Dragon and Dungeon Magazines - Do You Miss Them?

Corathon · Oct 4, 2012

I miss 'em. For a while I subscribed to Kobold Quarterly as a replacement, but then moved on to Fight On! and Knockspell. Since neither of these has put out an issue in about a year, I'm feeling the absence of a regular gaming mag.

Swedish Chef · Oct 4, 2012

I miss them both. Although I never subscribed directly, I had a standing order at my local hobby shop for a long time. Like many others, I felt the quality of the articles in Dragon during 3ed started to decline, becoming simply more of a push for the latest splat book rather than a selection of ideas that had a specific theme that month.

I still have a number of magazines and every once in a while I'll pull them out and read through them. They can still provide inspiration to me today.

Desdichado · Oct 4, 2012

Olaf the Stout said:
So, now that we're 5 years on, what do you think about Dragon and Dungeon magazine? Do you miss them? Are you still angry or sad that WotC canned them or is it just a changing of the times for you?

No, I don't. But I didn't care too much about it at the time, either.

Honestly, there's too much content already. Dungeon and Dragon were fun, and I have a pretty fair run of issues, mostly from the 3e and 3.5 era, but I started to get pretty darn jaded before I quit buying any more of them. Do I really need more magic items, spells, prestige classes, and monsters? Do I really even care?

And most of the Dungeons I have, I actually haven't even read. I didn't buy them either; a guy who was moving didn't want to bring them with him, so he gave them to me.

Crothian · Oct 4, 2012

I liked the idea of them, but in practice they were never really ever used. It was too hard to find things in them and the stuff that was used seemed to rarely have good mechanics. Most of the time I'd read them come up with some neat ideas for campaigns that I wasn't involved in and then sit them on the shelf. Back in the days of 1e they were much more useful as that was the extra content. Now a days with the games have a bookshelf or three of additional material and adventures being written the magazines are just not needed.

So, no I don't miss them.

Obryn · Oct 4, 2012

I understand mourning the cancellation of a paper magazine, and I somewhat agree - I used to get Dragon and Dungeon all the time. But the digital versions were pretty great, too ... for a few years. And their integration with the rest of the 4e material was spectacular; having them reviewed by the same design team was a huge perk. It was well worth the subscription price.

On the one hand, I didn't have a printed magazine I could pick up at the bookstore. On the other hand, as a new parent, getting PDF articles scattered through the month rather than a single blob of content was pretty great. And having them added into the electronic tools was even better.

I am also left wondering why this matters so much to folks who didn't switch to 4e. I mean, in a hypothetical world with paper Dragon/Dungeon, these would still have been 4e magazines - not 3.x or earlier. There's no hypothetical world in which Dragon/Dungeon would have reasonably kept pushing out 3.x content. Would you really have kept your subscriptions? As far as I can tell, you're down a few magazines either way.

Also - with the proliferation of tablets and color eReaders, I don't know that digital is nearly as much a barrier now, 4 years later. I can quite honestly say the format no longer matters to me, and if PDF allows for higher-quality content, so be it.

-O

Psion · Oct 4, 2012

I'm not angry, as I do understand that the magazines might not have been money makers for them. But I do consider their passing unfortunate. Though the utility of the issues waxed and waned, in total they proved (and still prove) a great font of ideas for the game.

BriarMonkey · Oct 4, 2012

I can still remember the first time I'd ever heard of Gen Con - and that was because of an ad in Dragon magazine back in the early 80s. As a teenager, I thought it would be so cool to be able to attend the convention. (However, it wasn't until much later, the last one held in WI actually, that I was finally able to go.)

Often times I'd spend an afternoon pouring through not only the articles, but the ads as well, looking for all the new things for my gaming. Dragon was how I learned about Chaosium and Chessex and my first exposure to Ral Partha and so many other companies and products. And so often, I would go back through old issues for new ideas, or to finally try an idea I'd seen before. As I got older, and my gaming hit huge spans of down time, Dragon would help fill some space until I was able to game again. Though, my attention to the magazine often mirrored whether I was gaming or not.

I never got into Dungeon, probably because I am an ardent homebrewer and didn't really have the time to add another resouce to my collection.

Up through my last campaign in 3.5, my group still had the magazine floating around. Then I had a series of moves, and my gaming has lapsed. When I found out about the end of the print magazine, I didn't think too much of it as the move to electronic format seemed to match what was happening in other venues. However, when I learned that it was going behind the same paywall that was in place to support 4E, I pretty much abandoned it - and I've never looked back. And from what I have heard from others, I haven't missed anything.

For me then, there have been ups and downs, and I will always remember how Dragon impacted my gaming, but as with anything it seems anymore, it's passed into the mists of time and the magazine I knew is no more. I have moved on.

WhimsyTheFae · Oct 4, 2012

Obryn said:
I am also left wondering why this matters so much to folks who didn't switch to 4e. I mean, in a hypothetical world with paper Dragon/Dungeon, these would still have been 4e magazines - not 3.x or earlier. There's no hypothetical world in which Dragon/Dungeon would have reasonably kept pushing out 3.x content. Would you really have kept your subscriptions? As far as I can tell, you're down a few magazines either way.

A) I liked reading them, despite the rule set for which they were written. The art, fiction, ideas, ads, cartoons, etc. Even if I didn't like all of it all of the time, I at least liked all of it most of the time.

B) They kept me interested in the latest edition of D&D (I no longer have any interest in D&D - I do play in a 4e game, but I own nothing and the DM maintains my character...the camaraderie keeps me going).

C) They brought monthly joy in a format that I liked.

I do miss them both and miss them a lot. If they still existed in a hardcopy magazine format, I would still be a faithful subscriber.

the Jester · Oct 4, 2012

Olaf the Stout said:
...One of the blog posts discussed the ending of Paizo's licence for Dragon and Dungeon magazine, whose last issues were 5 years ago now (September 2007).

I still remember that announcement quite clearly. I was shocked that WotC had decided to take the licence back from Paizo as I thought that they were doing a great job of them. I was appalled when I found out that, not only were they taking back the licences, they were going to exist purely in a digital format only.

Me too!

At the time of the announcement, I had high hopes for the online versions, but significant misgivings. Subsequently, with WotC proving over and over again that they CANNOT handle ANY kind of online product and make it come in on schedule, with the promised level of content and with decent quality, I've totally given up on Dragon and Dungeon.

Mind you, for many, many years, I bought every issue of Dragon, and then later every Dungeon.

I was money in the bank for WotC. Their horrid mismanagement of online material eventually lost them my DDI subscription and made me stick to a high standard before I'm willing to go back.

Which still hasn't happened.

Olaf the Stout said:
So, now that we're 5 years on, what do you think about Dragon and Dungeon magazine? Do you miss them? Are you still angry or sad that WotC canned them or is it just a changing of the times for you?

Still sad. I was never angry, only tremendously disappointed.

Worse yet, I'm sure the cost to restart physical production would be tremendous- it's prolly out of the question. And even if it weren't, I wouldn't trust the content to be worth the cover price, after the continuous, mutli-year DDI disaster. I would have to page through each issue before I picked it up.