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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 7672477" data-attributes="member: 5100">Depends on what's meant by "core". If core means bare bones needed to play, then no. Ditto for the circular core = main three books. If core means "not setting specific", then I'd say psionics are definitely core. I used "bare-bones", earlier, to reference setting-free rules. I'd love a better word, though.What's core (in the non-setting sense) shifts over time. Gnomes used to be woodsy folks that might set traps. At some point, the DL tinker gnomes had enough impact that gnomes are now mechanically apt. Artificer seems to have bled from Eberron to near-core, but Dragonmarks are setting specific and likely to remain so. BECMI and AD&D elves were magic first, with woodsy elves being an afterthought; 4E was almost the opposite, with magicky elves being renamed.FWIW, I like the 5E way of handling races via sub-races. The default elf, IMC, is high elf but I have stats for the others. Gnomes and tech don't mix, in my game, and that's not hard to do. The 2E/3E/Planescape tiefling is the right way to do a flavorful, but open race. The 4E tiefling, with the ancient pact baked in, is the wrong way.In general, I think tying rules expansions to adventures is a bad idea. Psionics is a large enough expansion that it's double edged in that it could support its own book (and has in the past), thus doesn't need to be tied to an adventure to sell; it's also large enough to get fans to buy the book, even if they don't want to run the adventure (say, if it was a Far Realms thing, or Athas-centric). Leaving my general misgivings aside, though....It depends. If the rules are pretty stand-alone, then I'd be fine. If there is heavy flavor text or rules for "if you meet an aberration" or similar stuff, I won't be happy. Even the 3E overdose of crystals, tattoos, and pseudo-science terms was pushing it, for me. I didn't hate any single piece; it was just too much. But, I used it.Sometimes a bit of flavor is unavoidable. There's no point in having elves and gnomes if they're just like humans with some stat modifiers. It's a balancing act. The key is to not lock the DM into anything. Greyhawk Druids follow the old gods. Forgotten Realms Druids just follow nature gods. In my home campaign, Druids are animists and even nature gods have Clerics. The mechanics don't have to change for any of those options.As long as 1) I'm not beat over the head with optional flavor and 2) I can swap out all the flavor without touching the mechanics, I'm fine. I don't want my players to come to me expecting psionics to be tied to the Far Realms, but I do want them to be able to use the book.</blockquote>

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