DwD Studios

For those of you who have been asking about it, the FrontierSpace RPG is coming along nicely, but we made a design choice: divide the monstrous book up into 3 separate softbound books...

• a light player's handbook (everything needed to create, play, and develop a character)
• a technology handbook (all the weapons, defenses, gear, vehicles, buildings, robots, computers, and spaceships you can hope for!)
• a crunchier referee's handbook (all the rules and optional stuff)

This choice has nothing to do with profit, and has everything to do with presentation. New players might be potentially frightened by a 400 page behemoth, even though half of it is tech/equipment. Also, the majority of the Referee's stuff no player really needs to see, so why have it in the face of the players? Would promote rules-lawyering and contest the design paradigm of an authoritative hosting game master. So there it is... have to commission more cover art, etc. Blah.

Although this was our design choice for the core game product, what are your comments about also offering a large single core rulebook, maybe hard-cover?