Disappointment in thinning Dragon content

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

On the plus side is Sept 22: Staff Fighter
I've been looking forward to added support for this classic weapon.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would not mind 5e actually... but I guess, the essentials will be the future.

Essentials is the way of bringing in new players and lapsed players again. I can´t really imagine a 5th edition right now. I really don´t know how they can change enough to warrant calling it a new edition. They also have done a lot of work for essentials, so i guess allowing it to die anytme soon would be the worst economical idea possible. We also heard about "announcements regarding pdfs and electronic articles soon" So i just guess the dragon content is a bit low, as designers are busy otherwise and other people are not sending in articles, because maybe they are not sure what to expect in the near future...
After the launch of essentials there could possibly be a flood of good articles coming in.

 

[Nymrohd]

I think the major issue is glut. I blame the system tbh. We already have too many powers as it is, many of them being nearly identical across classes. The same goes for feats. Magic items are not that many but then again they are pretty boring in 4E. And the thing that drives me mad is that all the space used up on crunch we already have too much off could have been used for rituals and boons and other alternative treasures which are very interesting rule items that we barely have enough of.

Meanwhile the powers and feats we do get suffer from being disjointed to a real theme. The structure of 4E, particular the power system, intuitively links to thematic characters and builds. Yet themes cannot exist in a vacuum; they require settings to bring them to life. The vast majority of fluff comes from assumed PoLand which is not defined at all and thus cannot really drive themes by itself. What I really like about Dark Sun (and loved about 3.5 Eberron) is the clarity of its archetypes whether supported by builts or by the themes introduced with that setting. I don't know about you but I find myself wanting to play archetypes the vast majority of the time and so do my players. Generic powers by the shitload are useless in giving me that feel unless I reskin them all (which I often end up doing). In short I cannot see how small disjointed thematic articles can function outside of a world to make their themes organic.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

We are seeing PoL getting fleshed out soon.
We are seeing themes in core soon.
Better organized powers and feats are coming even sooner!

For me 4e really starts this sunday. I really want to have a checkbox to reduce CB to essentials +

 

[Bagpuss]

Go find some good freelancers - their are tonnes around - and commission some articles.

But that would mean spending money!

 

[MrMyth]

There have been some quality articles lately, but also a lot of frustrating ones - including articles with good fluff but poorly balanced crunch - and while they caught or fixed most of the problems in the compiled issue, some were dealt with by removing them entirely, thus thinning things out even more.

I don't think the content is abysmal, but its true that there haven't been any 'big' hits in quite some time. I've liked the Dark Sun stuff, I've found lots of the articles have good flavor, but nothing has really caught my attention like articles have in the past. Hopefully we'll see more focus on the magazines once the Essentials marketing craze is over.

 

[TerraDave]

I am glad to see its not just me and agree.

Especially on being too narrow. I think this desire to feed into the compendium/cb has narrowed the range of stuff they are doing.

Contrast this to Kobold Quarterly. There last issue was 100+ pages, and it had all kinds of stuff. Ok, it quarterly, but they also post free stuff on their website.

 

[Shemeska]

I think they need to widen their net wrt authors.

Go find some good freelancers - their are tonnes around - and commission some articles.

The dungeon and dragon mags of old had a lot of varied content. And loads of little nooks and crannies; letters, sage advice, strips and even Ads!!

And bring in some DND outsiders - hehe - to get some weird and wonderful content in there.

I remember talking to a few other freelancers a year ago at Gencon and getting the same response wrt the e-zines: they just weren't getting responses to their pitches from WotC. I had a similar situation early on in the e-zine's life in that I was asked to submit a specific article from the slush pile of the actual magazines and then never got a response back, nor a reply to two followup emails.

It still feels like a closed shop, with articles written by WotC staff and only a very shallow pool of writers beyond them, with little chance of anyone not already in there to show their work, to grow and develop as a writer. The e-zines no longer seem to function as the same up-and-coming talent development pool that the print magazines always struck me as being. It increasingly seems to be an afterthought to provide material for it, and for it to function as a paid previews service.

 

[mkill]

I remember talking to a few other freelancers a year ago at Gencon and getting the same response wrt the e-zines: they just weren't getting responses to their pitches from WotC.

Same here. I didn't even get a "sorry we're up to our necks in submissions and couldn't check your stuff". Well, if I get zero response to half a dozen pitches I stop sending them. What's the point. It's weird that they first write a big editorial and ask for pitches and then ignore them completely.

That and zero Mac support for the character builder and other tools (a full in-browser tool would do) makes me reconsider my subscription. WotC, do you want my $70 per year?

 

[jelmore]

But that would mean spending money!

Offer them 2 treasure parcels instead.