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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lady Dragon" data-source="post: 4137914" data-attributes="member: 3453">The first three books are all that will be requiredto play the game.However, every time the good people who create this game have changed editions they have had to decide how to deal with the issue of future books and references to them.The game is a constantly changing and evolving game and therefore the rules change constantly. So therefore what should they do about otherwise good new rules that are not in the three core rule books? Basically they have four choices.1. Never reference anything in any new book except what is in the 3 main books so that people that may have missed some of the interceding books won't get lost.2. Only reference the other "non-core" books in special sections of future books, such as at the end of chapters and keep it small and confined so as not to use up the space in the book for those uninterested in the topic.3. Go ahead and references material from other "non-core" books but be sure to reprint all pertinent information on the topic so the reader will understand in case he/she doesn't have the original book it appeared in.4. Reference any material from any book freely, regaurdless of weather it appeared in the original 3 books for that addition. People that didn't purchase the interceding books will just have to skip over these sections or go find a copy to get filled in.From a readers point of veiw which choice is best really depends on how many of the extra books you tend to own. If your collection tends to be small then option 1 is probably what you want, a person with a who buys about half of the available books might want option 2 or 3 while a person who buys most or all of the books might like the forth option.So what is the company to do? Well there history suggest different choices for different editions.In first editions they made all of the new books supercede to old ones, fortunately there were not very many 1st edition rule books published with unearthed arcana being the only important one.Second edition seemed to take option 4. A prime example being kits, although they were never mentioned in the core rule books and were first introduced in the complete fighters handbook they appeared regularly in second edition products.Third edition took two different approaches. 3.0 took option 1 and never mentioned anything outside of the core books but 3.5 took all three of the other options.As for 4th edition I think they are going to have to go with the forth option especially since they are not going to include classic classes and races such as bards, etc. So I can't really see them choosing to never mention bards again or choosing to reprint the class every time that they do.as for how they are handling 4th edition by not putting all the regular classes in it I don't see how they really have a choice, since third edition added so much much to game. And the only way to begin to include the best of it into 4th edition is to publish many books.WoTC cannot as a company trying to make a profit worry about those people who only buy the minimum number of books that they have to to play the game. It is the people who buy many books that they need to cater to. These are the people who support their hobby.</blockquote>

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