D&D General What articles would a good & free, fanmade D&D magazine have?

[VashVet]

How much was Lee Gold charging for Alarums & Excursions back in the 70s? I don’t see a cover price on them and can’t find any info on what, if anything, she was charging at the time.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I do - if you were to read an article or adventure written by me you might be exposed to liberal environmentalist politics and and anti-religious bias*. A good editor can scan for bias and at least make sure they conform to a house style so people know what sort of values to expect. But the thing about good editors is they expect to be paid.

Not only you switched from saying entire publication must be profitable or it's just to "grind an axe", to a much weaker "editors need to be paid", you also pretty loudly brodcasted an abhorrent belief that it is somehow wrong to put yourself into your work. It all gives me read that betrays serious insecurity, sorry to say.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not only you switched from saying entire publication must be profitable or it's just to "grind an axe", to a much weaker "editors need to be paid", you also pretty loudly brodcasted an abhorrent belief that it is somehow wrong to put yourself into your work.

Nothing wrong in putting yourself into your work, but I can't affor to work for nothing, it would leave me homeless and hungry.

It all gives me read that betrays serious insecurity, sorry to say.

It's an insecure world, no one will provide me with food and shelter if I don't get paid.

 

[Desdichado]

What articles would you like, a good & free, fan made D&D magazine to have?

In general, I'd suggest that the key to success is writing what you're excited to write, and letting it go from there. But what the heck; I'll answer for the list below.

Would you want:

• Reviews of WotC products?

Maybe.

• Reviews of DMGuild pdfs?

Eh. Maybe, but lower priority, except for exceptional products.

• Fiction book reviews?

No, unless they tie in to D&D somehow.

• Anime reviews?

Absolutely not.

• Fantasy movie reviews?

No. Besides, what would you even review? Old stuff? There's not enough new fantasy to justify.

• Physical product highlights? (i.e. Dicetower, minis, DM screens etc.)

Maybe. A little bit.

• New lore to already existing settings?

You mean official settings like Forgotten Realms or Eberron? I think there's already a thriving (and dubious) YouTube-o-sphere that covers that kind of stuff. Doing deep dives into sources that are readily available in cheap form in pdf isn't all that interesting to me. I can just read a wiki if I want that.

• New Settings?

That would pique my interest, at least. I'm always a sucker for that particular kind of thing.

• New crunch? (new subclasses, feats etc.)

Not likely.

• New monsters?

Possibly.

• New magic items?

No.

• Rules variations? (New chase rules etc.)

Yeah, I'd at least check that out.

• Community highlights (like summary of recent reddit posts or DnDBeyond forum posts)

Not at all.

• Short stories?

Maybe, but the bar for them to really interest me would have to be relatively high. Free mediocre short stories are easy to find already.

• Session reports?

No.

 

[aiouh]

Yeah I GM in 3 groups and multiple of my players wanted to start a Zine with me as the editor, they offered articles in the topics I described in the first post..., but I guess the market is saturated and people prefer blogs instead or pay Zines.

Why not just publish this prospective Zine for free as is with the input of your players and just see what people resonate with? At the very least you had fun.

 

[Marc17]

Yeah I GM in 3 groups and multiple of my players wanted to start a Zine with me as the editor, they offered articles in the topics I described in the first post..., but I guess the market is saturated and people prefer blogs instead or pay Zines.

That is a topic that interests me greatly. Yes, the current trend are blogs, podcasts, and other internet media solutions, however print has died but it is possible because of this, print media is under serviced. Cost would be the main issue, so free is not a bad price point to entice people. Even for a free 'zine, it is not bad to charge something for it. People pick up free things and throw them away just as quickly. Selling something for a token amount usually warrants a look through and putting on a shelf before throwing away. You can always put a token price and such a thing and then give it away. My current plan, is that I have a website dedicated to (my) band photography, so in genre, I plan to print out a 'zine of same in place of advertisements to drive people to it, as most relevant night clubs, clothing and music stores have a place to put such things as flyers or business cards.

Then there is still the relevance of printed media. A physical product still has more value in people's eyes than digital I'd say. It is something you can have and give away. Then there is the subject of future relevance and longevity of print versus digital. However, that is usually a discussion I have with library scientists and sociologists on how their future peers will look back and see and study our current time period in a hundred years or so and what records will exist.

Anyway, I recommend you give it a try. It is probably more time and effort than you think it will be. See if the people that promised you stuff actually produce. If nothing else, it would probably be a neat thing to have to document and share with all your different campaigns. If nothing else, I suspect you'll dig them out in twenty years or so and they'll have some place in your heart. It is better to regret things you have done than the things you haven't done.

 

[Lanefan]

Nothing wrong in putting yourself into your work, but I can't affor to work for nothing, it would leave me homeless and hungry.

It's an insecure world, no one will provide me with food and shelter if I don't get paid.

Getting paid is what your day job is for.

The magazine is a hobby, something you (and maybe some collaborators) do in your spare time. If the magazine gets to the point where it's eating up more hours per week than your day job does, it's probably become way bigger than intended.

 

[M_Natas]

That is a topic that interests me greatly. Yes, the current trend are blogs, podcasts, and other internet media solutions, however print has died but it is possible because of this, print media is under serviced. Cost would be the main issue, so free is not a bad price point to entice people. Even for a free 'zine, it is not bad to charge something for it. People pick up free things and throw them away just as quickly. Selling something for a token amount usually warrants a look through and putting on a shelf before throwing away. You can always put a token price and such a thing and then give it away. My current plan, is that I have a website dedicated to (my) band photography, so in genre, I plan to print out a 'zine of same in place of advertisements to drive people to it, as most relevant night clubs, clothing and music stores have a place to put such things as flyers or business cards.

Then there is still the relevance of printed media. A physical product still has more value in people's eyes than digital I'd say. It is something you can have and give away. Then there is the subject of future relevance and longevity of print versus digital. However, that is usually a discussion I have with library scientists and sociologists on how their future peers will look back and see and study our current time period in a hundred years or so and what records will exist.

Anyway, I recommend you give it a try. It is probably more time and effort than you think it will be. See if the people that promised you stuff actually produce. If nothing else, it would probably be a neat thing to have to document and share with all your different campaigns. If nothing else, I suspect you'll dig them out in twenty years or so and they'll have some place in your heart. It is better to regret things you have done than the things you haven't done.

The thing is, if it is print, it can't be free. Somebody would need to pay the printing cost. You can have people work for free in their spare time, because it is their passion. But the moment they need to upfront costs, like printing costs, somebody has to pay.

My solution for this would be: Free PDF, paid Print On Demand magazine. And if you have Print on Demand Magazine, the prize would be at least 5.68$ (over Amazon, I don't think there is a cheaper print on demand option) - and that would be in Black and White and 72 Pages long in A4 Format, because Amazon doesn't allow shorter Black and White books.
If you want color it is 7.80$ in Standard Color for 72 pages or 24 to 40 Pages in Premium Color for 8.40$.

The only way to get that cheaper per Magazine would be, to really print it yourself at a Printer, for example, looking right now, a Full Color A4 Magazine, 14 Pages, Print Run of 100 would be 1,20€ per Magazine (so 120€ upfront). Print run of 1000 would be ~50 Cent, so upfront cost of 500€. A 30 Page magazine would double the price.
But then you would have to do all the logistics yourself and sending a magazine would cost what? another 1$ at least. So you are looking at costs of minimum 2,50 up to 4 Bucks + all the boring labor of now being a warehouse and fulfillment Centre.
An if you print just 100 full color a4 sizes 70 Page Magazine, you are coming in at Amazon Prizes of 7€ the piece. A 1000 Print run would cut the cost down to 2,20 a piece, but you would need to upfront 2200€ (and funny thing, Full Color is cheaper than black and white at the printer I'm looking at right now, strange).

So either way, somewhere somebody needs to pay 5 to 10 bucks for a print magazine to just cover the costs.
That said: I would love a print magazine.

Two years ago I actually had the same idea:

D&D General Thread 'How would your perfect D&D magazine look like?'

Dec 11, 2023

I was looking trough older dungeon Magazinen and was a little sad, that there is no real 5e Magazine (that I know off) today, that you can buy (Except the UK one which seems is only useful to get cheap dice and maybe for total beginners).

So if you could wish a new 5e Magazine into existence, how would it look like?

Mine would have a lot content:

• at least one small adventure
• a solo/cyoa adventure
• a short story
• an essay with advice for dungeon Master's
• an essay with advice for players
• player options
• rules options
• magic items
• interviews with content creators...

• M_Natas
• Replies: 14
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

• 

Mine would have a lot content:

• at least one small adventure
• a solo/cyoa adventure
• a short story
• an essay with advice for dungeon Master's
• an essay with advice for players
• player options
• rules options
• magic items
• interviews with content creators
• an advice column
• Setting Ideas
• Maps ...

So, now the biggest problem is, that is all a lot of work. I know that, because I made a local newspaper for a political party. It had only 8 pages, came out once a month and to fill that, there were around 10 volunteers to write articles + 2 staff people of members of parliament, who wrote articles for us + another bunch of volunteers who proof read everything before it went to print to not have emberassing writing mistakes in it.
Expect something like 2 to 5 work hours per page that somebody needs to do + editing and layouting the whole thing.

The thing with volunteer writers is - if you tell them to write a 500 word article, you will get a 1000 word article. Now you need to cut it down, or it will not fit on the page.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Getting paid is what your day job is for.

The magazine is a hobby, something you (and maybe some collaborators) do in your spare time. If the magazine gets to the point where it's eating up more hours per week than your day job does, it's probably become way bigger than intended.

Agreed, I personally am not a fan of this weird obsession modern society has with monetizing our hobbies and judging people who don't.

@Maenalis a suggestion - maybe you should do your magazine the way Threshold does: you declare a theme and accept articles for that theme, regardless of type. After a while you can judge what your readers want from reaction to different things.

 

[Marc17]

The thing is, if it is print, it can't be free. Somebody would need to pay the printing cost. You can have people work for free in their spare time, because it is their passion. But the moment they need to upfront costs, like printing costs, somebody has to pay.

All technically true, but we are just sort of talking content now. I don't think the OP has really gone into desired format, printing, and distribution yet. Still, when saying "free", it's as to the cost to the reader. "Free, fan made" to me means probably half sized saddle stapled B&W print on standard paper done on the creator's dime. PDF is also an option which I would encourage. I'd say those are two good options to start with if one has never made a magazine before. From there, it is pretty easy to go up in quality if desired. Several of my favorite magazines go from Xerox saddle stapled editions to full color glossy perfect bound magazines in less than 30 issues.

I've worked on free professionally printed newsprint editions that were given away at local businesses. Then it is all about advertisers.* You had better have a good ad sales person. I admit, I have no experience with price on cover of the magazine and sold through a professional distributor type setup.

*Story from when I helped with a "free" college arts & entertainment publication. The editor is interviewing some known person brought in to speak, let's say Allen Ginsberg, as I know we interviewed him but it was a long, long time ago. The interview questions veer off into essentially nonsense. The interviewee, getting frustrated with the quality of questions asks "Is there a point to all these stupid questions?" The editor, without missing a beat, replies "Yes, they have to fill all the space between the ads in my publication." The interviewee stops, thinks about the answer for a little bit, and then continues answering all his questions.