Dragon Editorial: Players 1, DMs 1

[arscott]

I thought the player/DM distinction was what separated Dragon and Dungeon already. How is this different?

Well, A few DM-specific columns were on the Dungeon side, but there were a lot of DM-focused Articles in Dragon.

Paizo actually tried this route with the published magazines a few years back, and sales of Dragon subsequently tanked--Aparently DMs were the core audience of both magazines, so calling Dragon "player only" really hurt sales. Now that they're both available through the same subscription, that's not really a concern any more.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I just hope that "for DMs" means something other than "More modules!"

We hates modules, preciousss. We dursn't use them, no, we dursn't.

I want *Keh-RUNCH*! I want new monsters. I want new traps. I want new fiddly bits to ADD to monsters and traps. I want interesting and weird rules I couldn't have made up myself. I want tactics guides. I want essays on cosmologies, world building, economics, cultural design, creating variants on existing themes.

But not just crunch, I'd like some generic fluff to go with it (and we are getting that) but DM, never show those dastardly players, type fluff.
Then again there is KQ ecologies!

 

[vagabundo]

I have been waiting for this for a while, Thanks WOTC.

I like to just print a dragon article and stick it in a binder for my players to use, but they (wotc) constantly mixed in monster stats or story hooks that I wanted to use. I'm hoping that they create companion articles each month that compliment each other and wont have spoilers in them that I have to black out.

Some of the articles I've printed look like Freedom of Information released Top Secret government documents.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I just hope that "for DMs" means something other than "More modules!"

We hates modules, preciousss. We dursn't use them, no, we dursn't.

I want *Keh-RUNCH*! I want new monsters. I want new traps. I want new fiddly bits to ADD to monsters and traps. I want interesting and weird rules I couldn't have made up myself. I want tactics guides. I want essays on cosmologies, world building, economics, cultural design, creating variants on existing themes.

QFT. All of it.

 

[Festivus]

It might be that they have been looking at the "Best of..." collections and realizing that the Dungeon one is light on material.

Exactly my thoughts. The old Dungeon had lots of articles about running games and monster ecologies... stuff that would look great in a annual book. If they were to publish one this year I was wondering what would be contained within.

 

[Verys Arkon]

Looks like the ezines are getting some attention right now. In another thread, Chris Perkins mentions that they are (finally!) looking at removing the dark bar on each page that eats so much ink.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiftkitty
I will ask until the day I die or until the situation changes:

Will you please get rid of the useless dark border at the top of the PDFs? I'm begging you, seriously! I like to print articles to read, but I don't want to be paying the rent for my local office supply store! Ink is expensive!!! Especially for us private end-users!!! Pictures? Fine, appreciated even. But pleasepleaseplease replace that border with something less taxing on the average person's printer and pocketbook!

Hey Shiftkitty,

We are currently exploring a page layout that removes the color banner from the top of feature articles, replacing it with something more printer-friendly. (Yeah, it's finally made it onto our priority list.) Thank-you for keeping it on our radar.

Chris
__________________
Chris Perkins
D&D Creative Manager
Wizards of the Coast LLC

 

[Nymrohd]

Maybe this indicates that soon we will see split subscriptions. I fully expect that the next time I pay for a DDI subscription it will be quite more than what I last paid (and it will need to be a lot more for me to actually consider anything but a full package).

 

[Festivus]

Maybe this indicates that soon we will see split subscriptions. I fully expect that the next time I pay for a DDI subscription it will be quite more than what I last paid (and it will need to be a lot more for me to actually consider anything but a full package).

If that were to happen I would want a separate subscription just for the CB.

 

[doctorhook]

I just hope that "for DMs" means something other than "More modules!"

We hates modules, preciousss. We dursn't use them, no, we dursn't.

I want *Keh-RUNCH*! I want new monsters. I want new traps. I want new fiddly bits to ADD to monsters and traps. I want interesting and weird rules I couldn't have made up myself. I want tactics guides. I want essays on cosmologies, world building, economics, cultural design, creating variants on existing themes.

Agreed, except for one thing: I don't hate the modules, I rather quite like them! That said, I don't use them because I'm currently busy using the H1-E3 adventure path.

I sure as heck don't want them to stop publishing modules, because those are among my favorite products!

 

[tomBitonti]

Basically. In practice, Dungeon Magazine (at least in its 4E form) has mostly just been adventures, while all the coolest crunchy stuff was in Dragon -- even articles about monsters and villains, which are at best useless to players, and at worst a form of spoiler.

I wonder if this is precipitating any kind of move to offer "split subscriptions" or something, where a player could subscribe only to Dragon Magazine, for example. DDI is already dirt cheap, but customizing the content of your subscription might draw additional subscribers.

This is a restatement of the guidelines from o' a few years ago, with a Player/GM split between Dragon and Dungeon. I'm not a subscriber anymore, so I can't say that that feature was regressed, but I agree that the division is nothing really new.

In the end, this is a silly issue: Both Dungeon and Dragon should be views on a single composite body of game information. Anything else is a failure to make the best advantage of computing and web technology, and doomed to obsolescence.