Erik,
I've got some complaints and some suggestions about the Dungeon/Poly magazine.
First of all, I used to LOVE the minigames. I didn't used to buy dragon, and I didn't buy Dungeon for the dungeons; I bought only for the mingame. I'd flip through the dungeons, but it was the minigame I was interested in.
But I've got to tell you: I now pretty much hate the minigames. Look, there just aren't too many more genres you can cover. I think the Iron Lords of Jupiter -- a John Carter take-off, right? -- is an awfully narrow piece of the sci-fi real estate. And a customer is either interested or he's not. Me? I'm not. And I haven't been keen on the past year's worth of minigames.
The other problem with the minigames is that they get sooooooooooo repetitive. There are only so many times you can feature the Strong Guy, Sneaky Guy, and Magic/Tech Guy character templates in differing genres before they begin to run together.
And every time you run a minigame, you focus on these repetitive game-mechanical concerns, where you pretty much just rewrite the PH but with a twist. That leaves almost NO SPACE for what should be the meat of the game-- information about the setting, plot hooks, maybe a mini-adventure to get everyone started in. In other words, you're spending too much page space on new PH clones and never giving us the DMG for your games, or a module for your new games.
If you're going to continue the minigame thing at all, I suggest the following:
1) Do fewer minigames than you've even planned.
2) Don't do two minigames. Do one well-detailed minigame, with both PH and DMG, spread over two issues. Use the remainder of the space for Dungeon or non-miinigame Polyhedron content.
Finally, here's my BIGGEST BEST SUGGESTION OF ALL, and it won't even hurt all that much, because you're already doing it. You've probably already figured this out, but I'll say it anyway for reinforcement:
Since you have a natural conflict between Dungeon-desirerers and minigame seekers, attempt to publish more "games" that actually satisfy both. The Spelljammer and Githyanki "games" were great examples of this-- they're not so much different games as more specific games within the D&D context; they can serve as both "minigames" or splatbooks for a specific area of D&D play.
The posssibilities in this area are quite expansive.
1) You could do an Astral Plane minigame like the old Fedifensor game from the old Dragon. Give us special rules for running this "minigame" on the Astral Plane. Bang, it's both a minigame and a splatbook on the Astral Plane.
2) Do a Mermen versus Sahuagin minigame where you give us not only lots of detail on Merfolk and Sahaugin culture, but you give us a splatbook on aquatic travel and combat.
3) Do a Knights of the High Kingdom minigame premised on knights who ride aerial mounts. The game could nominally concern tournament rules or whatnot, but it would obviously be a great D&D splatbook for aerial combat.
4) Do a Harry Potteresque Wizards Acadamy minigame. Nominally, it's a game about advancing yourself and training and defeating schoolyard rivals as a teenaged mage in a big city of the world. But it also serves as a splatbook for magical academies.
5) Your gladiator cross-over issues would have made a great minigame, too.
One more thing: Why not present more D&D-compatible games in which players <i>compete against each other</i>? For example, why not present a minigame which is a bit like Steve Jackson's Frag game? In other words, sort of a Dungeon-boardgame and D&D hybrid, where the players don't role-play or compete, but merely move around the board (using almost all normal D&D rules) collecting Atomic Fragmenters and killing each other?
Etc.
And yes, occasionally do a minigame that isn't D&D, but only when it's a genuinely good idea. I'm sorry, I just don't consider the Iron Lords of Jupiter a good idea; and while the V for Victory is a good basic concept for a WWII game, I need more than a few character classes to have a real game. Do you really need to reprint the skills and feat sections of the Player's Handbook with every game?
.........................................................
Anyway, I just thought you should know all this. I'm one of the guys who really liked the minigames at first, but now I am sick to death of them. So you can't just dismiss me as someone who's always hated the minigames. I used to buy the mag for nothing but the minigame.
But at this point, I just would rather have more dungeons, or more game variant material, or more... whatever. Anything besides yet another minigame in which I'm told that the Stealthy feat gives me +2 to Hide and +2 to Move Silently.
Unless.
Unless it's something REALLY frigging cool. Or just a really dumb-fun beer and pretzles d20 game, like a Pro Wrestling game using D&D rules.
But if it's just going to be the nth iteration of the Players Handbook, this time set on, I don't know, Planet Mongo, then please, let's just have a dungeon.
