What would you like to see for Dragon and Dungeon magazine?

[PatEllis15]

FYI: Lisa Stevens:

Not sure if this has popped up anywhere else, but here is some (VERY) brief background on Lisa:

Lisa posted for about 18 months on a regular basis to Greytalk, the fan run Greyhawk mailing list. This is all from memory...

Lisa's background IS in gaming, she worked for WotC when they were developing Ars Magica, and took over a "big" position once TSR was merged into WotC. I belive she was "Brand Manager" for Greyhawk, and perhaps a few other "worlds".

She was responsible for the relauch of Greyhawk, and assembling "Team Greyhawk". While the launch of Third Edition pretty much killed this idea, she had put together all the right people to move Greyhawk forward again. We can probably trace the start of Living Greyhawk (via the success of the relaunch) back to Lisa.

If I recall correctly Lisa was pursuing a Masters degree in business. She left D&D for Star Wars for a bit, and I think left the company from there (But I'm not sure of that!).

Lisa has run a continuging (up into 1999) Greyhawk Campaign, and IS an active gamer.

Her affilation with Greyhawk (and Erik Mona, he was part of Team Greyhawk) hopefully bodes well for the Living Greyhawk Journal. Though the reality is that the RPGA (which unless something else has happened) is still owned by WotC) so maybe not.

For those looking to dig a little deeper go to:

www.canonfire.com

There you will find the Greytalk mailing list searchable archives, you can probably look up Lisa and see what kind of person she was (on that list anyway!).

Pat Ellis

 

[alsih2o]

i always used to enjoy the "ecology of..." articles from old dragons....i would like to see their return, heck, i would even be up for writing a few

 

[diaglo]

i would like to see Dungeon drop Poly.

i would like to see the return of the D&D related articles for other editions to Dragon as well as adventures for Dungeon.

i would like to see the return of Wormy.

 

[Staffan]

FYI: Lisa Stevens:

Not sure if this has popped up anywhere else, but here is some (VERY) brief background on Lisa:

I also recall seeing her name in White Wolf magazine as one of the staffers. This was before WW and Lions Rampant merged, or at least before Vampire was published - WWmag was pretty good in those days, and had coverage for a variety of games (including TORG after that was released - yay!). I think she responded to a letter some Adkison guy sent in where he thanked the magazine for their insightful article on starting a new game company.

 

[Richards]

Originally posted by alsih2o:

i always used to enjoy the "ecology of..." articles from old dragons....i would like to see their return, heck, i would even be up for writing a few

I'm with you there, 100%!

Johnathan

 

[William Ronald]

Pat Ellis, it is nice to see that I did remember Lisa Stevens was with WoTC.

Okay, now we KNOW that the magazines are in the hands of a gamer, we have less worries.

I would like to see the Ecology articles return. They are a quick way to give creatures some additional depth and can be easily used in different campaigns. Indeed, most of the articles should have information useful to a variety of settings.

I would also suggest that Lisa Stevens and the staffers try to do a survey of what readers want. That should help them get a better idea of what people are interested in.

 

[mmadsen]

That Dragon CD-ROM actually landed them in a bit of trouble - a lot of freelancers still had the rights to their articles, and WotC couldn't, strictly speaking, reproduce their pieces without their permission. (Which is precisely what they did.)

I thought Dragon bought all articles as work "for hire", i.e. they bought all the rights. I'm still surprised that the normal legal agreement isn't more "open", e.g. both parties can use the material however they'd like.

 

[JeffB]

I guess I'm not the norm, But since 3E came out I've found Dragon just about useless...I was going to let my sub lapse in 2001, but the Mrs. renewed it for me as a suprise gift...It's run out again, and I don't have any plans to renew unless there are some major changes.

I usually only read a few things...simply because most of themed issues just don't provide me with anything useful as a DM..Most of it is extra rules,power plays, pages and pages of Sage advice, PrClasses, etc, and it' stuff I'll never use..hell I ignore 1/2 of the stuff in the corebooks, I don't own the splatbooks, and I pick and choose from stuff like the FRCS, and the Kalamar PG...There's too much emphasis on mechanics,rules, etc...If I want that stuff, I'll buy a book of it..there's tons of that out there from all the D20 companies..

The only things I read religously each issue are...

Up on a Soapbox, El's Guide to the Realms (which is precisely the kind of stuff I'd like to see more of..though not neccesarily Realms related) and What's New (the cartoon).., and now the LGJ (though it's been pretty ho-hum since it's inclusion into Dragon)...that's it...I read most of Robin Law's articles too..but sometimes not for months after I have recieved them..

Dungeoncraft went to heck...otherwise I'd read that too...

Dungeon on the other hand, has forthe most part been pretty good..some adventures like Skip Williams and Roger Moore's FR adventures are so much better than the WOTC core modules that It's embarrasing...and the new Polyhedron is way cool...love the minigames and D20 coverage..

Oh well..just call me a disgruntled Dragon ex-subscriber...As another poster said If they go back to the kind of magazine they were around #60..I's be a happy camper...

I hope Lisa turns Dragon inside-out...it needs it...

IMO, of course...

JeffB

 

[mooker]

Why is everybody down with Dungeon?

Not sure why people are so disgruntled with Dungeon. Some of the adventures have been great, and different from what's in regular modules. Of course you won't have time to play all of them, but many provide ideas for use in your own campaigns.

 

[rounser]

Not sure why people are so disgruntled with Dungeon.

Assuming you're talking about negative comments regarding Dungeon on this thread, I can only see one statement of indifference regarding the magazine, and a comment on changing it to using the core book margins. Hardly disgruntlement, IMO...