What's Best About Dragon:
Dungeoncraft - either Ray Winninger's or Monte Cook's version.
DM's Toolbox - we need more Johnn Four! (and if you don't subscribe to RoleplayingTips, you should!)
Campaign Components - These have universally been excellent, and I'd like to see them continue. One that focused on something other than fighters would be great - while there are certainly ways to use all of the classes, you ave to admit that knights, gladiators, and swashbucklers are all traditionally 'fighting' oriented. How about 'Crime'? How to run a thieves' guild-centered campaign, with how the various classes can fit into guild activities, etc. Or 'University'. 'Temple' or 'Crusade'. 'Performers'. Maybe these wouldn't have as much appeal as Knights and Gladiators, I'm not sure.
Psion said:
Lighten up on the "Themes" - Theme issues seem to be every issue now. This has multiple problems.
Ironically, they're getting mixed signals here. I remember a lot of people complaining when the so-called "Mercenaries" issue came out, and there was a single article on a single group of mercenaries.
Really, it seems like about half of the issues lately have a strong 'theme'. That's not too bad. (Strong theme in the last year: Castles, Epic, Drow, Knights, maybe Vile, Swashbucklers, Gladiators. 'Weak' themes: maybe Worldbuilding, Deities, Anniversary, Magic, Mercenaries, Urban. Note that the number of 'weak themes' has been increasing lately - and when I say 'weak' I mean that the theme does not dominate the issue, not that the theme is a weak concept!)
Psion said:
Less Fiction - Preferably none. If you want fantasy fiction, there are magazines out there like SF/F dedicated to this. If there is fiction, it should be game related. Dragon is a D&D magazine.
I'd rather have no fiction at all. But if I have fiction, I'd rather have it be by the likes of George R.R. Martin and Gregory Keyes than I would by T.H.Lain. The gaming fiction isn't half as inspiring as the other stuff. Compare the excerpt from
A Feast of Crows in #305 with the lead-in to
The Bloody Eye from #303 to see what I mean.
Gaming fiction always struck me as vaguely incestuous anyway. So many people play RPGs to be the star of their own fantasy novel, and D&D in particular is constructed to mimic the fantasy tropes. But if you get all your inspiration from stuff that's based on D&D in the first place...
J