D&D 5E How would you improve Dragon+, WotC's Online Magazine?

[Urriak Uruk]

Hi all! So I'm making this thread for the simple reason that I have noticed a great deal of nostalgia for the original Dragon magazines, and even the Dungeon magazines. Plus a great deal of appreciation for newer 3rd-party zines, and the success of MCDM's Arcadia.

This same appreciation doesn't seem to exist for WotC's current online magazine, Dragon+. I'm not really surprised this is the case as a huge bulk of the book is adverts for their own products.

But imagine a hypothetical situation; you've been hired onto the WotC team, specifically to pitch ideas for the Dragon+ magazine. You don't have a ton of power and can't start the magazine from scratch, but you are responsible for pitching new ideas to include or replace ones in Dragon+. What would you pitch?

My idea; I would in my spare time convert some of the most popular adventures from the original Dragon/Dungeon magazines for 5E, and release one for each new issue of Dragon+. No new art or maps or anything, just updated statblocks and DCs for the traps and such. I'd try to keep most of the text the same. That would in my mind gives folks a lot of the nostalgia, be fairly cheap to produce, and give people a hook to check out the magazine that a lot of folks don't have!

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Er... I don't think its "nostalgia", tbh.

The old mags, from day one on, had multiple things going for it;

(1) Physical, Tangible Item. It's made of dead tree and ink. You can read it, sure, but you also FEEL it, you SMELL it and you HEAR it. Digital? You see it...and it's not even the same kind of seeing (re: digital is 'transmissive' light, not 'reflected' light). These are HUGE advantages to have over a digital version. We humans like our senses and we use them all the time. It's how we learn. It's why many of us can read a physical magazine article once and remember it...but need to read a digital article multiple times and still get things wrong (ok, from my experience and those of my older friends; our brains aren't "wired for digital"...so maybe it different with the youngsters now...).

(2) I can pass it to a Player at the table to read or take home. Another big advantage.

(3) I OWN it...meaning I can do what I want with it. I can keep it. Write in it. Give it away. Sell it. Or whatever else. I am the one in control of my purchased product...not a massive company.

(4) I can take it with me to places where there is no electricity or active internet. That means camping, road trips, ocean Caribbean cruise, or just in the car as I drive my parents around town to do their shopping and whatnot while I wait in the car.

Those features are not "nostalgia". They are VERY desirable things from a consumer standpoint. I'd take a physical, b/w paper book over a fancy full-colour-with-animation-and-sound digital 'book' every single time!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Rob Kuntz]

It would instantly be improved if they would contact me and say, "Hey Rob! Would you like to complete that ENnie award winning Maure Castle series for us for Dungeon?"

 

[embee]

Hiya!

Er... I don't think its "nostalgia", tbh.

The old mags, from day one on, had multiple things going for it;

(1) Physical, Tangible Item. It's made of dead tree and ink. You can read it, sure, but you also FEEL it, you SMELL it and you HEAR it. Digital? You see it...and it's not even the same kind of seeing (re: digital is 'transmissive' light, not 'reflected' light). These are HUGE advantages to have over a digital version. We humans like our senses and we use them all the time. It's how we learn. It's why many of us can read a physical magazine article once and remember it...but need to read a digital article multiple times and still get things wrong (ok, from my experience and those of my older friends; our brains aren't "wired for digital"...so maybe it different with the youngsters now...).

(2) I can pass it to a Player at the table to read or take home. Another big advantage.

(3) I OWN it...meaning I can do what I want with it. I can keep it. Write in it. Give it away. Sell it. Or whatever else. I am the one in control of my purchased product...not a massive company.

(4) I can take it with me to places where there is no electricity or active internet. That means camping, road trips, ocean Caribbean cruise, or just in the car as I drive my parents around town to do their shopping and whatnot while I wait in the car.

Those features are not "nostalgia". They are VERY desirable things from a consumer standpoint. I'd take a physical, b/w paper book over a fancy full-colour-with-animation-and-sound digital 'book' every single time!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Printers exist.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Hiya!

Er... I don't think its "nostalgia", tbh.

The old mags, from day one on, had multiple things going for it;

(1) Physical, Tangible Item. It's made of dead tree and ink. You can read it, sure, but you also FEEL it, you SMELL it and you HEAR it. Digital? You see it...and it's not even the same kind of seeing (re: digital is 'transmissive' light, not 'reflected' light). These are HUGE advantages to have over a digital version. We humans like our senses and we use them all the time. It's how we learn. It's why many of us can read a physical magazine article once and remember it...but need to read a digital article multiple times and still get things wrong (ok, from my experience and those of my older friends; our brains aren't "wired for digital"...so maybe it different with the youngsters now...).

(2) I can pass it to a Player at the table to read or take home. Another big advantage.

(3) I OWN it...meaning I can do what I want with it. I can keep it. Write in it. Give it away. Sell it. Or whatever else. I am the one in control of my purchased product...not a massive company.

(4) I can take it with me to places where there is no electricity or active internet. That means camping, road trips, ocean Caribbean cruise, or just in the car as I drive my parents around town to do their shopping and whatnot while I wait in the car.

Those features are not "nostalgia". They are VERY desirable things from a consumer standpoint. I'd take a physical, b/w paper book over a fancy full-colour-with-animation-and-sound digital 'book' every single time!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I probably should have put this in my OP, but I don't think a physical product is on the table... yes WotC has the resources, but everyone I've spoken to has said that a print magazine is not really a profitable enterprise. MCDM has spoken repeatedly on why a print version isn't possible.

 

[dave2008]

I may be one of the odd balls that really likes Dragon+; however, I think it could easily be improved. IMO, what it needs is simply more stuff and a return to some classic series. So, my pitch would be:

More content:

• More adventures
• Alternate rules (not just UA, or introduce UA firsts with Dragon+)
• Maybe a 1-20 AP
• DM Advice

Bring Back:

• Bazaar of the Bizarre
• Demonomicon of Iggwilv
• Lords of Chaos (4e)
• Deities and Demigods (at least 4e)
• Dragon's Bestiary and/or Ecology of ....series

 

[grimslade]

I think the problem with Dragon+ is that it is exclusively an advertisement to whatever the current WotC offerings are. It is trade dress masquerading as content. Original content sprinkled in with pimping the released hardback would go a long way. It would require greater editing resources, however, so there is a cost. Right now we pay nothing for Dragon+, so I expect nothing of it.

 

[dave2008]

More content:

• More adventures
• Alternate rules (not just UA, or introduce UA firsts with Dragon+)

Odd to quote myself, but I think this alone would be huge for Dragon+. If WotC introduced all the UA articles in Dragon+ first/only, that would drive a lot of people to Dragon+. UA articles seem to very popular.

 

[jgsugden]

An online magazine is just a gaming website with a content release schedule.

To preserve what Dragon meant to older players, it needs to provide new things to add to the game that are not just easily available online elsewhere. That is a really hard charge for an online offering. As such, I think that Dragon should return to the realms of a physical product, but not a magazine.

If I were to reboot Dragon, the ideal version to me would be:

1.) Quarterly.
2.) Supported by WotC to allow for the inclusion of content related to Adventure Paths, etc...
3.) Would include props for in person gaming (Terrain, miniatures, initiatives trackers, DM screens, condition markers, distance measuring devices, flying platforms, spell cards, spell templates, Deck of Many Things, Bag of Tricks with Tokens for the Summons, etc....)

That would be the modern equivalent of what Dragon used to do for me as a DM.

 

[dave2008]

I think the problem with Dragon+ is that it is exclusively an advertisement to whatever the current WotC offerings are. It is trade dress masquerading as content. Original content sprinkled in with pimping the released hardback would go a long way. It would require greater editing resources, however, so there is a cost. Right now we pay nothing for Dragon+, so I expect nothing of it.

Well that is not completely true. There is a lot of advertising and "synergy," but there is also some new original content. Unfortunately, I think there has been less of that recently.