What do you consider "everything is core" to mean in your game?

[megamania]

Regardless of edition, I have always considered only three books to be core-

PHB
DMG
MM


With these three books any game can be gone and enjoyed.

By adding other books is more like additions or extra / optional rules and material.

 

[malraux]

I kinda think the word core should be dropped. The possible definitions are way to varied for it to be usable in communication.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Their overwhelming (8 answers) reaction was that you needed to know everything in every rulebook to play the game.

Of the remaining four, 2 thought nothing could be disallowed in a game by any GM, since all of it was official. 1 took "everything is integrated, so you don't need to worry about compatibility." The last one stayed confused, both over the concept and the reactions in this thread.

Man, that's kind of a tragic thought. D&D4e has enough actual barriers to entry as it is, having this perceived barrier there is rough. For a phrase that was meant to inspire the collector's instinct and assure people that content is going to be supported going forward, it's sad to think that people perceive it as more complex and forbidding than the game already is to begin with.

 

[Miphon]

I voted All books should work with each other and be interchangeable, but the DM decides what to allow, but like many others here I also believe "everything is core" to mean that everything that appears in a book will be supported by future releases.

As a DM, I'm currently only restricting players taking options where they don't fit the setting for my game. Even then, I'm open to players coming up with explanations that fit with the game world if they want to play a particular class or race.

 

[wayne62682]

IMO "everything is core" means just that. Everything apart from setting-specific things (with the possible exception being the Swordmage class, which *should* have been in PHB2 and not the FRPG, since it's NOT specific to FR) should be freely allowable in any game, barring specific campaign restrictions that would limit them.