Dungeon #99 - Is the end near?

[Arnwyn]

Wow, there have been so many people who have echoed how I feel about Poly... and even have given suggestions that I would have made.

While I certainly dislike Poly, I do not need it to entirely disappear. To be honest, I think that Poly has a lot of potential. For example, the issues that fit with D&D (Spelljammer, Incursion) were great, and I was very pleased with my issue of Poly. The rest, though, were pretty lousy, since they could not be inserted at all (not without a *lot* of work, and I subscribe to Dungeon because - as a poster noted above - I have a busy life).

As another poster noted - why so much Poly? You all know as much as I do the size of Poly before the merge - this tiny little thing that went out to a (relatively) small number of those in the RPGA. I have a seriously hard time believing that the number of subscribers to Poly were even close to that for Dungeon. So, why 50/50 Dungeon/Poly content?

I would be willing to compromise, and have 75/25 Dungeon/Poly. 25 pages of Poly per month doesn't seem so bad - and if it had the utility of Spelljammer or Incursion, then I would be *happy* to get Poly along with my Dungeon.

But, as long as you publish things with absolutely no utility in Poly (*cough*Hijinx*cough*), then I think you will see a lot of disgruntled subscribers.

Edit: Oh, yeah - just so you know, I *love* those "Global Positioning" maps in Poly. More maps! Of any kind! Office towers, apartment blocks, bars/nightclubs, stores, even Space Habitats, asteroid/moon bases, submarines, aircraft carriers, etc. Maps are time-consuming and often complicated to make - please include more of them! (See? Useful Poly.)

 

[Ravellion]

Global Positioning is pretty darn cool, and very useful if I ever get a D20modern campaign running (which is reasonably likely).

Anyway, I picked up Dungeon #100 today! Very good issue indeed! Impressed me quite a bit. The one thing that didn't appeal to me was next issues preview. One adventure.

Simply put, that has to be a very big and very useful adventure for me to buy that. Most likely, I'll skim it in the shop instead of buying the new Dungeon on sight like I usually do (did?).

Avoiding this issue is more than likely saving me more money than subscribing ever would have. Since it is a 13th level FR adventure, it has one very minor strike against it already (I use Greyhawk, so standard deity references are a bonus to me for instance). However, if the magazine cannot survive being bought by me (and many other people?) on only a bimonthly basis, that would be a shame. However, I can't accept paying £6 for a product I won't use.

Just letting you guys at Dungeon know! Nice to hear that you are listening.

 

[TeaBee]

Hmm

What if you published Dungeon/Poly with 100% Dungeon content one month and 100% Poly content the next? Offer people "half" subscriptions and everyone is happy.

Now this obviously can't be true, because it seems so simple and logical. Someone tell me why it's not true.

I know two issues (no pun intended) were:

The cost of printing two separate magazines.
The cost of printing bi-monthly.

Doesn't this, in a weird way, solve this? One monthly magazine, that's actually two bi-monthly ones?

 

[Sholari]

Hey, I just wanted to apologize to everyone for the nineteen posts. That was me hitting the button repeatedly before I had to run to work and thinking none of the attempts had gone through. I'll take the royal dumbass award for that one.

 

[Iron_Chef]

I got #100 today and, "Woe To Mistledale" aside (the sole reason I bought it and the sole intelligent, creative adventure in the issue), the issue is completely worthless/useless (that goes double for Poly). Lame, lame adventures...

LAME! The "Beast Of Burden" adventure is just a variation on the Iron Man (forget the title) adventure from #97 (the giant shogun warrior of Heironeous thing run by the evil gnome wizard in the Ming The Merciless costume). This new one isn't even as good as that, replacing the giant robot with a giant dinosaur with buildings on top of it. One of the worst ideas I've ever seen.

LAME! "The Lich Queen's Beloved", IMO, is never going to be used by most gamers as it's not only too high level, it's basically impossible to pull off unless you're Epic Level. Maybe I can use the maps for something else, but that's about it.

LAME! "Flame" is no good, either. Do we really need another adventure with a dragon as the main villain? It's so cliche it hurts.

LAME! Poly is, of course, as unusable and unwelcome as always (PULP HEROES excepted), but better than last month's miserable Jabberjaw/Josie mini-game "Hijinks". What were they thinking?

LAME! The Critical Threats are always dumb, and this issue serves up more than the usual number. A rotten feature that adds nothing to the magazine except to waste space.

OVERALL: The 180 pages are only "value added" if they don't suck, LOL. I appreciate Paizo keeping #100's price down, but I still feel ripped-off when I only get about 20 pages of usable content in an issue. That's about twice as much as an "adventure booster" from AEG for only a couple extra pages. Paizo is not winning me over with continued inferior quality content like this.

MY PREDICTION: Dungeon will cease publication within six months to a year, possibly being folded over into DUNGEON as a "flippy" format.

 

[glass]

Note that "Fish Story" is only available to subscribers - which is one of the changes that I'm not exceptionally happy about.

Just imagine how happy you would be if you lived in the UK and COULDN'T have a subscription.

At least not without paying a small fortune (in dollars) to have the magizine individually shipped from the US.

glass.

 

[glass]

Re: Hmm

What if you published Dungeon/Poly with 100% Dungeon content one month and 100% Poly content the next? Offer people "half" subscriptions and everyone is happy.
...
The cost of printing two separate magazines.
The cost of printing bi-monthly.

It wasn't the cost of printing bi-monthly, it was the cost of running a bymonthly subscription system.

ISTM that by your plan, they are running TWO bi-monthly subscription systems, and a monthly one. Hardly an improvement.

glass.

 

[King_Stannis]

LAME! The "Beast Of Burden" adventure is just a variation on the Iron Man (forget the title) adventure from #97 (the giant shogun warrior of Heironeous thing run by the evil gnome wizard in the Ming The Merciless costume). This new one isn't even as good as that, replacing the giant robot with a giant dinosaur with buildings on top of it. One of the worst ideas I've ever seen...

I happened to think it was a pretty cool adventure, and hope that I can work it in at some point IMC.

Originally posted by Iron_Chef

LAME! "The Lich Queen's Beloved", IMO, is never going to be used by most gamers as it's not only too high level, it's basically impossible to pull off unless you're Epic Level. Maybe I can use the maps for something else, but that's about it.

Not sure about this. You may be right about the level issue, but it's still a solid adventure. I'm sure many folks will be able to use this - even if it has to be scaled back some.

Originally posted by Iron_Chef

LAME! "Flame" is no good, either. Do we really need another adventure with a dragon as the main villain? It's so cliche it hurts.

This is a special dragon that hearkens back to the first issues of the magazine. Many folks probably enjoyed it. I most likely won't be using it proper, though I can probably find elements that I can use.

Originally posted by Iron_Chef

LAME! The Critical Threats are always dumb, and this issue serves up more than the usual number. A rotten feature that adds nothing to the magazine except to waste space.

I beg to differ. They are of great utility to me and many folks I'll wager.

Originally posted by Iron_Chef

MY PREDICTION: Dungeon will cease publication within six months to a year, possibly being folded over into DUNGEON as a "flippy" format.

Based on the bitterness of your comments I wonder if it's a prediction or a hope?

 

[Arnwyn]

LAME! "The Lich Queen's Beloved", IMO, is never going to be used by most gamers as it's not only too high level, it's basically impossible to pull off unless you're Epic Level. Maybe I can use the maps for something else, but that's about it.

So your suggestion is to never include high-level adventures/support in Dungeon? Nice try.

 

[tmaaas]

LAME! The "Beast Of Burden" adventure is just a variation on the Iron Man (forget the title) adventure from #97 (the giant shogun warrior of Heironeous thing run by the evil gnome wizard in the Ming The Merciless costume). This new one isn't even as good as that, replacing the giant robot with a giant dinosaur with buildings on top of it. One of the worst ideas I've ever seen.

Just goes to show that tastes differ; this was my favorite adventure in the issue. No, I won't use it exactly as written (I plan on having roving groups of nomads riding these things), but I will use it.

Also, I like the Critical Threats and new NPCs column.

With any issue I suspect you'll find people who both love it and hate it. Overall, #100 has been highly praised, but not by everybody (as Iron_Chef shows, and his opinions are as valid as any other individual's).

Conversely, Issue #99, which many people lambasted, still has its supporters who enjoyed it very much.