I have been reading Dungeon magazine since the very first, although until only this month have survived on borrowing from a friend and purchasing the odd magazine at my FLGS very occasionally.
However, (a) I kept realising that there were concepts and maps in Dungeon that I could use in my own campaign, but never had them to hand because I'd returned them to my frined (who lives 4 hours away); and (b) my friend refused to renew his subscription on the basis of cost.
So I decided to subscribe myself (
https://subscribe.pcspublink.com/magazine/Paiz/subscribeForm.asp?track=JDNGN3&pub=DNGN&term=12). Now, for all you people in the US complaining about how much it costs
you to buy Dungeon, you've got to be kidding. I'd love to pay US$6.99 per issue. At my FLGS, a Dungeon costs AU$17.00, i.e. on current exchange rates of AU$1 = US$0.65, US$11.05. When I subscribed it cost me $US99.00 for 12 issues, or in my terms, approx AU$152.00 (i.e. AU$12.67 or US$8.23 per issue). Naturally, this includes postage and handling.
I received my first Dungeon, #100, yesterday -
by air mail! Here I was, reading about all the "3.5E goodies" in issue #100 on En World, thinking "a few more weeks, and I'll have it in my hot little hands", fully expecting it to arrive on some container ship several weeks after you guys get it in the US. Full marks to Paizo's shippers for choosing the fastest - and most expensive - way to get it to me.
Now, I've read most of Dungeon #100, and decided that there's little in there I can use. I too only play D&D, so generally Polyhedron is useless to me - but I knew and accepted that when I subscribed,
because even if I can't use it, I can read it. This little fact seems to have escaped the majority of the whingers. For me, Dungeon has always been about ideas. I never use straight Dungeon adventures in my own campaigns - in fact, I've never even used an mildly modified Dungeon adventure in my own campaign. However, I relatively frequently use plots, maps,
ideas from Dungeon. So, you buy a Dungeon in which there's not alot you can use. But you had to read it to find that out, and in the process, all of that "useless" material got into your head, and somewhere, somehow, along with all the other "useless" material in your head, it'll coalesce into something meaningful and useful. Just like the stuff from all those moronic SF and fantasy novels you keep reading.
Furthermore, what other magazines do you read and subscribe to? How much of them is "useless" to you? Do you bitch about how you couldn't possibly make all those dishes in the cooking magazine? Couldn't ever hope to drive, let alone buy, any of those cars in the motoring magazine? Get off your frikkin' horses, and look at the world from the common man's perspective (which is a bit rich coming from me, 'cos I
can afford to subscribe to Dungeon, even from Australia, and have the readies to buy all of the 3.5E books the day they come out - in Australia (that's AU$60 per book, you whingers in the US)).
For the record, I don't like Dungeon #100 - IMHO it's one of the worst I've read. The adventures are linear and consist solely of combat and traps. But just by
reading the damn thing, I consider the AU$12.67 I spent on it, worth it.
Cheers, Al'Kelhar
