Dragon and Dungeon Magazines - Do You Miss Them?

Olaf the Stout · Oct 4, 2012

I was recently reading the Paizo blog posts by Lisa Stevens about Paizo's history. One of the blog posts discussed the ending of Paizo's licence for Dragon and Dungeon magazine, whose last issues were 5 years ago now (September 2007).

I still remember that announcement quite clearly. I was shocked that WotC had decided to take the licence back from Paizo as I thought that they were doing a great job of them. I was appalled when I found out that, not only were they taking back the licences, they were going to exist purely in a digital format only.

I remember being so upset about it that I even talked about it with my wife, who has no interest in RPG's whatsoever. Normally I don't talk gaming with her at all, but this felt like such a significant event that I felt like I needed to talk to someone about it.

Looking back on it now, it is still quite a sad memory for me. Dragon and Dungeon magazines are definitely in my memories when I think of my D&D history. Even when I wasn't playing for several years I still bought Dragon magazine to read. I still use Dungeon magazine adventures in my campaigns now.

I think what I miss most is just reading about D&D stuff on a regular basis. I have a whole heap of D&D books, and I also regularly visit the EN World forums, but it just isn't the same thing for me.

To top it off, the digital versions of Dragon and Dungeon never eventuated. Yes, there are D&D articles and adventures publised via D&D Insider, but it really isn't the same thing as a hard copy magazine (or even a compiled soft copy magazine for that matter). Yes, there are things like Kobold Quarterly that fill a similar niche, but to me it still isn't quite the same.

So, now that we're 5 years on, what do you think about Dragon and Dungeon magazine? Do you miss them? Are you still angry or sad that WotC canned them or is it just a changing of the times for you?

Olaf the Stout

Evenglare · Oct 4, 2012

I was alright when wizards was doing the compiled magazines, but now that everything is online separate, and each entry MAY be in a PDF but most of them are on the site it's awful. I mean... really really awful, nothing like what I envisioned.

DaveMage · Oct 4, 2012

I missed them for quite a while, but I don't miss them anymore.

Zaukrie · Oct 4, 2012

I miss them, yes.

billd91 · Oct 4, 2012

I kind of miss them too, deep down. But I've pretty much moved on.

I was glad to hear that WotC did extend the license until Paizo could finish the Savage Tide adventure path, but I still think they screwed the pooch on the whole topic. They attracted a lot of my ire over that and the fiasco that was the GSL. If they weren't deliberately trying to kill Paizo, they still managed to land a few serious blows to their business plan viability that might have killed any company run by less competent people. Even if done unintentionally, that is not a decent way to treat a close business ally.

Wiseblood · Oct 4, 2012

I miss them. I still have a number of them. I do not subscribe to any (strong emphasis) online content. I do not want to spend any more time in front of a computer than I already do. EN World gets me m my fix but I prefer paper.

Celebrim · Oct 4, 2012

There have been many years of D&D's history where Dragon and Dungeon were the best things going. Through the long dark 90's, Dragon and Dungeon were the bright spot in the game. After 3.5 came out and the quality of the WotC produced splatbooks took a nose dive, it was still Dungeon magazine that was producing the games best and most innovative professional material.

Losing them was like having my dog shot. Even when I wasn't buying them regularly, I'd still check them out every month on the magazine rack to see if they had something I could poach. I remember late in the run picking up 'Whispering Cairn' and just being blown away - it had to come home with me.

Now, I don't even bother much to go by game stores. I feel like my hobby abandoned me.

Stormonu · Oct 4, 2012

I absolutely loved Dungeon - around four adventures a month for the cost of about a quarter of a stand-alone adventure. I had a subscription to up until the end, and I was on their three-year subscription with enough months left to get the entire Rise of the Runelords AP without having to shell out extra for it.

However, at least a year before the announcement of the end of publication, I'd let my Dragon subscription expire. It'd been long since I'd found something that kept my attention in its later years. It really felt like it was "tie-in-of-the-month", just trying to push whatever books were coming out that month. Which is sad, because I used to read just about everything in Dragon in its 2E days. I guess it got too crunchy - I liked the stories, the monster ecologies, the discussions of cultures and whatnot, not reading through yet another stat block.

Umbran · Oct 4, 2012

Olaf the Stout said:
So, now that we're 5 years on, what do you think about Dragon and Dungeon magazine? Do you miss them? Are you still angry or sad that WotC canned them or is it just a changing of the times for you?

I am not angry or sad that they ended. Print media's tough these days, and I'd be more angry or sad if they'd damaged the business by pushing to keep print up when its time had passed.

I don't actually miss the magazines, in and of themselves. They were part of a dynamic of gaming that, for me, ended years before the magazines went out of print.