Must every issue of Dragon have an overbearing theme?

[Ravellion]

So, I missed the Epic issue due to Dragon not shipping to Continental Europe on a regualr basis. Ever since Hasbro has taken over WotC, I am getting Froigged. The psionics issue came two months before I could buy the Psionics Handbook. There is no ELH here, but that doesn't matter, because the biggest gaming store in Amsterdam only got 4 dragon magazines (they used to get 20), because Europe just gets what's left from the US since a month or two ago. Thankfully, you yanks weren't too happy with this months Dungeon, there were 18 of those.

I hate Peter Adkison for selling to Hasbro, while I loved him for building an office in Belgium. Now I feel like I, as a Hasbro customer who is not from the US, am just an added bonus, instead of a full customer. Peter Adkison said that if you want to play a market, you had to be there. Hasbro has moved all things to the UK, and even the UK is getting delays. Dragon 293 never showed up in Europe at all. There goes your uninterrupted collection.

The only improvement I would like in Dragon is it showing up in Europe, or Continental European subscriptions being the same cost as buying it in the store. (now it is about 150% as expensive... I pay 7,5 Euros for a mag here, which is currently about 7,2 dollars... if I subscribed...well, you do the math.)

I don't even know the themes of Dargon 293, 295 and 297.

Rav, Angry customer

 

[Storm Raven]

A theme is overbearing when there is a complete lack of non-theme content. And the Silcon Sorcery & Chainmail stuff doesn't count.

They don't count why? They still have content, and much of it can be used or converted over to usable material for a game session.

They Greyhawk stuff is hit and miss, some is great some is blah.

You have just described every article ever printed in Dragon. Some things are good, some are not so good. This is not a new phenomenon. And what is good or not so good is entirely subjective for the most part, so there is no real way to sort this except on a purely personal basis.

The grand old days of Dragon where you could find a wide varitey of topics were so much better.

I disagree. Having a shotgun approach made each individual issue likely to be less useful, given that there was likely to be a mish mash of stuff in each. Some useful, some not, and difficult to find exactly what article you are looking for to boot. Now, if I want to reference something from a particular subject, I can usually find it without too much trouble by paying attention to the theme it fits.

 

[Desdichado]

Flexor the Mighty!:
A theme is overbearing when there is a complete lack of non-theme content. And the Silcon Sorcery & Chainmail stuff doesn't count. They Greyhawk stuff is hit and miss, some is great some is blah. The grand old days of Dragon where you could find a wide varitey of topics were so much better.

There is never a complete lack of non-theme content, although I'd agree that the latest issue has reduced it to a bare mininum. But now you're not complaining so much about the theme as you are about the quality of the non-theme content. Perhaps you believe that if there were more non-theme content that the quality of it would be better? I don't see how. Instead the themes would be spread over several issues (as would the non-theme articles) and except for that fact that themed issues would conveniently group articles on related topics together, you'd have a lot harder time finding anything.

 

[Zaukrie]

Since Jesse asked, the title of a post elsewhere reminded of something I'd like to see come back: Giants of the Land (that may not be exact title). I miss seeing heroes....from none-WOTC books.