Erik Mona said:
I'm about half-way through a much needed vacation, so of course I'm sitting here thinking about work.
I know many of you _do_ buy Dragon regularly, and for that I send you a hearty holdiay cheer and a simple statement: thanks.
But I also know that many of you don't buy Dragon, and I'd like to know why. Over my 20+ years as a D&D player, I've had "on" periods and "off" periods with the magazine, so I know what sorts of things went into my personal decision not to buy Dragon, but I'd like to know yours.
If I can make some changes to the magazine to make it a more attractive purchase, there's a chance we all go away happy.
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?
Too expensive, and rarely is there enough useful material, for reasons generally stated above.
I'm also very tired of prestige classes. You used to have Class Acts for clerics of FR deities, for instance, where you suggested ways of multiclassing the characters so they could replicate their 2e abilities. The articles suggested
not using prestige classes.
Sure enough, WotC later starts turning these concepts into prestige classes. It's probably more WotC's fault than Paizo's fault but it's very irritating. It's also too difficult to find specific Class Acts because of the lack of that index.
Only a small amount of material should be campaign-specific. It's pretty easy to generate material that pertains to a terrain type, character class, or what not without stepping on the toes of a campaign setting. (Say "desert" not "Athas" or "Anauroch".)
2. What sort of changes would make you more likely to give it another look?
I'd like to see themed articles, such as a "high-level fighter feats" article (well, more an entire issue based on that, really
) or "character concept of [insert Campaign Setting here]". I'm more interested in things that work within the core rules than new rules (such as new uses for skills), although in a few areas (like high-level fighters) more feats are needed.
Any new crunch needs playtesting. A lot of it has clearly not been playtested, or it wasn't tested enough, or perhaps no munchkins got to look at it. You should visit the WotC boards, find out who the best munchkins are, and have them playtest your material. They will find every loophole and point them out to you. You could use an MSN or Yahoo group for this. If you're doing psionics stuff, I can recommend ... err... myself
There should be standards
ahead of time for how powerful new crunch should be so you don't end up with a lame feat on page 8 and a super-powerful feat on page 10. (I saw stuff like this in the Book of Iron Might... that wasn't exactly a joyous occassion.) These standards should reflect the power level of the core rules to prevent a general powering-up of the options.
I'm not averse to psionics, D20 Modern or even fiction, but such stuff should be used sparingly to avoid alienating the fan base.