Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[Veander]

"Suzie has an octopus on her head and she keeps it there all day."

Drop the price in some discount situation and I'll rejoin. At least compared to other magazine subscriptions, this one is pricey.

 

[qstor]

I still think the Class Acts has got to go. Its the most USELESS section of the magazine. It reads like a rehash of the 3.0 splatbooks and the Hero Builders Guide. The majority of which was in Dragon Magazine before you became editor Erik.

Mike

 

[TerraDave]

Erik,

Just to join the chorus, this looks great, I truly look forward to the new Dragon, and hope it gives me the excuse to subscribe again after many years of buying very few issues.

 

[Lost and Damned 2]

I managed to get Novembers and Decembers issues and I do like some of it, the bit on Spice from Dune into d20 format was good, if too short, I would like to see some follow ups for that, and reading your response gives me good hope for the future, save for one thing....

you make no mention on the crap new logo, please, please DO NOT KEEP IT, change it back to the old one, it stands out more and makes the magazine feel special, not just another "Bland Mag"

Ok. Here we go..... My hope is that by the time I move on, a great deal more of you will be happier with the magazine than you were when I arrived.....

 

[Myconid Sage]

Thanks, Erik. Now I'm going to have to resubscribe

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Didn't respond to the initial question because, well...

A. I didn't see it until it was too late.
B. I'm certain my problems with Dragon are beyond Paizo's power to solve.
C. I have a subscription and won't let it lapse as long as Dragon remains a possible market for my work.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to see campaign-specific material coming back in a big way and some upcoming content on the Far Realms (the only outer plane I've used in a campaign in over a decade). I'll lament the irregularity of Silicon Sorcery and, to a lesser extent, A Novel Approach.

Sounds as interesting and valuable as "The Magazine of Dungeons and Dragons" can be.

 

[Zudrak]

I want to make one thing clear. As long as I am associated with Dragon magazine, I will ALWAYS strive to make it a more compelling, more successful magazine. I'll do that by trusting the feedback provided by our readers in threads like this, by listening to trusted peers, and by listening to my trusted (and ever-expanding) gut. The work is never finished, and the magazine can always get better.

Erik,

It is good to hear what is on the horizon for Dragon. While I cannot answer why I don't buy Dragon (I am thankfully signed up for 31 more issues!), I do like to keep my finger on the pulse, so to speak. Per my previous posts here and on paizo.com, I am really looking forward to more inspiring and "thrilling fantasy adventure" articles. That's the Dragon I recall. I remember the first issue I ever read (#74, I believe -- it had the Nine Hells, Part 2) and I still have the copy in poor condition in my collection. I want to be able to remember articles from today's Dragon the way I recollect the "golden" era. I think you have more potential authors, more gamers, more ideas, etc. to tap in order to refine Dragon into a new golden age.

I have to say I am even more excited about the future of Dragon now than when I wrote the letter that you printed in issue 327. Thanks for having a vision and a purpose (bolded in your quote above). I will await the future and be glad.

Zudrak

 

[Teflon Billy]

...something essential was missing, and in fact had been missing from the magazine for a good long while...

...My sense is that _because_ the rules system is so strong, many publishers tend to focus on the rules nearly exclusively, to the point at which a "big picture" is lost....

...Dragon's biggest hurdle is that, for a good long while, I think it has been far too focused on the "solid rules" part of the equation and not nearly focused enough on the "thrilling fantasy adventure" part of the equation...

...Now that we're all mired in countless feats and prestige classes, the pendulum is starting to swing in the opposite direction...

...So, to those of you who say "Dragon has too much crunch and not enough fluff," I offer my whole-hearted agreement. Give me a couple months, and take another look....

...Just in case I haven't been clear: Dragon as I see it still contains plenty of rules and rules advice. It just does so within a larger (and I hope) more interesting context...

...Instead of 12 sea-related feats, we'll more likely publish an article on sea adventuring, with a small handful of feats within...

OK, you have convinced me.

I will start buying Dragon again in March 2005 (givng you the "Couple of months" mentioned above to get the ball rolling), and will do so at least until June 2005 (so that one bad issue won't be the sole sample size).

Your success with Dungeon and your comments that I have quoted above have given Dragon another chance with me Erik.

It sounds like it will be good.

 

[Erik Mona]

Thanks for the positive responses, folks.

I wanted to hop online again and add a few more points, as I inevitably forgot to mention a few things and some folks have asked some good questions.

GREYHAWK: Anyone who has followed my career knows that I love the Greyhawk setting and will do everything I can to ensure that it is supported. Unfortunately, Wizards of the Coast has a very, very, very complex strategy related to this setting which sometimes makes it difficult to know what will and what won't be approved. I have received the go-ahead for a series of articles on the core pantheon gods, and I'm currently working up an appropriate outline for these articles to send off to trusted freelancers. It'll probably be a few months before something happens. Beyond that, I'd like to do some article tie-ins to the Living Greyhawk campaign, but again, I have multiple masters to serve on this issue, and will do what I can.

ECOLOGY FORMAT: For right now, we're going to stick with a slightly expanded version of the "no fiction or footnotes" version that we have now. I'm afraid that my "jokey" impulse is relatively low, so while I appreciate the work Johnathan Richards put into his Ecology articles and I always enjoy his "Challenge of Champions" adventures in Dungeon, the Monster Hunter Society plays fantasy a little goofier than I tend to prefer. Whether that makes me visionary or a big bore is for time (and, of course, Mr. Richards) to decide.

ONLINE ARCHIVE: We're working with Wizards of the Coast to figure out a way to sell PDF back issues on our website. I know this isn't quite what a lot of people have in mind (preferring something free), but we're running very, very slim margins as it is, and cannot provide material for free when the same material could be released at a nominal cost that would cover the effort required to put the whole thing together. No one is getting rich producing Dragon and Dungeon. In fact, quite the opposite.

DRAGON ANNUAL: There's virtually no chance that these will return in the short term. Adding a 13th issue is absolute murder on the staff, and we have ZERO capacity for extra work as it is. For me personally, 24 issues a year will have to suffice. We are looking at doing stand-alone products similar to the old "Best of Dragon," however, so the idea isn't completely dead.

HISTORICAL ARTICLES: I like 'em. #329's got an article on the historical and mythological origins of popular D&D monsters as well as a Mesopotamian pantheon for your campaigns. More stuff along these lines will appear in the following months.

DRAGON'S BESTIARY: Monster articles will definitely be a part of my tenure on the magazine. Look for bestiary articles as well as irregular "Creature Catalogs" like the dozen-page monsters they used to do back in the day.

CAMPAIGN CLASSICS: I loved issue #315, and would like to find a way to do something along those lines annually. Ideally, the articles would be a little less tangential than the ones in #315. This is something that will be better with more planning, so I intend to start thinking seriously about it after I return from the holiday break in early January.

ZOGONIA: I love Zogonia, and it isn't going anywhere.

ORDER OF THE STICK: Fans of this strip have very definitely been heard. It is indeed hilarious.

That's it for now.

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

 

[shady]

Coming late to this thread ... end of year RL pressures have taken me away from ENWorld and at the moment am barely reading past the front page. However I've bookmarked the thread and will try and read through it - I apologise if anything below has been brought up already.

When Dungeon and Dragon were revised I expected to stop buying both. Admittedly I was most upset about the death of Polyhedron, though it was dying a slow death anyhow. I actually think, on a general note, that although I'm not exactly doing cartwheels over everything in the magazines, I think they've both been significantly improved by the revision, and despite patchy distribution I'm picking up both.

I still, and have posted this elsewhere, heartily dislike Silicon Sorcery, and given the choice would can it immediately. A while back there was a thread where Psion expressed a (perfectly legitimate) contrary view - that Silicon Sorcery acted as a conduit for interesting rules twists, given that CRPGs typically implement non-Vance magic systems, for example, and in general implement non-D20 systems more often than not.

I still think such a statement is a stretch, but it subsequently hit me that Wizards has a huge non-d20 seam of material it never mines at all for the purpose of d20 adaptation, specifically MtG. Given that Wizards/Paizo seem perfectly happy to adapt material from properties they don't own (Dungeon Siege, for example), why aren't we seeing adaptations of Mirrodin and Kamagawa? Cross brand contamination issues?

On a similar vein, it would be far more useful to me if, given a choice of stuff to steal/adapt, instead of picking up CRPG stuff, there were monster listings for my considerable collection of Mage Knight minis, or for competing miniature lines like Rackham and Aegyptus. Campaign Magazine (barely) started adapting Mage Knight monsters for d20, with wizkids cooperation so maybe they would be open also.

Anyhow, just a thought/suggestion.