If I understand it properly, part of CJ's point (on this and other threads) is that even if the rulebooks are written in an opaque, stylized, "immersive" prose, the designers have a conception of what they are doing which is clear and well-understood.
Crazy Jerome, assuming I've got that right, do you have a view about how some of that understanding might be communicated to users of the rulebooks while remaining consistent with the desires of some to get the sort of rulebook experience that Mancatbear and Edwards are talking about? Do you think a "technical appendix" (or what Monte Cook used to call "designer notes") can do the job?
Not so long ago, I'd have pretty much taken Mearls position (or at least his position as you've have speculated it is, since we don't really know). There are, however, two problems for that in Next: The open playtest (which is very much needed) and maintaining the discipline of the categories throughout the life of the product. Then there are two lesser problems of marketing, not of design: Maintaining a pretense of such simulation while simultaneously telling those that want it where to find the transparency, as well as communicating the playstyles of each module in a clear manner.
So I think a technical appendix (or more likely, several such appendices) is a necessary but not sufficient piece. I think the split is not so much on Edward's creative agendas as in the split between illusionism and its detractors. (Illusionism proponents are often simulatiionists, but there are simulationists who maintain a divide between the DM clarity versus the illusion of the game for the players. I was such a person in my more simulationist day. Things like injunctions for the players to keep their noses out of the DMG and MM are very much in that vein.)
Ideally, I think it would go something like this, if they really want to please the widest range:
1. As the playtest adds modules, it branches into two paths, one for illusionism fans and one for those who are more appreciative of metagame components. The rules themselves are the same (else terribly unwieldy), but already there are modules called out as specifically for illusionism or metagame, with a core that is neutral on this issue and some modules that are explicity called out as "neutral" in the same way. A lot of these "neutral" modules will be handling the other differences and cross-overs that you and Neonchameleon were discussing above.
2. Or more realistically, there are sections of modules called out as each, because the illusionism is built on top of the neutral components, and sometimes even rationales for the metagame components. For example, hit points themselves, clearly understood in many ways, are very much a metagame component. Some of the rationales you can apply to hit points are more acceptable to illusionism than others--especially if you tweak the underlying mechanics to favor a given rationale while not calling attention too much to why you are doing so.
3. Thus in the appendices you have clear discussions of how all of this is organized, arranged, designed, and implemented--including descriptions of compromises to the design for the sake of tacked on rationales. No pure illusionist--if such really exist--will ever want to read this, and should be warned away at the start of the appendices and then in each one specificially (some appendices being "worse" than others on this count, by their nature). For example, hit points are so internalized by many groups now, I doubt there would be many dedicated illusionists who would object to a clear presentation of how hit points are tweaked in the various illusionists modules to make them fit their game. (Please remember that I'm talking in extremes here for explanation purposes, but the vast majority of people are somewhat on either side of the middle.)
4. That's great for explanations, not so good for communicating content in play. For that, I think you need some really slick organization and presentation, starting with keywords, good indexes, clearly labeled chapters and sections, and going on from there. Nor do I think "put the other stuff in a supplement" is going to work here, for practical reasons. The illusionists are big buyers of supplements, as a group. So you might be able to produce some supplements geared almost entirely to them. After all, with those clear appendices in the rules, those more inclined towards a metagame approach will read between the lines anyway, while those more neutral on that question will read between the lines where it matters to them and just ignore things that don't apply. But there needs to be some fairly subtle means of directing the attention of everyone to the things that matter to them, and that's largely a function of effective organization and presentation. More hard-nosed, when a section is geared heavily towards the metagame crowd, the illusionists need to be warned away, same as with the appendices.
That sounds terribly difficult and complicated when written out like that, but I think it is mainly a case of needing lots of discipline and hard work. The various appendices and concept therein are not usually that hard to explain, if you don't mush them together. After all, the underlying basis for "pretending to be an elf" in most RPGs is not that complicated. It's all the stuff we build up around it to create the decisions and illusions and the world we play in that makes it tough to manage.
Finally, I do think there will be key points in the design where all of this simply won't work. There will be a sticking point where no amount of sleight of hand is going to conceal the curtain--or conceal that you ripped the curtain back, whichever is chosen. In those place, there needs to be a hard branch explicitly called out as such. If you like A, go here. If you like B, try this instead. If, for example, that is something like having two different "fighters," then we all need to accept that the two versions are probably going to be incompatible with each other in the same game--and likewise incompatible with other "A" and "B" elements for other classes. That is, if there needs to be a metagame-driven version of the fighter, then he ain't gonna work with an illusionist-driven version of the wizard. (A particular group may kludge them together and enjoy it, but looking at the design, they aren't compatible when used as written.)
Naturally, all of this is driven by my growing conviction that the opposing adherents to illusionism versus explicit metagame mechanics is the key divide that must be bridged for Next to meet its goals. I'm convinced this trumps Forge classifications, the GDS classifications that precede them, TotM versus Grid, genre preferences, story-style preferences (i.e. grit versus epic), and everything else. I also am assuming here that deep immersionists are primarily subsumed in the illusionism adherents, but I don't fully understand the impetus behind deep immersion, and thus may be missing something crucial there. I've used "illusionism" instead of "immersion" here because so much of what people refer to as "immersion" is what I call various stages of "shallow immersion," and thus I think the word creates an illusion of shared approaches that isn't always real. To the extent that I'm incorrect about everything in this last paragraph, then my whole approach above is suspect.
