Should Dungeon and Polyheadron be in the same magazine

Wasgo · Apr 8, 2004

I personally have no use for Dungeon (though I'm sure it's good material), but I buy it anyway because of Polyhedron. While I'd like Poly to be in it's own magazine, I don't really see that as likely, so I'm happy to buy them both together. Besides, I tend to take a box cutter to the magazine and put the stuff I'll use in a binder anyway, so it's not like the stuff I won't use affects me that much.

Ranger REG · Apr 9, 2004

I prefer Poly over Dungeon.

Now, ideally, I prefer that they be separated, so that my money will not continue to fund Dungeon, but even I know that both magazines cannot survived individually.

Lately, they've been reducing page count on the Poly side which now forces me to conservatively buy less than 12 issues per years. If Poly contains a mini-game or an article that might be of GREAT INTEREST and USE, I will pick it up. So I could safely say I'll buy at least 4 issues a year (only 4 mini-games are published every year).

RFisher · Apr 9, 2004

No, I don't think the combined Dungeon/Polyhedron makes one bit of sense.

(1) If you can afford to print a combined Dungeon/Polyhedron monthly, you can afford to publish a bimonthly Dungeon & a bimonthly Polyhedron. Or...one of them is being unfairly subsidized by the other.

(2) Polyhedron's content does not fit with Dungeon. It fits better with Dragon.

Ranger REG · Apr 9, 2004

RE: #1
They pushed from bimonthly circulation to monthly circulation to increase sale and hopefully readership. To go back would decrease the sale, especially if the split revenue may not support both magazines individually.

RE: #2
While I agree with your first sentence, there are Dragon readers that would feel strongly against Poly being part of the magazine ... although there was a time long ago when Dragon hosted a section for sci-fi gaming called ARES (see Dragon Magazine Archive CD-ROM) but it was short-lived because Dragon readers prefer only D&D supported material.

Also, let's face it, Dragon readership dwarfs Dungeon readership, thus they have much a stronger sale.

James Heard · Apr 9, 2004

I just wish Paizo would start bundling everything in every year or so hardbounds or at least cardstock cover bound. While it's really nice to have both of them at my fingertips, it might be nicer to have the adventure path series all together (perhaps with bonus material) or some of the Poly games bundled as "Mega Magazine Adaptations" or something - maybe with the stuff from Dragon in there too. If it were well presented I'd be willing to buy stuff twice, and I'm not sure that I'm a complete minority?

Ranger REG · Apr 9, 2004

Heh. And how much are you willing to pay for such bundled product?

Vocenoctum · Apr 9, 2004

I prefer them togethor. I find that neither has enough material to hold my interest totally by itself. I'm actually tired of seeing the "all dungeon" letters that are driving Dungeon to more adventures. Granted I don't want too many large adventures, but the Polyhedron material is important to me.

I personally loved Ares section, but that was all for TSR games also.

milotha · Apr 9, 2004

I'm not a big fan of it. I prefer the Dungeon side and don't have much use for the Poly side. But then again, I don't like the new glossy layout either. It's less functional for writing on and harder to read.

James Heard · Apr 9, 2004

Ranger REG said:
Heh. And how much are you willing to pay for such bundled product?

Probably 20 or 30 dollars, if it has a comparable page count to other products. If it were really massive I might go up to 40.

kamosa · Apr 9, 2004

I didn't like that they said it wouldn't raise prices

I didn't like it because they said it wouldn't raise prices and then a little while later raised prices because of increase printing costs. I dropped my subscription almost immediatly. I liked dungeon better when it wasn't glossy as well. It may look better, but it was more functional when you could write on the pages in pencil. I don't tend to show the players much of the magazine, so the color art and backgrounds only server to drive up the price and make it harder to read and use.

I also feel that the types of adventures they publish have gone away from what they did so well in the 80's and early 90's. It used to be that you could find small adventures that would fit into almost any type of campaign world. Now the adventures all seem very dark and epic. That's fine if that's your style, but if not, it is much harder to use the module. I also felt that the quality control of the modules has gone way down in the last 5 or so years. I don't get the feeling that the modules now are always written by experienced GM's. The plots involve more railroading and less player involvement than they used too.

It used to be that we would eventually play around 75% of the modules in any given issue. The last couple years I felt lucky to pluck one module out and use it. Instead of being a GM aid, it became more just an excuse to get money from me for marketing their games to me. I tried to give the new guys a chance, but it just wasn't worth the money, so I dropped my subscription after getting Dungeon for close to 15 years.

As for Ployheadron. I didn't hate it, but I rarely found it usefull.