What is meant by saying that in 4e "Everything is core"?

[pemerton]

To me, it seems to be a longevity strategy first and foremost.

OK, but I'm still wondering exacatly what the "it" is.

I still don't get it.

So is this statement meant to be nothing more than a marketing gimmick, or a game design goal?

Dunno - I'm not sure I get it either.

Martial Power has feats for genasi and drow. Adventurer's Vault has magic equipment specifically for animal companions from Martial Power. That is an example of the supplement treating another supplement as "core". Knowing that races or classes from supplements are going to be supported in later books is what makes them core.

Like I said upthread, this is good provided that the cross-references don't completely dominate the book.

Everything is core means everything is part of the mechanics of the game. There won't be Forgotten Realms Swordmages, Eberron Spellswords, PHB III Duskblades and Arcane Power Eldritch Knights with options that could fit any of them but are only allowed for one becuase the options are class specific. There will just be Swordmages and/or Swordmage options everywhere, infecting every part of the game.

That's what it means by 'everything is core', that everything is created with the mindset that it can be used anywhere else with little weedling involved. Everything can be appropriate for any setting. It's not like second edition where material balanced for Forgotten Realms would be a different animal than what Dark Sun'd use. There's less learning completely new gaming rules and systems for each campaign setting, thus making the whole more modular.

To me that sounds like a sensible design goal. That's exactly why I got FRPG - bits of stuff I can use and adapt without having to worry about the "Forgotten Realms" on the cover.

The idea that "everything is core" comes as a response to how 3rd Edition simply had multiple cores, and some things were simply not clear as to how they should be used at all. There was core, Forgotten Realms core, Eberron Core, etc... and not only that, but how should I use this? With descretion? As much as I desire?

Now, every book can be thrown into your game. It's all on the playing field.

<snip>

It's the promise of "We're not going to release something that you can't trust".

Also, it's the idea that there is one core. Forgotten Realms isn't it's own section of D&D any more. It's a setting for all of the core books, which is everything. There's not a Dragons of Faerun... there's Draconomicon. And it's the Draconomicon for D&D core, it's the Draconomicon for Forgotten Realms, and it's the Draconomicon of Eberron. There's no Planes of Eberron. There's Manual of the Planes, and that's what's core.

The first of these sounds good, because balance and trustworthiness of rules are good.

The second certainly doesn't bother me because I don't use published settings holus bolus, and am happy to mix, match and reskin as seems appropriate. (But is it actually true anyway? Are there now going to be waforged in canonical Forgotten Realms products?)

So if "everything is core" means something like all of the above - reliable, portable, well-supported rules - then why would anyone find this sort of design approach objectionable? Is it because they want particular settings to have unique rules elements associated with them?

 

[I'm A Banana]

OK, but I'm still wondering exacatly what the "it" is.

I believe "Everything is Core" means every published element for the game can be referenced by another element of the game.

So if "everything is core" means something like all of the above - reliable, portable, well-supported rules - then why would anyone find this sort of design approach objectionable? Is it because they want particular settings to have unique rules elements associated with them?

I would find such an approach objectionable.

Not in every instance, of course. But in quite a few. FR and Greyhawk and Dragonlance and 4e's Points of Light are all bog standard fantasy stereotype settings. The tropes that work in one generally work in the rest without too much shoehorning. But not every setting is or should be stereotypical fantasy.

Some settings are divergent for what they include that others do not: Eberron is unique because of its high magitech level, for instance. Lightning rails wouldn't be greatly appropriate in FR, which is more steeped in Tolkeinesqueries. Dragonborn alongside draconians would be a tough pill for DL to swallow, I imagine. Drow priestesses of Lolth don't work very well with Eberron's tribal scorpion drow.

Some settings are divergent for excluding what others include: Dark Sun's dismissal of science-y magic in favor of life-force magic means that bookish wizards are grossly out of character (not to take into account how rare paper should be in a world like DS). Forcing standard wizards into the setting would hurt the setting. Likewise, the technological proficiency of the artificer. A setting like Ravenloft should be rightly terrified of anything as fundamentally inhuman as an eladrin or dragonborn, to speak nothing of tieflings and warlocks.

It eventually becomes a question of what goals you are designing this particular game for.

If you want to make something compatible with all the rest of 4e, you are going to effectively kill some of the more divergent settings and take their stuff, creating something that is closer to standard fantasy stereotypes so as to make it more useful. While this is effective for "field trips," and even occasional extended stays, IMO, it robs those settings of what was interesting about them (their fundamental difference from the standard). 4e is the game, everything serves that purpose, and nothing can be too divergent.

If you want to deliver a different kind of game, however, you don't worry about cleaving to standard fantasy stereotypes and instead you create the setting to stand on its own, without intervention from the rest of the game. If a DM wants to work lightning rails into FR, or full plate into DS, they're more than welcome to, but you don't assume that they're going to do that. You deliver an experience (survival in DS, or horror in RL, for instance), and maybe some advice on integrating it, but you don't force the square peg in the round hole. IMO, this is more rewarding, because it lets me play the game in a brand new way, rather than doing the same thing with a palette swap dungeon.

Not everything needs dragonborn to be cool.

 

[catsclaw227]

I took the meaning of future installments of the 4E Core books (PHB, DMG, MM) to be that those using the GSL will be able to utilize material from the core books.

This is what my understanding was, as well. I took it to mean that with the GSL (or revised GSL, when that comes) will allow 3PP to utilize rules from all WOTC publications without any special addition to the license.

The term "core" may also have different meanings (like "level") and the many different interpretations are simply different definitions that have different application.

 

[Hawke]

I figured the design philosophy was that everything would be designed with the universal in mind. Swordmages will be designed as to exist in any world, same with Psionics, wardens, etc.

They certainly aren't taking away the DM's ability to shape their world the way they see fit, nor are they limiting themselves to making a statement that a swordmage on Athas would be incredibly rare compared to Faerun... just that they're all designed to play nice with each other from the get-go.

3.5 seemed more isolated in that sense... I get the feeling that Thri-Kreen wont just be found in a psionics handbook, but feats and powers for them might show up in Elemental sourcebooks or other settings more frequently than was 3.5 - maybe I'm wrong... but I get the feeling that WotC isn't afraid to drop in some connections to other material (see genasi feats in mp)

This is good imho.

 

[pemerton]

So if "everything is core" means something like all of the above - reliable, portable, well-supported rules - then why would anyone find this sort of design approach objectionable? Is it because they want particular settings to have unique rules elements associated with them?

I would find such an approach objectionable.

Not in every instance, of course. But in quite a few.

<snip>

Some settings are divergent for what they include that others do not

<snip>

Some settings are divergent for excluding what others include

<snip>

If you want to deliver a different kind of game, however, you don't worry about cleaving to standard fantasy stereotypes and instead you create the setting to stand on its own, without intervention from the rest of the game.

<snip>

Not everything needs dragonborn to be cool.

I'm reading that as an affirmative answer to my second question.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

I
I would find such an approach objectionable.

Not in every instance, of course. But in quite a few. FR and Greyhawk and Dragonlance and 4e's Points of Light are all bog standard fantasy stereotype settings. The tropes that work in one generally work in the rest without too much shoehorning. But not every setting is or should be stereotypical fantasy.

Kami's post here indicates my concerns too. By "Everything is core" comes back to "all worlds are the same" "everything is bland" etc.

Especially in RPGA - all races published in books and Dragon magazines are available. So now we have warforged wandering around in the Realms, and more than a few. So far in Living Realms games I've played at Human have been very rare.

Imagine in 5 years time what a book like martial powers would be like if it had to refer to every class and race published since 4th ed came out - yucky.

Duncan

 

[RFisher]

“When everything is core...nothing will be.”

I think you should ask people who run 3.X with only the PHB, MM, and DMG why they do it that way. That should provide useful insight into this matter.

Because I was sufficiently happy with the PHB, MM, & DMG. Because those three books were already way over my preferred page count for a game. Because vanishing little in the supplements I examined proved interesting enough to me.

Hmm. You may be right. I might be able to draw some useful insight from those.

The 4e core books have therefore been designed to not make me sufficiently happy? The material in the 4e core books has been made less interesting so as to make supplements look more attractive?

^_^

It probably all stems from my foolishness of actually carrying ten 1e hardbacks to every session. My back has never forgiven me.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It probably all stems from my foolishness of actually carrying ten 1e hardbacks to every session. My back has never forgiven me.

Hehe, I remember this from 3E with all the Completes I was carrying around.

Interestingly, it appears that - at least if you bother to print out your character complete with his powers and feats, you can go entirely without books (maybe the PHB for the core combat rules if you forgot who death saves worked or something like that, and the DM will want his DMG and MM, but you can also easily print out the monsters you want without having to reference any aspect of the entries later).

Maybe that would have been possible in 3E, too. You could just write down all spells. But the problem might be that there are just too many of them. The number of powers you have in 4E is far lower then the number of spells, class abiliities and feats a typical character in 3E might have.
It's not like power cards are a genius invention no one had come up ever before 4E. It's just they seem a lot more useful these days...

 

[WalterKovacs]

Kami's post here indicates my concerns too. By "Everything is core" comes back to "all worlds are the same" "everything is bland" etc.

Especially in RPGA - all races published in books and Dragon magazines are available. So now we have warforged wandering around in the Realms, and more than a few. So far in Living Realms games I've played at Human have been very rare.

Imagine in 5 years time what a book like martial powers would be like if it had to refer to every class and race published since 4th ed came out - yucky.

Duncan

True, however if someone was playing a race that comes out in a "new" book, that already has less options than older races (it only has as many feats as the book it first shows up in), and they get no support in the future ... it makes them feel a bit worse about that choice. Also, you can't "retrain" your race or class.

While they allow warforged into living forgotten realms ... warforged didn't show up in martial power. Dragon magazine seems to be the one thing that is "allowed" but not core, in that nothing, as of yet, seems to refer back to dragon. Races that appear only in dragon (other than the back of the MM) have not received support in a book, outside of drow which was given full race treatment in Forgotten Realms.

 

[Miyaa]

The other thing too that no one has mentioned is that "Everything is core" hasn't changed people's buying habits regarding to D&D. Even when you knew that somethings were core material and everything else was supplementary, was that going to really change how you were going to purchase the book?

Even with Player Handbooks, Monster Manuals, and DMG, only the first volume was ever really considered core. The other iterations were more or less supplementary volumes, although the Monster Manuals were probably the closest things to near-core materials as possible.

Some people are going to buy every book possible, some people are going to be more selective, and how they decide on it isn't going to be solely because "everything is core".