Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[Hawklord]

Like some of the other posters above, I've recently stoppped getting Dragon though I love the new Dungeon.

What would get me to buy Dragon again?

Much of what has been said above...

• Less "crunch" there's enough prestige classes, feats and whatever out there already
• More "fluff" - general backgrounds, generic ideas etc
• Campaign information for players either generic or setting specific esp for Greyhawk (or Default_D&D_World) but even the Realms or Eberron eg "where can you get a good meal in Sharn", or "where's the best place to buy potions in Waterdeep" or "where can you get a cheap bed for the night " or "just how easy is it to buy a +3 vorpal greataxe in in Verbobonc and where do I go to get one?"
• "Classic" campaigns .. there's a wealth of stuff in the historic D&D campains, and I loved the recent(ish) pieces you've done on Dark Sun (although like many I didn't necessarily agree with some of the mechanics presented in that conversion) Mystrarra and the increased Greyhawk content in Dungeon. Paizo could exploit a real niche here for a lot of gamers WoTC have essentially abandoned. Lets see some articles on Birthright, Ravenloft and Planescape!
• No fiction!
• Dragon has also suffered a bit since you lost Knights of the Dinner Table.. like a couple of others have said get something like Order of the Stick to replace it !

 

[Malic]

Hi
At the moment I still buy Dragon, but I've reluctantly decided to stop with the December edition. Reluctantly because I have nearly every one since 3E.
I haven't always loved everything in the mag, but there's always been enough that engaged the imagination, and the non ideal stuff didn't bother me. But since the recent revamp, it just doesn't inspire me at all anymore.

The layout seems duller, somehow. The cover and header, the internal layout, even the colours. More importantly, suddenly the articles that don't interest me take up a much larger percentage of the magazine. Minatures gaming, book reviews, computer games, lots more ads (it feels like), fiction.

The thing that disappoints me most is the 'Class Acts'. I haven't seen anything in any of these I can use. I think they're just too short and too unrelated to each other. They're either really basic and obvious or they introduce a whole new field - like the flaws - which is hard to use because it only applies to one character. The new crunch in these one page articles doesn't have enough 'fluff' explaining how it could relate to a world or game. So that's ten pages 'gone' for me.

The DM-related articles, especially the setting creation ones, really interested me, but I'm never going to get to use a module, so Dungeon just isn't value for me (though I did pick up a couple after the revamp before coming to this conclusion).

I do like the ecology articles. I also liked the themed issues, with several aspects covered to allow the theme to be adopted with some depth. I know many people didn't like them if the theme didn't appeal, but to me the much more restricted treatment even in the 'theme' issues (like horror) limits their usefulness.

I miss Phil&Dixie, and there seems to be far fewer cartoons now (though that may be because they are grouped together now) which also makes the mag seem less fun.

I don't mind feats and prestige classes as long as they have enough 'fluff' with them to show how they could fill a specific niche with some flavour. Even knowing I'll never use at least 99% of them, pointing out a new niche or a different take on an old one does get the imagination going.

Still, I know the changes have been made for a good reason, to make the magazine as general as possible and have something for as many different kinds of gamer as possible. Unfortunately that means there is much less stuff for me. (shrug) But you get that.

 

[Echohawk]

I ordered mine on 9-9 of this year. It is now december, and I have yet to receive my first copy.... if this keeps up, this will definately be a very good reason to never buy again....

Oh dear. So I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for my first magazine to arrive then? (I also subscribed to both magazines, but at the end of October.) Still, I know Erik is already aware of the horrendous delays experienced by international subscribers, so I don't want to belabour this point any further.

I agree with several of the posters above on the fiction (never read it), new monsters (always a must read, more please) and revivals of old campaigns worlds (always a great nostalgia trip), and an index seems like a potentially useful tool. More "Ecology of..." articles of the sort with lots of juicy footnotes, would also go down well, but that's just me punting for more monster material twice in the same paragraph .

Something that would be far more useful to me than an index though, would be speedy availability of E-Tools datasets for new issues of Dragon and Dungeon. My experience using the datasets for Complete Arcane and Complete Divine has been that once I had those datasets loaded into E-Tools, I used those two books much more often in my games. Actually scratch that. I really didn't use them at all until I had the datasets, now I use them all the time.

I think the same thing would be true for Dragon and Dungeon -- if I can easily add new material to my campaign via E-Tools updates, then I am going to refer back to those magazines far more frequently. I wouldn't even need an index then, since E-Tools kindly includes page references in the descriptions of most feats, spells, items, etc.

 

[dpmcalister]

I've never subscribed to Dragon (nor Dungeon for that matter) and haven't bought a copy of either since, well, I can't remember. I used to love it (bought the archive CD and still have the majority of issues up to around 300), but it's very bland and boring now. Just the same old things in each issue. It also doesn't help that, at least here in the UK, the issues are in sealed bags so you've got to guess, based on the cover text, whether something will appeal to you (and I've been burnt too many times that way).

What would bring me back to Dragon?

Open it back up to all d20 games. There are a wealth of other games out there (d20 Modern, Mutants and Masterminds, Spycraft, Star Wars, etc.) that are deserving of support in a print magazine but get none.

Less crunch. There are only so many power-gaming feats that can be used in a game.

More how-to articles. The Dungeoncraft articles by Ray Winninger (I think that was who wrote them anyway) were excellent and very useful.

Less fiction. Like the others I've never read it. Tell a lie... I once read a piece by R.A. Salvatore in an old Dragon which was about Bruenor as a young dwarf.

Make it easier for UK buyers to get hold of it!

 

[Breakstone]

As others have said (and I've vehemently agreed), the reason I stopped reading and, eventually, stopped subscribing to Dragon was because the articles just plum weren't inspiring.

My favorite articles have been the old Ecology Articles (the ones with tactics and strategies for the monsters imbedded in the stories, oh how I loved the Monster Hunters Guild...), the Bazaar of the Bizarre, and similar flavor-oriented articles that give the reader rules to use and inspiration to use them.

But in the recent Dragons before I dropped my subscription, the articles were describing how to take advantage of multiclassing between Cleric and Barbarian. Or a Presitige Class for Barbarian/Sorcerers. Or a bunch of feats for mages who travel with fighters.

None of this got my mind going. The recent articles that DID give me inspiration were "How to Create a Prestige Class," "How to Make a Monster," "Unusual Suspects" (which was about unusual race/class combinations). These articles either got me thinking, and made me feel creative.

I suppose if Dragon had more inspiring material, I would re-subscribe.

 

[martynq]

At the moment, I'm still buying Dragon magazine, but I'm seriously considering stopping. The reason for this is that it seems to have completely in a rather dull "crunch" direction. I now have more than enough prestige classes and feats to last me for a lifetime. What I would prefer to see is more "fluff" particularly for my favoured setting, the Forgotten Realms.

In recent issues, the amount of FR material has clearly decreased. Since this is really the only thing I'm actually seeking more of, and there seems to be a decision taken to avoid FR specific material, I see no other course than to abandon buying the magazine (or at least only buying it when there is some FR material).

Martyn

 

[Li Shenron]

I have never bought a single copy of Dragon or Dungeon, but I have more than once taken a look at the first from the gaming friends (at least 4-6 issues, all of which from 3ed years). I have never seen Dungeon instead. I hope I still qualify for the questions

So, if you're _not_ a regular customer of Dragon magazine (let's say you buy fewer than three issues annually), please take a minute or two to answer the following questions.

1. Why don't you buy the magazine?

2. What sort of changes would make you more likely to give it another look?

First of all, for there's a lot of difference between what I expect from a MAGAZINE and what I expect from a BOOK. In my own view, a book is here to stay with me forever, and as such it'd better be designed as good as possible (e.g. I get sometimes too easily irritated by errata); I prefer to spend my money on useful books for gaming, but I appreciate other books with little use but great to read. A magazine ends up for me to be something to browse, not necessarily read it all, pick what meets my eye favorably, use it in the game once, and then dispose the magazine.

Because of this, I would gladly buy a magazine which had lots of stuff for the DM (I both play and DM). Because the stuff I need as a DM is never enough, it costs a lot of time and fantasy to come up with new ideas, and everything lasts usually one evening only, mostly ending up blown up by the player characters...
Now that I read these posts, I realized that I should have read Dungeon instead! Adventures, maps, encounters ideas, even some ready-made character are things which as a DM I always need, and they are disposable things which suit a magazine better than a book IMHO.

OTOH what I found in Dragon was too much player-oriented or otherwise it was long-term material, which suits much better a book than a magazine. Player stuff needs much more careful design, because once it's in your game it's going to stay there for a very long time! Furthermore, only a small fraction of player material can really be used, unless you're playing a game when the PC die every other evening...
Also, for some reason it's kind of assumed by everyone I played with that player stuff is to be trusted in this sort of descending rank: (1) stuff from core books [largely popular and playtested], (2) stuff in campaign-specific books [still reliable and consistent], (3) stuff in WotC generic supplements [which usually tend to focus on pleasing players more than being consistent], (4) non-WotC books, (5) RPG magazines of any sort, (6) web sites. As such, I've never played in a game where the DM allowed a player to use magazine material.

On a completely different matter, I enjoy reading "flavor" material from magazines, and actually that fits a lot IMO with the magazine format. It has the potential to make something normally overlooked by me (as DM) to turn into an exciting option for the next adventure. I'm definitely thinking about articles on monsters ecology for example, ideas how to place a creature race in your world.

 

[Aluvial]

Generally, there's not much passion in the magazine anymore. I see usable mechanics, sometimes innovative mechanics, but I don't see text with them that makes me want to use them.



The text is dry, in other words, and lacks the manic wonder that lots of the older issues had - the good natured humour and oddball enthusiasm isn't there as much, and the magazine reads more like a trade journal than a place where writers and fans come together to gush about their enthusiasms.



I'd like to see the guidelines loosened up a bit, and see quality flavor text encouraged a little more. The monster ecologies articles are a perfect example of the leeching out of flavor.



The ecology articles used to inspire, they told stories, they were funny or creepy or exciting. The stories that framed the stats brought me into the article, and got my mind to thinking about using the monsters in my own "stories" - on some occasions, the Ecology Of... articles turned a monster I thought was pure garbage into something I actually considered using.

...

This applies to most everything in the magazine. The articles are too textbook dry, because I think Paizo has become too concerned with trying to please almost everyone with every article - and that leads to unfortunate blandness.



Patrick Younts

This sums it up for me too. I am a LONG time subscriber to Dragon, but I think my run is quickly coming to an end.



The problem is that we have a fantasy game and there isn't any fantasy about it. "Crunch"ing numbers has become a real hassle and lends the new gamer to a host of min-max powergaming. I believe that this is the current direction the magazine has taken.



With the split of DM material filling in the back portions of Dungeon, Dragon must by default become the Player magazine. Ok, no problem there for me IF Dungeon kept a lot of DM content. But it doesn't seem that there is enough space for both three adventures AND the DM content. Just put some back into Dragon, there’s plenty of space there.



Back to Dragon. I believe that the theme issues are ok, but only if they give you the tools to create the theme. All the material in Dragon obviously shouldn't rehash what you can find in the core books, but should give you the tools to flesh out the theme. All of this needs the sense of fantasy reinstalled into it. It feels as if the color commentary has been stripped away, if you catch my drift.



I couldn't agree more about the ecology articles. I was excited to see them make a comeback, but then, whoa... where is the little story of adventurers facing off with the creature to make it "feel" more like a fantasy game.



This is my problem with the 3.0/3.5 rules overall. I gladly switched over in favor for clearer, more concise rules, but the problem lies in the presentation. I have played wargames for over 25 years, and the core philosophy of the game has become... well it's become dry; it's lost its flair.



Dragon has followed suit with articles that offer lots (and lots) of Player options. There are in fact so many options that it becomes staggering. If that is all that Dragon has to offer anymore, player options, then the problem should become self-evident. Reminds me of the old Complete series in the brown faux-leather covers. More and more and more d20 material floods the market (a good thing I might add, I praise the different publishers trying to make a buck, I find most of your products pretty good) and a lot of player feats and prestige classes have been created. Sometimes it is overwhelming.



A side thought... Dragon could really use a BONUS index issue. A good index that listed the whereabouts of each feat, spell, prestige class, skill option, race, class, and monster that it has produced. This index also NEEDS to contain all of the published Wizards books for the new rule system. Each entry needs to be in clear alphabetical order (a green slime needs not be listed under ooze, it’s a pain to find a creature or whatever in the host of subcategories out there) with brief description, book or magazine issue, with a page number. This thing would be the kind of real tool that both Players and DMs absolutely need to reference all of the material out there. Hell, come to think of it, it would be handy to have one in hardback; I'd pay if it was done right.



Anyway, back to the issue, Dragon and its lack of flavor. I realize that I've been gaming for a long, long time, and it just might be that I've chewed the taste out of the gum, but I'm still chewing. I think new players need that same feel whether it is constantly rehashed or not. It just seems to me that the flavor is getting chewed out of the pages of Dragon. No one likes chewing stale gum. Let’s reinvigorate the game with some good, old fashioned fantasy, something that might reinstall the magic and the heart back into the game.



Long rant over,



Aluvial

 

[Aluvial]

Oh, and one more thing, MORE GREYHAWK.

I never understood going away from the classic. (Fine, label it the generic setting, we'll know if you're doing it right; so far so good!).

Aluvial

 

[lior_shapira]

[Edit] See remarks below

I live in Israel and its close to impossible to find it here. The FLGS don't bring it because (i asked) they'll have to charge about 13$ for it which is too high and nobody will buy it (me included). I thought about getting a subscription, but the price of international subscriptions is absurd (in my point of view) and not justifiable.

I do buy the magazine whenever I'm in the states or in europe, but even then its at a very high price.

What I would like and would be interested in is

a. Reduced international subscription fare, even for 2-3 years

b. Collected issues at almost subscription price, i.e. Buy all 2004 issues of Dragon magazine at the price of a US 1 year subscription + 10%, this way shipping and handling won't be so pricey

thanks for the attention. lior s.

[Edit] Well it seems its been a while since I visited the Paizo site, actually its pretty reasonable now to do an international subscription. So I shut my trap and did a 2 year subscription. thanks Eric for this thread ;-)