Erik Mona on the Future of Dragon Magazine

[kikai]

...My favorite Dragon article of all time was probably Ed Greenwood's "Nine Hells" overview from 100 years ago, and that sucker spanned three issues...

Man we got a lot of gaming out of that article.

Hi,

does anybody know (?in) which issues this articles were in?

thanks,

kikai

 

[Samothdm]

Part 1: #75
Part 2: #76
Revisited: #91

 

[Ranes]

Interesting. And as Erik will undoubtedly check in on this thread:

Go, Erik!

I don't subscribe to either Dragon or Dungeon but I regularly buy both. My main beef with both recently, however, has been the gradual but steady increase in editorial howlers. The Ecology of the Night Hag article (Dragon 324), for example, describes the creature as being 'fearful' (p67, panel). Er, either it should have been 'fearsome' or a night hag can be defeated by showing it its own reflection and watching it run away, screaming like a little girl with lungs full of helium.

Spelling Eberron incorrectly on a cover, right beneath the Eberron logo...

So far, I like everything about the new editorial direction of both magazines (except for the logos). The gaffes all look like isolated cases of brain cramp but I wouldn't like to see their frequency increase. I wonder if you copy edit in Word. I switch off the spell checker and the risible grammar checker. The spell checker makes you lazy and the grammar checker is an insult to anyone who can write.

Isle of Dread was great. Maure's Castle was pretty good. The adventure path has good instalments (and I can accept that Americans say 'installments') but the story arc has suffered from the late introduction of major adversaries.

Overall, I'm very happy with both magazines. Good luck to you and your esteemed crew.

Edit: Ha! A typo!

 

[Sammael]

I just received my Dragon #323 (I "subscribe" through a newspaper & magazine store, as I sincrely doubt that a magazine can reach me in flawless condition through our postal system... they once managed to fit a magazine with a CD through the tiny slit in my mailbox... and both the magazine and the CD were ruined). I am pretty disappointed in the new direction, and I hope Erik can do something to make the magazine a bit less... bland. If not, well, nothing is forcing me to go on buying it.

 

[qstor]

Here is hoping Erik well and much success to the Magazines.

Same here!

I'm sure there's a ton of Living Greyhawk Journal Articles that were never published that I'd love to see Erik get out soon!

And for that matter I'd love him to continue the Realms articles as well as other campaign world material like Eberron or revisit old campaign worlds like Dark Sun, Brightright or Spelljammer.

Mike

 

[francisca]

Hopefully someone will come to the realization that the D&D Miniature game is NOT the same as Dungeons & Dragons.

[/useless rant]

You are not alone in your dissent.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Hopefully someone will come to the realization that the D&D Miniature game is NOT the same as Dungeons & Dragons.

[/useless rant]

Testify, brother.

And maybe, while they are basking in the glow of righteous enlightenment, they'll realize that computer games and novels are not D&D either, and have ample representation in other periodicals to boot.

 

[heirodule]

I'm sure there's a ton of Living Greyhawk Journal Articles that were never published that I'd love to see Erik get out soon!

No there aren't.

So somebody write some!

 

[Sammael]

The coverage of D&D minis, computer games, and novels definitely needs to be reduced. A single page for minis and a single page for news about CRPGs and novels should suffice. I could do without them, but they probably should be covered in some way.

 

[Mercule]

Hopefully someone will come to the realization that the D&D Miniature game is NOT the same as Dungeons & Dragons.

Amen. The D&D game sees play by me, and we still use dice to represent critters.

I love the new format of Dungeon. Every issue since the relaunch has been a keeper. The Wil Wheaton articles seem pointless (Wil seems nice, but the column is pretty innane), but that's my only gripe.

Dragon, though, has been a royal stinker since the relaunch -- at least for me. The "features" have been lackluster. I don't care about the minis. I don't care about the garbage ported from video games. The Class Acts are meh.

Class Acts is especially disappointing. I am so bloody sick of new rules to handle customization. We don't need tweaking and substituting. What I'd love to see is a monthly feature that shows how to use the existing rules to build certain concepts.

I'm thinking about some of the articles from right after 3E came out. I think they were called Class Acts, as well. There were a few that showed how to multiclass (with, *gasp*, core classes) to build certain concepts. The one that sticks in my mind most is one for building a priest to some FR battle god that laid out a 20 level plan of multiclassing between Cleric and Fighter (or was it Barbarian? -- I wish I was typing from home) and how it fit together and why. I don't play FR, so the name is lost on me. Never-the-less, articles like that gave me ideas on how to use the D&D rules creatively.

As I've said in other threads, there is a glut of new crunch in D&D. Granted, sometimes it makes sense to add things -- and suppliments like Complete Warrior, Races of Stone, and Frostburn do a great job of it. Dragon shouldn't occupy the same niche, though. What would sell me on Dragon -- and probably make it way more valuable to me than even the suppliments -- is if Dragon focused not on adding new crunch, but on applying existing rules creatively.

This is why the Campaign Components were such a hit, IMHO. They didn't add more complications. They helped show how to use the rules to play a fun game.