Is Dragon Magazine even *Relevant* anymore?

[Rystil Arden]

I'm a Dragon subscriber and am (98% of the time) always a DM. I don't subscribe to Dungeon because I never use published adventures (like some others above), preferring to create grand conspiracies based on my PCs' passions and goals. That said, I was highly upset when some of my favourite articles (particularly Dungeoncraft, which had some great advice that really aided in my development 8 years ago from amateurish DM to semi-competent DM) were moved to Dungeon, and so in the sense that the best for-DMs columns were moved to Dungeon, there *has* been a subtle shift towards Dungeon-for-DMs, Dragon-for-Players. Despite this shift, I still read Dragon, and although I've rarely ever used any of the rules presented there (except the ones that got plundered into official products, like Invisible Blade from the gladiator issue), I've raided some of the Dragon prestige classes for various abilities to give to homebrew prestige classes that fit my campaign's flavour better. I think the point when I realised that I needed to reassess Dragon's play-balance was the article with the Godtouched, Divine Fury feats, one of which (Divine Fury, the one that inexplicably raised Base Attack Bonus by 1+Cha bonus and then *called out* that it gave extra attacks) was proposed by a cleric in my campaign in order to make his 8th-level cleric get 4 iterative attacks due to +16 Base Attack Bonus (For those interested, he didn't have to try very hard, just cast Divine Power and use this feat). Probably irrelevantly to the discussion of current Dragon, I do still use the Random Art Object Generator from an old issue (can't remember the number, but the theme was "The Dark") to springboard ideas whenever I'm confronted with a dragon hoard filled with 2d10 art objects. As far as the newer format goes, the Campaign Components articles (Knights, Swashbucklers, Gladiators) have all been interesting, and I have referenced some of them extensively when my campaigns begin to fall into these tropes. More articles like those would make me happy, and even without my favourite articles, there's still usually something fluffy that I can use, or that at least sparks my imagination to come up with something else, and for the relatively low cost of subscribing, its usually worth it. That said, if the articles stolen by Dungeon, or similar sorts of articles, came back to Dragon, I would be happy. In fact, as far as the player/DM distinction goes, I think it is beneficial for players to read articles like Dungeoncraft in order to better understand the way DMing works (and maybe become a DM herself one day; as it stands, she would need to be actively subscribing to Dungeon for this).

Just my two cents.

 

[Presto2112]

Part of it also means realizing that a lot of the readers have _not_ been around that long. Repeating topics covered in earlier issues isn't so good when it's been done in recent memory, but just because Katherine Kerr wrote an excellent article about an army traveling on its stomach in the 1980s doesn't immediately take articles about army maintenance off the editorial agenda forevermore.

An excellent point. I personally had only started buying Dragon shortly before 3E came out (in fact, I'd been away from the game for about 8 years and had no idea 3E was even being created, so thank you, dragon, for letting me in on that), and I missed out on a great deal. I think I would absolutely LOVE to see articles from past magazines (10 years old or older) recycled and given a 3.5 refit. One article in particular I'm thinking about is one from a magazine (issue #81, IIRC) with a description of the gems that are typically found in treasure piles, and some smattering of possible uses. I'd like to see that revisited, with perhaps some information on some crystals modern new age applications, and that kind of thing translated into d20 rules.

Just a thought.

 

[Presto2112]

I refuse to allow Dragon material in my game. It is largely unplaytested and I have never seen it do anything but cause trouble.

I'm hoping Erik can lend some credence to this claim, which I've seen numerous times. "Rules, feats, spells, etc, introduced in Dragon are not playtested." I've not yet seen anyone from Dragon actually say this. Perhaps if it is indeed true, it's something that can be remedied by Paizo in the future, but if it is a false accusation, I would like to see Erik or someone else from Dragon or Paizo refute it.

 

[DungeonMaster]

I was an avid reader of Dragon through 2nd edition. I find the dragon compendium CD one of the most useful tools at my disposal for campaign design.
I bought dragon frequently when 3rd edition came out and it was by and large worth it. However 3.5 changed that and while there were a number of articles relating to the glowing amazingness of 3.5 I really couldn't help but feel that all the horribly stupid things introduced into the game were being sidelined (darkness spells that create light in dark rooms among others). It felt a too biased. I know the 2e to 3e change was similar but the reasons were much more clear cut and well, reasonable.
3.5 basically killed dragon for me but making Andy Collins of all people the "sage" was the dagger in the back.

If it continues as is I'll wait and see how 4th edition turns out. If we get the same mess as the 3.5 PHB and a torrent of feat/oxymoron-class/noflavor-spell then I'm out for good. 3rd edition started off on a "mechanics heavy" footing, which was a refreshing start. In the final analysis however the mechanics heavy approach has been proven to be even less balanced than a fluff heavy approach. A recent tally by Talchar has 387 feats, 141 prestige classes, 23 primary classes and just over a 1000 spells in not even all 3.5 WotC supplements. (Yep you're 7 times more likely to meet a "prestigious" class than a "plain class". Anyhow...). A new abomination shows itself every month as the "sturdy" mechanics approach devolves to billions of damage, trillions of charisma and so fort as these options are combined in legitimate ways.

What I would like to see with Dragon, and more specifically with D&D is a return to the flavor text, the "fluff" as the proponents of "clunk er... crunch" have called it. If Dragon is going to set itself apart from Dungeon and from the plethora of other products it's by quality flavor - which is still there, only overshadowed by the oppressive presence of ill conceived rules.

 

[Shade]

You see why I think it's an inherent problem now. I think a real player-oriented book/magazine would be light on the feats and prestige class and such, but give lots of clever ideas on how to use the existing rules to do a variety of things. Also to give tips on in-game strategies.

I think the Character Class articles on the Wizard's site is an example of a player-oriented article. Most of them are kind of basic, but I think each one is better than the last. And most of the character articles (I forget their name at the moment) in Dragon magazine.

If Dragon were to become a player-oriented magazine, I'd drop my subscription tomorrow. As an experienced DM and player, I have no use for articles such as these. I can tolerate their inclusion for novice players, but if this becomes the dominant theme, the magazine becomes useless to me.

The last issue of Dragon was one of the best in years. The Pazuzu article is exactly what I want to see in Dragon. I'm really looking forward to the Far Realm article in this month's issue.

 

[Mercule]

??? ???

The only time OGC is relevant to gamer is when you're going into publishing and distribution business. The "sharing" of information have been going on since before OGL ever come into being, and I'm not talking the Napster definition. I've done my fair share of xeroxing relevant player's material for my group. While I admire the respectfulness of the OGL, this is going beyond cautious.

If I was just photocopying, I wouldn't worry about it. I use my web site to redistribute content to my players. OGC means I don't have to worry about how tight the security is, in terms of who views it. It also means that I can readily toss out my url to anyone on these boards or elsewhere who might want to see what clevel little changes I've made (Artifacer and Spirit Shaman with spell points, Swashbuckler with class armor bonus ala WoT, etc.).

 

[Desdichado]

The upcoming issue (330) covers one of my all-time favorite topics: the Far Realms. I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely, and hopefully the same will be true of the issues that follow. But I'd value non-Far Realms issues more if they gave me something I couldn't get anywhere else.

Now, that's a Dragon issue I'll be picking up. I didn't know that. Of course, I haven't read my 329 yet either...

Although I had to admit feeling a bit "baited and switched" with 329. The cover showed an Eberron medusa hottie turning people to stone and all that, then mentioned some kind of Eberron content. Granted, I haven't really read the issue yet, but I did flip through it and I can't find any Eberron content. Am I simply missing it? Which article is it?

I agree (apparently with Erik, yeah!) that things like Eberron (and FR, and Greyhawk, etc.) official support is a strength of Dragon (and Dungeon) that no other source can provide, so if that's stepped up, my interest in the magazine will probably increase as well. I also agree that new rules don't do it for me anymore, and haven't for some time. Another thing that Dragon could do is have a recurring series that works like little mini-source books. A campaign resource write-up of Cauldron, for instance, spread over a few issues, would be really interesting to me, especially if some steps were taken to make it better suited to fit into any setting ala Bluffside.

As an example.

 

[wocky]

Even with all existing sources for crunch, and OGC, I would go to Dragon for new rules, PrC, feats, etc. if only because they have more direct access to WotC authors and materials and have a little bit more credibility balance-wise in my book. I also love whenever they publish fluff and articles with background material to incorporate in campaigns.

But the new Dragon... is simply too dumb.

I don't ask for big changes, just longer articles and assuming a bit more of the readership.

 

[devilish]

One of the best differentiators/uses of Dragon/Dungeon I saw
was the Githyanki invasion issues. Dragon had the history/classes/stats
while Dungeon had the actual adventure about going against the Lich
Queen and how, in the Polyhedron section, to create a campaign from the
Githyanki perspective.

I'm not saying that there should be a "Beholder" issue, "Mind Flayer" issue.

But I think the split (Dragon/Player and Dungeon/DM) made them 2 very
good issues. As someone mentioned, maybe a Greyhawk or Eberron
double-issue : a traveller guide/prestige classes/local flavor in the Dragon
issue and an adventure/campaign planner/hidden history in the Dungeon
issue. Or continue with the Demon/Devil/Daemon articles and history in
Dragon while having a Hell-Abyss based adventure in Dungeon.

PS:
Thread about Dungeon/Dragon grow incredibly around here. Lots of
strong opinions.

 

[der_kluge]

I shall use my Google Foo (though Nov. 2004 stats are the latest I could find - look at the numbers in RED on the chart):

http://www.internetworldstats.com/america.htm#us

I think the word you're looking for is "google fu". As in "Kung Fu". Foo is something completely different.