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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 9253622" data-attributes="member: 20323">I hope you're right! And that may be the case! You raised this point in your second post, so I'm replying to both here...There is a real question of lead-time, however. There is a huge amount of playtesting that needs to happen between player classes & monsters. Playtesting leads to design iteration. IF there is going to be meaningful external feedback in that process (I'm arguing there that there needs to be), we're running out of time for that feedback to be incorporated because we don't have anything tangible about their redesigned monsters / encounter building.It troubles me so much when I hear this. One of my passions is mentoring new GMs – I did this for my nephew, a friend at my local game store, a friend back in the Navy, and a dozen or so folks online – it's a small number of people I know, but it's what I've got. One of the questions that I get consistently asked is "how do I do overland travel / exploration so it's fun?" There's this assumption that: (a) because modern gamers don't play exploration like in the old days, (b) the game shouldn't involve significant attention to exploration play.IME, it's almost exactly the reverse: (b) because the game doesn't involve significant attention to exploration play, (b) modern gamers don't play exploration.What I end up advising the GMs I mentor is to get creative & break the rules & create new rules to facilitate exploration in a more narrative-driven approach, rather than the old way of hyper-focusing on logistics and resource management. When they make that switch, I hear GMs and their groups having a blast.I don't view it as this small subset of players that you do. And I think D&D should be doing the job of facilitating that type of enjoyment.From a practical standpoint of book layout, yes, the PHB needs to be prioritized.However, from a design standpoint, focusing on player-facing content first, and then GM-facing content second is a disaster waiting to happen. At this scale of design, it's both happening at the same time. If you neglect one, that's how unforeseen play issues arise (e.g. the monk's Stunning Fist having multiple problematic interactions with different types of monsters). Designing in isolation almost always causes significant downstream problems.I guess that's one approach to managing expectations. I'd think there are better ways to accomplish that, but they know their fan base. I agree that this is unfortunate.</blockquote>

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