An Open Letter to Dragon and Dungeon Readers

[Staffan]

The risk to the magazine is that someone regularly posts the magaine's contents online shortly after the magazine's release, potentially hurting newstand and subscription sales, and that back issue sales would drop because folks can find the material posted on the web.

You could always talk to WOTC and find out if they think making Unearthed Arcana almost completely open hurt those sales. That could be an indicator of how it would work for Paizo as well.

 

[Sernett]

Too much crunch in Dragon?

A few people have mentioned their dissatisfaction with Dragon because of its "tool kit" approach and for having too much "crunch" versus "flavor" or "fluff." Also, a couple posts from readers of old issues mention that they find articles from those issues more useful, or that they refer to those articles a lot.

Please check out issue #323 and see if it suits you. The new Dragon stirkes a better balance between new rules and inspirational material.

Also, let us know the kinds of articles you want to see in Dragon and the ones that have been useful to you over the years by sending an email to scalemail.com. That goes for everyone reading this thread. We love to hear what readers want; we make business decisions based on that feedback. We can't make good decisions without your help.

If you liked issues from 20 years ago better than what you see now, email us and tell us which articles were most useful to you and why. If you found articles in the last 5 issues more helpful than those in the 10 before, let us know what worked and why it worked for you. But please send an email to scalemail@paizo.com rather than posting to this thread. I don't want to hijack it with comments about Dragon articles.

Thanks!

 

[rowport]

I noticed this, too. I LOVED Star Wars Gamer. Great magazine that we lost...it was sad, but we got some content in Poly. Now we lose Poly...*sigh*

Part of my problem is people here seem to have screamed and raged so much from the Anti-Poly side that those of us on the other(who have been a bit quieter) just don't get any credit. I wonder how people would feel if this went the other way, and Dungeon was cancelled to let Poly live on its own...

Allow my "me too" on this one. Honestly, while I hope that I am wrong, I am really wondering whether in fact the All D&D, All the Time crowd is genuinely bigger than the Poly content crowd, or just louder about its preferences. Hmm.

Well, in either case, I will at least give the new Dungeon a chance before deciding. As I posted before, however, I am disappointed. And moving the useless RPGA articles into Dragon (which I enjoy perfectly as it is currently) is a huge step in the wrong direction. If any content should head to the scrap-heap, that is it. :\

 

[Vocenoctum]

You could always talk to WOTC and find out if they think making Unearthed Arcana almost completely open hurt those sales. That could be an indicator of how it would work for Paizo as well.

One thing to keep in mind is that UA was out to everyone at once, whereas (well, usually Dragon/ Dungeon is available to subscribers first.
It's entirely possible that OGL content could be posted before the issue hits stands. That doesn't mean SOME stuff couldn't be OGL, but as I said, I don't think Ravenloft or the other licensed stuff is OGL and never heard a complaint there.

The flipside being of course that most people that WOULD put the material online so soon would probably do it regardless of whether it was OGL or not.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Allow my "me too" on this one. Honestly, while I hope that I am wrong, I am really wondering whether in fact the All D&D, All the Time crowd is genuinely bigger than the Poly content crowd, or just louder about its preferences. Hmm.

Well, you've heard the old saying about "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" haven't you?

No, the D&D buyers are really the bulk of the subscriber base of Dungeon. They just have the bigger numbers, and unfortunately it doesn't look like the Poly fans have the numbers to compete.

 

[Faraer]

Re: Too much crunch in Dragon?

Matthew, I'll certainly give it a look. But I suggest that as someone with authority, you're ill-advised to perpetuate that godawful, undescriptive, author-demeaning term 'fluff' (for source material, lore, background, world or story content, etc.), even in quotes or in jest. Words matter.

 

[Monte At Home]

I'm just glad they don't have a Monster Manual Magazine yet

They could call it "&" !

 

[Erik Mona]

Thanks for making that leap of faith.

No problem. I'd do it again in an instant.

That said, I'm very excited about the new direction of the magazine. I'm looking forward to being able to do one thing really well rather than seven things as well as I can, if you know what I mean.

There's lots to be happy about in the d20 industry. When I started Polyhedron on its ill-fated but noble commercial venture, the companies publishing material other than standard fantasy were few and far between. And, really, unless you wanted to play "Afghanistan d20" (anyone remember that gem?), you didn't have a lot of options.

If Polyhedron achieved anything in its post-RPGA incarnation, I hope it was to show publishers, and fans, that the d20 System was more than up to the challenge of emulating all sorts of interesting genres. We leave the d20 publishing field a much, much richer place than it was when we started publishing Polyhedron.

If Poly had any role in that evolution, I'd call our effort a success.

Thanks for all your support.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine

 

[Erik Mona]

If anybody can draw a line of reasoning that explains Will Wheaton's inclusion in Dungeon, feel free to enlighten me.

He's a good writer, a funny guy, and a gamer. And his column is going to take up one page.

Oh, and he was on Star Trek.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine

 

[d20Dwarf]

If Polyhedron achieved anything in its post-RPGA incarnation, I hope it was to show publishers, and fans, that the d20 System was more than up to the challenge of emulating all sorts of interesting genres.

Don't forget ", but not up to the challenge of making it profitable to do so."