The DM Said "Let There Be Light"
“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” (DMG 4). The very first page of the Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) specifies how little you need to adhere to it. If something disagrees with your sensibilities, you may simply get rid of it. If you feel something needs to be added, you simply add it. The DM is sometimes jokingly referred to as playing the character of God, because of the way they control everything that isn’t an NPC. It is entirely possible to play out the game from a Judeo-Christian perspective, doing only what you believe the Hebrew Bible God would do. The same could be said for Zeus and the gods of Mount Olympus or any other Pantheon of gods from across history or your own imagination.
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Homebrew content is where a DM shines. If the game is not following a pre-set commercially available campaign, the story can involve whatever the DM wishes. This can often lead players to think deeply not about what they would do in the situation, but specifically what their character would do. By role-playing what their character would do, the player is forced to evaluate social bonds they have made, legal contracts, if any, moral obligations and more. Players learn empathetic reasoning by trying to put themselves in the position of their character.
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These techniques can have real world repercussions. In one case, DnD “was used as a safe guide to help [a young suicidal] patient learn to acknowledge and express his inner self in a safe and guided way. The patient ultimately matured and developed healthier object relations and a better life” (Blackmon 624). By changing the game to specifically deal with the young man’s mental health issues, medical professionals were able to help him learn to express himself.
The importance of homebrew ad the participant’s role in running the game the way they see fit is so integral to DnD that when Wizards of the Coast (the current DnD developer) tried to close the open license that allowed free use of their materials when they switched from the third to fourth editions, they “splintered their once monolithic influence and created their own competition” (Bryant 4.4).
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No one would allow their faith to be depicted by their local imam or guru if what they taught was radically different from what they believed, but Wizards believed they sill had control over their copywrite property. Instead, they were met with the religious fervour of irate fans that refused to let go of what they had taken and made their own.
