Dungeon Mag vs. Dragon Magazine

[WhatGravitas]

While I'm getting both, I personally prefer Dragon. Why? More fluff, more enjoyable read.

Dungeon is good and useful - probably more than Dragon, and when I DM, I like having the possibility to pop up an adventure within seconds, if my party wanders off.

But Dragon is my read. Dragon - especially the fluffy articles and ecology - is the magazine I put into my bag (among some other non-gaming stuff) for waiting times/sitting in bus/train/cafeteria and so on.

 

[Nightfall]

Lord T,

True. Dungeon is a tad more...cerebral than Dragon. But there are some that read well. For instance, the Age of Worms had plenty of adventures I just read through and thought "Damn! I wish I had thought of that." or "Man that's such an EPIC encounter!" Stuff like that.

But you are right, Dragon has the better fluff. Demonincon and Core Beliefs easily highlight the best parts of Dragon, with Class acts, ecology and probably now the FR and Eberron articles too.

 

[Nlogue]

I loooooove both magazines! They are the best gaming content available right now in my opinion, and I drool at the mouth on the way to check my mailbox every day, just hoping to find one of these treasures inside.

That said, I like Dungeon more. I like stories, and I love adventures, so Dungeon is my mag o' choice. Also the Campaign Workbook articles in the back are often uber-cool and really enhance my game. I sometimes just steal a few ideas from those when I'm DMing in a pinch and suddenly I've got some great scenes/encounters to work with and a really awesome adventure forming up.

 

[Silver Moon]

Dungeon is great. I'm currently running my own adventure path constructed from three different Dungeon modules loosely tied together.

 

[Oryan77]

As a DM, I've skimmed through all of the Dungeon mags and found lots of great adventures that I can run as side quests. I'm really glad I got the magazines.

But being a DM, I haven't had much use at all for any Dragon mags except for a few articles I could use for the Vault of the Drow. It's mostly for players...and that's IF the DM would allow them to use stuff from those mags. If you don't buy many D&D books, the Dragon mags might be really useful to you. But if you buy lots of D&D books, you already have an overwhelming amount of material to use...so there's really no need for more classes/feats/whatever from Dragon mags.

 

[Emirikol]

Dungeon is worth having a subscription to. Dragon is worth buying occasionally in the store (and only when one of your players buys it).

Also, Dungeon, you can use forever; Dragon, you can use until the next edition.

jh

 

[Ulric]

Another question: if you subcribe to the magazines, is there a download/pdf option? Or are the pdf only available individually, not part of a subscription?

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Years ago I had a subscription to Dragon (back under 1e) and I eventually let it lapse. I would occassionally buy it every now and again for neat articles but these days it seems to be filled with prestige classes and feats. That's kind of cool if you are into that kind of thing but I have really taken to Dungeon for all the adventures which I can use the maps or at least certain scenarios if I can't use the adventure.

 

[Festivus]

The only PDFs you will find are for sold out back issues of Dungeon or Dragon. They will be more than happy to sell you a print edition of back issues however.

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

Years ago I had a subscription to Dragon (back under 1e) and I eventually let it lapse. I would occassionally buy it every now and again for neat articles but these days it seems to be filled with prestige classes and feats. That's kind of cool if you are into that kind of thing but I have really taken to Dungeon for all the adventures which I can use the maps or at least certain scenarios if I can't use the adventure.

While I generally stay away from these sorts of discussions, I thought I would pop on and correct one error. The days of publishing feat after feat and multiple prestige classes in one issue are long over. I only have the last two issue on me right at the moment, and between the two of them there is a total of 1 prestige class (in 353) and a total of 6 feats (1 in 353 and 5 in 352).

We have really strived hard over the past couple of years to make issues that will not only add flavor to your game, but stand up over time and across editions.

Jason Bulmahn
Managing Editor of Dragon