Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[philreed]

We're currently quoting a paid circulation of 65,000. If there are PDFs that get that kind of audience, I'm in the wrong business.

Not yet, give me time.

From what I can tell, Erik, Dragon's on the right track. The only thing I don't like these days deals with graphics -- and that doesn't affect my enjoyment of any of the articles.

 

[philreed]

One suggestion to get people to try Dragon (and Dungeon) is to drop free, 3-month subscription cards in the DMG and PH.

In the Player's Handbook, include a card that gets the customer a free, 3-month subscription to Dragon. It gets the magazine into more, new hands on a regular basis and helps build your mailing list. Do the same thing (for Dungeon) with the DMG.

 

[dagger]

Crothian sums up my reasons as well in his post.

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.

 

[Janx]

Joe pretty much hit it on the head.

Personally, I quit buying Dragon after issue 300. I have #179-300 in orig copy AND the Dragon Archive (#1-250).

I quit because after buying for 10 years, I found I had never actually used anything from the magazine. I read them. But that was it.

And after 3E came out, Dragon did a reset. They basically went back and revisited lots of topics that had been done in 2e (when I started, which no doubt had re-invented 1E stuff).

And I never buy Dungeon magazine (ok, I bought one, ten years ago to check it out).

When it comes to game content and adventures, I can write my own. Or in the past, we'd simply buy a WotC book which was the "most official" source of new material.

Janx

 

[uraniumdragon]

1. Why don't you buy the magazine?

(Caveat: I only read the first page of this 12 page thread.)

1. As to why am allowing my subscription to run out? Two words: d20 Modern. (Okay, maybe that's three words, but there's only one space between them.)

Since d20 Modern has come out, I have all but abandoned Fantasy role-playing for the Modern setting. When my Cauldron Adventure Path series runs out, it will be the last D&D setting I DM.

To me, playing in a Fantasy setting is now boring. Yet another kingdom needing another dragon slayed, yada yada yada. Just another reason to break out my Scrabble tiles to create another character name. Perhaps a Modern setting is just a modernized version of that same fantasy campaign, but I can add more flair to it. I have computers to use, space flight and time-travel to employ. I don't have to design and describe my latest world setting, I have the world as it exists today to work with.

And since PAIZO has decided there is no other game setting in existence other than Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, there is no reason for me to read the magazine. I do not play in any convention gaming anymore. When WotC shafted the Living Verge campaign group by dropping support for Alternity in order to create D&D3.0, the whole organized gaming thing no longer held an appeal. And of course, the only modernized gaming at conventions are card games, and the only card games I enjoy are with a deck of 52, or 54 if I add the Jokers. (Sad day for me when I found out AEC was dropping their Spycraft RPG line for a Spycraft CCG line.)

[to be continued]

 

[uraniumdragon]

2. What sort of changes would make you more likely to give it another look?

(Caveat: I only read the first page of this 12 page thread.)

2. As to what changes to make - that would be to expand out to ALL of WotC's role-playing games. You'll have lots of new material to print when Star Wars Ep3 comes out next year. "XXX" and the two Bourne movies offer lots of ideas.

d20 Modern may not have much of a base (as I am told by the visitors to these boards), but it won't have until an established publisher starts exposing it to the players by offering articles about d20 Modern. Dungeon Adventures did for a while within their Polyhedron section, until the masses complained enough and the magazine is now also "D&D3.5 only". But then it added a backpage column by that grand name in the gaming industry - Wil Wheaton!

(Yes, that was meant to be sarcastic. Would someone please tell that bad child actor to go back to the Star Trek convention route and get out of D&D. I'd rather see an advertisement for an XBox fantasy game than see his drivel. Which is bad coming from someone who has owned Macs since 1984, played D&D since 1981, and watched Star Trek since its first episode in 1966.)

Want new customers? Expand your horizons. Offer new content. Limit it to WotC products if you must, but give us something new to read than "50 New things ways to kill with a Longsword".

 

[edbonny]

Quote:
4) Class Acts. Good idea, poor in execution. Perhaps you can narrow it down to four arch-types, like WotC did for their "Complete" Series. That would give you two pages for each focus (warrior, divine, arcane, and adventurer) and three pages for a new 20 level class. With more space, you can get a little more depth on a subject.

Love this idea!

As do I... How about calling it "The More Complete Warrior," "The More Complete Adventurer," etc?

-Ed

 

[kigmatzomat]

I've posted before but I want to agree with the folks who want to see articles on non-WotC/non-fantasy settings. d20 requires the PHB/DMG so why not hit all those games that use the PHB and DMG? And what about Modern? There are lots of other stuff out there that players would like to encounter.

 

[frog]

I quit buying Dragon regularly about the time that 2E came out. Quit gaming at that time too. I started back up with 3.0 and have purchased 3 Dragon mags since then. The only one I was happy with was the issue that had updates to some of the old settings (Mystara and Birthright in particular).

Why don't I buy it? For a lot of the same reasons mentioned here on this thread. I have stopped buying most ANY new "crunch" stuff for my game. Don't need/want it. I have too much as it is. What would I like?

Fiction? - Only if it is like the Voyage of the Princess Ark articles that had a clear tie in to the game.

Prestige Classes? - No new ones, let's try fleshing out the "basic" ones that were given in the DMG. Interesting ideas on how to make the ones I already have something more than just a "power up".

Give the magazine a direction. Someone said that Dungeon => Adventures/Location Specific. Fine, make Dragon => Character/Campaign Specific items. Players AND DM's can use this kind of "imagination spark".

And another thing. Looking back at my old issues (started collecting at #69), I loved stuff on other genres (superhero, spy, sci fi), game systems, game and miniature reviews (real reviews, not adverts disguised as reviews), and articles that I could use to add depth of character to my campaign rather than depth of rules (9 Hells articles come to mind as an example of depth of character...loved that article).

Oh yeah...the covers were better back then too.

 

[DaveMage]

I disagree with those who want to see non-fantasy games mentioned. I prefer to see it stay D&D focused.