It's actually a well-known (at least in my blog circles) problem with D&D. Everyone house-rules things to such an extent that the only thing that most tables have in common is how leveling up works, and which spells they use.
Rules lawyering as a concept wasn’t invented at a D&D table, but the creation of the phrase almost certainly involved sitting at one.
That’s what separates good games and groups from each other: the collective suspension of disbelief as a shared goal. When everyone is in it for themselves, it rapidly devolves into Mary Sue wish fulfillment and power gaming, and as another deleted commenter mentioned, Calvinball. When everyone is in it together, it builds on itself and each other, and you get something like Dragonlance.
> Dragonlance is a shared universe created by the American fantasy writers Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived Dragonlance while driving in their car on the way to TSR for a job interview. Tracy Hickman met his future writing partner Margaret Weis at TSR, and they gathered a group of associates to play the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The adventures during that game inspired a series of gaming modules, a series of novels, licensed products such as board games, and lead miniature figures.
RPGs facilitate group story telling, a shared experience.
Friendliness comes from shared experience - whether it is the classic "first date" of "dinner and a movie" attempting to kickstart a lifelong relationship or a simple nod between bikers as they zip past each other in opposite directions.
D&D provides a structure, making it a shared experience that everyone present can contribute to. And if the people of the group want to house rule a thing, that is a social thread right there.
To apply external pressure to try to get rid of these house rules would be to try to undo an element of the social fabric of the group.
It's not a problem. It's a strength.
The only time it's a problem, is if the social group can't decide and accept/discard a house rule. That is a social issue for the group though, not a problem with D&D.
And it kind of mirrors the many issues we as a society have with law-as-written and laws-as-intended.
I disagree. I have played since red box, played all the versions including 4th, I play 5th ed a lot.
For 5e..
1st campaign, no houserules, 3 years run time including transition to online during covid
2nd campaign, no houserules, just a bit of re-skin warforged are necrons, right? etc in person
3rd campaign, added legacy items inperson, different group concurrent with campaign
4th campaign, some house rules on spellcasting (provokes attacks of opportunity etc), accelerated progression till 9th level, expand legacies to things other than items
Play Pirateborg, Starwars or Dark Heresy etc, don't play a 2nd campaign, no house rules. You just live with the short comings of the system, you won't be there for long.
That said, I ran a 10 year rolemaster campaign, so maybe I'm an outlier. But people who read the books and don't play a heap, seem to have a lot of strong opinions. "City X is a terrible place to live- says some tourist who has transited in airport".
I would have thought that if the rules were the issue the "house rule" fixes would be similar if not the same. But the comment I replied to suggested everyone was doing different things to the point where only some of the rules were the same.
Admittedly, I haven't done D&D5th. Too busy to do anything for a while, but even then, last I did were other RPGs.
Problem 1 is that D&D is the most popular and well known TTRPG, so people who are otherwise not curious about roleplaying games might still wind up playing D&D. They might not even realize there are other similar but different roleplaying games to even play!
Problem 2 follows from problem 1. Because D&D is seen as the 'default', many people try to make it be the one-size-fits-all game. It is actually really bad at this, because it has it's roots in a very specific type of tabletop wargame that is still visible in its DNA even today
So very often you find people who would probably prefer a more roleplaying focused game, playing D&D instead. And despite Wizards of the Coasts best efforts, D&D still plays better as a dungeon crawling wargame style game than a pure roleplaying game
My evidence of this is the insane popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, mostly because it had a lot of deep dialogue trees, not so much because it's a good tactical combat game (even though it is pretty good at that)
