Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[Desdichado]

1. Because my local public library, which is about half a mile from my house, subscribes and I can read the issues there.
   
2. Because much of what I really enjoyed about Dragon in the early days of 3e (when I bought most issues that were coming out) has already been filled by some 3rd party source. It used to fill a need in the market, but that need simply isn't there. I sometimes wonder if it doesn't carry on out of habit and nothing else.
   
3. Too bland. Even when I can get myself excited about the premise of many of the articles, the execution doesn't thrill me. It's too dry. And a related problem...
   
4. Too conservative. Try stuff that's a little bit more out there; a little bit more daring. Dragon material is usually so generic; so applicable across every setting. That's probably on purpose, but I don't need to go to Dragon for that kind of stuff. Sure, if you took chances, you wouldn't please everybody all the time, but I'd bet that you'd have more people excited to see what you'd tackled this time around. And everything would please somebody. I still don't know if I'd subscribe (see reason #1) if Dragon was more daring, but I sure as heck'd buy more issues than I do now.

 

[jester47]

I gave up my subscription because all the articles and kinds of articles that I bought it for got moved to dungeon. I do subscribe to Dungeon. Dragon, if it has somthing useful that I think I can really use, I will buy the issue. More often than not I will read over the articles and see if anything is a must have. If not I don't buy. Dungeons on the other hand and DMing advice, I can always use and I am glad they are in the same mag now. I would just like more John Four and Robin Laws articles in Dungeon.

Aaron.

 

[Erik Mona]

This is good stuff. Keep it coming, folks. I really appreciate your time and feedback.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

 

[Ry]

Although I don't pick of Dragon very often, I still disagree about all the charges of its options being unbalanced. You just can't expect to add 10 new things a month and expect them not to change the dynamics of the game. We also shouldn't forget that D&D itself has plenty of exploits already; these just form the baseline, which is going to change if you add a lot of material. This is especially true of Prestige Classes, which are typically specific enough that they practically _beg_ to shift the core campaign dynamics.

But I don't tend to do more than leaf through the issues; when they're good, they're typically concerning things that are very generic, (which I don't need), and occasionally they're bad, when I really, really want them to be good. Like for Darksun - I've never used the setting, and I'm really not a fan, but I the Dragon version of Darksun was far less interesting than the original - and it could have just been a rules update to the original with some cool flavor text. That disappointed me, because it ended up meaning I didn't even find something kind of different to export to my campaign.

I should mention, though, that I've often loved Dragon, and not to get too discouraged by the thread; it's only going to draw out negative comments, so don't think it's a general mood about the magazine.

 

[jester47]

Granted, a lot of the roleplay stuff like the ecologies and such might become more useful on the advent of C&C. I know a lot of the earlier Dragon stuff will. Looking at the current issue (327) and the last one (326) I think they have enough info in their major articles for me to pick them up. Stuff that I can actually use in the creative process:

The Sewer article that covers real and fantastic sewers
An article on Historical labyriths and how to use one in game
A guide to dungeon delving
The article on Tomb design based on real world designs sounds promising
The loot Division article looks good
The article on characters that normally might not fit in a party is intrigueing

Issue 325 does not do it for me (maybe the hometown heros article) though and the one before that was neat (better zombies was good, and I liked the informative Cthulhu article), and the one before I found only marginally useful.

However if you keep up the caliber of what these last two hold, I might resubscribe.

Aaron.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Heya, Erik.

I'm probably not the demographic whose response you want, since not only do I buy Dragon, but the recent reorganization has me buying Dungeon again, too. But I'll respond anyway, and pretend the question was, "Why could make you STOP buying Dragon?"

Fiction.

Nothing annoys me more than losing ten pages of gaming content in favor of ten pages of fiction.

I can -- and do -- get speculative fiction from other sources, and I would likewise be pissed off if those other sources spent ten pages of content on gaming. If I buy a fiction magazine or anthology, I do it because I want fiction. When I read Dragon, I do it because I want gaming content.

I firmly believe that the only reason Dragon still publishes fiction is that y'all're afraid to ask the tough question. Instead of asking, "Hey, do you like fiction?" or "do we have enough fiction in the magazine?" you should be asking, "Which would you rather have, fiction or more gaming content?" I have yet to see a Dragon survey ask that question, and I've been around long enough to see a lot of surveys.

So, because I enjoy the rest of the magazine so much, currently the only way to drive me away from Dragon would be to increase the fiction page-count. But if my interest wanes, there will be a point at which I'll drop the magazine because of the fiction, whereas I otherwise would keep subscribing.

I want to stress that my dislike of fiction in Dragon is not a comment on the quality of the fiction in Dragon; for me, the quality is irrelevant. I don't think it should be in the magazine at all.

 

[Dave Turner]

Joe Mucchiello summed it up nicely. I've seen everything that Dragon has to offer. The articles are all retreads in one form or another for those of us who have been around long enough. New spells, new items, new feats, new classes, new monsters are what Dragon does, but that doesn't do it for me anymore. Those things are arguably what D&D is and maybe my fatigue with D&D is bleeding over to Dragon. But in a magazine devoted to D&D, I don't think that's too surprising.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

It never got used in game. Some nice ideas and neat articles but I just never have had anyone want to bother looking through them to use anything. Also, its hard to find something in them. I'll remember a feat or class but will have no idea which one its from and waste lots of time looking through them.

This is a great point. There would be few more useful pages in Dragon every year than an update to a comprehensive index. I'd be willing to bet that plenty of volunteers could be found for the hard work of compiling the initial index.


Jeff

 

[Acid_crash]

I stopped purchasing the magazine for many reasons.

One is cost, I don't have the money to spend 7 bucks a month to get a magazine that seems to be filled with randomly put together articles that 'hopefully' make sense.

Two is that some magazines have themes that just don't interest me (if it's about Planar travel, count me out).

Three, sometimes the magazine is on a theme kick, but the articles in the magazine seem to harm the theme more than service it. One example is issue 305 on Urban Adventuring. First off, those feats in that article are crap. Second, no article in that issue did any good for me in trying to establish an urban game. Third, there was no How To guide in the magazine on how to create urban settings/towns/cities. If there was, I missed it. Waste of 7 bucks.

Many of your magazines are like this.

The only things in your magazines I like and tend to use are the Class Act type articles towards the back. Other types of articles include the Campaign Act articles similar in issues 299, 301, and 303. (What happened to those?) The best articles for me are those that best teach how to do something, and not those that just give me a city in the deep abyss, it's history, and hope that I use it.

Crap like that will surely persuade me to keep my 7 bucks.

 

[reanjr]

I AM currently a subscriber, but that will probably end when my subscription runs out. For me, most of what is entertaining to read has been done already. And most of what's useful is impossible to find. Having an online searchable index of all the articles would be VERY useful.

For instance, being able to browse prestige classes, spells, or feats, with a one or two sentence description and issue and page # would be a great asset and IMO, would make the magazine much more useful.

In addition, I know it's been said before, but I'm in the less rules, more ideas camp and the no fiction camp.