Goodman Games to publish a 4e print magazine under the GSL

[DM-Rocco]

This reply kind of puzzles me, as I'm not sure how the notion of another gaming print magazine could be seen by anyone as bad news.

But with that said, the reason I'm not picking up Kobold Quarterly (which I had heard of) or Dragon Roots (which I had not, but checked out after your post) is that they contain a mix of 3x and 4E material, with an emphasis on the 3x. For me, I have no use for 3x materials any more, since I'm through with that edition. I know that there are a lot of folks who still play 3x games, so I expect they're more your market. For me, an article or two on the system I'm playing is more than balanced out by a lot of stuff I'll never use. I'm still very happy you're doing what you are, because I miss Dragon/Dungeon in print, and hope you can keep things going. It looks like a lot of good stuff...it's just not what I need.

--Steve

I am always happy to see another magazine out there. I know, it is kind of weird that I want competition, but it is more about respect for anyone who wants the nightmare of trying to create a magazine. These guys will know what I mean once they get the first issue out J

Anyway, whenever I go to forums to post about the magazine I always mention other gaming magazine when possible, like KQ. It is a respect thing and to help promote the industry. It doesn’t usually come back in the form of good karma, but that is how I roll, for good or ill.

As to our 3.x and 4e choice, the choice was simple. I wanted to do more 4e material and more edition neutral stuff, but our writers refused and only wanted to submit 3.x stuff. We are getting more 4e material for submission now so it is a good mix and I think for now the magazine does well with both, as many of our readers prefer 3.x with only a few breaking into the 4e realm. Still, we are trying for a 50/50 split.

Also, we are still in talks with Scott Rouse to be able to print an article in one edition and then offer web content for a conversion to 4e. Currently, we have an agreement to print different editions in the same magazine, but not for the same article. It would be a lot more work for us, but for people such as yourself you would get a full 70 magazine dedicated to the edition that you want. Check back with us in the near future to see when this happens.

Really though, most articles, even the edition specific ones, should be helpful as all an article is, is a bunch of ideas. Ideas are a fundamental building block of role playing and if a 3.x article gives me an idea for a 4e game than it was worth it.

Anyway, at 70 pages and half of that dedicated to 4e, it would be worth your while to check it out, but I understand your concerns so pick what you wish and I hope it is what you are looking for.

 

[DM-Rocco]

What do you want to say here?

I'm not sure what he was going for either. However, I am a people pleaser as you can tell by my post above where I mention that we are trying to do conversions for the whole magazine.

To each his own though. We would love to have all people want to read our magazine, but really, I am just happy if people find what they are looking for.

Oh, I don't know what the other guy ment by "Amount =/ quality." but please don't judge us on the quality of our magazine when you haven't read it. Comparing our price to Level Up is not fair since we have more pages and since they can't do perfect bound at such a low page count, we have a better quality print too. Really, you have to compare apples to apples on these things.

Now, some people have said that we offer more usable content than KQ and that is comparable since they recently went to a simular print run and almost have as many pages, for example.

 

[goodmangames]

I am always happy to see another magazine out there. I know, it is kind of weird that I want competition, but it is more about respect for anyone who wants the nightmare of trying to create a magazine. These guys will know what I mean once they get the first issue out J

Well, this will be the fifth magazine I've published, not to mention the couple hundred books I've published. Somewhere along the way I learned a couple things. I am sorry to hear that publishing Dragon Roots is a nightmare. Publishing Level Up has been a tremendous amount of fun, and I think that will be reflected when everyone gets to read the first issue of the magazine!

 

[DM-Rocco]

Well, this will be the fifth magazine I've published, not to mention the couple hundred books I've published. Somewhere along the way I learned a couple things. I am sorry to hear that publishing Dragon Roots is a nightmare. Publishing Level Up has been a tremendous amount of fun, and I think that will be reflected when everyone gets to read the first issue of the magazine!

Well, only dealing with the printers was a nightmare, creating the magazine was actually a lot of fun and it is why I continue to do so.

I wish you luck in your new magazine and hopefully it will take off so you won't have to create a 6th. Anyway, somewhere, someone claims that you are the only GSL 4e print magazine and that is not true. It would be most honrable of you to clarify that, whether the source is you or not.

 

[Jack99]

What do you want to say here?

The talk had taken (IMO) a ridiculous turn, with DM Rocco arguing that his Dragon Roots has more 4e page count than Level Up, a magazine not even published yet. It seemed a bit farfetched of him to compare his magazine to something which he knows (or us, for that matter) little about. With my comment, I pointed out, that in my mind, there are more important things than page count, namely quality. And that is no matter who has the biggest (magazine) or whatever.

 

[xechnao]

The talk had taken (IMO) a ridiculous turn, with DM Rocco arguing that his Dragon Roots has more 4e page count than Level Up, a magazine not even published yet. It seemed a bit farfetched of him to compare his magazine to something which he knows (or us, for that matter) little about. With my comment, I pointed out, that in my mind, there are more important things than page count, namely quality. And that is no matter who has the biggest (magazine) or whatever.

Yes but if you reread the discussion he was trying to answer your comment about the only one article for supporting 4e. This is why your next comment seems out of the blue.

 

[Jack99]

Yes but if you reread the discussion he was trying to answer your comment about the only one article for supporting 4e. This is why your next comment seems out of the blue.

Maybe I just read too much into what was posted. But considering the later comments, I do not think so. Either way, I will let you guys get back to talking about Level Up, and I will go find something to review instead. Preferably something really bad, so that I can get rid of this passive-aggresiveness that seems to be in me today

 

[DM-Rocco]

The talk had taken (IMO) a ridiculous turn, with DM Rocco arguing that his Dragon Roots has more 4e page count than Level Up, a magazine not even published yet. It seemed a bit farfetched of him to compare his magazine to something which he knows (or us, for that matter) little about. With my comment, I pointed out, that in my mind, there are more important things than page count, namely quality. And that is no matter who has the biggest (magazine) or whatever.

Well, it appeared you were comparing our price to theirs and our quality to theirs. Our page count matters in these postings since it affects our price and the number of material we dedicate to 4e versus theirs. It is one of the ways we can try to break down the true comparison between the two magazines.

Page count also matters because at 32 pages, they will have to saddle stitch the binding, ours is perfect bound, which effects price and quality of print. I’m sure they are offering a fine print magazine with lots of quality articles and printed on fine paper, but you have to know what our magazine is to compare the two.

Also note, is appears you can buy their magazine in game stores for $2 but signing up for a mail order is $4. So, unless you plan on getting it straight from your local hobby store every time, you will be paying more than $2 an issue. This is another important distinction since now Dragon Roots and KQ don’t look like evil tyrants of the magazine world by charging $7.95 an issue. If Level Up was 70 pages long, they would offer, I assume, the magazine for about the same price. But getting into that, our subscription for the print magazine is $5.25 an issue. So, take that for what you will, it is all relative.

On a side note, I can only assume that they can somehow offer the magazine to hobby stores as part of that stores purchase of their other fine products and that is part of how they can offer it to stores to sell for $2 apiece. Most gaming stores won’t offer to sell a product unless they can make a 60% mark up off of the buying price. I would be very shocked to learn that Goodman games has less than a .75 cents per issue cost on the magazine.

As for Dragon Roots, this is our only product and I am not a large, medium or even small company. I am just one man who was upset that Dragon and Dungeon magazine went out of print so I started my magazine to be print only. We added pdfs when it cost more to ship overseas than the price of the magazine. I have been blessed with other like minded individuals that want to see our magazine thrive and have established a team of writers, arts and editors that work for free and also want to be apart of something greater than themselves. This is why are can offer more pages with less ads.

Working for free doesn’t mean that we don’t offer quality writers. Crothian and Raven crowking, both from ENWorld, have written for the magazine and both are very polished. Paul Brazelton also has very comprehensive campaign building articles. We also are blessed with Tim Kask, the original editor of Gary Gygax, AD&D and the original editor in chief of Dragon Magazine, waaaaay back in issue #1. He chimes in with many helpful tips for players, DMs and talks about new and old editions and more. Then there is me, which some people love and others, well, no one likes everyone, but I have never gotten a complaint on any of my articles yet, just posts J

We would love to offer gaming shops something similar to what Goodman games does, but as a one man show, we just don’t have an in that they do for printed materials in hobby shops, so we have to watch the bottom line.

Well, that I am sure is more information than you wanted.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Maybe I just read too much into what was posted. But considering the later comments, I do not think so. Either way, I will let you guys get back to talking about Level Up, and I will go find something to review instead. Preferably something really bad, so that I can get rid of this passive-aggresiveness that seems to be in me today

No worries, sometimes I don’t post well or people take what I say other than I intend. It is part of the problem with posting, you don’t get the tone of voice or things of that nature to really understand what I mean. I am much better in person. It is why I still insist on phone calls for making business transactions rather than e-mails.

Don’t worry, I don’t take offense and sorry if I mentioned something that wasn’t clear.

Check the general boards, I'm sure there is a "my paladin slayed the village, why am I no longer Lawful Good" thread you can take your passive-aggresiveness out on

Okay, for the record that was humor

Game Long, Roll High!!!

 

[Treebore]

I think "Level Up" is clearly the first 4E GSL magazine to be offered.

Dragon Roots is the first hybrid to be offered.

Trying to say Dragon Roots and Level Up are the same is similar to saying a half elf and an elf are the same thing. They are not, one is clearly approximately 50% of something while the other is 100% pure.