Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[Grymar]

For me it is just a question of the amount of content I want to add to my game. To keep my prep time down, I try and keep the "extra rules" to a minimum unless it is going to add something really fun to the game. So I use the Core Books, the Complete Series, and a few others, but not much more.

Secondly, I run Eberron and an article every month or so just isn't worth it. I'll borrow a copy to read the article through to get an idea, then I'll give it back. If it is really great (the Lords of Dust article, for example) I'll buy that issue on the newstand.

So while I think the mag is well done, there just isn't that much material for me to get out of it.

 

[jcfiala]

I'm finding myself getting more issues of Dragon recently, but part of my problem in the past has been not being in enough 3.5 campaigns as a player. I'm in a 3.0 campaign as a player, so new rules crunch isn't as useful there, and I'm not as able to use the fluff because I'm not in charge of the world. I'm now in a 3.5 game with fairly permissive inclusions, so now I'm finding myself looking through Dragon and picking it up when something appeals to me.

 

[Faraer]

So anything that I enjoy, it is probably not liked by the majority at all and will be cancelled or changed/basterdized until I don't like it any more. The problem is that those changes will make ALOT more people like it instead... so it's considered a "good" change.

That's what the studios and networks want you to think, but I don't see any evidence for it. Remember, "Nobody knows anything."

 

[werk]

Why don't I buy Dragon Magazine?

Two words: "buy" and "magazine"

 

[Infernal Teddy]

For me, it's a matter of availablity. My FLGS just recieved issue 344, which means it's a god month - I actually was able to see if it interests me.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

I don't buy it because most of the content is of no use for me. Sure, there's likely to be 3 out of 12 issues that I use something but it doesn't justify me buying the magazine. It's the same reason when Thalmin posts the new catalog listings I don't get enthused about it. It's just more stuff I won't use in my campaign. I've got a campaign I and my players like and don't like more feats, spells, PrC etc.

Also I lost an incredible amount of confidence when the sealed content issues came out for both Dragon and Dungeon. I was a subscriber at the time and I didn't want the sealed content, didn't have a choice whether I received it or not, it just showed up in my mailbox. Yes, I know it's under new management, but I've gamed fine since then without Dragon and Dungeon and I'll continue fine without them. Will I miss some great content? Yup, but I don't really care because I make up some pretty great content as well.

 

[Agamon]

I subscribed for 4 years, and bought every issue from my FLGS for about 8 years prior to that. So I have a lot of Dragon mags, but I stopped a little over a year ago. One reason was the new content change. I loved the new Dungeon (and still do), but the new Dragon didn't float my boat. Even before that I was going to stop getting it, because the mags are chalk full of crunch. I don't especially like reading crunch as much as I used to, and I find the rules in the mags hard to use. It's difficult to remember them. And when I do think to use them, they're hard to find. So they tend to sit on the shelf unused for the most part.

That said, I kinda wish I'd bought it over the past year. I'm starting my Age of Worms campaign on Sunday, and the Wormfood articles would have been nice to have access to. Too big of a chunk of change to pick up the 12 back issues just to assist my game....

 

[Thandren]

I have been playing AD&D for a long time and have been playing 3.5 for a while now. I wanted a magazine to read for D&D to give me ideas for my adventure plot storys and found Dragon was not that, once it was a good D&D magazine, now it is a waste of money for me. I then bought dungeon and like the fact that each copy has 3 adventures in it.

 

[philreed]

* Dragon is the sister/brother magazine to Dungeon. You have the opportunity to get players to say to their DM's "Holy cow, I want to play that scenario I heard about in Dragon. ." I'm sorry, but a one-sentence question-blurb on a side-bar isn't enough. Be an opportunist. Make it happen. Think of the kind of text or pictures it would take and make it happen. You guys are great at finding a format and once you've got that, it's easy to plug in details.

You know, a one-page "player's hook" for each adventure in that month's issue of Dungeon would be a pretty neat feature.

 

[Driddle]

I don't buy it because I can read the issue at Borders book store.