Should Dungeon and Polyheadron be in the same magazine

[billd91]

I started out skeptical of much of the Polyhedron content. I have little or no interest in the mini-games. But the Living Greyhawk, Star Wars, and d20 Modern have been very nice to have since Dragon is no longer a general game magazine.
I get kind of irritated whenver this thread comes back up, actually, since I think the Poly part of Dungeon has become less annoying than it had been when it first grafted onto Dungeon.
Would I like to see more adventures each issue? Sure, but with Poly coming out with Living Greyhawk materials like the Hardby article, I'm pretty happy.

 

[cildarith]

Poly is a PoS. a waste of good trees. a very poor representation of what was once a decent periodical.

Exactly!

Down with Poly. Or do something (anything) to make it better.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Ah, here we go again.

As I recall, when Paizo took over, the option was thus - fold the magazines together or lose them both. They intimated that neither had the readership necessary to sustain printing costs, even at the bimonthly level. Now, if you're a conspiracy theorist, you could say they lied about that. However, they have no reason to lie, because the logical business move is to dump both magazines because they're not making money. Instead they worked to try and keep them both afloat.

As for the rise in printing costs after they said they wouldn't, you know what that says to me? The magazine was still not doing well enough to sustain it's publication. Again, instead of doing the logical thing and just dumping the magazine, they took the necessary steps to keep it afloat, with full knowledge they would upset a percentage, possibly a significant percentage, of their readers.

Finally, let's all keep one very important fact in mind. If you're a member of this community, you are in the minority of role-players out there. Despite what we might like to think, there are more people that don't know about ENWorld than there are people that do. Just visiting this site, let alone being an active member of the community, indicates a level of dedication to the game above and beyond the norm. What this means to me is that we're all more likely to be spending money on stuff like Dungeon/Polyhedron and other peripherals. We're the minority though. Most people are not spending money on D/P in the first place.

Whether you like the magazine or not, Paizo has worked hard to keep Dungeon and Polyhedron alive. Bashing them for the actions they had to take to keep both magazines alive is just petty and short-sighted. If you really want to be constructive and help, get out your pen and paper and write down all the things you think could improve the magazine. Send it to them. No e-mail. Physical snail mail. Then go and pick up the magazine next time you see it on the stands. After all, cancelling your subscription is only furthering the demise of both magazines.

 

[billd91]

Ah, here we go again.

<snip>

Whether you like the magazine or not, Paizo has worked hard to keep Dungeon and Polyhedron alive. Bashing them for the actions they had to take to keep both magazines alive is just petty and short-sighted. If you really want to be constructive and help, get out your pen and paper and write down all the things you think could improve the magazine. Send it to them. No e-mail. Physical snail mail. Then go and pick up the magazine next time you see it on the stands. After all, cancelling your subscription is only furthering the demise of both magazines.

And to Paizo's credit, they have listened to a lot of feedback and have adjusted the magazine to try to improve things as a result. I suppose that would explain why this thread comes up less frequently than it did.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Theoretical Gamer

Yes, I have used material out of all the Polyhedrons. I like making my own minigames and the Polys tell me how to stretch and change the game to create games of my own. I am not one of the vast legion of people who believe the core books are holy writ (or blasphemous tomes) and must be played straight from the book (even if you hate a ruling). I have ran my own version of Dragonstar (making more use of the Star Wars rules than the official version uses), an Illithid campaign using Modern d20, I have made a Trinity d20 version (before an official one was announced), rewrote Pulp to make it more interesting to me and my players (without resorting to using the Modern d20 version), wrote up a different version of Blood on the Rhine using V is for Victory (and the arcane prestige classes from Modern d20), wrote a Transcthulhu Space game using the material from Mecha Crusade, Gamma World, Deathnet, and Genetech, I have used some of the ships from Starships of the Galaxy for Dragonstar, I have set the Incursion in the Forgotten Realms for my epic game, I have ran the PX Poker Night game for my CoCd20 game. So yes, Polyhedron is worth my money.

Dungeon not so much, I haven't really used it all. That might change since I am going to modify the adventure path material for my Mindshadow campaign. Since I am too lazy to write my own adventures, I will see how they are written. Usually when I do run from a module I run extemperaneously, making notes on how the module will change. I rarely run canned adventures, but I have had some good games by breaking published adventures, so we shall see how this goes. Maybe I will get some of my money back from paying so much for Dungeon.

BTW, the Freeport adventure bugged me to no end, because it was a D&D adventure in my Poly (and don't try telling me its just a d20 adventure, I know it would require lots of work to be used with a Pulp, Star Wars, or Modern d20 game), it should have been on the Dungeon side.

 

[BryonD]

Ah, here we go again.

and again......

The rebuttals to the party line are also well documented.

After all, cancelling your subscription is only furthering the demise of both magazines.

The product I once liked is already gone. It is not possible to further its demise.

 

[Ranger REG]

This is probably the most inaccurate statement I've read at EN World in the past month. I can buy that you personally feel this -- but I find it actually embarrassing to hear you state it as a supposed fact.

Unfortunately, I kinda expected that from diaglo.

Yeah, we've clashed before over it.

The only difference between us is, I've tolerated Dungeon for the sole purpose of reading Poly. He (or she?) can't.

 

[RFisher]

If you really want to be constructive and help, get out your pen and paper and write down all the things you think could improve the magazine. Send it to them. No e-mail. Physical snail mail. Then go and pick up the magazine next time you see it on the stands. After all, cancelling your subscription is only furthering the demise of both magazines.

I have. Whenever I have had a subscription to Dragon or Dungeon, I've always written in with my suggestions about how to make the magazines better. (Once email was available, I used it in addition to snail mail. You seldom know for sure which is more effective, so best to use both.) When they didn't make enough of the changes I suggested, I let my subscription lapse. (Why throw good money after bad?) Over the years, I've been through this cycle with those magazines at least 5 times.

No complaints, though. I know I'm not their only customer. If they choose lots of other people's money over my measley contribution, no biggie. Smart move on their part.

Someone comes to an online forum and asks for opinions, I have not qualms about voicing mine.

Oh, and BTW, I give people the benefit of the doubt & assume they're telling the truth. When their statements seem counter to reason, I question those statements. When I don't get a substantive response to my questioning, then I assume they aren't being entirely truthful.

 

[diaglo]

Unfortunately, I kinda expected that from diaglo.

Yeah, we've clashed before over it.

The only difference between us is, I've tolerated Dungeon for the sole purpose of reading Poly. He (or she?) can't.

Hiya Ranger REG

yeah, you can ask RR about this....we have done this when WotC owned it, when they had their own forum on the WotC site, when they split and removed the magazines from the WotC site, when...etc...

this is an old one. and my answer has remained the same. Poly was good when it was first produced. i lost interest and stopped using it when it started to drift/shift focus.

i became very upset when they merged it with Dungeon. i still am.

 

[Stormborn]

I've tolerated Dungeon for the sole purpose of reading Poly.

While not orignally the case, this pretty much sums up my opinion as well. I love the d20 stuff in Poly, could take or leave Dungeon.