Advice for pitching an adventure to Dungeon?

[RangerWickett]

I am in the middle of running a 6-session micro-campaign for my group, with the fun hook of going undercover slaying dragons in order to win the favor of a tyrant you're trying to assassinate, and I'm thinking of pitching the whole thing to Dungeon magazine as a 12th-level adventure.

I think it's an interesting twist on the normal "fight the dragon" plot, because the dragonslaying is just a means to an end. Your goal is to help the tyrant deal with a few dragons that are causing problems at the fringes of his domain, to show that you're tough enough and trustworthy, so that the tyrant will bring you as back-up when he tries to kill a big, nasty, too-high-level-for-the-party dragon.

It is while fighting that dragon that you want to take out the tyrant, but you have to do it without cuing his armies in that you just murdered their leader, and without the dragon killing you too.

My players have been having a blast so far, and despite a bit of whining on my part about how much pain a group of 12th level PCs can bring to bear on a single monster, I've had fun running it. I wrote four and two halves of the adventures for 3rd edition version of War of the Burning Sky, but I'd like to try my hand at writing for 4th edition.

Would you think this might be interesting as an adventure in Dungeon? For those of you who've gotten stuff accepted by Dungeon, do you have any advice for how I should go about pitching to the WotC folks?

 

[Rechan]

Are they even TAKING submissions right now?

My honest suggestion? Write the adventure. Do the work. Shine it up nice, and write it in the format of Dungeon adventures. Once you're finished, send a query to Dungeon, and note you have the adventure finished, and you're willing to send the whole thing. If they do not take it, then pitch it to some other publisher. This way, the work's done, you can show the finished product, you have all the questions answered (like, word count, etc), and you're primed and ready to shop around if they say no.

 

[RangerWickett]

Their site implies they're accepting submissions:

Submissions

I know Piratecat got into Dungeon, and Shemeska into Dragon. I'm curious how they caught the staff's attention.

 

[stonegod]

...Shemeska into Dragon...

What article? I'm a bit surprised given Shemeska's apparent dislike of most of what they've done w/ 4E (from what I gather from Shemeska's posts).

 

[Shroomy]

What article? I'm a bit surprised given Shemeska's apparent dislike of most of what they've done w/ 4E (from what I gather from Shemeska's posts).

He's referring to 3.5e Dragon.

 

[stonegod]

He's referring to 3.5e Dragon.

PCat's was 4e, thus the confusion.

 

[RangerWickett]

Actually I was confused. Apparently Shem recently got into Pathfinder, not Dragon.

 

[stonegod]

Actually I was confused. Apparently Shem recently got into Pathfinder, not Dragon.

Yup. Also wrote their planar book.

 

[chitzk0i]

Anybody have some tips on pitching an article to Dragon? I'm thinking of trying to do a powers article, probably something like Class Acts.

 

[Shemeska]

I know Piratecat got into Dungeon, and Shemeska into Dragon. I'm curious how they caught the staff's attention.

I got into Dragon when it was still in print form, during Paizo's tenure. WotC hasn't responded to any of my pitches since it went digital and in-house (actually they did ask to see a finished piece left over from the slush pile during the initial transition period, but then never replied after I sent it in, nor responded to a pair of emails asking on its status over the next month or two).

Unlike when it was in print, I never hear anyone talking about submissions, waiting on hearing if they made the cut, discussing rejected proposals, etc. You no longer even get a form rejection letter, just an assumption that they're not interested if you hear nothing for something like 30 days. I have no idea if they're interested in taking submissions anymore. It may all be in-house and some farming out to freelancers they contact, rather than looking at queries as it had been during Dragon and Dungeon's print run. Ari or PirateCat may know more about how things are going, or if anyone else around here has sent in a query and had something get in that route, I'd be interested to hear. I won't say I've completely given up on submitting queries to Dragon, but at the moment there are other places open for queries that I'm much more inclined to pitch ideas to (KQ for instance).

Edit: And yes, I've done some stuff for Pathfinder recently. So far I did some work in the campaign setting book, co-wrote the Osirion supplement with Jason Nelson, did the planar book The Great Beyond: A Guide to the Multiverse, and an ecology piece on the proteans (PF's primary CN outsiders) in PF#22. Paizo has been awesome to work for.