Fiction in Dragon magazine??

[ThomasBJJ]

Why must there be fiction in Dragon magazine?

I'm not argueing about the quality of any of the fiction that has been published. Just the reason it is included in a "Dungeons & Dragons" magazine.

There are many, many, many outlets for fiction and short stories. Anyone looking for fantasy stories have an overwhelming selection available to them.

IMO, Dragon magazine is about one thing, and one thing only: Dungeons & Dragons gaming material. Rules, Spells, Monsters, Stats, Plots, DMing advice, Player advice, Interesting locations for game use, Magic Items, Prestige Classes, New Equipment, etc.

A page or two of D&D/gaming related cartoons is ok, as long as it stays on topic. The Phil & Dixie cartoon for example is a whole page, and IMO is usually straying a little far off topic for the most part.

The fiction really gets to me though. Sometimes it takes up 10 or more pages of the magazine. Thats 10+ pages of "Gaming" material that we could have gotten.

Granted that the stories could be used for plot ideas, and are usually of the "sword & sorcery" type, I just don't see justification for it to take away from the "Real" purpose of the magazine.

I also have a problem with Dungeon magazine (adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons game) losing page content to Polyhedron and the D20 mini games.

I buy Dungeon for one thing: Dungeons & Dragons adventures.
Which I THOUGHT was the purpose of the magazine. I couldnt care less about a World War II d20 game, or a GammaWorld d20 game. Those thing may be great. I'm sure many people enjoy and use these articles. ...BUT... why is it getting shoved into Dungeon adventures? IMO, if there is so little fan base/demand for a d20modern/GamaWorld/WWII d20 system that is can't support it's own magazine, then there aren't enough people who want to read it. "Forcing" it onto D&D readers is a poor answer. Star Wars Gamer couldn't support itself, so now, if I want D&D adventures, i HAVE to buy the Star Wars content too?!?!?!

Why all the extra, unrelated stuff? Why is it being forced into D&D magazines? Can't the mags stay 100% "On Topic"?

(sorry for my rambling post, and any misspellings)

 

[WayneLigon]

There are many, many, many outlets for fiction and short stories. Anyone looking for fantasy stories have an overwhelming selection available to them.

I buy Dungeon for one thing: Dungeons & Dragons adventures.
Which I THOUGHT was the purpose of the magazine. I couldnt care less about a World War II d20 game, or a GammaWorld d20 game. Those thing may be great. I'm sure many people enjoy and

I like fiction in the Dragon. Hopefully, it can get someone to read it who heretofore may not have been exposed to much fantasy fiction. No, there are not a lot of outlets for fantasy short fiction, especially sword and sorcery. In fact, with the passing of Marion Zimmer Bradleys Fantasy Magazine I don't think there is ANY monthy periodical that has regular sword and sorcery content besides possibly Weird Tales. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction will run some S&S once in a blue moon, but that's about it. (If I'm wrong, please please let me know). Black Gate is quarterly, as are a couple others. If you can find them. So, Dragon remains one of the few monthly sources.

As for the other games in Dungeon, Dungeon is going to cover the games that WOTC publishes, which includes d20 Modern (and Future, soon) and Star Wars, and also the d20 phemonenon in general. There are always things you can use in your own games.

 

[Christian Walker]

Autoduel Quarterly hit on the nifty idea of running game stats with their fiction. You'd get the story and the stat blocks of the cars and characters. It was cool. If you hated the story, your character could kill everyone in it for fun.

 

[tburdett]

Re: Re: Fiction in Dragon magazine??

...In fact, with the passing of Marion Zimmer Bradleys Fantasy Magazine I don't think there is ANY monthy periodical that has regular sword and sorcery content besides possibly Weird Tales. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction will run some S&S once in a blue moon, but that's about it. (If I'm wrong, please please let me know). Black Gate is quarterly, as are a couple others. If you can find them. So, Dragon remains one of the few monthly sources.

What that says, at least to me, is that there isn't a great demand for it. I would not shed a single tear, while I did the happy dance, if the part of the magazine devoted to fiction disappeared.

 

[pogre]

Autoduel Quarterly hit on the nifty idea of running game stats with their fiction. You'd get the story and the stat blocks of the cars and characters. It was cool. If you hated the story, your character could kill everyone in it for fun.

That would be cool. I know WFRP did it with a few of their novels. They even had a module based on one of the books, Drachenfels.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

Assuming that there are few outlets for fantasy fiction, still doesn't answer why it should be taking up space in a GAMING magazine. Maybe we could convince People magazine to start carrying fantasy fiction. The characters in the stories are, after all, "People". (aside from a few elves and dwarves).

 

[Azlan]

They even had a module based on one of the books, Drachenfels.

That was such a good book! Different, yet still a heroic-fantasy novel (albeit a dark one), and by far a cut above the hack writing you see in this genre, nowadays.

I wish I could find a copy of Drachenfels, since it's been long out of print. (Someone had lent me theirs, but that was years ago, and I'd like to read it again.)

EDIT: I just looked on Amazon, and I see the book is now back in print (albeit in a different format and with a different cover). Cool.

 

[Zeddan]

You must have been really miffed when Dragon used to run supplements for Gamma World, Alternity, and the host of other games that TSR used to publish.

First off, the fiction provides inspiration for some people in their game. People are inspired by different things. Some like the crunchy, some like the fluff.

Second, Variety is the spice of life.

Third, If you examine the content of both magazines over the last 20 years, there have been a variety of settings covered in there.

There my anti-rant is finished

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Fiction and "What's New" should be banned and all those who supported should be trapped in a room with and endless loop of the the D&D movie forever.

 

[Harlock]

I tend to agree with a couple of things I've seen in this thread. Firstly, the fiction in Dragon usually doesn't bother me too terribly much, though the Georeg RR Martin excerpt was terribly long and didn't add anything at all to my game, so it seemed sort of wasteful. I've often thought that Dragon should shoot for statting out characters as suggested in this thread, or pulling out plothooks, locales, etc. for use in a homemade adventure. I think people are actually much more likely to even read the fiction if they show them it can have some use in their game. Also, I'd hope that in the future Dragon would keep the fiction down to less than 20 pages. If you look at the Dragon that had the Martin novella in it and count ads and the fiction as something you could not use you end up with roughly 40% of the magazine that is not useable. Were the fiction kept on the shorter side and stats either presented in summary or within the story as sidebars, then I can definitely see the fiction in a more positive light. Meh, we'll see what happens.