Dungeon #107/Polyhedron #166
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Twiggly the Gnome
Legend
Whisperfoot said:
If Poly were its' own magazine I might agree, but I find this developement troubling. The Polyhedron side is thin enough without it being dilluted with canned adventures, especially D&D adventures (lack of brand name not withstanding). This issue is a definite pass. Bring on the Dark•Matter mini-game.
Hoodooman7s
First Post
Put the d20 Modern back in Polyhedron.
I think it is time to put d20 Modern back in Polyhedron. Remember Iron Lords of Jupiter, V is for Victory, and the supposed return of Dark*Matter?
I haven't heard yet when the Dark*Matter game will be put in Polyhedron. Supposedly it was supposed to come out this year, but who knows when that will happen.
Me, I need my d20 Mini-Games. It looks like I will have to go to Fantasy Flight Games' Horizon line for my mini-games.
Polyhedron, you're letting us down on the mini-games!
Twiggly the Gnome said:
I think it is time to put d20 Modern back in Polyhedron. Remember Iron Lords of Jupiter, V is for Victory, and the supposed return of Dark*Matter? I haven't heard yet when the Dark*Matter game will be put in Polyhedron. Supposedly it was supposed to come out this year, but who knows when that will happen.
Me, I need my d20 Mini-Games. It looks like I will have to go to Fantasy Flight Games' Horizon line for my mini-games.
Polyhedron, you're letting us down on the mini-games!
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Twiggly the Gnome said:
I'm not advocating replacing the mini-games or other regular Poly content with lots of content from other D20 settings. What I am advocating is something that we might see every 6 months or so. I like the place that magazine is in right now.
On the topic of mini-games and Dark Matter, I am very much a proponent of both. Alternity was a short lived game, but Darkmatter was definitely a high point. Bringing Darkmatter forward to D20 has seemed like a logical step since the inception of D20 and I'm glad that we're finally getting it, in any format. Really, when it comes right down to it, there's very little you need to add to make D20 Modern a Darkmatter campaign anyway, especially after the Menace Manual, and (having not seen the material) I would imagine that we'll get the final missing pieces next month.
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One of the reasons we dropped down to four Mini-Games per year was to open up a little space for support for d20 Modern, Star Wars, the Living Greyhawk Journal, and other d20 Industry news and support (this is where the Freeport adventure falls). I'm eager to see how people feel about #107, because it's representative of one direction we might be taking the magazine (there are a few others currently under discussion).
The Dark•Matter Mini-Game appears in issue #108, which is already at the printer. It's really, really lovely, with solid game design by Andy Collins and some absolutely killer art from original Dark•Matter artist Ashley Wood. I suspect people will like this one a lot.
The "Monster Hunting Guide" in #107 also supports d20 Modern, as does the 2-page Global Positioning map feature. We're doing our best to support d20 Modern, but Dungeon is first and foremost a D&D magazine, and if we're going to err, we're most often going to err in favor of our "core constituancy," if you will.
We've been trying to play a pretty delicate balancing act for more than a year now with this magazine, and it continues to be a struggle to satisfy all parts of our audience, D&D freaks* and d20 Modern/Star Wars enthusiasts alike.
In a perfect world, the content currently in Dungeon would be split between three magazines (anyone remember Star Wars Gamer?), but that world ended a while ago. And it wasn't particularly profitable.
So we'll continue to tinker until we find a formula that works. In the meantime, I'm happy to report that Polyhedron's purpose has largely been fulfilled. When I shifted the magazine's focus away from a strict RPGA house organ to a more commercially viable "anything goes" experimental d20 magazine, the d20 market was largely crowded with monster bestiaries and dwarf books. Nowadays, it's not just Joe Goodman cranking out strange, off-kilter d20 products. Fantasy Flight even went so far as to co-opt the Mini-Game concept in their own "Horizon" line, and more power to them, so far as I'm concerned. Weird games like X-Crawl have popped out of the woodwork, and d20 companies like Green Ronin are even producing a healthy amount of support for d20 Modern. Oh, and everyone got yet another version of Gamma World.
I'm not sure what role, if any, the experimentation and editorial voice of the last couple years of Polyhedron had in any of these developments, but the fact remains that the contemporary d20 scene is FAR more varied, and far more experimental and innovative than it was when Polyhedron started down the "definitive d20" pathway. Despite the fact that we produce fewer Mini-Games than we did in the past, there's simply more material in the marketplace for fans of off-kilter ideas than there has ever been before.
And, at least from the perspective of this self-styled jack of all gaming trades, that's a good thing for everybody.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine
PS> What we've got cooking for Dungeon #112 is going to blow everyone away. Mark my words.
* I mean that lovingly, of course. I count myself in this august body.
The Dark•Matter Mini-Game appears in issue #108, which is already at the printer. It's really, really lovely, with solid game design by Andy Collins and some absolutely killer art from original Dark•Matter artist Ashley Wood. I suspect people will like this one a lot.
The "Monster Hunting Guide" in #107 also supports d20 Modern, as does the 2-page Global Positioning map feature. We're doing our best to support d20 Modern, but Dungeon is first and foremost a D&D magazine, and if we're going to err, we're most often going to err in favor of our "core constituancy," if you will.
We've been trying to play a pretty delicate balancing act for more than a year now with this magazine, and it continues to be a struggle to satisfy all parts of our audience, D&D freaks* and d20 Modern/Star Wars enthusiasts alike.
In a perfect world, the content currently in Dungeon would be split between three magazines (anyone remember Star Wars Gamer?), but that world ended a while ago. And it wasn't particularly profitable.
So we'll continue to tinker until we find a formula that works. In the meantime, I'm happy to report that Polyhedron's purpose has largely been fulfilled. When I shifted the magazine's focus away from a strict RPGA house organ to a more commercially viable "anything goes" experimental d20 magazine, the d20 market was largely crowded with monster bestiaries and dwarf books. Nowadays, it's not just Joe Goodman cranking out strange, off-kilter d20 products. Fantasy Flight even went so far as to co-opt the Mini-Game concept in their own "Horizon" line, and more power to them, so far as I'm concerned. Weird games like X-Crawl have popped out of the woodwork, and d20 companies like Green Ronin are even producing a healthy amount of support for d20 Modern. Oh, and everyone got yet another version of Gamma World.
I'm not sure what role, if any, the experimentation and editorial voice of the last couple years of Polyhedron had in any of these developments, but the fact remains that the contemporary d20 scene is FAR more varied, and far more experimental and innovative than it was when Polyhedron started down the "definitive d20" pathway. Despite the fact that we produce fewer Mini-Games than we did in the past, there's simply more material in the marketplace for fans of off-kilter ideas than there has ever been before.
And, at least from the perspective of this self-styled jack of all gaming trades, that's a good thing for everybody.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine
PS> What we've got cooking for Dungeon #112 is going to blow everyone away. Mark my words.
* I mean that lovingly, of course. I count myself in this august body.
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Erik Mona said:PS> What we've got cooking for Dungeon #112 is going to blow everyone away. Mark my words.
* I mean that lovingly, of course. I count myself in this august body.
Dude, that's like 5 months away. Oh how you like to torment us poor mortals.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Say Erik, I heard that Dragon and Dungeon were going to do a gigantic Dark Sun themed set of issues, sort of like the Incursion event. Is this what you are referring to?
I am so there, if thats the case! Incursion was brilliant, by the way. More of those crossovers, especially if they take advantage of old favorites settings, would be much appreciated. Or heck, even original stuff is cool too.
I am so there, if thats the case!
Incursion was brilliant, by the way. More of those crossovers, especially if they take advantage of old favorites settings, would be much appreciated. Or heck, even original stuff is cool too.Ranger REG
Explorer
Forgive me, but what was in Polyhedron #165?
Ghengis Ska
First Post
SW Gamer
Yup I remember SW Gamer, had a subscription, and must say that the d20 modern/SW support in Poly is decent, perhaps a bit more regular on the SW side. But in many cases the maps (global positioning) by Chris West are usefull for both d20 modern and SW, one of the reasons I subscribed. But while i love his Deckplans some maos if other locations might be nice. Over all i think the magazine is doing a good job of "trying" to please everyone in poly, i just wish we as the customers new what the "content" was suppossed to be, this gives us a bit more news 4 mini-games a year, so that leaves us with 8 months, are they 4 SW, 4 Modern, 4 Other (free port?) or what...?
Erik Mona said:
Yup I remember SW Gamer, had a subscription, and must say that the d20 modern/SW support in Poly is decent, perhaps a bit more regular on the SW side. But in many cases the maps (global positioning) by Chris West are usefull for both d20 modern and SW, one of the reasons I subscribed. But while i love his Deckplans some maos if other locations might be nice. Over all i think the magazine is doing a good job of "trying" to please everyone in poly, i just wish we as the customers new what the "content" was suppossed to be, this gives us a bit more news 4 mini-games a year, so that leaves us with 8 months, are they 4 SW, 4 Modern, 4 Other (free port?) or what...?
