Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[cjdc1973]

I am going to go out on a limb and disagree with almost everyone on most everything. I definitely agree that Dragon could use an digital Index, PDF versions of the magazine, as well as timely rule set support for E-Tools and PCGEN. That's where I'll stop agreeing.

Screw the Fluff. I don't need the help coming up with ideas. I never read a single Fluff based article. I never bother with Ecology, and ignore almost all of Class Acts. The Samurai versus Knight article made me want to burn my copy of Dragon.

Lots of Crunch. I want more Feats, Prestige Classes, Spells, Magic Items. There are only ~2000 published spells by WOTC. I can never have enough. The magic item lists in the various books are woefully inadequate. I never get bored of new Feats to toss against my players. I eat Prestige Classes like candy. They are what makes my NPC's interesting for the 10 rounds and 3 hours of combat they are lucky to survive.

More Forgotten Realms. Fiction;Ed Greenwood;Sean Reynolds;Eric Boyd;Bruce Cordell;etc. More statistics for characters from FR based novels. The entire line of FR based Fiction that lines my shelves isn't enough. I need more.

I dislike the new black words on white paper layout. I relished the funky design with strange backgrounds and bright text. They made the magazine come alive. I could care less about the cover art. I don't by a magazine for its cover, I buy it for its content. Do whatever you want with the cover.

I've been a subscriber for almost 3 years and have personally purchased all Dragon/Dungeon issues since 3E was released. I also have digital copies of every almost single issue scanned in so that I can always browse an issue or look up a rule. I'd love to have real authorized, OCR, text searchable versions that are not huge 100MB file sizes. Until then, I'lll acquire my less then legal versions while still paying for subscriptions to allow me to stay in a murky grey Fair Use area of the copyright law.

*Energy Immunity Fire activated*

 

[Eremite]

Hmmm... after a long hiatus, I actually DID get a subscription again, to both dungeon AND dragon. I ordered mine on 9-9 of this year. It is now december, and I have yet to receive my first copy.... if this keeps up, this will definately be a very good reason to never buy again....

Whisper72,

As a fellow international subscriber, I have to tell you that this is pretty normal for us. You should expect not only delays but every second or third issue will go missing. That's the bad news.

The good news is that if you send an email to customer.service@paizo.com they will arrange replacement copies which only take about seven working days to arrive here in Oz and probably will take about the same length of time to reach you.

Edit: Actually, this rather poor situation reminds me that I would actually prefer to buy both Dungeon and Dragon electronically. It would save delays plus would make storage and retrieval of articles (particularly as there is no comprehensive index) that much easier.

 

[the Jester]

Another vote for no fiction.

Another vote for an index and datasets.

Dragon seems less flavorfull than it used to be- haven't bought one in a good year now, but I've quite a collection, going back to somewhere in the 50's. (Lots of gaps, of course... ) I'd say try to bring some of that tasty old skool flavor back somehow.

 

[Style]

What is bad about Dragon: Splitting the "DM content" off into Dungeon magazine. The DM/player split is a false division - most articles are inspirational for both. Keep Dungeon for quality adventures for the audience that wants them and stop forcing other folks to buy 2 magazines! Lose the fiction. Lose the minis articles.

What would be good in Dragon: Crunch, fluff - bring 'em both on. Games consist of both elements. Design-philosophy articles like the "how to build a feat" or "how to build a monster" articles. Campaign components to plug into your game. Campaign classics (do more Dark Sun and get it right!). And put the DM articles back into Dragon. Yes, I really feel very strongly about this - it's a needless split that, in my case, made me drop Dungeon as I can only afford one subscription at a time. I am a DM but have no lack of adventures or adventure ideas. What I do need are inspirational and innovative articles and having them scattered over 2 separate magazines is just dumb.

Oh, and as an international subscriber, let me echo the voices that have already said that it is too expensive and too damn unreliable. Customer service are great (they really, really are!) but it is a pain in the neck when you have to chase 50% of your magazines. Bad! Very bad!!

 

[sotterraneo]

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?

Albeit I'm a big roleplay fan, I don't buy Dragon magazine because it simply bothers me. Another prestige class, another set of spells, another monster, another group of magical items... sigh... They are all the same. I have and satill enjoy reading the older Dragon Magazine issues (I'm taliking about the issues from 1980 to 1990) because they seem to me fresher and with a more varied content.

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

Nothing, I'm afraid. As another poster wrote, I simply outgrow it and I'm convinced that, commercially, the current articles lineup pays well in commercial terms. I'm too much a niche audience

 

[magnuskn]

Okay, first off, I *am* buying Dragon at the moment, but if it continues in the new look as it is, I´ll be jumping off after a few more issues.

So, with this in mind, here goes:

1. I won´t continue buying Dragon in the future, because the new sections doe nothing for me and have replaced better content. The miniatures stuff is completely uninteresting for me; Zogonia is a much worse comic than every other one which I saw before in Dragon, and instead of replacing it, its section has been enlarged ( bring back Phil and Dixie, I say! ); Winning Races just seems superfluous, aren´t there enough races already in D&D?; and last but not least, Class Acts is not a column which brings much interesting stuff at all to the classes, besides the flaws or once the new equipment for Rangers. At the moment, I´m just waiting for the flaws for the different classes to be completed, at which time I´ll drop the magazine.
Also, on a purely visual level, the new "white on black" approach doesn´t look as good as the old "mixed colors" approach.

2. Well, first off, bring back Phil and Dixie. Really, please do. They rocked.
Second, could you give some loving to the new core classes, which were in the Complete books? If there is a Class Acts section, go for those new core classes, too, they could need some new specials, the normal core classes already have tons of their own. Same goes for some of the PrC´s, which never get expanded upon in any venue.

Change the layout back to the old multi-color style, please. The new black-on-white layout looks dreary and boring.

Things that I *loved* to death were the statistics for the "heroes" from the War of the Spider Queen series. Yay, finally some high-powered NPC´s to use against my own players! Does anybody realize how much time it takes to build a threatening NPC of high level, not to mention several of them? More than it takes to cook up the plot for the week, I can tell you that! More of those would make me want to buy every single issue, be sure of that.

Also, if WOTC doesn´t plan it by themselves, could you please make a new master table for random treasure, including all the stuff WOTC invented for the last years? Maybe after Complete Adventurer comes out? I know, not likely that you´ll be allowed to do it, but it would really be nice to be able to roll up random treasure, and to be able to roll anything of the current stuff, not have to include it by hand.

Well, that´s it, I´ll now read the thread to see if someone else already gave those suggestions I gave.

Magnus

 

[Hand of Evil]

I am a selective buyer, picking up a Dragon every now and then. My problem, my years of gaming, I have about 27 years of gaming behind me and my Dragon collecting starts at about issue 6. Stopped reading them in the 2nd edition days and re-started for 3rd edtion. After all my years a lot of stuff appears to be repeat, maybe it is for a different edtion, different name, or such but it just has that rerun feel to it, at least to me.

 

[pjurgens]

Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine

I am not sure if I am the type of person that you want a response from since I am a current subscriber to Dragon. My first issue of Dragon was #39 – I guess that makes me an old timer. I have had subscriptions on and off since. My latest run of 10 years is definitely the longest, but I am pretty well decided that it is time to move back to the “off” column for a while.

Why would I let my subscription lapse? There are a few things that have been bothering me lately. One is the recent reformatting of the magazine. I know that every new editor needs to leave his/her mark on the magazine, but the reformat seems to be repeating the same mistakes made by the previous reformat. I feel like I could go back 4 or 5 years and dig up the criticisms of that change and they would be 90% relevant to the changes presented today.

Second, I am sick of new feats. 39 new feats. 37 new feats. Blah, blah, blah. I don’t really understand the excitement over new feats. When I look at all of the new feats the only thing that comes to mind is a feeling that the feat mechanic is being diminished and abused. I loved the concept of feats when it was originally presented in 3.0. At first I thought the feats presents in the PHB were fantastic. But what I can’t seem to understand is the attitude that we need dozens of new feats. Most of the new feats presented in Dragon seem unbalancing or trite or are tailored to a specific home-campaign or they expose a flaw/limitation in the 3E/3.5E rules. (I can give an example if needed). I really feel like the pages dedicated to new feats could be much better spent.

Third, I think I could make the same comments about new spells and magic items, but not nearly as strongly. I really enjoy new magic items when they are presented. I like magic items with a little history as opposed to another +1 long sword. The new spells are a little more dicey – sometimes I feel like the new spells are unbalanced or not well conceived or, like my comment about feats above, they expose flaws/limitations of the 3E spell system.

Finally, though I do feel there are creative ideas that you can extract from articles on worlds/settings that are of otherwise no interest, it seems like the number of these articles is on the rise. I know that a certain number of these articles is to be expected because WOTC needs to support their latest setting, but enough. Issue #326 seems to be much better than other recent issues. But I find myself not-reading about as much as I do read. And that makes me wonder if it is money well spent.

Reading the other responses above I see some fantastic ideas. These ideas from Thorin Stoutfoot would surely convince me to stay….

2. Plot ideas. I loved the plot ideas part of the DMG, and wouldn't mind more material along those lines.

3. Patches/additions to the Core books. For instance, the new NPC tables in the 3.5 DMG are a travesty and not nearly as useful as the NPC tables in the 3.0 DMG was. An article to fix them would get my attention.

5. A regular column titled "Behind the curtain..." that explained the design process behind certain rules and why they work that way. Heck, that could be applied to the various Campaign Settings that WOTC (and possibly 3rd party) produces. The idea here is that rather than provide me with fodder that I might or might not use, give me tools! "Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day..."

 

[diaglo]

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?

doesn't cover the edition of D&D nor other rpgs i enjoy playing. if it contained articles and information for OD&D you'd have to have a restraining order placed around your premises to keep me out. i'd live at your house.

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

a centerfold. a pc or npc or monster of the month or even player handout map. of course, you'd get the normal.. "I buy it for the articles" comments.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

I recently extended my subscribtions to both Dragon and Dungeon. However, I want to comment on what I'd like to see and what wouldn't lose me as a subscriber.

If each issue of Dragon had one article on a specific world I would be okay with it. Greyhawk one month, Eberron the next, FR after that, then Planescape etc. A lot of gamers want this material and I think you could add it in without losing me as a subscriber.

However, I'd recommend you expand the existing material and not recreate the old worlds. Maybe include a few new rules, some examples of how existing rules could fit in the world, and a new roleplaying piece (details on a kingdom not covered recently or recent events of interest to adventurers).

One thing the core rulebooks and supplements don't do for me is project a coherent picture of a base D&D world. I'd like to see some articles that recommend how to combine some of the existing rules together in the world of Greyhawk (which could represent any home brew world based on just the core rules and supplements).

Discuss types of adventures that can be run for classes other than the big four (cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard). Explain how challenge ratings of certain monsters should be tweaked in a game without certain classes being played (maybe bump up CR for undead in a game without a cleric for instance).

If you want to create new rules, expand the core. I think fighters could benefit from high level feats with a lot of prerequisites. Higher level spells for the cleric would be good. More magic items that are specific rather than generic (specific armor and weapons and rings, rods, and wondrous items with a variety of unique abilities for instance).

Create a background for some NPCs and create the stats for them as various levels. Take a risk and occasionally include an NPC using a supplement class rather than a core.

Consider expanding the supplement rules a little at a time. New auras for the marshal, new invocations for the warlock etc. A one page article would be short enough to present some new options without taking up too much space. If you present half a page of new rules and use the other half for roleplaying tips (background ideas for the warlock, how to use tactics in battle) than the article is much more useful for more readers.

Discuss how the various cultures and monsters would interact. Just what do mind flayers do besides eat brains and wait for adventurers to come kill them? Actually develop a few cultures for monsters and races (a roving armada of halfling ships, a band of elves that travels in the treetops, a democracy of gnomes settled on an island and dealing with their fey neighbors to the north etc.).

Finally, I'm okay if non-paper RPG articles go away. I don't read the fiction or mini rules. I would think the fiction should go to Amazing Stories and the mini rules to Undefeated.

I'd like to see Dragon support existing worlds, expand not just the core rules but also the core roleplaying ideas, add some new material for supplements, introduce articles with a combination of new rules and new roleplaying ideas, and join the various books and campaigns out there into a loose community of sorts. Instead of just appealing to the core rulebook rules crowd, take a few risks and try to draw in a wider audience which includes home brewers, campaign users (existing or previous editions), and DMs as well as players.

As a subscriber, I'm willing to have a FR article in one issue and an expansion of the Book of Vile Darkness in another (don't use either myself) if I know I'll get an Eberron article and a few new invocations and background ideas for my warlock.