Is Dragon Magazine even *Relevant* anymore?

[lrsach01]

Hate to be terse, but it's off the table. We would lose _far_ more readers than we would gain by tying major coverage to games that sell 1000-5000 copies.

I mostly agree with this point....mostly. How about one article a year on a new game/campaign/company? It could be one that might be small, but has proven at least moderately popular over a period of time. Would Hasbro let Paizo do an article on a group like Goodman or a setting like Conan (after all, Game of Thrones was included in Dragon about a year or so ago). It could be billed as Erik's Fave or Most Interesting Up and Comming or some such non-sense.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Yes there is such evidence

http://www.mortality.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=getit&lid=102

The above link is Erik's interview from last October on Mortality radio (good interview too).

In it Erik makes it abundantly clear that both Dungeon and Dragon's readers want D&D and only D&D, to the point where even the presence of D20 and Star Wars simply will not be allowed in the pages of Dungeon or Dragon.

I appreciate this point of view and presume that it is solidly backed up by reader surveys.

But it goes beyond that. Even if it is D&D based, if it is an article based on a setting published by a D20 publisher, Erik says "that is not likely to happen in the near future". (See above show at 1:23:45~1:24:45)

Praphrasing Erik now: "This is not based on a contractual commitment, it is is based on feedack that Paizo has received from its readers."

It's hard to dispute that - as I wanted adventures in Dungeon to be D&D and I was not a fan of Polyhedron "stealing" D&D adventure space.

FWIW, At the same time, perhaps perversely, I would be very pleased to see other D&D and even D20 settting articles and product information in Dragon. That would make me want to buy the magazine just to get that exposure as the current article mix is not to my taste.

So perhpas it's just not as cut and dried as it appears.

 

[kenobi65]

I am not suggesting it adopt a wide format - only a little here and there. More to the point, a stolid refusal to review D20 D&D products from non-WotC sources has nothing to do with transgressing the "narrow" scope of the magazine, does it?

Are you actually *reading* Dragon anymore?

I hold in my hand the current issue - #329. Pages 16-22 contain "First Watch - Previews, Notes, and News for Gamers." In those pages, we have previews of:
- Sandstorm
- Deathknell minis
- Grimtooth's Traps Resurrected
- Dragonshard video game
- Green Dragon Studio rubber stamps for battlemats
- Dungeon issue #120
- McFarlane's Dragons and King Conan action figures
- A Sound of Thunder (a movie based on a Ray Bradbury story)
- Rackham Confrontation miniatures
- Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved
- Privateer Press's Iron Kingdoms

Of the 11 items listed above, 7 aren't in any way related to WotC, and 5 are gaming-related.

 

[Crothian]

Yes there is such evidence

That's good to know. So, you want them to fly in the face of all this market research they have done just to appease you?

 

[Steel_Wind]

No I don't.

I think if you look to my first post on this thread, you'll see what I proposed. And it wasn't asking for coverage of Rifts, Exalted, or even for 3 articles a year on Grim Tales: Slavelords of Cydonia or Arcana Evolved.

It was for nostalgia conversions of older adventure material from Dungeon/Dragon or, in the alternative, a 16 page adventure path in Dragon in 3.5e format. Still D&D. Still Greyhawk/FR/Generic. Id go farther and suggest axeing the recurring fiction in Dragon as the part to sacrifice.

That would make me want to buy a magazine whose format and current content mix simply does not appeal to me. It was also an attempt to make a proposal which met the setting and system requirements mentioned by Erik in his interview on Mortality Radio last fall.

It wasn't me banging the drums of "general gaming magazine" as The Fix. That was from others. I might agree with their sentiments, not so much out of desire for *that* as a dislike of what I'm getting currently.

 

[Crothian]

It seems like you have the answers though. Erik Mona has come and kindly explained how Dragon is going forward.

 

[Erik Mona]

The simple truth is that the magazine cannot appeal to all people, all the time. If you will only be satisfied if Dragon takes a 180 degree turn from what it's doing now, chances are you're not going to be satisfied.

As a poster upthread noted, we're now covering news related to other games and companies. I'd _like_ to figure out how to do a review section in the magazine again, and would probably widen the scope to cover non-d20 games from non-WotC publishers (and I've half a mind to also include reviews of fantasy movies, just for the hell of it), but there are simply more pressing concerns to address before I work on that aspect of the magazine.

You will not see game material for other systems, and you probably won't see "game article" support for things like Freeport and Dawnforge and, oh, let's say "The Foundation: A World in Black and White."

Paizo tried that already and got burned. It's not going to happen again.

It _might_ make sense to do a stand-alone magazine that is _not_ Dragon that covers this stuff in depth, but I seriously doubt you could make any money off of it. It's a rare d20 product these days that even cracks 3000 sales, from what I hear, and that's just not much of a market.

On the other hand, the D&D books sell in the range of tens of thousands of copies. The money and the audience are there, hence that's where you're likely to see the magazine focus the majority of its efforts.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

 

[National Acrobat]

I was a subscriber to Dragon for nearly fifteen years (and had been buying it since 1980 or so before getting the subscription) and I didn't renew my subsription last year for several reasons.

The first is that I originally bought Dragon because it covered other games back in the day, of all genres, and I tend to play and run campaigns in several different settings, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc. Dragon addressed the needs of all types of games then, and I could find useful content in it for a multitude of games in one source.

The main reason however is that almost two years ago, my group reverted back to 1E because no one wanted to run 3E anymore as a DM, so we switched back to 1E ADnD, and then to Castles and Crusades. Currently one DM runs 1E ADnD when he runs a campaign, and the other runs Castles and Crusades. So for me the magazine being devoted to 3.5 DnD doesn't really suit me at all. I find that some ideas may be neat, but by not playing the game, and it being soley for 3.5 DnD, I can put my money elsewhere for something else, that isn't necessarily gaming related.

 

[Erik Mona]

You should check out Troll Lords's "The Crusader," National Acrobat. It might hit the spot rules wise, and the issue I recently saw had some interesting content aimed squarely at the "grognard" segment of the audience.

--Erik

 

[National Acrobat]

Thanks Erik, I have. It hits the spot very well for us 'old' folks.

I do still purchase Dungeon however. It does serve a purpose for me.