Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[Erik Mona]

Like you, Erik Mona, I like the old-style Dragon that promote in-house products like Top Secret. Bring back the ARES section, and I will look forward to the next issue with great anticipation.

Nothing about my experience with adding Polyhedron to Dungeon suggests to me that this would be a smart business move. I know you love nonstandard D&D, Reg. I like it, too. But we tried it, and while it worked brilliantly from a creative perspective, it wasn't good for business. I'd be a fool to repeat that experiment in Dragon.

But for now, you'll have to settle with my "meh" reaction. Trust me, if a gamer geek is more excited about the next issue of Playboy than he is about Dragon, you better take drastic measure.

A drastic measure like printing pictures of hot naked chicks? Something tells me TheSigil (and about 99% of our readers) wouldn't approve. I've got to compete with the Internet, with d20 products, and to some extent even with WotC releases. Please don't also make me compete with porn. I don't think that's a battle I can win.

Merry Christmas!

--Erik

 

[Ranger REG]

I was referring to the articles, not the pictorials. You can do better.

But if you bring back that Elmore's Hafling rogue...

 

[thundershot]

Oh yeah.. I forgot about the April Fools articles.. Usable humorous content. Like... the Portable Hole full of Beer series (that fizzled out... sigh..)


Chris

 

[shady]

Bad idea, at least for anti-TCG guys like me.

My point was that there are tons of interesting monsters and setting background sitting in the MtG backlot, not that there should be MtG/CCG articles in Dragon.

OK. I'll ask again ... Erik, are you prevented or deterred from using MtG stuff as background

 

[Erik Mona]

My point was that there are tons of interesting monsters and setting background sitting in the MtG backlot, not that there should be MtG/CCG articles in Dragon.

OK. I'll ask again ... Erik, are you prevented or deterred from using MtG stuff as background

My understanding is that the Magic brand team doesn't want its creatures used for D&D.

--Erik

 

[wingsandsword]

Nothing about my experience with adding Polyhedron to Dungeon suggests to me that this would be a smart business move. I know you love nonstandard D&D, Reg. I like it, too. But we tried it, and while it worked brilliantly from a creative perspective, it wasn't good for business. I'd be a fool to repeat that experiment in Dragon.

Well, I see it as being different because of one significant feature about the history of those magazines. Dungeon (unless I am greatly mistaken) was always a magazine of D&D adventures, and adding general d20 materials to it was a significant diversion from it's core. While I for one loved Polyhedron, it appealed to a somewhat different audience than Dungeon (DM's wanting dedicated D&D adventures as opposed to fans of the d20 System in general).

Dragon was always until only a few years ago a general gaming magazine that focused on D&D as it was a TSR (and later WotC) house organ. It would at least acknowledge games by other makers, and would give an occasional article to TSR/WotC games other than D&D. Dragon was the magazine of Role Playing Games, now it's just the magazine of D&D. I remember reading voraciously the articles about Marvel Super Heroes and Alternity. Longtime (relatively, meaning 5+ years) Dragon fans will remember this, and an occasional short article about d20 Star Wars, or d20 Modern, or generally a new rules idea for the d20 System in general besides D&D (Like an article giving alternate Hit Point/Damage systems and examples of how they would be used in D&D and d20 Modern) would not be as opposed to the general direction of the magazine in Dragon (with its prior heritage as a D&D oriented general gaming magazine) as opposed to Dungeon (with its prior heritage as an outlet for D&D adventures).

 

[dargoth3]

Eric

You seemed to have missed my question about the Faithes of Faerun articles (Apologies if you did and I missed it)

Will the Faithes of Faerun articles continue to appear in revised Dragon and if so which issue will have the next one?

 

[Darrin Drader]

Erik,

I just wanted to comment that I still purchase Dragon and Dungeon on a monthly basis. I'll be re-upping my subscription as soon as it is convenient for me to do so.

Not every Dragon magazine is useful to me when I purchase it, but I often go back through and find worthwhile gems that I either missed before or had no use for at the time. That's one of the strengths of both of these magazines - every issue is a keeper. The material can always be incorporated later. If the edition changes, you can keep the flavor but change the mechanics of a piece. Now at this point in time, I have no need to introduce the flumph into my game, but it was pretty cool to see the article on exalted heroes and anti-heroes.

If there is one thing I would like to see, its more interesting covers. I understand the reason that character study covers are being done now instead of the classic scene style covers, but I want to see more covers that appear similar to the ones from the first couple hundred issues of the magazine.

By the way, keep printing the Wil Wheaton columns in Dungeon. They rock! And best of luck in 2005. I'll keep buying them as long as you keep printing them.

 

[SJE]

So, if you're _not_ a regular customer of Dragon magazine (let's say you buy fewer than three issues annually), please take a minute or two to answer the following questions.

1. Why don't you buy the magazine?
2. What sort of changes would make you more likely to give it another look?

I very much appreciate your time and attention.

Thanks,

Erik Mona

I dont buy it because Dragon has marginalised itself into a D&D only house organ. Now I used to have a regular subscription for it with my newsagent back in 1990-96. I also sought out a great many issues from the late 80's. The reason was that Dragon covered the whole gaming spectrum. Sure there were AD&D only articles, but there were also articles on other games that gave me fascinating insights- the Top Secret disaster table, the Dragon of other RPG articles and more. It also had reviews which opened my eyes up to whole branches of gaming undreamt of by TSR- Dragon was were I learnt of TORG, of Cthulhu, of Star Wars (WEG).
It also had wonderful, scholarly articles on Greek Gods, Mediavael society, and weapons technology that inspired game ideas and established authenticity.
You know what else I miss? The Forum column. Before the Internet, it was where we could debate great ideas amongst each other- tell heart warming stories of gaming experiences, and occasionally erupt into safe flame wars. Since people actually wrote letters back then, considered, revised works of writing than the instant response online messages of today, plus only the best replies were selected by the editor, it had a lot more depth and usefulness than we see today on the Internet forums.

So I stopped buying Dragon when it became a boring D&D-only zone filled with pointless Prestige classes and feats. Its still that way today- I looked at recent issues and there was a bit more on running your fantasy D&D campaign, but it was still horribly restricted to that single, rather boring topic.

The changes I'd like to see:

-Coverage of the entire gaming industry
-a reviews column
-a computer gaming column for RPG's/wargames
-Forum pages
-non-D&D articles
-possibly a minatures or mini painting column.
-Get the KoDT strip back- that was great.

Now as it happens, one magazine has recently made it back to my subscription list, as it fulfills all these criteria and most resembles the Roger Moore Dragon Magazine of the early 90's. It is of course Knights of the Dinner Table, which to my mind has become the natural successor to Dragon, while Dragon has fenced itself off into the cul-de-sac of D&D only players.

SJE

 

[Yair]

Alright, so I'm late in posting this. But here's my take.

I live in a foreign country, so can't purchase Dragon off the shelf. My only option is to buy it via a subscription. Out of nostalgia for the old days I did subscribe for a time, but not long. Why?

- Long delivery time. It's just irritating when the magazine reaches you two months after everyone is talking about it. It's downright annoying when it never does (that happened too).
- Lack of meaty content. I'm sorry, but for the most part the articles were immature and seemed to be nothing short of commercials. I blame the short format, an over-emphasis of mechanics via flavor, and some unknown Hasbaro executive deciding to self-pollinate D&D and Dragon.

It seems Erik may very well be correcting a large part of #2, but I doubt if he can fix my local mail service. I also think I've just outgrown Dragon - it was great when I was a child, but now...

Anyways, here's for a better, more successfull magazine! *raises toast*