Infinite Expansion of Books Meditation

Sorry, had to slip an Exalted reference in the title. 😉

How much is too much when it comes to sourcebooks?

Our simple answer is this: It takes as many books as is needed to cover the major groups within the game and the choices provided in the core rulebook. The rulebook is expected to give broad strokes of the setting and what's available, as well as the rules for playing the game. If it covered everything, it'd be thousands of pages long.

For example: Legend of the Five Rings

    - Clan

        - How do the different Clans stand apart from each other? What are their beliefs and traditions? What makes them unique, culturally?

    - Family

        - How does one Family stand apart from the others? What are the duties of the families, what's expected of them?

    - Dojo

        - What is each dojo, what do they teach, what special techniques do each have?

In L5R, there's like seven different Clans, each with three or four families, and then four to six different schools (both magic and sword based).  Presuming we dump the family and dojo stuff into a clanbook, that's still seven more books beyond the core rulebook.

Then there's the books to detail the different schools in a more specific sense. Shugenja are their own culture, so what's it like being a shugenja? How about a bushi, or a monk, or a ninja?  Four more books.

There's the minor clans.  Put them all in a single book. How about non-human PCs? The nezumi are rather complex.  One book for them.  The shapeshifters get their own book while also discussing the demiplanes they come from.

Fourteen books, total.  That's not even discussing court and intrigue, or the art of war and warfare, or religion, or...

Shadowrun is another good example.

Core Rulebook:  Race, Archetype, and then components for each. (Cybernetics, Bioware, Magic, Hacking, Vehicles, Drones, Weapons).

So.  A book on the races?  Probably not, but nations on the other hand, in a setting that's 50 years into the future? Yeah, kind of a thing to show how the world's changed and how the different nations have evolved to meet the drastic changes of the setting.  What's Earth like when billions die from plague, or evolve into other races, or when magic returns, or when cybernetics and transhumanism is a thing, or monsters show up? It isn't going to look like our world.

Archetypes? Well, a book dedicated to hackers, to drivers and drone pilots, to cybernetics and bioware, and most certainly magic. Books on gear, certainly. Guns, ammo, armour, tools.

Then you've got the types of missions.  Mercenary / Military work.  Covert Ops and break and entry. What are the megacorporations like and what do they do, and what plots are they running?

And if it's a living setting, that evolves with time, an update each year on what's going on, what's 'new' and coming out, and so forth, is handy.  (The State of the Art Books for 4e were pretty cool).  Also useful to show how the world's changing.

That's a lot of books.  But kind of necessary if you're not interested in a plain vanilla character.  If we're making a mage, we want to look at what nation they're from, what race they are and how that interacts with their homeland, the magical traditions known there, what options are available (for example, spirit guide), then want a decent list of spells to choose from or craft our own.  Then there's initiation - advancing in our magical path, metamagic, summoning and rituals, enchanting, and then equipment.

This gives us a pretty detailed character, swimming in the setting and fleshed out in a way that'll stand out from any other character made because of the options and the ability to use more than the broadest of strokes.

In 1e Shadowrun?
"I make an elf shaman, I picked the Rat totem, and I have basic spells and gear."

Now?

"I make a dryad (elf variant), from Tir na' Nog (the name of Ireland once the elves took over). She follows the Path of the Bard (magical tradition of the Tir), and has the Dark Mother as a spirit guide.  I've got some custom gear and armour, and some custom spells unique to her specific role on a team."

In 1e?  Couldn't tell you what the Tir was like - only that it existed. There were a limited number of options for magic (shamanic or hermetic), totems were exclusive to shamans as were the type of spirits that could be summoned, there was a fixed spell list with limited versatility, and basic gear that couldn't be tweaked. For a rich setting with scads of lore, you could make a basic character but ... why? Even back in 1e, we had so many questions, and when the first Grimoire book came out we were delighted!  Metamagic, more spirits, how to build your own spells, more magical traditions, more totems, how to make a magical order, how to initiate and grow as a mage.  The metaplanes and what's out there in Astral Space, summoning your own familiar.  All great stuff.

We've played and run games which came with just the basic books.  The core rulebook, maybe a GM's book, and maybe a bestiary. After five years of playing? We kind of want more. A lot more. Especially if the game's got its own setting.

Great, so our pixie illusionist is from the fantasy world of Omae. What nation? What's that nation like? What is an illusionist and how does it tie into the world's lore and religions? What are pixies like?  Where do they come from? How do they interact with the world?

Yes, I could totally make all that up myself. But if there's a setting, I want to use the setting. I want to know how nation X is different from nation Y, or how magic tradition X is different from Y, and how they interact with the nations and beliefs that exist.

And, as a player, it isn't my job to build my own lore for a published setting. It's my job to enjoy the setting provided with the game.  If you're not going to flesh out the setting, don't make a setting-specific game.

"This is Earth, 200 years in the future.  What's it like?  Meh, make it up."

This attitude tells me you're not engaged with the game you wrote. So what reason do I have to be engaged with your game?

This gets worse when you get into fantasy settings.

"Welcome to Omae.  It's a fantasy world!  With dragons!  And magic!"

So, what kingdoms are there?

"It's got magic!  And dragons!"

What kinds of magic?

"There's spellcaster and divine caster and nature caster and music caster!"

And ... how are they integrated into society?

"It's got magic!  And dragons!"

If I'm going to be engaged in the world, I want to feel the nuance that world has to offer.  If I'm a spellcaster from Fantasy-Ireland, then I want to be able to feel the difference from being a spellcaster from Fantasy-Africa.  I want to see what the cultures are for these regions, how magic and religion are intertwined with these regions, and be able to make an informed decision when building my character.

Let's Talk TORG.

When I first played TORG, the GM didn't allow us to look at the cosm books. We got the core rulebook, and that's it.  The GM had the cosm books, and had the gear books. Just wouldn't let us look at them.

Know what happened?

We used the generic splats from the core rulebook. We had no idea how Earth had been reshaped by the war and the invasion of other realities. We had no idea what was even possible for us through character creation.

I made a generic werewolf PC from the horror cosm, with no idea what that even meant or how it impacted my character.  (Hint:  That section of Earth's plunged into a hyper-religious, superstitious, occult-driven Victorian-values society).

Guess what I didn't know?  What the hell my character would know and what culture shaped his views.

A bit later, I read the books, understood the setting, and made:

A Canadian CSIS agent, who was in the middle east when the Pulp-Era cosm dropped, giving them access to a few pulp powers (mostly agility and evasion). They picked up ninjutsu from the Asian Hypertech cosm (nothing special, just the martial arts).  They were still 'attuned' to Earth, and the 'axioms and laws' of normal Earth, and because their abilities aren't 'Earth-Normal' they have some serious risks and flaws from when they use them.

The character was a lot more immersed into the setting, and captured the feel of the game a lot more.

So yeah.  Sourcebooks.  Expensive, certainly.  But they do add to the game if they are built to explore specific facets of the setting and the choices the players can make. Without them, you get vanilla characters who don't have the tools to really evolve beyond the standard roles found in the core rulebook.

Is it possible to create too many?  Sure.
Do we need 'The Book of Being a Ninja #4'?  Probably not.  But a single book laying out ninja, what they do, what options players can pick out, the different types, their abilities, the obligations and dangers of being one, the perks of being one, and how the setting treats them?  Certainly.