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As part of the big 5e update we are planning on releasing new content covering character creation, adventuring, skills, abilities, etc. to ease the connection between D&D proper and Codex Integrum.
Because this update covers so much content, we’re debating how best to release it! The current plan is to separate “Beyond Combat” content into a new book entitled “Codex Integrum: Player’s Guide”.
The following is Sam’s Choice™ for how book contents are distributed:
Player’s Guide
– Includes summaries of Martialis and Superno + new Adventuring, Character Creation content
– Intended to be used as the primary reference manual during play
– Should cover “90%” of all general questions about rules, content, etc. during play
– Will probably be the first book new fans buyCodex Martialis: Core Rules
– Exclusively Covers the combat system + martial feats
– Includes advanced rules, martial feats, gear stats, etc. not included in the Player’s Guide
– Only used occasionally during play
– 5e compatibility questions are glossed over as part of a “one page” summary
– can be used without the Player’s Guide for those who only want the combat systemHow does that organization sound to you? Please let me know which of the following three positions you identify with!
A – Keep it as described above
B – Player’s Guide should EXCLUDE combat.
Releasing redundant content is bad: the Player’s Guide is a separate book and should not cover combat, martial feats, or weapons&armor.
+ Maybe Codex Martialis: Core Rules should remain the entry point for new players.
+ Maybe existing fans do not want to purchase a book containing a summary of Core Rules.
+ Maybe Core Rules should remain the primary reference manual during play.C – Player’s Guide and Codex Martialis: Core Rules should be merged into one book.
The Combat and “Beyond Combat” sections are inseparable and should be released as a single book. 5e compatibility should be completely explained in the Codex Martialis book.Personally I think “C” is closer to what I think gamers are used to. Look at the PHB for DnD or the Player’s Guide for Deadlands Reloaded. Those generally contain the core of everything you need to know to not only make a character (so your Martial Feats would need to be in it, for example), but also how to use those things.
If you think of CM as more of a GM’s guide then maybe the Beyond Combat sections, or at least those things that are more aimed towards running the game, the setting, etc. could potentially be a separate guide, along with Serious Injuries, Reaction tables, and the like, but I do think at the LEAST it would have be option A, but more likely it’s really Option C unless you have a good way to separate enough “How to run” content from the “Need to run” content. At least that is what I think most people will expect, especially if you use terms like “Player’s Guide” to break it out. It’s just what they would expect to find in most everything else.
Good names! But the gist is basically this – we have essentially two core books: Core Combat Rules, and this one we currently call ‘Players Guide’. Each of these branches off to more specialized sourcebooks.
Core Rules is linked to the two weapon books: “Weapons of the Ancient World” I and II (II covers armor and missile weapons). In the future it may also link to books on cavalry or siege warfare.
“Players Guide” gives the basics on Character Generation, Magic, and campaign settings. For more detail on magic you have Superno, for more on the campaign settings you have the two Medieval Baltic history books, plus the Codex Adventum series starting with the Road to Monsterberg. The more in depth character generation book isn’t done yet but will be called Codex Ingenium. A lot of what is in Ingenium has in fact gone into “Players Guide”, but in a simplified format.
I understand, and maybe you are married to that view with the books as they are (in which case, why the poll?), I’m just suggesting that core rules and character generation (at least the basics, thereof) would in almost every other game system out there be the the actual “core rules” or what would be expected to find in a “Player’s Handbook”. As such it seems to me that both this and CM are a mix of what would really be a “Player’s Handbook” in that sense and you’d have to break them apart from what they are now to be what I think most players and GMs would actually expect if they wanted to buy something called a “Player’s Handbook”, or “Player’s Guide” in this case. If CM is meant to be that core then some of the stuff currently in this Player’s Guide really should be in CM, IMO, and then change the name from Player’s Guide to something else, like a companion, that then has appropriate things for a Companion, like, perhaps, the horse rules, and Serious Injuries (maybe leaving a simplified version on CM). Then CM is, essentially, the Player’s Guide (usually the first book a player or GM will pick up to check out a game system, if you ask me).
In other words both the name “Player’s Guide” might be a bit misleading here (since it is not the core rules) and what is in it could potentially be changed to better reflect the purpose of fleshing things out in the Codex Integrum rules world. Balitc and Adventum are all good as it, that wouldn’t affect that, and Ingenium is all about in-depth character creation so that’s fine to itself as well, IMHO. I just think you have a bit of a problem with naming, here, and what actually should be in your core rules book and what should be a companion to that. The extra stuff is all still there to both of those books, it sounds to me, for those wanting that more in-depth experience.
Character generation in a lifepath system is pegged to the setting. I want the setting to be modular (even though we have a default) so it makes sense for the new book (with character generation, campaign and basic setting tie- in) to be separate from the combat rules on that basis as well.
There is also the fact that the combat rules has been out for many years ‘as – is’
In spite of these reasons we may, however change the name (again) and / or merge what is now the players guide with core rules in the future, in part we wanted to get player feedback on it. Regardless, it will remain the same for a while we don’t want to change it every week.
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