D&D General All Time Favorite Dragon Magazine or Dungeon Magazine Content

[Reynard]

The iconic Chessboard Covers - I'm not sure if this is the first Dragon I bought or just the first I remember buying but, it was a staple in my collection for a very, very long time.

I got a copy of The Art of The Dragon long before I got an actual issue of the magazine and I just loved those chess board covers.

 

[Celebrim]

I have to confess that despite owning dozens of Dungeon magazines, that I have never ran a single adventure from one. The closest I've come is I adapted Mad God's Key to fit into my homebrew, so I guess that makes "Mad God's Key" my favorite Dungeon adventure by default.

My favorite issue of Dungeon though is issue #61, which is the one they somehow convinced Toni DiTerlizzi to do all the illustrations for. It's an artistic masterpiece, and in particular all the work he does for "Jigsaw" including the cover art is simply brilliant. If there is any Dungeon magazine adventure I regret not having a reason to run it's "Jigsaw", which if you don't know, is about a Flesh Golem that falls in love with his creator. Brilliant module that is right up my gothic horror/fairy tale/lovecraftian alley and is legitimately one of the best 'Frankenstein' fan fics ever written.

 

[darjr]

Oh! Dungeon and Dragon allowed Chris Perkins to get a start making D&D content. I love that.

 

[Weiley31]

A LOT of the 4E Dragon Magazine articles were pretty damn good.

My favorite ones of those would have to be the ones dealing with the Shadar-Kai and Gnolls.

 

[el-remmen]

I loved Dungeon and still collect the older ones when I can find print copies cheap (I have a bunch in PDF too but I am less likely to actually read/use a PDF). For my money, the Dungeon adventures for the 1E and 2E era are better than almost any other adventures, with the caveat that any of them will need work to adapt - but that is true of any pre-published adventure. Here is a list of some of my favorite adventures and their issue numbers, edition and levels.

• "The Crypts of Istaris" (Dungeon #9 - 3rd to 5th level - 1E)
• "Light of Lost Souls" (Dungeon #12 - 2nd to 4th level - 1E)
• "Going Once. . . Going Twice" (Dungeon #13 - Any Level - 1E)
• "The Moor-Tomb Map" (Dungeon #13 - 2nd to 4th level - 1E)
• "Roarwater Caves" (Dungeon #15 - 1st to 4th - 1E)
• "The Vinyard Vales" (Dungeon #23 - 2nd to 4th - BECMI)
• "The Curse & The Quest" (Dungeon #26 - 4th to 8th - 2E)
• "Juggernaut" (Dungeon #27 - 4th to 7th - 2E)
• "Through the Night" (Dungeon #29 - 1st to 2nd - 2E)
• ". . .And a Dozen Eggs" (Dungeon #30 - 1st to 3rd - 2E) <-- a great alternative to 1st level rat-catching
• "Thiondar's Legacy" (Dungeon #30 - 8th to 12th - 2E)
• "The Wayward Wood" (Dungeon #32 - 6th to 9th - 2E)
• "Is There an Elf in the House" (Dungeon #32 - 3rd to 5th - 2E) <--co-written by Professor Dungeon Master
• "The Siege of Kratys Freehold" (Dungeon #33 - 1st to 4th - 2E)
• "The Whale" (Dungeon #35 - 1st to 3rd - 2E)
• "Asflag's Unintentional Emporium" (Dungeon #36 - 3rd to 7th - 2E)
• "Troll Bridge" (Dungeon #36 - 2nd to 4th - 2E)
• "Granite Mountain Prison" (Dungeon #36 - 4th to 6th - 2E)
• "A Wizard's Fate" (Dungeon #37 - 1st to 3rd - 2E)
• "Things That Go Bump in the Night" (Dungeon #38 - 3rd to 7th - 2E)
• "Legerdemain" (Dungeon #39 - 4th to 7th - 2E)
• "Song of the Fens" (Dungeon #40 - 1st to 3rd - 2E)
• "Old Man Katan and the Mushroom Band" (Dungeon #41 - 1st to 6th - 2E)
• "The Dark Place" (Dungeon #49 - 5th to 7th - 2E)
• "The Bandits of Bunglewood" (Dungeon #51 - 1st to 3rd - 2E)
• "Unhallowed Ground" (Dungeon #54 - 2nd to 4th - 2E)
• "Janx's Jinx" (Dungeon #56 - 1st to 2nd - 2E)
• "Stepping Stones" (Dungeon #68 - 6th to 8th - 2E)
• "Depths of Rage" (Dungeon #83 - 3rd - 3E)
• "Flesh to Stone" (Dungeon #85 - 7th - 3E)
• "The Bullywug's Gambit" (Dungeon #140 - 3rd - 3.5E)

 

[Cadence]

I started Dragon at issue #64 and want to say I subscribed until around 1988. (I picked 63 up as a back-issue, and had all of the best-of issues).

King of the Tabletop game in #77
The Dancing Hut adventure in #83
The Gun that Shot Too Straight story in #94
The Quasar Dragon and Nogard adventure in #96

 

[el-remmen]

"For Sail: One New NPC", by Scott Bennie, Dragon #106 - The one NPC class that has really stuck around in my game and really filled a niche that needed to be filled. By 3e era this became my Explorer class because when I tried to transform my 1e/2e game ideas over to 3e, I had to bring the Mariner with me.

Probably the best article in Dragon history was "The Seven Sentence NPC" from Dragon #184.

"High Seas" by Margaret Foy, Dragon #116

All of the above are among my favorites too. While @Celebrim is right that the rules for that "High Seas" article were basically useless, being so complicated, the general information on over a dozen kinds of ships, navigating, weather, etc. . were invaluable as I developed Aquerra - the homebrew made of archipelagos that I ran or played games in from 1989 to 2016.

I do a feature over on Instagram (@how_i_run_it) called #DragonMagMonday, where I share pics from my collection of Dragon mags.

 

[ephemeron]

Dragon issue #184 is probably the best issue Dragon ever released and is part of what I consider Dragon's golden age in the early 1990's where it felt like every issue was gold and the cover art all felt like it deserved a gallery. This article was a big part of a push that turned a campaign into a high political game of court intrigue and grand battles.

#184 was the first issue of my subscription! I'd been picking up individual issues here and there starting with #138, then made the jump to subscribing and kept it up into the low 220-s.

"The Sunset World" from #150 and "The Color of Magic" from #200 have already been mentioned but they're favorites of mine also. Some other great Dragon articles that haven't come up in this thread:
"From Hatchling to Immortal Guardian", #170 -- detailing the life cycle of BECMI dragons
Tom Moldvay's series on undead -- each installment took a type of undead, looked at inspirations and themes, and statted out some new monsters based on folklore
"Turkey's Underground Cities", #201

 

[darjr]

A LOT of the 4E Dragon Magazine articles were pretty damn good.

My favorite ones of those would have to be the ones dealing with the Shadar-Kai and Gnolls.

I think all or almost all of those are available on the DMsGuild, for those that didn’t know and may want any.

Believe it or not there is at least one AD&D article in one of those. (Note given it might be VERY light in rules)

 

[Weiley31]

I think all or almost all of those are available on the DMsGuild, for those that didn’t know and may want any.

Believe it or not there is at least one AD&D article in one of those. (Note given it might be VERY light in rules)

Ya I got the Gnoll one sometime ago so that way I have lore for Gnoll pcs in my 5E games. I've saved a few on my DMsguild wishlist and plan on getting the Shadar-Kai ones next.