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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6118976" data-attributes="member: 8461">There's a sort of unspoken understanding that a lot of people have regarding the playtests for D&D Next (or, as I prefer to call it, 5E), that being that these playtest packets are giving them an insight into what the final product, when it goes on sale, will look like.I think that this is inaccurate, for a number of reasons.Chief among these is because the very nature of playtest packets means that certain features of the game are still up in the air in terms of development - as their name states, these are in need of playtesting, which once it's collected could result in any number of changes. Just look at the differences between the current playtest packet and the very first one; nothwithstanding the things that the first packet simply didn't have, what was there then is notably different from what's there now.That doesn't mean that what's there now will necessarily be what's in the final release of the game; these changes aren't insights, they're experiments.The second point to keep in mind is that it's counterintuitive for a free playtest to closely resemble the final material, since too much similarity eats into sales. While there will obviously be early adopters, WotC does not want the people who are anticipating Next to hear that it's 99% the same as the final playtest packet, causing them to think "oh, well I can just use the rules I've got, maybe make some changes myself to approximate what little the official rules did change, and that's good enough."Now, this doesn't mean that when 5E does come out, the changes it makes from the last playtest packet will necessarily be egregious, but they will likely be numerous, so much so that the actual experience of running a game will be notably different with the final product than with the final packet.In short, don't assume much - or even anything - about the game based on the way the playtest packets look. What goes into something does not necessarily resemble what comes out.</blockquote>

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