Is Dragon Magazine even *Relevant* anymore?

[Ranger REG]

Hmm. Is it safe to assume that Mongoose's in-house gaming magazine, Signs & Portents, is doing well?

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Im not renewing my Subscription to Dragon.
The quality of the Magazne has gone down so much since i started it getting it back in 2001.
I thought wow! D&D to my mail box every month. This is so cool. Then Paizo took over. It was very different at first. but as i look over my collection i noticed quality going down the tube.
Then the revamp in 2004. I thought ok something new great. I wanted to like the new dragon, i would talk myself into liking it, then they kept coming and every month they got worse.
I could detail all my problems with it but Because im a weird person i actually made up a list that detailed the problems with each section since the revamp. i wont post it here cause it comes to about 3 and half pages on college ruled paper using both sides.
But my biggest complaint i had was that there wasnt enough D&D. Take for example Novel Approach. there are hundreds of Forgotten realms, dragonlance and other D&D novles out there to inspire spells, feats ,classes, ideas, npcs, plots stuff to fill novel approach for years. Instead you give us American Gods, dune, and Frankenstein, while good books there not D&D.
There are dozens of old books WOTC will never re-do from older versions of the game. I loved the Issue with all of the classic Campaign settings. Why not convert some rules or update older products WOTC will never touch again. Id like to see new info on the harpers...but wait no more Forgotten Realms in dragon.
GreyHawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance are the Campaingns most people play, while i cant prove it id say that if alot of people didnt buy the stuff WOTC and Sovereign press would not make it anymore, so why not support those products.
The RPGA doesnt belong in Dragon. Neither does Miniatures, Im sure they sell well but not everyone uses them and just like Epic and Psionics (which theres no support for in dragon magazine but maybe every so many months) keep them out unless your going to devote time to epic and psionic articles too.
While im certainly not a majority in the way i feel about Dragon, i have a good number of game shops i go to and 3 of them are not going to get them anymore because they dont sell very well, though dungeon seems to be a different story.
However on a positive note Marchs issue was great the best of the new Dragons, though still doesnt feel like D&D. I think less earthcentric myth and history would do the magazine good.

 

[Samothdm]

But my biggest complaint i had was that there wasnt enough D&D. Take for example Novel Approach. there are hundreds of Forgotten realms, dragonlance and other D&D novles out there to inspire spells, feats ,classes, ideas, npcs, plots stuff to fill novel approach for years. Instead you give us American Gods, dune, and Frankenstein, while good books there not D&D.

I disagree wholeheartedly with this. I like the articles in Dragon that take inspiration from places that a person might not necessarily think of - whether it be a novel like American Gods, real world myth and history, or a non-fantasy based movie, game, or TV show.

In our hobby, there is a danger of becoming too focused on one genre (fantasy) and forgetting that inspiration can come from a variety of different places. It definitely helps me keep my ideas and my games fresh.

One of my favorite articles from the old days was called "Books To Games? Perhaps!" and it was in Issue #96. In it, the author took three different novels (LOTR, the "John Carter of Mars" [I think?] and I forget the third one) and then discussed how to translate them into D&D. It was relatively "rules-light" but discussed changes that would need to be made to races, classes, and magic in order to get the "feel" correct. It was really interesting and helpful to me. While I never intended to run a game on Mars, some of the things the author discussed with the changes that would need to be made with the cleric and wizard classes were perfect for my campaign at the time.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think that was a little uncalled for. I dropped buying Dragon on any sort of regular basis at all when it swtiched to exclusively 2E as that was a game I simply didn't play and had no interest in.

Seeing as about 40% of 1st edition players were similarly disposed, I was not alone in that preference.

Not sure that number is accurate, but can't say.

The suggestion I was complaining about Dragon solely from a back-in-the-day perspective is wholly inaccurate. I was, however, analyzing the change in the business and the pervasiveness of crunch in the present marketplace on a comparitive basis to the early 80's to illustrate a point.

What I'm drawing a paralel to is this:
1) Dragon should broaden it's content because that's what got it here.

But, it didn't. Dragon has been D&D only for much much longer than it was mixed. Dragon's numbers are not at my finger tips, but it would be reasonable to assume the format has worked for them, or they'd not have continued it. Your notion that it was "better back then" isn't backed by the years of it being successful.

2) Dragon needs to diversify because there's a lot of books in 3e! WotC even puts out 2 books in some months. in 1e, a hard cover a year was fast paced...

But, it wasn't. Dragon has done well through the years, even when TSR was putting out 5-10 books a month. The comparison doesn't matter by what happened in first edition, simply because it hasn't been that way in a long time.

Your points may be valid, but your comparison's ignore a huge gap of over a decade.

 

[Vocenoctum]

One other thing, I remember an editorial somewhere in the low 100's Dragon. I can't remember the details, but they were discussing what they could do to improve the content, and mentioned the general "make it like it used to be"
"Why, what did you like before?"
"I dunno, it just used to be better."
"How did it used to be better?"
"I dunno, it just was."

or something to that effect.
A lot of these discussions remind me of that.

 

[rowport]

A lot of these discussions remind me of that.

I agree with you, Vocenoctum, and am personally getting rather tired of seeing bashing threads (not just about Dragon, or Paizo, but products in general) so I offer this suggestion:

Any time we ENWorlders see products that we *buy* and perhaps even *like* being bashed, we should ask the bash-er if they actually *bought* the bash-ee's product! Is it too much to ask that folks not throw around opinions with such rancor and venom for products that they do not *OWN*??? Sheesh. I might not think too much of "The Bachelorette", but I am not sending mail to the producers saying to cancel the show...

 

[Raven Crowking]

I agree with you, Vocenoctum, and am personally getting rather tired of seeing bashing threads (not just about Dragon, or Paizo, but products in general) so I offer this suggestion:

Any time we ENWorlders see products that we *buy* and perhaps even *like* being bashed, we should ask the bash-er if they actually *bought* the bash-ee's product! Is it too much to ask that folks not throw around opinions with such rancor and venom for products that they do not *OWN*??? Sheesh. I might not think too much of "The Bachelorette", but I am not sending mail to the producers saying to cancel the show...

While it is clear that there is a difference of opinion here, if this is a "Dragon-bashing" thread, it is fairly light bashing.

It seems to me more likely that some people are hoping to influence the editor of Dragon to make the magazine more closely approximate the periodical they'd like to purchase. Nothing wrong with that. Some might go a bit overboard, but people are people, and again, this is pretty mild as far as bashing goes.

Some people offered some pretty concrete ideas as to what they'd like. I agree that it would be helpful if more people included a better idea of what they like, and dislike (specifically), from the current format. Were I the editor, I know that I would appreciate constructive comments.

Again, I have nearly every issue of Dragon since double-digits, although many are packed away now. Some of the ones I am missing have "gone missing"; i.e., been loaned to friends who moved, or simply been lost over my own changes of address. I still get Dragon every month, and recently I have been getting Dungeon, too (the first time I have regularly picked it up since 1st Ed).

I don't think the ideas of having more generically useful articles, and keeping the 3.5 focus, are mutually exclusive. The only thing required is trying to include more "fluff" with the "crunch" .... or dare I say more "meat" with the "bones"?


RC

 

[Rawhide]

I'm not bashing Dragon. I'm giving specific, applicable advice on how to make it better.

While I'm in that mode:

Where are the articles by James Wyatt?
Where are the articles my Monte Cook?
Where are the articles by Owen Stevens?

All these people used to do articles regularly. Now I never see them. I know Monte has his own company, but James still works for WotC, and Owen is constantly writing things for web sites (Bullet Points, Pyramid, and so on). Why can't Erik get them to do Dragon things anymore?

Do even the authors question the importance of Dragon nowadays?

 

[Methos]

March 2005 Issue - I found it relevant

I have to admit, that while I don't find Dragon always relevant in every single article, feature, etc., I do generally find something of value in each issue. In addition, I occassionally find a real gem, IMO. In the March issue, the feature on Pazazu was excellent. I am going to be designing a new campaign, and I'm currently developing the ideas at a high level. One of the key things that I always do when I DM a campaign is to scope out an outline of the campaign world overall and on a more regional level where the PC's will initially be placed scope out the major features, which includes the key antogonists of the campaign. I've been wanting to put in some sort of an evil cult (or two even) that would form potentially the basis for different adventures/stories within the campaign. I really liked the discussion of Pazazu and thus will be including a cult devoted to him with various NPC's, etc being involved in it. In addition, I will likely be including Kenku in my campaign as well, since I don't believe any of the players in my campaign have been exposed to them before. So, in a nutshell, I still find Dragon relevant.

Also, I do like the way, they are tying in features in Dragon with adventures in Dungeon even if I don't use everything verbatim.

cheers

Methos

 

[rowport]

While it is clear that there is a difference of opinion here, if this is a "Dragon-bashing" thread, it is fairly light bashing.

It seems to me more likely that some people are hoping to influence the editor of Dragon to make the magazine more closely approximate the periodical they'd like to purchase. Nothing wrong with that. Some might go a bit overboard, but people are people, and again, this is pretty mild as far as bashing goes....

RC-

I understand, but I think you might have missed my point. If folks read the work in question, and then choose to pan it, so be it. If they read it, and pan it, but go on to explain how to improve it, so much the better. The problem I have is when folks say they do not read the product, but yet somehow can explain what they do not like about it; that is what I want to challenge.

Specifically in the context of Dragon and Dungeon: if you have not read the magazines in the last few months, then you have no valid basis for comment (pro OR con, really) because both are quite different than they were a year ago, and *much* different than multiple years ago. I am not saying that the magazines are perfect, nor that constructive criticism is not useful. I am saying that until you read them- as they are now- then you have no means to judge.