Asgard magazine - Theme ideas?

[RangerWickett]

Dragon magazine has themes each month, usually tied, at least roughly, to the current release from WotC. They've had things like Knights, Drow, Dragons, Elves, Castles, Horror, and Villains.

As the submissions coordinator of Asgard Magazine (ENWorld's own e-zine, available at http://www.d20reviews.com/Natural20/asgard.html), I'm wondering if the folks here at ENWorld would like to see loose themes in the upcoming issues of Asgard. The current issue has a vague 'swimsuit'-theme to it.*

Now, by vague theme, I basically mean that both the cover and one of the articles has to do with that theme. So yes, it's a very mild theme, and 90% of the issue has nothing to do with it. If we begin actually putting up consistent themes for Asgard, I would want to shoot for about one-third the issue being related to its theme.

The downside would be that there might be slightly less variety of articles in each issue. The upside is that we can manage to make each issue a little more topical to what's going on in the gaming world, and having a theme might encourage people to submit something, since we'll be giving them a place to start.

Here are some of my starting ideas for possible future themes for Asgard.

• Modern Adventures
• Myths and Legends
• Monsters
• War
• Aerial Adventures
• Common Folk and Low Fantasy
• Picaresque
• Mysteries and Spygames

*This would've been topical had it come out in July or even August, as we'd hoped, but maybe some of you in more tropical climes will be able to appreciate the warm weather fun in the issue even this far into September.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

I'd prefer to see the best submissions for each month rather than limiting contributors to a specific theme.

However I would be in favor of some regular features that might build on a theme over the course of several issues... Might be a good maketing concept to keep em coming back for more too...

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, I wouldn't want to make the entire issue be themed; only maybe one-third of it would be devoted to the theme, assuming we get enough submissions. The rest of the issue's articles would be from a regular mix, consisting of whatever people want.

Also, I'm flexible as to what themes we might use. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post them here. I just don't want to exactly duplicate things that Dragon is also doing.

 

[Knight Otu]

Making Asgard slightly more theme-oriented sounds like a nice idea.

 

[Ashy]

bump-de-bump!

 

[Hand of Evil]

Themes sound good but would like to see things able to meet the needs of the masses.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I think themes are great, ESPECIALLY for a free publication like Asgard. It will make the issues easier to reference. The problem some people have with themes in Dragon is that they paid money for an issue with a theme they can't use in their game so they feel like they wasted their money on an issue. Asgard doesn't have that problem because it is free.

 

[orbitalfreak]

While I'm not in favor of cutting good work in favor of forcing a theme, I am in full support of choosing good articles that "comply" with a "semi-requested but not really THAT important" theme. Go for it.

 

[Tonguez]

Here are some of my starting ideas for possible future themes for Asgard.

• Modern Adventures
• Myths and Legends
• Monsters
• War
• Aerial Adventures
• Common Folk and Low Fantasy
• Picaresque
• Mysteries and Spygames

*This would've been topical had it come out in July or even August, as we'd hoped, but maybe some of you in more tropical climes will be able to appreciate the warm weather fun in the issue even this far into September.

Themes are great provided they are Broad enough to allow lot of innovation. I also think that a theme focus will in fact increase the number of submissions and make it easier for you to plug any gaps due to low submissions each month (since you just have to look for related stuff instead of scratching your head looking for a 'cool idea' as it were.

Second what is Picaresque?

Third you forgot to include the Underwater Adventures Theme and the Non-Eurasian Worlds theme

Fourth Its Spring here so a Swimsuit issue will be welcome

 

[RangerWickett]

Picaresque was a style of storytelling popular a few centuries ago, that was replaced when the novel took over as the dominant form of long prose.

A picaresque is basically an adventure that has the hero traveling and seeing all kinds of interesting sights. It's much more like a D&D game than a novel is, because novels tend to be focused on an emotional and personal development, while the picaresque is more concerned with the physical journey and location.