Is Dragon Magazine even *Relevant* anymore?

[Jdvn1]

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.

Well, I didn't say that I wanted Dragon to change. As I said earlier, I like Dragon. I like the fact that it helps me in world-building. It's just against the cliche I mentioned earlier. "Dungeon is for adventures. Dragon is for everything else." would be more appropriate.

 

[kolvar]

Funny thing is, that I felt the same as Seel_Wind, but would not have articulated it this way.
When i began rping, Dragon was the montly event (because it was hard to get where I lived and had so much stuff in it). But now, here are so many other resources, that the only thing left are the comics. And somehow, I miss Wormy and Snarfquest.

 

[Belen]

This is a very, very rigorous process. Both Paizo and Wizards of the Coast put a lot of value in the "100% Official Dungeons & Dragons" label on our cover. Sometimes we'll miss something, but it's got to get through at least four trained professionals before that happens, and it's also got to get past the rigorous screen of WotC.

I think this may be part of the problem. I have seen a few instances where rules that were playtested when submitted were changed in order to to fit the expectations of the professionals. That really tends to give Dragon rules the cookie cutter feel that seems to have turned off a lot of people.

Many times, I think the measure of a good rule is how it fits outside the box rather than being forced into set mold.

For Dragon to be successful the material should showcase the wide range and depth of the game. Dragon should not be about uniformity of the game, but seek to expand it into new areas.

So it seems that Dragon follows the template rather than playtest format. I guess that is one way to do it, but that may account for some of the "Dragon is dry and crunchy" comments.

I do think it is getting better, but I still would not allow the rules from it. Even if they were great, there are still more rules than you could ever use in the official hardback books.

Dave

 

[Erik Mona]

So it seems that Dragon follows the template rather than playtest format. I guess that is one way to do it, but that may account for some of the "Dragon is dry and crunchy" comments.

And here I thought it was because the magazine printed mostly prestige classes, spells, feats, and magic items for the better part of three years in a row.

YMMV.

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

 

[Jdvn1]

Well, you can have fluffy prestige classes, spells, feats, and magic items. Look at the Races books. Look at the environmental books. It's how you handle those things, I think, is what makes the difference.

 

[rowport]

The Good Stuff

Erik-

As always, thanks for participating in the thread. Somehow, you keep your cool and answer the (frequently inane) questions and complaints even when the very *subject header* is a bash to your product (btw, is any pop-culture entertainment medium really *Relevant* anymore, Steel Wind? LOL).

I completely disagree with Steel Wind. And, since I *buy* your product, and he does *not*, I hope that my opinion carries more weight with you. I do like Dragon- love it, in fact. The changes to Dungeon were welcome improvements, and I look forward to your efforts to focus on Dragon. In the hopes that the baby will not go out with the bathwater, I thought I would counter all the negativity on this thread with what I *like* about Dragon (and hope will stay in it) using #329 as my baseline:

The Legacy of Beowulf: This is great, great, great. I love the idea of using mythos not yet widely explored in D&D. I like the idea that you could pull out pieces to use- even just Beowulf for a Fighter character. This might be a trend with the Lovecraft material before it- I hope that continues. Good stuff.

The Petit Tarrasque: This is an interesting concept, although I think the article would benefit from tighter editing- it dragged on rather long. I am not sure this is really directly useful for gaming, but that is OK with me, I am still interested in reading it. (I felt the same way about the samurai versus knight article- it was just fun to read. I liked that one more than this one, though.)

Mesopotamian Mythos: This is great. Dieties do not need statblocks IMO (no offense intended, Erik...).

Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Pazuzu: This is pretty interesting by itself, although I think a series of demons and/or devils would get old, just like any subject done too much. Instead, a more general focus on organizations- cults, religions, thieves guilds, etc. might have broader appeal. Still, I liked it.

The Ecology of the Kenku: These articles are really fun. I like the in-depth coverage of different creatures. Complimenting the other articles in the issue with related races is a useful trick to make the whole better; I think I really liked the Incursion and Gladiator issues of two years back for that reason.

A Novel Approach: Eberron’s Marked for Death: Blah.

Class Acts: These articles are wonderful. I love the ideas, and have used several with real and direct impact on my characters. I am not an 'intuitive' rules guy, so the suggestions here help me avoid boner mistakes. Showing people how to use (not abuse) the rules without creating new ones is a really great idea. (As an aside, I enjoy Skip Williams' Rules of the Game article series for the same reason.)

Bazaar of the Bizarre: Whatever you call these articles, I like them.

Under Command: I have no strong opinion on these. I do not play the D&D minis game, but can see how they are an important product to cover.

Silicon Sorcery: Some of these are good, some bad. The #329 one was weak.

First Watch: I like these. I buy game stuff like mad.

Scale Mail: Well, what can you say about a letters column?

Sage Advice: This is useful to me. I think that Skip Williams gets too much flak here on-line (much like Paizo, now that I think about it...)

Comics: The Dragon comics are great. The Dungeon comics are the ones that need serious work (except for Tony M.'s.)

Crunch/Fluff Ratio: From your comments here and in your editorials I think that you feel the ratio of crunch to fluff needs to swing to fluff. I cannot disagree with that, as reading fluff is generally more entertaining than reading crunch, at least to me. But, I honestly feel that is is pretty balanced right now, and has been roughly since the 'relaunch' last year. Maybe 50/50 is too much, but I would hate to see it become, say, 25/75 OR 75/25- too much of either is not the right approach.

I will cross-post this on the Paizo boards as well. I hope that it is helpful.

 

[Mercule]

The original Barbarian was also in Dragon, another class with "balance issues".

One thing about 1E/2E balance is that a lot of DMs would say, "Everyone make up a 6th level character." With different XP tables for each class, there's a gaping chasm between that and "Everyone make a character with 40,000 XP." The latter will get you an 8th level thief and a 4th level barbarian (IDHTBIFOM, so deal with estimates), which is considerably more balanced than a 6th level barbarian and a 6th level thief.

That isn't too say there aren't still balance issues, just pointing out a common error that exasperates things.

 

[Mercule]

Erik-

As always, thanks for participating in the thread.

Um, yeah. Let me second that sentiment. Especially as one of the people telling you that I'm not buying your magazine (I do buy Dungeon, though -- every month, and I'd love to be able to justify buying Dragon), it's unbelievably cool that you'd take the time to not just read, but actually respond to threads like this.

 

[Erik Mona]

Mesopotamian Mythos: This is great. Dieties do not need statblocks IMO (no offense intended, Erik...).

Bah. I hate stat blocks for deities. No time of my professional life was more wasted than the several hours I put into the stat blocks for Faths & Pantheons. I'd be surprised if more than 100 people on Earth got use out of those things, but it took up 80% of the my time to design them. Ug.

Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Pazuzu: This is pretty interesting by itself, although I think a series of demons and/or devils would get old, just like any subject done too much. Instead, a more general focus on organizations- cults, religions, thieves guilds, etc. might have broader appeal. Still, I liked it.

Just to be clear, the Demonomicon will appear irregularly. Expect maybe four or five of them a year, at the most. The other months will have other interesting articles, including some along the lines you suggest.

Comics: The Dragon comics are great. The Dungeon comics are the ones that need serious work (except for Tony M.'s.)

Kyle Hunter's "Downer" enters a new phase with issue #123. For the forseeable future, the strip will focus on self-contained 2-page stories, which ought to make it easier for people to follow. The first one is really, really good.

Crunch/Fluff Ratio: From your comments here and in your editorials I think that you feel the ratio of crunch to fluff needs to swing to fluff. I cannot disagree with that, as reading fluff is generally more entertaining than reading crunch, at least to me. But, I honestly feel that is is pretty balanced right now, and has been roughly since the 'relaunch' last year. Maybe 50/50 is too much, but I would hate to see it become, say, 25/75 OR 75/25- too much of either is not the right approach.

I wouldn't put a percentage on it. The rules need evocative, interesting text or they're just numbers. I want to publish ideas, not simply numbers. I think the Pazuzu article gets it just about perfect.

I will cross-post this on the Paizo boards as well. I hope that it is helpful.

Very helpful. I appreciate the thoughtful commentary.

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

 

[Vanye]

One thing that I would find useful would be NPC adventurers. One or two a month would be extremely useful. Most useful level ranges would probably be between 4-10th; before that point most DM's probably have 10-15 minutes to whip up the NPC, after that point, and NPC's should really be custom tailored to the DM's campaign.

Oh, arguments can be/have been made that even mid levelled NPC's should be done by the DM, but sometimes that random encounter ends up being "NPC adventuring party."....and I don't have one handy.

However, I'd prefer to see ones that actually use the rules, rather than novels-based characters (which, while interesting, often make up/bend the rules quite a bit to do what they do in novels...)