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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron_Chef" data-source="post: 767924" data-attributes="member: 4530">What I want from Dragon is crunchy bits (spells, monsters, PrCs, alt. core classes, magic items, NPCs, monsters, rules and variant rules, etc.) and gorgeous color pull out maps to scale with miniature combat. I want support material for new and existing WoTC products. I want monster ecology/society articles. I want less reader mail, no silicon sorcery, no up on a soapbox (sorry Gary, you are boring me to tears every month), no fiction and less comics! I got a subscription after buying #275 but let it lapse because too many issues were mostly or completely useless to me (#276, 281, 282 (worst ever), 284, 285, 286, 291 (next worst ever), 292, 2001 annual (terrible mish-mash of junk from WoTC other companies with few exceptions).Here are the issues I found enough useful content in to not feel too bad about buying or that I enjoyed immensely: #275 (great), 278, 280 (great), 283, 288, 289, 294, 295 (great), 305, Dragon 2000 annual (best annual ever!).You can see that Dragon only makes me happy about 50% of the time and very unhapy the rest of the time, often for consecutive issues!Here are my comments on a bunch of recent issues I bought:______________________________Issue #295:The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook support issue. This is a great issue. It totaly expands on the material in SHBGB and provides beautiful color maps of and details on several example strongholds built with the rules. LGJ features a new demon and vicious etherereal air elementals, the gingwatzim. Fabulous!_______________________________Issue #296:This issue was next to useless except for the article on designing guilds, cults and organizations and made me not want to buy any more issues ever again... In fact, I didn't even bother to check out anything between #297-303 until I picked up the BoVD and wanted issue #300 (until I opened up the sealed section).________________________________Issue #300:Supposed to be in support of the Book of the Vile Darkness. What do we get? An article on fiendish dragons. Not vile. Drow NPCs: not vile. Wastri the Hopping Prophet: Not vile. The sealed section contains Monster Cultist PrCs: Not vile, except for possibly one brief reference to "raping and pillaging" in the kuo-toan Shoal Dweller PrC. The Skinscriber spells are vile enough, I guess, but too few. The other major article in the issue is a retrospective on the history of the magazine: expected but boring. The issue fails to provide anything "vile" except a couple pages of spells like "wall of maggots." The issue is pretty much a total failure, IMO. It doesn't entertain, it doesn't provide enough new crunchy bits, and it doesn't fulfil its obligation to suport the BoVD in any meaningful way. $6 down the toilet, basically, except I may use wall of maggots if my PC can ever cast high level spells, LOL.______________________________Issue #304:The "Gladiator" issue. The gladiator games ideas weren't very innovative. I liked the new gladiator weapons, especially the hydra flail (like Yeenoghu's trademark weapon). The Gladiator PrCs were not cool. The rest of the issue wasn't useful to me. I bought it for the pull-out gladiator arena map and the new weapons. The rest is useless to me. _______________________________Issue #305:The "Urban" issue. Well, I bought it for two things: the beautiful color pull out map of a city street and sewer section, and the excellent article on the yuan-ti. The rest of it was just a yuan (yawn!). Great cover, though._______________________________Dragon needs more crunchy bits and less fluff. A monthly mini-splatbook would be great. I want new rules, new spells, monsters and treasure, and NPCs. And beautiful pull out maps. Everything else is really useless to me, especially the fiction. If I wanted fiction, I'd buy a novel. I buy Dragon for crunch only.It makes perfect sense to me that so many people are complaining about Dragon's usefulness. Because it isn't very useful most of the time.</blockquote>

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