Celebrim
Legend
I agree with those posters that state that alot of the quality of the early Dragon years had to do with simply that almost any concept that was introduced was new.
Now that the holes are for the most part plugged and diversity for the most part a part of the standard mechanics, there isn't alot of new ground in mechanics to cover - and new spells and monsters are a dime a dozen.
That doesn't mean I excuse the poor quality of most recent Dragons or the insipidness of many of the articles.
I seem to be one of the few people who remember the late 80's and early 90's as being the very best of Dragon. In those years, it seemed that the community had finally matured and the magazine was becoming increasely filled with what might be called scholarly surveys for the laymen. People where picking subjects of interest to fantasy RPers, going out and reading a couple thousand pages in the university library and then condencing it down to a level of immediate utility to the gamer. I remember a particularly good article on sea serpents, articles on african weapons, articles on court retainers, and a host of other esoteric but thought provoking and well written subjects.
I'd personally like to see more articles on the lines of Command magizine, more and deeper historical articles (I did like the series of surveys of medieval cities with historical characters stated as NPC's), more ecology articles, more scientific articles, more world building articles, and so forth. The articles don't have to be deeper than an introduction, but I think they are important. I was somewhat miffed when the issue that was devoted to volcanoes didn't contain a survey on the history of volcanoes, thier mythology around the world, and the science and geology of volcanic regions. Older issues of Dragon certainly would have.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge is a DM's food.
The readership of Dragon is not stupid, and its a shame that they seem to be targeting solely 13 year olds. I think it is possible to make both the older and the younger readership happy with a better mix.
Now that the holes are for the most part plugged and diversity for the most part a part of the standard mechanics, there isn't alot of new ground in mechanics to cover - and new spells and monsters are a dime a dozen.
That doesn't mean I excuse the poor quality of most recent Dragons or the insipidness of many of the articles.
I seem to be one of the few people who remember the late 80's and early 90's as being the very best of Dragon. In those years, it seemed that the community had finally matured and the magazine was becoming increasely filled with what might be called scholarly surveys for the laymen. People where picking subjects of interest to fantasy RPers, going out and reading a couple thousand pages in the university library and then condencing it down to a level of immediate utility to the gamer. I remember a particularly good article on sea serpents, articles on african weapons, articles on court retainers, and a host of other esoteric but thought provoking and well written subjects.
I'd personally like to see more articles on the lines of Command magizine, more and deeper historical articles (I did like the series of surveys of medieval cities with historical characters stated as NPC's), more ecology articles, more scientific articles, more world building articles, and so forth. The articles don't have to be deeper than an introduction, but I think they are important. I was somewhat miffed when the issue that was devoted to volcanoes didn't contain a survey on the history of volcanoes, thier mythology around the world, and the science and geology of volcanic regions. Older issues of Dragon certainly would have.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge is a DM's food.
The readership of Dragon is not stupid, and its a shame that they seem to be targeting solely 13 year olds. I think it is possible to make both the older and the younger readership happy with a better mix.
