What was the "golden age" of Dragon

[The Hound]

I voted for "other" meaning anytime before about two months ago. At least back then the magazine *existed*. The online thing is not Dragon Magazine.

 

[jeffh]

Using Erik's categories rather than Emiroikol's (honestly, he comes up with intriguing poll questions, but really needs to put more thought into offering answers that are exhaustive and mutually exclusive, draw meaningful distinctions, and are worded in a neutral manner), I would have Mohan narrowly edging out Moore and early WotC. To address what looks like the most popular other choice, Paizo did wonderful things with Dungeon but their Dragon just didn't do it for me.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

For me it's roughly 50-120 or so.

 

[brehobit]

66-76 is probably my favorite range.

Fantasy football through "king of the tabletop" and wonderful wonderful articles. Of course, that's also when I first started getting it

Mark

 

[Warren Okuma]

Chainmail bikinis and Boris art for me.

 

[Vigilance]

Mohan/Moore for me.

Articles by Ed Greenwood, fiction that really grabbed me (the "Test of the Twins" short story in Dragon did more to sell me on Dragonlance than any other single thing), adventures (really, really good ones) and *gasp* coverage of games other than D&D!

(God I miss the Ares section and those great Gamma World articles, and the Marvel-phile by Jeff Grubb was the coolest thing in the history of ever).

In short it had it all. It really was the best magazine of all time. D&D related game articles, fiction AND non-D&D game coverage.

Simply the best.

Chuck

 

[Arnwyn]

Other: Mohan, with a bit of Moore.

Runner up is the new Paizo (not the early Paizo, who were a bunch of hacks AFAIC).

 

[WayneLigon]

Other. I think Erik hits it on the head; the existing catagories are too broad. I'd have to go with WoTC/Paizo as the 'Golden Age', here, depending on what we want a Golden Age to mean. Even within that timeframe, you could count three or four distinct 'flavors'; I'd pick early WoTC and late Mona as the best of that span.

I think those issues had a lot more use to me as both a player and a GM than most of the Dragons that came before them. There were certainly very enjoyable issues before that, but there were many entire years there that I bought the Dragon mainly for What's New?, the fiction and the occassional cool article.

 

[Ulrick]

I think it'd be great if Diaglo got on here and said

"Strategic Review. All other forms are just pale imitations."

----

For me, Dragon Magazine went in cycles, which is why I held a subscription from the early 1990s shortly after 3e came out. Just when I thought the magazine was going down hill and I thought about letting my subscription run out, Dragon would have a few great issues in a row.

With 3e, this changed. Pre-3e featured artcles that almost "editionless." The advice given could apply to almost any game. 3e articles were chalk-full of feats, prestige classes, and a bunch of stuff that I would probably never use (or allow) in a game. The Dungeoncraft articles were good though. But eventually I just got tired of the tone, feel, and the stuff I would never use.

 

[VictorC]

What a crummy choice of categories.

A much better poll would break it down by editor or era, like so:

• Pre-Mohan
• Mohan
• Moore
• Post-Moore, Pre-Gross
• Gross
• Early WotC
• Paizo

Obviously, you could split it up more precisely than that, but I think those divisions at least show differences in edition, editorial focus, and thrust of the magazine, whereas the ones you picked seem almost completely arbitrary.
200+, for example, is almost half of the life of the entire magazine.

--Erik

If you really don't like your choices, don't vote.

But to answer, I hated all that Grayhawk shoved down my throught. It truely made me regret paying for a subscription.