An Open Letter to Dragon and Dungeon Readers

[Blue_Kryptonite]

Par for the course.

- At least one thing I can use? Since I bagan reading the magazine decades ago, only not true once. And I did laugh at a cartoon.

- Excellent possibility of many good things? Even more than before. Sweet.
- Wil Wheaton? Double sold. Awesome dude.

- Mini-Games... Well, sad, but Min-Game Magazine in PDF shows promise.

Overall... Cool. No change in my multi-year subs.

 

[DaveMage]

Great changes to Dungeon!

I think I may subscribe now!

As for Dragon, I used to pick up the magazine years ago JUST to look at the TSR Previews section. However, with the Web being what it is, previews of upcoming products are generally available way before the magazine prints.

Hopefully this will be addressed.

I like the idea of features on miniatures in the game.

So, in total, I love the changes and am looking forward to them!

Thanks, Keith!

 

[Dr. Harry]

Though they might be a little uncomfortable with my sharing this, the editorial staff of Dragon and Dungeon go above and beyond the call of duty to provide the best RPG magazines possible—often working late nights and weekends to do so.

In my opinion, the quality of Dragon over the last few years has been first-rate. Makes me think of the glory days of issues 55-85, give or take. I agree with Henry's description of the articles that give the best feel of Dragon when Dragon was best. At the end, the only thing enticing me to buy a issue of Dungeon was the Greyhawk content.

The “New” Dragon

Starting with Issue #323, Dragon Magazine opens its pages to a new era of utility and power. In addition to its usual complement of material that provides D&D roleplaying gamer with the tools they need to raise the level of their play experience, DRAGON will widen its coverage to include articles and information about all aspects of the D&D brand. Whether you knock down dungeon doors in the tabletop RPG, command warbands with the D&D Miniatures game, invade the Underdark online with your closest friends, or enjoy reading about the exploits of your favorite characters, ...

Darn. This is pretty much going to be wasted space as far as I am concerned. Are you closing down "Undefeated"?

the ‘new’ Dragon magazine is THE source for information and content about your favorite aspects of Dungeons & Dragons. Starting with issue #323, Dragon will contain a bonus quarterly Catalog detailing upcoming D&D releases from Wizards of the Coast, so you’ll have the scoop on the latest products all gathered in one place.

Somewhat convenient, but why do you think I'm on ENWorld? Here, I get Wizards information - and everybody else's.

 

[heirodule]

Living Greyhawk Journal?

So where will the Living Greyhawk Journal sporadically be published? It would fit well with Dragon, because the information is of most use to PLAYERS of LG.

Info?

 

[Arnwyn]

Beginning with issue #114, Dungeon magazine becomes the ultimate resource for Dungeon Masters. Each issue will contain three adventures, one each for low-, medium-, and high-level play.

Wicked. Wicked, wicked, wicked. This is just great, and really meets my needs. Excellent.

In addition to the high-quality adventures you’ve come to expect from the magazine, Dungeon will expand its offerings to include articles and other content written specifically to help DMs take their game to the next level. From old favorites like the ever-popular Dungeoncraft by Monte Cook, to new features like the Campaign Workbook—a section devoted to providing tools specifically designed to enhance a DM’s ability to create lively and adventurous campaigns—the “new” Dungeon offers experienced DMs and players interested in taking up the reigns of Dungeon Mastering everything they need to be successful.

I'm curious to see what this will be like before I lay judgement. However, I'm optimistic, as the focus definitely seems right. I'm very interested!

In order to provide this in-depth offering, Dungeon will now focus exclusively on Dungeons & Dragons—delivering even more high-quality D&D coverage. /snip/ For this reason, after careful thought and some soul searching, we’ve decided to end the long run of Polyhedron Magazine and focus on being the best resource for Dungeon Masters.

Finally! It's about time. The two completely different magazines didn't help anyone. I'm very glad to see it gone.

Unfortunately, there weren't enough of you to offset those who left the magazine due to the decrease in the D&D content each issue.

As many (here at least, certainly including myself) had surmised.

{Dancing on Polyheadran's grave}

Me too!

This is very good news for Dungeon, and I'm very pleased.

As for Dragon - I'm not impressed, but I think that's because Dragon is past it's expiry date for me. I'm not interested at all in new feats, prestige classes, spells, or magic items (and I steer clear of all books that are heavily weighted towards that type of content)... so I'm definitely no longer in the target demographic for Dragon.

 

[Unseelie]

Dragon subscription - no renew after it runs out next month
Dungeon subscription - no renew (ran out this month)

Poly was the reason I was buying Dungeon, and in fact, several of the Poly articles are what got me to stop fence sitting and actually buy D&D 3.x.

Dragon already has too many articles about the miniatures. Adding yet more articles about computer games (something better served by existing computer magazines) waters down the rest of the magazine too much for my taste.

I recognize that you need to cater to what you see as being your strongest target market. I am sorry that I do not fit in that market segment.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Well, I'm glad to hear some of it and not happy with other parts. But hey, you'll never please everybody, right. I'll anxiously await the new mags and hope for the best.

In any event, I commend you and the Paizo staff for making a serious effort to improve the quality of the magazines (not that I felt they were really lacking). There are plenty of people willing to stick with the status quo as long as the money keeps rolling in. An attempt to improve quality will almost always bear some fruit, even if it wasn't what you were expecting.

 

[ledded]

First of all Keith let me say I for one appreciate your candor and the time you took to update those of us on this forum about your changes. Good communication from a company many of us are customers of means a great deal. That being said, I have a few comments I have to make.

Subscriptions issues: I'm glad to hear that you are paying attention, but one of the main reasons I dropped my subscriptions to your magazines were because of a 'subscription issue' long ago, back when Star Wars Gamer was killed off. So I began just perusing the various magazines at different times in my FLGS to find anything interesting.

Dragon: Not surprising, and gives me even less reason to want to look for it on the news stand than my decreasing interest has been giving it over the last year. This type of diversion of resources is supposedly what caused the issues with Dungeon, but I think if done correctly could be pulled off. Hopefully this will cause the various articles on one particular aspect (D&D, the minis game, etc) to have more 'bang' as they are effectively going to be competing for a smaller space. Good luck, I'll keep an ear on the forums to hear how they do.

Dungeon: Not surprising either, and completely eliminates my desire to ever pick it up again. I've never understood why so many D&D players were so opposed to sharing content with other games and so dependent on a single source for gaming ideas, but then again our group mostly does our own and doesnt use that many packaged adventures. Biased or not, this completely bites for me. The minigames and even short articles on d20 games that are not D&D kept me going on this magazine and almost had me re-subscribing instead of just buying so many off the rack. Now I'll just have to thank you for the time I'll save by completely skipping Dungeon on the rack in the future.

I'm sure these changes will appeal to a much wider customer base and hopefully generate better revenues and return customers for you, and I truly do wish you luck, but I will have to stick by my lament for the death of things that do not fit within the status quo of the average D&D fanbase or the marketing-focus-de jour of WotC.

You certainly can't make all of the people happy all of the time (many RPG companies and mags have died trying), and sometimes you can't make someone happy at all. No hard feelings.

 

[Hjorimir]

Well, in regards to Dragon including articles relating to online gaming I can only hope it is a good thing for the hobby. To clarify, if D&D Online takes off (it is being developed by Turbine) and that draws a large customer base where a faction of them subscribe to Dragon magazine, we could see more people come to the hobby. With those people come spending dollars and with those dollars we have a better chance at seeing good products produced (along with more junk).

In order for D&D to thrive we need to have new blood coming in. Maybe this will help facilitate this.

Anyway, I will continue with my Dragon subscription and will actually consider subscribing to Dungeon now (I wasn't a fan of the Poly material in general - though there were a few exceptions).

 

[Rahkan]

Okay, the Polyhedron minigames were incredibly neat, especially the Spelljammer one. I guess that isn't really constructive, but I thought I'd throw that out there.