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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5648410" data-attributes="member: 59082">Deja vu.Anyhow, why does it have to be either/or? Either Mearls is "just ruminating" or he's fishing for 5E feedback? Why can't it be both? Of course then it wouldn't be "just" ruminating for rumination's sake, it would be fishing...but even so, I don't think it is assuming an evil plot to think that Mearls is covertly getting feedback on ideas that he and other designers at WotC have been throwing around with regards to "5E" or whatever the next iteration of the game will be called.Read my above paragraph. It isn't some "giant conspiracy theory" to think that Mearls is opening the door a bit and sharing some of this thoughts about, as his intro says, where D&D might be going. But I do think that the intro doesn't quite match up with what he's actually doing; his articles, for instance, aren't just so that he can get a better understanding of the game. He can save that sort of thing for the blogosphere. While writing for Legends & Lore he effectively is the voice of WotC D&D and everything he writes means something, or says something about the game in an official way. One of the burdens of being a public figure is that everything you say is taken apart and interpreted. Mearls could get away with "just ruminating" on Blogger, but on the official website? Seems a tad disingenuous if that's what he's claiming.All that said, I think it is a great idea to make "pre-5E ruminations" open to the community. I personally still think that we're going to see "5E" (by whatever name) sometime in 2013 or 2014, but that we might see some kind of alpha version in 2012 in the form of DDI playtesting of various rules, maybe a "rule of the month" for members to try out. Then you might have a beta segment in 2013 and a full-blown new edition in 2014 to line up with the 40th anniversary. Just imagine the sort of energy this would build in the community - a couple years of playtesting and working on the next iteration of the game together, as a community. With his ideas of "complexity dials" and such this could actually work, because with a simple core game just about any variation could be legit.An alternate perspective is that they come out with a "complexity dial" supplement in 2012 or 2013 that is effectively a playtest for 5E in 2014 or 2015, not unlike some of the later 3.5 products previewed 4E to some extent.I think someone corrected this, but to nitpick your nitpick, 4E was announced at Gencon '07 and released in early June of '08. You mean for the first time in, what, 15 years? When was the last time the product release was this sparse? Never in 4E or 3.x, as far as I can remember. Maybe in the latter days of 2E? I can't remember. But even in  a slower economy I can't see this being the pace that WotC wants to maintain over the long haul. I mean, the slower production could be more indicative of their focus on DDI, but even so I would think they want to release more than a single major supplement once a month or so. Why not do both - emphasize DDI and produce a solid quantity of quality products? Maybe not 5-6 products every month, but certainly 2-3 is workable. My personal preference would be to see about three products a month: one rules expansion of some kind, whether a splat, a setting or theme book; one adventure; and one gimmicky product like dungeon tiles or cards of some kind. Then, maybe once a quarter, a nice huge box set - maybe a mega-adventure or a complete campaign setting.</blockquote>

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