Gary's Preface to the AD&D Player's Handbook

When I was young I hated to discover that a book had some portion at the front that wasn't really part of the book. Forewords, Prefaces, Prologues, whatever... they were just in the way to finding the start of the good stuff! And if the book had more than one of the above, this was even more odious. Well, that's what I used to think, anyway. I still struggle to want to read them because those old habits die hard, but I've come to recognize that oftentimes there is very important information in those sections.

E. Gary Gygax's Preface to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (1978) is worth your time to read because it contains many needed answers to a ton of questions about the game. The Preface is less than 1.5 pages and doesn't actually take that long. You can even skip the acknowledgments in the last paragraph if you like. Let's take a quick look together at some of the most important stuff here.

In the very first paragraph, Gygax wrote that the "bones" of the game are the "tables, charts, and matrices" that make up the calculations for executing game actions. He further wrote that the "final manuscript was built around them."

Then in the second paragraph, Gygax expresses his "trepidation" that in writing up these rules he has "set [himself] up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers." And yet, he accepted this, despite his trepidation, for he embraced the fact that "some last authority must be established for a very good reason." And in the third paragraph he launched right into that reason. "There is a need for a certain amount of uniformity from campaign to campaign." If you continue to read that third paragraph, you will see that the uniformity he has in mind is that player actions would be adjudicated generally the same. He isn't saying that every campaign should be literally the same, that is, going on the same adventures in the same places, but rather that a uniformity of adjudication, i.e., following the rules he has laid out, would result in actual rewards that follow actual risks, and all of this promoting intelligent play by the players. When Gygax took up the mantle of being "final arbiter" and "last authority," he was making an assertion that the rules in the book he wrote matter and should be followed.

Indeed, he wrote this explicitly in the sixth paragraph of the Preface. "Everything in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons system has purpose; most of what is found herein is essential to the campaign, and those sections which are not -- such as subclasses of characters, psionics, and similar material -- are clearly labeled as optional for inclusion." Earlier in the same paragraph he cautions people against fiddling with the rules of the game because "certain things which seem 'unrealistic' or simply unnecessary are integral to the system." Right there in the Preface, Gygax is warning players and DMs not to stray from the rules unless they are clearly marked as optional.

However, some will object that in the seventh paragraph, Gygax also wrote this: "even the most important material herein can be altered and bent to suit the needs of individual campaigns." This may seem to amount to the infamous Rule Zero. However, this statement must be taken in balance with what came before it. First of all, we saw that Gygax considered the non-optional rules "integral" and "essential" each serving their own well-thought-out "purpose." But we must also look at the larger context of Gygax's "can be altered and bent" clause. This is the full context: "Many readers will want more material. There is a wealth of commercial and fan material available for fulfilling such needs. Similarly, even the most important material herein can be altered and bent to suit the needs of individual campaigns." As we can see, the context is within the idea of readers wanting "more material." In such a context, it is a stretch at best to equate the "can be altered and bent" clause to Rule Zero. A much more appropriate example would be Gygax's own invention of the Drow, a race that did not originally exist and which "alters and bends" the concept of Elves in their own specific way. Therefore, Gygax's "can be altered and bent" clause should not be used to reject or ignore the actual rules of the game, which, again, Gygax called "integral" and "essential."

One other important bit is found in the middle of the Preface and is reflected by the continuing use of the word "campaign" throughout the Preface. In the fourth paragraph, Gygax wrote: "No individual can actually dictate the actual operations of a campaign, however, for that is the prerogative of the Dungeon Master, first and foremost, and to the players in the individual campaign thereafter. In like manner, players greatly influence the events of each particular campaign, and they must accept a large portion of blame if it is a poor game, and if the campaign is outstanding, they deserve high praise for helping to shape the game and playing well." From the outset, Gygax conceived that while the DM sets the milieu and opportunities for the game, it is the players themselves who "greatly influence the events" of the campaign. The later development of the DM deciding that specific story beats must happen in the game is foreign to the original concept. Furthermore, since Gygax does not speak of individual sessions at all in the Preface, it is clear that he envisions an ongoing campaign as synonymous with playing the game.

Carefully reading the Preface will tell you what this game is really about.