An Open Letter to Dragon and Dungeon Readers

[jokamachi]

The changes sound great to me; I never got any use out of Polyhedron, anyway. More adventures for the rest of us D&D fanatics.

Looking forward to that Greyhawk map, too.

 

[mythusmage]

Just as I Was Getting Back in the Hobby

Zines: Hope it works out.

OGC: So come up with your own version of the dang mechanic and make that OGC. Shesh, think you were helpless or something.

Wil Wheaton: He's had some small parts, appeared most recently on TechTV ere ComCast pulled off their version of Night of the Long Knives, and the most recent news is that Wil and family are participating in a walk against leukemia this June. You can find his blog at WWdN. Which is also where you can find links to his books at Amazon and to his photoblog.

Warning: He takes the weekends off from blogging. Saturday and Sunday are for his wife, his two (step) sons, and a daughter on the way.

 

[Keith F Strohm]

Dragon: Hard to say. Does your letter state clearly that all DM stuff moves to Dungeon and this is really only a players magazine now or are we just reading it that way? If so, I'm a lot less likely to buy Dragon (which I just re-upped for a year, d$*&). The "classic" articles that people listed on this site when Erik (I think it was Erik) asked were all DM related. I can't believe that you'd actually take all the DM stuff out, monsters, planes, running adventures in different types of environments....all the in-game stuff (I consider Dungeoncraft "meta game" as it talks about running the game as opposed to in-game stuff that is still mostly for DMs like monsters, politics, ecologies.....).

Is that really the split? If so, Dungeon better have a lot of pages dedicated to being a DM. I know there are less DMs, I know that is why we get less DM material from WoTC and others. Dragon was one of the places to still get this in digestable doses (unlike 250 page hardcovers).

Dragon will still have material that will be useful to DMs, but Dungeon will become even more focused on providing DMs the tools (advice, crunchy bits, and, of course, the adventures) they need to provide an awesome experience for everyone involved in their game.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[Keith F Strohm]

Thanks for the update, it gives me a lot to think about.

I do hope that you are working on your subscription fulfillment. I regularly received my copy of Dragon after the local stores. I never received the November 2003 issue. But, that is not my point, so I won't rant on it.

Hey,

Just email me your full name and address, and I'll make sure that we send you the November 2003 issue (if we have it in our backstock).

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[Keith F Strohm]

Any consideration to discounts for subscriptions to two or more magazines? While I am happy to spend my hard-earned money, I am seeing some of the features I like from Dragon shifted over to Dungeon. Some kind of package deal would help with that.

It's something that we are working on now. I'm not sure when we'll have it all ready to go, but it's a great idea that we want to implement!

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[Keith F Strohm]

If any of you have not meet Keith at the cons I can assure you that he means everything he says. If he says it is going to be the best at something it will be. And boy do I feel sorry for who ever is to blame for the subscription problems hehe!

Borc Killer

Aww, shucks!

Seriously, I am working on the subscription fulfillment issue. It may take some time, but we are going to get it right.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[frankthedm]

Glad to hear the poly matterial is out of the dungeon. To me it fealt like a marketing ploy to get players buying Dungeon magazine to increase readership. I still prefer adventures only for dungeon [4 to 5 an issue, 6 issues a year], but the DM material is MUCH better that the poly crud.

Without poly, will the dungeon's price drop to equal dragon's, or will dungeon's smaller amount of sales require the higher price?

 

[jaults]

Non-fantasy genres don't "get the shaft" because we don't like anything outside of fantasy. Many people at Paizo are passionate about other genres in roleplaying (and I think the quality of the d20 mini games are proof of that). The reality is that the collective readership of the magazines and the RPG marketplace in general prefer fantasy content. We don't necessarily create the market force in question here, but our livelihood (and the future of the magazines) depends on our ability to listen to it and respond with what the market wants.

I know that as a multi-genre fan that's got to suck to hear--and I wish that we could make everyone happy and make our magazines successful. The truth was that Dungeon under its current format wasn't truly accomplishing either of those goals.

So, Keith, I'll ask again... Has there been any consideration given to test marketing a mini-game or a mini-game expansion in the electronic market, whether from the Paizo website or RPGNow? I don't know how the PDF Bundle sold that was advertised in Polyhedron a number of months ago, but it seems like you have built-in advertising/marketing, and a semi-captive (and I assume receptive) audience with your subscribers and buyers.

Thanks,
Jason

 

[frankthedm]

Mini games would be fine in Dragon's space

 

[TimSmith]

Nice one, Paizo guys.

You listened to the feedback and it all sounds great. My subscription is definitely assured again (it was slightly in doubt after the "curate's egg" of the recent times with Dungeon).

By the way, those guys (Neo earlier in these posts, I think) who think they can't get a subscription in the UK and Europe, check out "The place for games" website. (.co.uk, if i remember). I have been subscribing through them quite happily for nearly a year.