[Poly] What's happening to Polyhedron/Dungeon?

[Macbeth]

In Issue 102 of Dungeon the letters collum seems to say that they are going to make some changes to the Dungeon/Polyhedron format. In this thread Erik Mona mentions that Poly and Dungeon will now be printed in the same orientation (all pages are right side up). Are they making any more changes? Will Poly still have Minigames? I seem to recall from somewhere else in these forums that it was mentioned Poly would only have 4 mingames a year now. Is this true? Any reliable information would be much appreciated.

 

[Erik Mona]

Here's a brief list of what's changing. For reasons behind the changes, check out the last six months of letter columns and posts to this site, essentially.

1. Four Mini-Games per year. This allows us the opportunity to spend more pages supporting previously published Mini-Games as well as other stuff like Star Wars, the RPGA, d20 Modern, etc.

2. Poly now in back. The "flipped" format caused more trouble than it was worth. Trust me on this one. The Poly cover will still appear in the interior of the magazine, and all pages will face the right side up.

3. I'm killing the subscriber section. You heard it here first. Many, many, many readers complained that this section unfairly harmed retailers, and the idea seemed to annoy more people than it pleased. Again, this simplifies things. Determining what's in this month's Dungeon shouldn't be a math problem.

4. More than 2 adventures per issue. This won't always be possible on Mini-Game months or in months with an Adventure Path adventure (which happen to be long). We'll never do another issue with just one adventure.

5. The Dungeon/Poly split will no longer be absolute, and instead will depend upon the material we've got on hand. With the rare exception of a Mini-Game that simply won't work in less than 40 pages, the Dungeon side will always be larger than the Poly side. That's not to say the Poly side is going to shrink to oblivion--we're just going to keep it smaller than the other side of the magazine.

6. New Associate Editor. We've hired James Jacobs (Flood Season) as our new associate editor to help with submissions and rules. The two of us (with Art Director Sean Glenn) are now in charge of the whole shebang, and all of us are working on all the magazine, instead of splitting editorial duties in half.

7. I'm strongly considering making the format of David Noonan's "Zenith Trajectory" (102) the official format for all Dungeon adventures. It's certainly going to be the standard for the Adventure Path.

There will probably be others, but those are the most important ones off the top of my head.

--Erik

 

[Davelozzi]

sounds good

You guys are doing a good job trying to please everyone as best you can, even though everyone seems to want something different out of the mag. These sound like smart changes. I hope it works out for you.

 

[Macbeth]

First of all, let me thank Erik Mona for his response. It is great to see a response directly from the editor, and it is good to know that this information is reliable.

Also, let me say that I think that these are exactly the changes that are needed. I agree with all of them (except the reduced number of minigames, but the support for passed minigames makes up for it) and hope that this will help make Dungeon/Polyhedron even more succesful.

I have submitted this as a news scoop since I believe many people will want to know about the future of Dungeon/Polyhedron.

 

[Perithoth]

Erik,

What about the Living Greyhawk Journal? Has that finally bit the dust? We have gone so long without it that it seems just a dream...

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Perithoth
Lord of Grumpiness

 

[d20Dwarf]

Sounds like I'm going to be a lot happier plunking down my $7 each month, these changes address almost every problem I've had with the last year of issues.

Thanks a lot, Erik! You've righted the ship in my eyes.

 

[rowport]

Erik-

Thanks for the update! I was one of the "more-Poly" guys, so I am less enthusiastic than others here might be about the changes, but certainly understand that you are responding to yoru buying public. I do support several of your changes, most notably supporting past mini-games as well as new ones. (A more direct translation of Edgar Rice Burroghs' John Carter books and/or Flash Gordon comes to mind, if it is all in public domain, for instance...)

I love the work you guys have done, and always enjoy reading the magazine.

-Tom Lynch
Chicago

 

[Ketjak]

Perithoth

Erik,

What about the Living Greyhawk Journal? Has that finally bit the dust? We have gone so long without it that it seems just a dream...

Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Perithoth
Lord of Grumpiness

Saracen, I can't PM you. Good to see you around.

- Skippy/Phil

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Good on ya Erik,

I'm in favor of all your proposed changes, with the possible exception of number 7 - But only beacuse I have not read that yet.


Bravo!

 

[Henrix]

All in all very good changes.

The last few issues have seemed a bit thin on adventures, so I am particularily happy to see that you'll try to fit at least two adventures in each issue.

The 'subscriber section' was annoying, so good riddance!

The quick reference format in Zenith trajectory was nice, a little extra work done to simplify things for the DM! Make it standard.

The Dungeon/Poly split and flip was bound to be a temporary thing, and it's time it ended.

Now, if you could just get rid of the boring semi-core book layout