So is Dragon magazine becoming upcoming ads?

[Imaro]

Actually, that was kinda cool. Lots of little sub-games in there.

Brad

Yeah, I still have all of these ... there was one I remember (that crossed over with Dragon) where you played a member of a Githyanki force invading a world... that was cool and useable in D&D as well.

Edit: I still can't believe Design & Development decided against the Githyanki as a fully playable race.

 

[catsclaw227]

Also, keep in mind that a high level NPC or monster in 3.x Dragon (or Dungeon) will often have a rather lenghty statblock associated with them, some spanning more than one page!

Some things got smaller in size (monsters and NPCs) some things got longer (power blocks).

 

[JoeGKushner]

Also, keep in mind that a high level NPC or monster in 3.x Dragon (or Dungeon) will often have a rather lenghty statblock associated with them, some spanning more than one page!

Some things got smaller in size (monsters and NPCs) some things got longer (power blocks).

True.

But even when the stat blocks were longer, the format wasn't spaced out, which would have made them even longer. Mind you could have helped on readability on some of those demonoicon articles. Ugh!

 

[Fifth Element]

It's not a complaint about that necessarily as about content.

I don't see how that complaint has any traction if the value isn't considered. If the magazine was still in print, and they decided to cut the page count by 10% (with the proportion of content vs. ads staying constant), would you complain? To my mind, I might complain if they also didn't drop the price by 10%. If they dropped the price by 20%, I think it would be a silly complaint that there is less absolute content.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I don't see how that complaint has any traction if the value isn't considered. If the magazine was still in print, and they decided to cut the page count by 10% (with the proportion of content vs. ads staying constant), would you complain? To my mind, I might complain if they also didn't drop the price by 10%. If they dropped the price by 20%, I think it would be a silly complaint that there is less absolute content.

Part of the problem is that you can't get the magazine al cart.

Unless I'm mistaken, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I find the DDI awesome.

Dragon? Not so much. If there was a series of switches I could hit to get the DDI cheaper by eliminating Dragon and Dungeon... I'd be mighty tempted to dump 'em.

 

[delericho]

And I haven't got any print Dragon magazines around these days to compare, so I'm just going by my recollection, which was that they tended to feature one large article, generally the one the cover art depicted, several medium sized articles in the 4 to 6 page range, and then a number of smaller 2 to 4 page articles which were generally the ones that contained crunch.

Yeah, this is probably about right as a summary, certainly of the late-print-era Dragon.

(Again, I can't comment on eDragon, not being a DDI subscriber.)

 

[delericho]

In my experience, the old 3.x Dragon was useless to players. The stuff had a reputation for being so unbalanced that it never featured in any game in which I participated.

On the topic of 'usefulness', being an argument that has been made several times:

I never really looked to Dragon to provide the latest toy for my (players') PCs - I had supplements for that. Mostly, I was interested in the magazine as an ideas-starter, and to keep me in touch with gaming in those periods where I wasn't gaming regularly. To that end, the last couple of years of (print) Dragon were near-perfect for me, and articles like "The Highs and Lows of Fantasy" (#143) or the "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" (various recent issues) had (and have) more ongoing use to me than the "Prestige Class of the Month", or a 3-level (or 6- or 10-level) preview of some new class.

Of course, I'm aware that this probably puts me in a very small minority of (former) readers.

It's perhaps also worth noting that Dragon was also quite unusual amongst magazines in that it even tried to be of ongoing usefulness. Most magazines (as far as I can tell) are designed to provide a light read for a couple of hours, and then to be discarded. Essentially, chewing gum for the mind.

 

[Nifft]

I never really looked to Dragon to provide the latest toy for my (players') PCs - I had supplements for that. Mostly, I was interested in the magazine as an ideas-starter, and to keep me in touch with gaming in those periods where I wasn't gaming regularly. To that end, the last couple of years of (print) Dragon were near-perfect for me, and articles like "The Highs and Lows of Fantasy" (#143) or the "Demonomicon of Iggwilv" (various recent issues) had (and have) more ongoing use to me than the "Prestige Class of the Month", or a 3-level (or 6- or 10-level) preview of some new class.

Of course, I'm aware that this probably puts me in a very small minority of (former) readers.

I wonder if there are enough readers like you to justify a system-independent magazine of fantasy stuff.

The things I look to for inspiration are:
- Other people's games (story hours mostly): inappropriate for magazine
- Other people's games (settings): reviews would be appropriate
- History (especially as viewed by people who can point out important yet often overlooked aspects): very appropriate for magazine
- Fiction: reviews would be appropriate
- Articles about specific monster ecology: appropriate

All that stuff, a few articles comparing new games to old games and adapting things to one system or another (but no single preferred system), throw in some model painting every month to get Games Workshop to advertise, and a page of comics.

Could that work?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Cadfan]

That is something I'd really enjoy in Dragon- book reviews of books not published by WotC. I'd be willing to write them, even.

I'm not sure if that's really doable, for a variety of reasons. It trades off with the marketing of their own books, it might involve reviewing material with sexual content, and D&D players tend to have bad tastes in books. Far too many farmboys marching off to defeat dread warlords, and far too few [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Orphans-Tales-Night-Garden/dp/0553384031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252253019&sr=8-1"]girls with tatooed eyes [/ame]or [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Captain-Bluebear-Walter-Moers/dp/1585678449/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252252998&sr=8-1"]bright blue ursine compulsive liars[/ame].