What was the "golden age" of Dragon

[prosfilaes]

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

I think that's a little harsh; that response helped clarify other people's responses and furthered the discussion of the subject of the thread, not just the poll.

 

[prosfilaes]

I don't have my Dragon Magazine CDs with me, so I have a hard time actually comparing. One could argue this is nostalgia on my part, but I liked the Dragon that was around when I first started playing, and a little earlier. Maybe 150-190. I liked the fiction in the magazine, and I liked the way the articles had specific material for the different settings, but it was usually not rules-bound, making it easier to use. I also liked the reviews and the non-D&D centric nature of it. Late Dragon had the interesting articles on the Greyhawk gods, but too much of the material was new rules, which became useless after 3.5 and was just plain unneeded after the 7th or 8th "Complete ..." or "Races of ...".

 

[Psion]

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.

Oh, I definitely would. Not intending to fawn on present company, but to me Paizo post Johnny Wilson (was that his name) is better than Pre-Johnny Wilson.

 

[TerraDave]

Its Mohan (~50-100). When it still had adventures, when there was no real AD&D supplements besides it, when its authors had no problem challenging (the rest of ) TSR (there are even critical reviews of TSR products) and the magazine itself had its widest scope.

Mohan and Gygax left at about the same time (or exactly the same time?), and the turning point AFAIR is conviently Dragon 100, where I think EGGs last articles where published.

After that it becomes more and more a house organ advertising 2nd ed and Buck Rogers. I mean, their was a transition, and the early Moore years had good issues. But it was downhill.

It would get better again years latter, but never quite be the same.

 

[T. Foster]

Gygax's last real articles (i.e. not counting his heavily-edited "farewell" article printed in Dragon #122 (June 1987)) were in Dragon #103 (Nov. 1985). Kim Mohan's last issue as editor was, I believe, #115 (Nov. 1986), so they don't line up exactly but in a big-picture era-defining sense it's pretty close. Another era-defining moment (at least for me) was the last appearance of "Wormy" in Dragon #132 (April 1988).

 

[Lancelot]

Golden Age for me was 50-110 (the Mohan era?).

Silver Age was the Paizo days with Erik Mona. Candidly, I think the quality of the magazine (and the use I got out of it) was never higher than during the Paizo run... but the Mohan era has a nostalgic value to me that can't be beat.

I'm still surprised by the influence that some of those Mohan-era issues had on the game - Ed Greenwood's treatises on the Nine Hells, classic one-off modules (Chagmat, Citadel by the Sea, the Wandering Trees, Baba Yaga's Hut, City Beyond the Gate, etc), early views of integrating guns into D&D, deities of Greyhawk, the definitive articles on the "deminhuman/nonhuman way of life" (plus their pantheons), runes and languages, and many more.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

(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).

LOL-I was just going through some of the old Marvel-phile issues last night for a one-shot MSH I'm getting ready to run. Fantastic stuff.

 

[grodog]

My "golden age" would align well to the first 80 issues or so, with the true golden age being from about issues 35-75.

 

[Greylock]

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

No offense, but you DO realise that Erik Mona is one of the best "historians" Dragon Magazine has ever had, don't you?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

The Paizo era.