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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 3135836" data-attributes="member: 8461">There was a thread on this over on the <a href="http://paizo.com/dragon/messageboards/generalDiscussion/finalFantasyXII" target="_blank">Paizo forums</a>, but as the debate has largely tapered off there, I wanted to bring it up here also.Dragon #349 had an extra two pages in its First Watch column, dedicated solely to a review of Final Fantasy XII. This was even mentioned on the cover of the magazine. Said review had no D&D game content of any kind, and had no real fluff advice for using aspects of the game in D&D. It was, in short, an advertorial; an ad disguised as an article.Several people, myself included, complained via letters to Scale Mail and over on the Paizo forums. Some interesting responses from the Dragon staff were found over there:These are all good responses from the Paizo staff (and, of course, it's always great when they personally talk to us about issues like these), but I can't help but feel that these reactions all miss the point.The point, for me at least, isn't about Dragon confusing its focus as a D&D magazine (though that is a legitimate concern), nor is it about ads disguised as articles (though that's also something worth talking about). For me, the point is that this article, and future articles, could easily be tied back to D&D by including some D&D mechanical material, even if only a little. Dragon has a rich history of "D&D-izing" computer games in their Silicon Sorcery articles (though I think those are called Divine Inspirations now), and to have the magazine engage in dedicated coverage of new video games that have a fantasy flavor, but not give us any D&D adaptations of those games is an opportunity that will be missed over and over again.I don't have a problem with Dragon covering, to a small degree, video games (or books, movies, etc). What I have a problem with is when they use those pages to exclude D&D material, instead of creatively including it. I'm hoping that Dragon realizes what it's missing here, and starts to give us some material we can use in our games with these articles in the near future.</blockquote>

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