[clown_strike]

It's not the same. Instruction manuals were unambiguous. (SimLife's was really fun from what I remember.) You got one and it said everything it needed to.

D&D (and many other TTRPGs) have become too Judaic for my liking. You can read the Torah cover to cover, but like any religion you'll inevitably be told you don't actually "understand" it unless you also buy and read the Talmud and all these journals and attended these seminars. Literally "Rules Lawyering: The Game." All these add-ons revising canon and adding some crappy fanfic or art just feel like cheap cash grabs. It's just not good enough for what it costs.

Nintendo never sold you add-ons for the instruction manual expanded universe. Subscribing to Nintendo Power might net you cheat codes or a poster or something--bonus content--but they were never integral to understanding the games.

[bluGill]

In both religion and TTRPGs every once in a while someone says lets throw away all those supplements and get back to the original. Some of them then add supplements (either their own new ones, or the old ones) back as they realize something they want to change/clarify.

You of course should pick exactly the same stance on the above as I do. But like any true gentleman I never tell you my stance is.