When was the Golden Age of Dragon magazine?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Anyone with the Dragon Archives ought to copy all the PDFs to hard disk . . . that's what I did! They are about 2.5 gb and would fit on a single DVD, also.

That's what I did. I have a DVD copy and a folder on my computer.

 

[Scribble]

Yar! Who cares. I paid for it, there is no cash changing hands so I can't see any problem, and if there was I wouldn't care anyway.

That would be cool for me. I don't need 2 copies of the 4th disc.

Well, my issue was more along the lines of would I get in trouble with Enworld for suggesting this.

It's not an issue with me, because as was mentioned both of us bought our copies of the set, so we're not asking for something we didn't originally pay for.

I have to check which CD it actually is I need though, and let you know? (are you on here a lot?) Then we can I guess each burn a copy of our respective missing cds and send em?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Well, my issue was more along the lines of would I get in trouble with Enworld for suggesting this.

It's not an issue with me, because as was mentioned both of us bought our copies of the set, so we're not asking for something we didn't originally pay for.

I have to check which CD it actually is I need though, and let you know? (are you on here a lot?) Then we can I guess each burn a copy of our respective missing cds and send em?

Sure, I'll send you the actual copy of the disc though since I have two already.

Drop me a mail at blues02 AT sbcglobal.net

 

[JiffyPopTart]

No totally the answer you are looking for but I would say the Golden Age was "The time before the Internet".

Nowadays I can't see myself paying to read Dragon when 1 hour of decent searching can find me more free content than I could ever use in half a year of DMing or playing.

DS

 

[woodelf]

Wow. No truer words have been spoken err typed. I still fondly remember playing in a game with a Psionicist (issue #78 I think) and an Incantrix (#90?). Still have some of my oldest issues from around that time. Especially the 'Chessboard' covered ones.

That being said I have to say the last year or so of Dragon has been very, very good. Easily worth the money for a subscription.

How's the crunch/fluff ratio, these days? I notice that the articles i still go back to, to this day, are those that don't have a single rule or mechanic in them, or have very loose rules that fit into any game system (such as a couple of alternate alignment systems, like "For King and Country" and "Get Your Priorities Straight!"). And this was true even when i was exclusively playing AD&D2--i still got more use out of the crunch-free articles. If it's not all-crunch, all-the-time (like it basically has been since D&D3E, at least every time i've looked at an issue), i may have to give it another go.

As for the 'golden age'--there were several runs of really excellent articles. ~#82-~#124; ~#146-~#188; some pretty good stuff in the #230s-240s, too. And not to automatically exclude anything in between those--there were plenty of really great issues all throughout that range, and then some, and even most of the poor issues had at least a couple great articles. But, especially from the mid-#80s to around #150 was probably the best, all around. I still prefer the version of illithids presented in #150 to anything since published.

IMHO, Dragon will never be as good as it once was, while it continues to be D&D-only, and has no professional reviews. Even if, realistically, there is no need for reviews in Dragon these days (because of EnWorld, RPGNet, etc.), i still think that, when comparing the magazines, it is fair to say that the magazine with reviews is better than the one without.

 

[glass]

When was "the Golden Age" of Dragon magazine to you?

From the very first proper Ecology article to the very last.

I hate the travesty that currently pretends to be an Ecology article. Thankfully, pretty much everything in the magazine is pretty much spot on ATM, but there's just this one thing letting the side down.


glass.

 

[glass]

It it wrong of me to say 'now'?

If it wasn't for the one little issue mentioned above, I'd say 'now'!


glass.

 

[glass]

And the fiction! Two that stand out in my mind are "The Lay of Droone" and "Thief on a String" . . . superb!

Ooh, that brings back memories. 'Thief on a String' was in my very first issue, IIRC. 'Blue Eyed Thief' was another great short story, a little later. They seemed to have a thief fixation.

But that era also, as you pointed out, had people offering flowers top pink beholders on its cover, so that disqualifies it from being a Golden Age IMO.


glass.

 

[Endur]

Golden Age of Dragon was the first fifty issues (1-50) and the first ten issues of the Strategic Review. They were magic.

51-100 issues were mostly pretty good, some not so good. But not magical like the first fifty.

Then a decline set in for 101-200 or so.

The recent run is pretty good. Doesn't quite reach up to the first hundred issues. But much better than 101-300.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Arrg... I have the Dragon Archives... But alas, I steped on Disc 3 I think? (3 or 4 I can't remember) So I have a Dragon Archive sans disc 3

Lol. I did the same thing. Maybe we got lucky and each broke a different disc?