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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7157211" data-attributes="member: 6778044">That's simply not true. TSR marketed all of the hardcover books as core books. More importantly, it explicitly states it right in the forward to Deities & Demigods:"Deities & Demigods is an indispensable part of the whole of AD&D. Do not fall into the error of regarding it as a supplement. It is integral to Dungeon Mastering a true AD&D campaign. Experience players will immediately concur with this evaluation, for they already know how important alignment is, how necessary the deity is to the cleric, and how interaction of the various alignments depends on the entities which lead them. Those readers not well-grounded in ongoing campaigns must take my word for all of this, although they will soon discover for themselves how crucial the deities of the campaign milieu are."As I already pointed out, your quote isn't stating that is isn't core, it states that it's not a book of rules. It is a book of guidelines, which was different from what had been published before, because each DMs setting was different and the way the gods fit into that setting is crucial. It's not a statement of whether to use the book or not, it's instructions on how to use the book. Otherwise people would just consider it a book of "monsters" and try to go kill the gods (which is what they did anyway!).For example, there are variant rules in the 5e PHB. They are still core rules. They are optional, but still core. That's quite different from a Forgotten Realms supplement, which has no place in a Dragonlance campaign for example.Regardless, the concept of what is core and what is a splatbook has evolved over the years, and it's clear based on TSR's marketing that they considered it a core book.Now that doesn't mean that you can't run a monotheistic campaign, or one with no gods. But the game was designed around the concept of multiple gods.Yes, AD&D (and D&D before it) encouraged DMs to make their own campaign. I don't think there's anyway to judge "most" because as time went on, and the published adventures sales continued to increase, which then expanded into multiple campaign settings, it certainly seems to me that a significant part of the AD&D community used published materials instead of/in addition to home brew.</blockquote>

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