I've been browsing Paizo's new messageboards, and it's very encouraging to see all the Paizo staffers responding to posts and discussing the future of their magazines.
For the information of those people on ENworld who don't visit those boards, here are a few pertinent quotations:
Mike McArtor (assistant editor) on Dragon:
There certainly are commercial reasons behind our decision to not support some of the products you mentioned, but those factors are slightly different than the ones you've brought up. The simple reason we don't support the Epic levels, Oriental Adventures, Ghostwalk, or psionics is because the demand for such support is so very low.
Whenever we decide to support a particular game world, even one as popular as Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Eberron, we actually turn away more of our readers than we enthrall. Because our readership (and indeed, the entirety of D&D's players) are so fractured by their support of, or disdain toward, particular campaign settings, it's in our best interest to remain as generic and middle-of-the-road as possible. Does this steal away some of the flavor? Probably. Does this make some people unhappy? Probably. Does this make even more people happy? Probably.
That said, however, Dungeon has made it a clearly stated desire to support certain types of play with Epic, psionic, and Oriental adventures on occasion (I believe James Jacobs said something like one per year).
Matthew Sernet (EIC) on Dragon:
What Mike said is true, but a special article for a particularly popular setting can increase sales, and Dragon will occasionally offer articles that reference and are enhanced by owning a particular supplement.
The key to having such articles in the magazine is making sure that they can be used by any reader without the need for the related supplement. The Epic Level Handbook, Oriental Adventures, and Ghostwalk are particularly problematic because they have so many new rules systems that an article would have to avoid or reprint to make the article useful to most readers.
James Jacobs (assistant Editor) on Dungeon:
We're going to try to do at least one Epic adventure a year in Dungeon, one psionic adventrue, and one or two Oriental Adventures adventures (that sounds weird) per year. Ghostwalk is a really interesting campaign, and if we get an adventure submission set there that really knocks our socks off, we'll even consider publishing that.
Cheers!
For the information of those people on ENworld who don't visit those boards, here are a few pertinent quotations:
Mike McArtor (assistant editor) on Dragon:
There certainly are commercial reasons behind our decision to not support some of the products you mentioned, but those factors are slightly different than the ones you've brought up. The simple reason we don't support the Epic levels, Oriental Adventures, Ghostwalk, or psionics is because the demand for such support is so very low.
Whenever we decide to support a particular game world, even one as popular as Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Eberron, we actually turn away more of our readers than we enthrall. Because our readership (and indeed, the entirety of D&D's players) are so fractured by their support of, or disdain toward, particular campaign settings, it's in our best interest to remain as generic and middle-of-the-road as possible. Does this steal away some of the flavor? Probably. Does this make some people unhappy? Probably. Does this make even more people happy? Probably.
That said, however, Dungeon has made it a clearly stated desire to support certain types of play with Epic, psionic, and Oriental adventures on occasion (I believe James Jacobs said something like one per year).
Matthew Sernet (EIC) on Dragon:
What Mike said is true, but a special article for a particularly popular setting can increase sales, and Dragon will occasionally offer articles that reference and are enhanced by owning a particular supplement.
The key to having such articles in the magazine is making sure that they can be used by any reader without the need for the related supplement. The Epic Level Handbook, Oriental Adventures, and Ghostwalk are particularly problematic because they have so many new rules systems that an article would have to avoid or reprint to make the article useful to most readers.
James Jacobs (assistant Editor) on Dungeon:
We're going to try to do at least one Epic adventure a year in Dungeon, one psionic adventrue, and one or two Oriental Adventures adventures (that sounds weird) per year. Ghostwalk is a really interesting campaign, and if we get an adventure submission set there that really knocks our socks off, we'll even consider publishing that.
Cheers!
