D&D 5E 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[SteveC]

Pre 3e, optional/add-on products aren't called non-core; they are called supplements. The concept is the same.

Precisely. The "complete" books or Combat and Tactics/Skills and Powers were definitely not core: they were supplements. The core PHB spelled that out.

Back in the days of Unearthed Arcana, I believe that book was also listed as optional (after all, that's why the 3E Unearthed Arcana was all optional rules: they chose that name for a reason!) I know the stat rolling systems and the improvements to your ability scores were entirely optional, for instance.

I'd say the notion that "everything is core" is pretty unique to 4E.

 

[evileeyore]

Okay... what some of you guys are missing is the people I know didn't have this "core/not-core" mindset. It didn't matter what book it came from, the DM said what was available in his game.

DM didn't want Wizards in his campaign? No Wizards and no one once said "But, but they're core!"

DM says "All the gods are dead so no Clerics, Paladins, or other 'divine' casters, all Wizards have to have Pacts with demons" then no such things exist and all Wizards eventually go to Scarytown. Core or not.

DM says "I hate the big book of Elf cheese but the other books of race cheese are okay", well then no Elf Cheese for us.

DM says "Only Elves, full access to the Book of Elf Cheese" and much rejoicing was had (by me mostly).

DM says "Only Humans, no casters, no magical classes, everyone has psionics".... well you get the idea.




NOTE: All five of these examples occurred in my groups. No one ever quibbled or mentioned "core" or "main books says this" or anything. That's my point, we didn't differentiate between "main books" and "supplements". All rules came after Rule 0.

 

[Thaumaturge]

All rules came after Rule 0.

So you're saying is Rule 0 was core. And everything else wasn't.

Thaumaturge.

 

[evileeyore]

So you're saying is Rule 0 was core. And everything else wasn't.

Thaumaturge.

 

[MerricB]

Back in the days of Unearthed Arcana, I believe that book was also listed as optional (after all, that's why the 3E Unearthed Arcana was all optional rules: they chose that name for a reason!) I know the stat rolling systems and the improvements to your ability scores were entirely optional, for instance.

I read it as quite the opposite. The stat-rolling system is optional because it's part of a selection of options for the DM to choose from, but the prefaces are all describing "official" parts of the D&D system.

Jeff Grubb in particular: "Gary Gygax has continued to expand the frontiers of the game, offering new ideas, experiments and rules. In this book those ideas are made concrete. The experiments are completed. The suggested rules are now official and final." (emphasis mine).

Adventures and books published after UA assumed that it was part of the rules - albeit inconsistently.

The publishing habits of recent editions have been interesting.

For the most part, 3E didn't assume you had anything but the core rulebooks and the supplement you were reading. Towards the end of the game, books would provide references to rules (normally feats and spells) in supplemental books, but mostly you could play core books and whatever adventure you liked and have most of what you needed there.

4E didn't assume you had anything but the core rulebooks at any time, as I recall - with a minor exception when it came to the books that were also dependent on Essentials. Having monster statblocks that were utterly self-contained helped a lot with that.

Pathfinder assumes you have everything, or that you have access to the PRD on the internet. (Personally, I find it horribly frustrating - reading NPC stat blocks in particular requires a load of cross-checking. But it does mean everything is relevant).

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

I don't think that analysis stands very well. The introductory section of the 2e Players Handbook refers to itself, the DMG, and first volume of the Monstrous Compendium as essential. Everything else is called optional. How is that really different from 3e's core/not core split? I think perhaps the concept of core/not core may have become more defined throughout the tenure of 2e (probably because of people's experiences with the Complete Handbook series) until it reached an explicit "Core Rulebook" label for 3e, but the idea was clearly there in 2e's intro through the labeling of some books essential and others optional.

It's kinda funny how 4e gets hammered for not including monsters in the 1st Monster Manual, but, 2e apparently gets the pass. By your definition, the following monsters are no longer core: Basilisks, dopplegangers, dryads, dwarves, drow (!), ettin, gargoyles, hippogriff, lamia, mimics, otyugh, roc, rust monster, and troglodytes (I'm only listing very, very common monsters).

Yet, I've seen all sorts of modules that assume that those monsters are in play and the DM has access to those monsters.

From the early pages of the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana:

In this book, those experiments are made concrete. The experiments are completed. The suggested rules are now official and final.

What I don't find? Any mention at all that these rules are optional. These are official rules. They are meant to be used and future publications in AD&D, I know, use these rules. You see comeliness and the Barbarian class in later published modules for example.

Now, to be fair, buried on the back page of the 2e Complete fighter's Handbook, on the back cover, is the only example of "optional supplement" that I could find, but, it is there. They do, in the back cover blurb, say that this book is an optional supplement. Certainly nothing between the covers suggests that this isn't core. And, considering that optional rules were part of core in 2e (proficiencies were optional after all - does that mean they aren't core?), I'm inclined to agree with [MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION]91 that this might have been something that developed over time.

For example, on a personal level, no one I knew considered the Skills and Powers books to be core, but rather a parallel but different game. But, on a purely personal level, groups that I played with assumed the Complete Books were in play all the time. Some of the later splats, you might have asked, but, if a new player showed up with a PC with a kit from, say, The Complete Fighter, no one would have raised an eye. And that was when I was playing in the university game club where you had gamers from all over the country. Confirmation bias and all that, but, I remember that the Core trinity was a big shift when 3e came out. It certainly wasn't something I saw assumed prior to 3e.

/edit Shoot. Ninja's by [MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION]

 

[MerricB]

/edit Shoot. Ninja's by [MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION]

Heh. I just happened to have UA sitting next to me.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Now, to be fair, buried on the back page of the 2e Complete fighter's Handbook, on the back cover, is the only example of "optional supplement" that I could find, but, it is there.

It's a little more explicit in the Complete Thief's Handbook:
"New rules and procedures only become official campaign rules where the DM so declares." - page 4.

Cheers!

 

[Emerikol]

I believe there are two ways the word official was used in the 1e era. One is official as in official licensed products. Gygax was always telling his customers to only by true tsr product. Adventure modules were even branded that way.

That is a far cry from the default assumed acceptable rules of the game. Few DMs would announce at the last second that clerics are banned. That would have to be pre announced. Players would never assume they could use something beyond the core 3 without DM approval.

This view of the game held until 4e when wotc went out of their way to announce everything was core. It was a big change in thinking and that was why it was emphasized.

I agree that rule zero trumps all but that is not pertinent to this discussion.

 

[Emerikol]

Hussar your experience varies from mine