D&D Lite

I was looking over old edition information today, and lamenting how little there is with the new site and the new edition. It seems to me that there are two elements that attract me to playing the game. One is the appeal of developing a world, and characters, then playing them through. This element is grand and detailed, and requires thought and preparation and features an ongoing storyline. It fits very well with what they're trying to do with the new game… but that is the part that is fun and comes easily to me.
The second attraction of play is the actual gameplay itself - the monsters, the dice rolls, the action, and finding treasure. This element doesn't need great preparation, the fun of it comes from the action of play, and the improv, not from the plot as such. We're talking about the difference between Castle and Monty Python. Both are funny and interesting, and socially relevant, but they fill very different roles in comedy. Castle features recurring characters and themes, has plot and overarching storylines that cover multiple episodes and seasons. Monty Python is absurd skit comedy, often falling apart structurally within a skit. Still, there is chaotic thread holding it together against all logic.
Dungeons and Dragons needs both pieces to make a treasurable whole. There are times you just want to come home and play, without worrying about motivations and backgrounds, how you get to the ruins, or why red and white dragons are in the same mountain pass. This is D&D Lite.
Third edition understood this extremely well, and was a golden age of production. Fourth edition incorporated it into the structure of the game, and failed miserably by trying to make it the whole game. Fifth edition seems to work much better because it recasts the focus of the game to the overarching story elements. Where it falls short is in the backlash against the shortcomings of 4e, and the absence of Lite elements.
As long time gamers and world builders, we are very comfortable with making maps, creating towns and trade, and building politics and culture. For not having done it in many years, there is a fair amount of rust to shake off before it feels natural again, but it's something we're familiar with. What we need, what is missing, are the instant options for game play that populated the Wizards site for third edition.
What is needed are maps, settings, quick encounters in town, and on the trail that can be plugged into long-range campaign arcs as needed. I think other missing elements include wandering monster tables, and random encounter tables. These offer quick ways to pull together an encounter for quick play or to fill out a thin adventure. I find it easy to come up with broad strokes to sculpt encounters, but more difficult to populate every room, every area. I like to roll dice to choose monsters, then tweak them in order to fit the plan I have.

Down Time

This is our dilemma. We meet several times a year, mostly around major holidays, and make time to play D&D. But our imaginations are fired every day of the year to get involved with the game. That is the dilemma… how to make the best use of the down time.
This past week as I muttered again about the lack of anything on the official D&D website, this question came back to me. What is the best way to make use of the down time between game sessions? We've talked about this over and over. We understand it is an issue, but we can't seem to come up with a viable way to make the time productive. I realized this was the greatest failure of the official site. The game seems very well designed, and will generate a great deal of interest, but the website is static. The books are supposed to hold that role. The website should be dynamic. That is the place for them to constantly produce information. Frankly, it would make a more than adequate replacement for their discontinued magazines, Dungeon and Dragon. To date, they haven't made that use of their resources.
This is an attempt to address the void by providing a daily comment on the game with an eye toward developing a means to channel creative energies into a focused output. Personally, I get home from work each day fired up to do something with the game. My trouble is that I have limited time and energy, and am not always able to fully explore what I want to with the time I have.
The most obvious answer to the question is to produce maps, create campaigns and adventures, etc. This is true. But building even a simple encounter can require hours of thought and bookwork. I don't often have time available like that in convenient blocks. So I waffle and think: should I draw a map; should I work on environments and terrain; should I think about politics; should I make up another character? In the end, time slips away an little gets done.
I think a daily forum, set up like a devotional, would help organize everything into a productive framework. Set up one idea to focus on for that day, and (ideally) add an activity that will allow development of that idea into a concrete game element. The catch is that nothing like this exists, so creating it, while useful and hopefully effective, prevents me from productive moments of my own. I'm confident the two aren't mutually exclusive, and that starting the process will allow an effective distillation of it from theory into practice.