I have some spare cash.

[rgard]

I am looking for tuff to flesh out my setting first before doing any adventures. Like new PrC's, Classes, Feats and new uses for Skills that I may not have thought of. Things like rules articles and advice pieces are good as well since we all can use those as well.

Thank you Jason Bulmahn

Mr. Beef

If you have $10 left over after your subscription purchase, go buy Monte's Complete Book of Eldritch Might in PDF form. Lots of good stuff in that product. The variants and the like will give you ideas on what you could make as variants (what to change with out the change being too unbalancing) in your setting.

Thanks,
Rich

Edit: Make that $13 on the PDF cost. Just looked it up.

 

[ivocaliban]

I voted for Dragon because I rarely, if ever, use pre-made adventures. Dungeon, no matter how you turn it round, is essentially three adventures with another article or two for spice. Dragon on the other hand is a potpourri of gaming materials, background information, stories and so forth. I would think it would be of more help building a campaign than lots of adventures.

Dungeon is a great magazine and I've bought several issues over the years, but I've never actually used any of the adventures in it. Most of them just require more work than I'm willing to put into them to make them useful in my campaign. I find it much easier just to tailor make my own for my specific needs.

Dragon on the other hand always has something I can use. Sometimes I find lots of useful material, other times there's only one article that does anything for me, but there's always something. It just seems more "toolbox" oriented than Dungeon.

That said, I don't subscribe to either magazine. I buy two or three issues a year of Dragon magazine. Maybe one Dungeon issue a year. Of course, now that I've seen some of the core deity articles, I wish I had subscribed to Dragon.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you're an aspiring DM, I'd put that before working up a setting in too great detail. A lot of things that seem like good ideas before play turn out to have issues once tried out in the real world (so to speak).

 

[Mr. Beef]

I voted for Dragon because I rarely, if ever, use pre-made adventures. Dungeon, no matter how you turn it round, is essentially three adventures with another article or two for spice. Dragon on the other hand is a potpourri of gaming materials, background information, stories and so forth. I would think it would be of more help building a campaign than lots of adventures.

The last thing I need is adventures when I have Ptolus coming in the next week. I guess Dragon is a good choice for me considering all the neat things they have in it. Although, Dragon is losing in the poll by 8 votes.

The poll is in no way going to influence my subscribing decision, I just wanted to see what people had to say.

Dungeon is a great magazine and I've bought several issues over the years, but I've never actually used any of the adventures in it. Most of them just require more work than I'm willing to put into them to make them useful in my campaign. I find it much easier just to tailor make my own for my specific needs.

Tailoring adventures is something I've never tried. Granted I'm just a newbie DM, but you would think that WotC would come up with stuff to put in the magazine that would not have to be altered that much.

Dragon on the other hand always has something I can use. Sometimes I find lots of useful material, other times there's only one article that does anything for me, but there's always something. It just seems more "toolbox" oriented than Dungeon.

"Toolbox" oriented is something that I am looking for. My toolbox is kind of small right now, and I'm looking for something that will turn into one of those big toolboxes on wheels like they have in Mechanics Shops.

I have read some of Dragon magazine, but not in a long time. I remember when Dragon was the only good gamaing magazine for the AD&D crowd back in the 1980's. I even have a Dragon from around the time Dark Sun was going to be released in the late 1980's with Monster Manual stats for the various races that were going to be introduced in the setting.

Dungeon I've not looked at in a couple of years when it was more of a D20 magazine rather than just a D&D magazine. I think that is the one that ran Polyhedron on the back with different settings for D&D that was like Spelljammer and so forth for D20, for a while when D20 was hitting its stride.

Thank you ivocaliban.

Mr. Beef

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Tailoring adventures is something I've never tried. Granted I'm just a newbie DM, but you would think that WotC would come up with stuff to put in the magazine that would not have to be altered that much.

Paizo, not WotC. And the majority of Dungeon is generic adventures. People customize them to make them fit their campaign worlds, whether those are homebrewed or commercially published ones. Swap the name of a god, the name of a kingdom, maybe slap another motivation on the bad guy, etc.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Dungeon is the better magazine as a whole for active DM utility, and has definitely been more popular here. I'm not surpised it's getting more votes. I believe many voters probably have not fully digested your question before voting...

I think Dragon is better suited to your stated needs for world building/campaign brainstorming. New magic items, monster ecologies, new races, monsters and class options may all be very useful for mining ideas to integrate into your world.

IMO, I wouldn't worry about using non OGL content in your world building excercise. Do it for fun, not public distribution. If I had $10 for every DM that wanted to create a fully fleshed out setting suitable for publishing but never accomplished a finished polished product, I'd have my mortgage taken care of for many many years. If you DO get that far later ( Yea you! ), you can change the non OGL rules a bit or remove them as necessary for compliance.

 

[Treebore]

I think it is pretty simple:

DM can use both mags, primarily Dungeon.

A player only needs (if it can even be stated that strongly) Dragon.

 

[Mr. Beef]

Dungeon is the better magazine as a whole for active DM utility, and has definitely been more popular here. I'm not surpised it's getting more votes. I believe many voters probably have not fully digested your question before voting...

I think so too. I think they are just voting the for the newer magazine and tossing the other by the wayside, even though Dragon has been around about 29 years and survived the transition from D&D to AD&D to D&D 3.0 to D&D 3.5

I think Dragon is better suited to your stated needs for world building/campaign brainstorming. New magic items, monster ecologies, new races, monsters and class options may all be very useful for mining ideas to integrate into your world.

Dragon seems to be the consensus by posters on the messageboards. The first post had one of the Editors from Dragon magazine throwing in his two cents. I think that's awesome.

IMO, I wouldn't worry about using non OGL content in your world building excercise. Do it for fun, not public distribution. If I had $10 for every DM that wanted to create a fully fleshed out setting suitable for publishing but never accomplished a finished polished product, I'd have my mortgage taken care of for many many years. If you DO get that far later ( Yea you! ), you can change the non OGL rules a bit or remove them as necessary for compliance.

I will make it for fun at first, and with WotC coming out with new Complete books every few months then I will definately use those before I make my own stuff up because they have a tendency to get better as more books come out.

I'm not sure what to think about the envrionment books put out by WotC. I've heard those are hit and miss, especially Cityscape.

Thank you BigFreekinGoblinoid.

Mr. Beef

 

[Mr. Beef]

If you're an aspiring DM, I'd put that before working up a setting in too great detail. A lot of things that seem like good ideas before play turn out to have issues once tried out in the real world (so to speak).

Well, I'm just looking to get Ptolus into my hands, reading it over so I know the setting pretty well, and then finding a group to DM Ptolus. Once I have gone through Ptolus, I plan on taking everything I have read in the setting as well what information about various settings I can get off the internet and magazines.

Then I'll make a setting that makes Ptolus look like a pamphlet.

By then D&D will probably be on 5.0 and I'll have to change everything.

Thank you Whizbang Dustyboots.

Mr. Beef

 

[ivocaliban]

Glad to have been of help, Mr. Beef.

I was just thinking that, instead of a subscription you might want to shop for some back issues at www.paizo.com. Like I mentioned before, I don't have a subscription to either magazine, but I buy a few issues of Dragon every year. You can check out the back issues on the website and see which articles interest you.

It'll probably be more expensive (or you'll get fewer magazines for the amount you intended on spending), but at least this way you'll be sure about what you're getting. I'm sure folks here will be more than happy to suggest past issues of both magazines that are "must haves."


Here's my pick of Dragon from the last five years:

#294 (April 2002) - Gods, vehicle rules, catchphrases, a couple of classes. A really fun issue. This was the first one I bought after getting involved with D&D 3.0e.

#313 (November 2003) - Playable lycanthropes, half-monster templates, ghost elves, dragon insanity...and more!

#315 (January 2004) and #319 (May 2004) - I list these together because they're both flashbacks of various settings from D&D history (although the latter focuses more on Dark Sun). Both are filled with classes, monsters, feats, and various other useful tidbits.

#329 (March 2005) - Myths and monsters! Describing both the origins of certain creatures of myth and delving into some serious literature (Beowulf), perhaps my favorite article here is the one on Mesopotamian deities. There's also a great bit on Pazuzu!

#340 (February 2006) - This issue gives you the sun, the moon, and the stars! Not only does it provide a zodiac, but feats that allow characters to make the most of their astrological sign. Also, an article for sun and moon worshippers as well as an astrologer prestige class.


As for Dungeon the only one that comes immediately to mind is #112, the Maure Castle issue. I don't particularly like running dungeon crawls, but I'd sure love to play this one!