Hello Supporters, and thank you Will; this post is motivated by you.
Every year or so, someone asks where DD5 is up to. I usually answer from the helicopter view—that of the three booklets, book 1 (the players booklet) is basically there, book 2 (the refs booklet) is roughly halfway there, and book 3 (monsters and treasures) is largely where I left off with v4.
But the question that matters more from the getting-it-done perspective is really: What's left to do?
Let's tackle book 2 (the refs booklet) first.
Looking at the latest drafts, it's obvious I've been in the process of repeatedly changing my mind. Yes, much of the content is basically there, but the organisation and polish certainly isn't--at least not yet ;)
If book 2 is to present a logical workflow for the referee, it will have to be a radical reorganisation of U&WA. I've fretted over preserving the original layout, but I'm now content that restructuring the content is part of what DD5 brings to the table.
With that settled, I've decided to start by reorganising book 2 from the ground up. Delving & Exploration (book 2) will take the reader from envisaging a campaign; to preparing wilderness, town, and underworld areas; to moderating wilderness, underworld, and 1:1 scale combat games; to moderating town-time and the campaign game.
It's not quite that simple, of course. Content pulled from across the 3LBBs and other sources can be used in several contexts so it's not always obvious where it should go. However, once I have a table of contents sorted, I will share it with Supporters here. Then I will go through the whole book 2, front to back, plugging in the content section by section. That's how it will get done.