, Gygax included a forward, preface and an introduction) and Gygax says this:
Thus, besides the systems, I have made every effort to give the reasoning and justification for the game. Of course the ultimate reason and justification is a playable and interesting game, and how much rationalization can actually go into a fantasy game? There is some, at least, as you will see, for if the game is fantasy, there is a basis for much of what is contained herein, even though it be firmly grounded on worlds of make-believe. And while there are no optionals for the major systems of ADVANCED D&D (for uniformity of rules and procedures from game to game, campaign to campaign, is stressed), there are plenty of areas where your own creativity and imagination are not bounded by the parameters of the game system. These are sections where only a few hints and suggestions are given, and the rest left to the DM.
Emphasis mine. This is Gygax nearly stating the Black Box's "last rule." The major systems are explicitly stated to not be optional. For example, you can't have characters ignore experience and gain levels at "story landmarks." You can't fudge the dice to make combat more "dramatic" by having the players not be in danger of death to early, and not come away unscathed at the climax. (We will return to this particular example in a bit.) But at the same time, there will be things not covered by the rules, and that is where the DM has full flexibility. Now Gygax does allow for some fudging even in established situations, but only when particularly unlikely events occur and only when it does not disrupt the core systems of the game. Here is the example he uses. He starts with a preamble about a bunch of players gathering and being excited for a game. His description continues:
They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favorite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, every time you throw the “monster die” a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons, as is explained in the section about them. If a party deserves to have these beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everything possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If your work as a DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play
Two big take aways here. First, while Gygax allows fudging the roll for random encounters, he does not allow fudging the rolls in the actual combat itself. This is because having a fair combat with a chance of death is part of the core precepts of the game. Second, the reason he allows for fudging the random encounter roll is too frequent does not fulfill the intended purpose of random encounters.
When discussing dice rolls in general, Gygax does allow for the DM to skip a dice roll or to overrule the dice. Modern D&D players are quick to point out this and say that Gygax too believed that the DM can arbitrarily change the rules and results of the game at will. What they overlook is in the section of the DMG discussing arbitration of dice rolls, Gygax goes into detail about when you shouldn't fudge things. He says that you shouldn't overule the dice to seriously harm the party or NPCs (saying in his inimitable fashion "always give a mosnter an even break!".) He gives many situations where you should always roll and stick to the rolls, such as rolls for hiding, attacks on the party that are surprises, saving throws, and more. And he stresses that you should never, never, never tamper with the System Shock roll. A player who fails this is FOREVER DEAD (all caps from Gygax) and says that if you don't do this, death will be meaningless and the game will be boring. Now it's rather difficult to reconcile the idea that Gygax thought it was fine to change any rule with his repeated insistence that certain things should not be tampered with in any way. What we are seeing is more of a hierarchy of rules. I can see three categories:
Now let me mention where Gygax did mess up: We've seen him talk about random encounters several times. But in the first edition AD&D DMG he doesn't actually give the rules for how you should check for them in dungeons. He's clear that you should, and there is an appendix about what monsters will be in various places. He does talk about how often to make the checks in overland travel, which depends on the type of terrain and how built up it is. But in dungeons all we get is that there is a "periodic check" without stating the period. If you read through all mentions of wandering monster encounters you will find him talking about things that should make you check more often than the usual check of every three turns, and in the example of play we see that the check is done by rolling a d6 and seeing if it comes up a 6 (just like in OD&D.) But there is a notable omission of any section that explictly talks about this procedure.
This is a rather unfortunate way to mess up, because it forces the DM to make up what is classified as a core rule, and it also means that Gygax never fulfills his promise of saying why wandering monsters are important. This gives the DM the impression that he should make things up for everything, despite Gygax being adamant that this is not the case, and despite the fact that the rules are pretty clear and robust for most other situations.
In any case, I think we have a good idea of how Gygax felt about all of this, at least when he wrote the 1st edition rules. His opinions later may have changed, and as stated earlier his intention in the OD&D rules were a bit different. The crowd who insist that you can change things whenever you want have much better support in the white box rules, where book I tells us:
As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity — your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors, and the fact that you have purchased these rules tends to indicate that there is no lack of imagination — the fascination of the game will tend to make participants find more and more time
Here they are explicitly called "guidelines", though I think that it is important that this is framed in the context of "minature rules" which at the time would have meant "wargames." We aren't talking about Warhammer, since that did not exist. Rather, this is talking about the practice of running battles with miniatures, based on history or otherwise. Usually there was some base system, like Chainmail but it could also be something else. These would usually detail some specific historical venue extensively, but it was always possible to include units not in the rules. If the time changed drastically, for example if the rules were for medeival combat but the players wanted to have a battle from the Napoleonic era, then obviously the rules would have to be adjusted. Similarly perhaps the battle is in the midst of winter in a deep snowfall, which would require ad-hoc rules to simulate if they were not covered. So wargamers were accustomed to making up new rules before a battle started, though with wargames being competitive it was necessary to abide by those rules during the game itself. I think that this is what Gygax has in mind. He furthermore says immediately afterwards:
We advise, however, that a campaign be begun slowly, following the steps outlined herein, so as to avoid becoming too bogged down with unfamiliar details at first. That way your campaign will build naturally, at the pace best suited to the referee and players, smoothing the way for all concerned. New details can be added and old “laws” altered so as to provide continually new and different situations.
So he is not giving DMs (or more properly referees) the license to throw things out at whim, but instead is advising them to stick closely to the rules as printed and to only change things when unexpected scenarios arise (as the last rule also advises) or when the DM has enough experience to know what his change will mean. Throughout the OD&D rules we see many notes that the playgroup can end up doing whatever they want, though I believe that they should be understood in this context. At this point D&D was still essentially a variation of the Chainmail rules, and so was experimental. Far be it for Gygax to say you should restrict yourself to the three classes presented when he was himself part of the process of making new classes. But as we can see from the above quote, he was still aware that it would be a bad idea for a new group to deviate from the rules immediately. I am sure there were wargame groups where people got a set of rules and then immediately made up new types of units and situations outside of the rules, resulting in wildly unbalanced and unfun scenarios (much like the people who change the rules of Monopoly before even using the actual rules in a single game.) And even the original OD&D rules were the result of many hours of playtesting, with the printed rules being the ones that worked best at the time. But there was less confidence in these rules as the best that could be found, leading to less of a firm insistence on sticking by the rules, and more notes that tables and the like coudl be changed as necessary.
By the time AD&D was released, the game had become much more refined and Gygax could more confidently state that the printed rules were enough. He also had many horror stories of playgroups not following the wargaming spirit at all, such as those groups that allowed players to easily level into the 100's and who complained about even gods not having enough HP to trouble their players. Now, the DM certainly still had the power to modify the rules, as we have seen above, but this was seen more as something to be done as a last resort (either when the rules were absent, or when corner cases made the rules cause situations clearly at odds with the intention of the game.)
For completeness, let's consider some of the later editions of D&D. I haven't currently went through the original Basic or B/X rules, so I can't comment on them. When we get to BECMI/the Black Box/the Rules Cyclopedia style of Basic, I am much more familiar. We have already seen that this style of D&D explicilty has the "last rule," meaning that rules can be added when a situation outside of the rules shows up, but that the rules should be followed when they are there. The Red Box Basic ("B" of BECMI) says that the "most important rule" is to be fair, and explicitly says that rules should not be changed unless everyone agrees to the change beforehand. I guess that allows rules to be ignored when the whole playgroup agrees to it, but it's a far cry from the idea that rules are nothing more than guidelines which the DM can change at whim. It does allow for DMs to fudge dice with new playgroups, the example given being that if players keep failing when searching for secret doors you can give them a break once or twice because otherwise they might assume that it's pointless to search for secret doors. But overall it stresses following the rules, even saying that creating new equipment is a bad idea that will likely unbalance your game. The rules cyclopedia is similar. It does say that DMs can overrule dice rolls if players are dying to early (which is something that Gygax explicitly cautions against) but overall stresses the rules.
As with most things, the game starts to fall apart in 2nd edition AD&D. Part of the problem is that there is now no longer one set of rules; you have core rules, "tournament rules" (i.e. rules which are used at official events but may be ignored at your play table) and optional rules (i.e. rules which can be ignored anywhere, even in official events.) Later supplements greatly expanded on the number of optional rules, such as whether kits should be used. The Player's Option series had so many variants for combat, player creation and magic use that you could practically create an entirely different game depending on which you followed. Note that this also meant that official supplements could no longer be properly balanced, as what worked for one configuration of the rules might utterly fail for another. This meant that players could no longer see the beauty of well crafted rules "just working" and this gave further justification to DMs to change things around. And that's just scratching the surface. I've already did a series on the bad advice given in 2nd edition, much of which amounted to the DM being told that he was the most important guy at the table and that the game should subverient to him. Not only does 2nd edition not stress the importance of timekeeping (in contrast to OD&D, BECMI and 1st edition) but the DM declaring that time skips forward with no one being able to properly use that time is given as an example of good DMing. Similarly, the DM is explicitly told that he should be careful in following the random monster encounter rules, not because they might interfere with game balance, but because they might be too fun for the players leading to the players not properly appreciating the DM's choices. It's a real mess. If you don't use the variants, or at least you fix which variants you use at the start and balance accordingly, 2nd edition can still be great. It does things that 1st edition never attempted, like the Call of Cthulhu-esque Masque of Red Death setting. But the tendency in the advice given is for DMs to not appreciate the rules. Since the tendency for playgroups was to ignore the rules anyway (learning them is hard work) this is where it really settled in that rules in RPGs could be ignored freely.
In fact the damage was so great that I don't know how much it really matters what later editions said. When the culture strongly believes that you can ignore the rules, is a new rulebook saying otherwise going to change anyone's mind? Imagine someone today makes a new system of rules and puts on the very first page a disclamer in caps and bold: THE GAME IS DESIGNED TO BE PLAYED AS WRITTEN. IF YOU IGNORE OR CHANGE RULES, YOU ARE NO LONGER PLAYING THIS GAME. You would still have people saying "It's an RPG so rules, including that one, are just guidelines." If they were convinced that the rule was serious, they would complain about the "arrogrance" of the designer expecting the rules to be followed. Imagine taking that line of argument with a chess player!
All that being said, 3rd edition and later do not particularly cultivate an attitude of respect towards the rules. Character creation generally is presented in a "this is a way things should go" manner, but beyond that the tone is less firm. 5th edition in particular falls into the trap of having so many "optional" rules that it's impossible for a new DM to know what the inteneded core rules actually are, and thus there is no choice but to scrabble togetehr whatever you think might work while treating the rules as guidelines.
I don't expect this attitude to change, especially not just from an essay printed on a personal website with low traffic. But I hope anyone who is reading this will at least be able to read 1st edition with fresh eyes.
July 1, 2025