[Spinachcat]

My friends consider me a RPG archeologist and I have read many fan magazines from the mid-1970s to learn more about how our hobby developed in its infancy. I find it fascinating to look at the arguments, thoughts and rationales of these primitive dice tossers...and watch them resurface again on RPG.net in 2006.

By the time Our Lord Gary wrote the DMG, there were several other proto-RPGs on the market trying to steal the thunder of D&D and there were MANY articles about house-ruling this and that, articles attacking the various tropes of D&D and articles suggesting we take D&D far away from where Gygax began with his idea. I believe - and I may be wrong - that much of his contradictory prose was a reaction to these new voices OR maybe he didn't have a editor which wouldn't surprise me either.