Erik Mona said: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.
Erik Mona said: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.
Erik Mona said: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.
Erik Mona said: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.
Erik Mona said: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.
Erik Mona said: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.
Erik Mona said: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
dream66_ said:So is this the real reason why the annual was dropped? Lack of time and money. Why didn't they just say so at the time? I really do believe that fans would have understood, but lying to us just makes bad feelings.
They produced the d20 Annual, it was horrible. People commented on this, said it was horrible and so the editors at the time decided never to do an annual again?! That logic doesn't even make sence.
If it's money I understand, if it was always money, I understand. But you should at least offer everyone an appology for your predicessors lying to us.
rickajr said:I hear you playing the devil's advocate from WOTC
- but it's NOT a good thing - the SRD/OGL is brilliant and in my opinion making the crunchy bits of Dragon OGL would increase readership and make the content truly useful.
Erik Mona said:The "Dragon Unleashed" relaunch gave us solid formats to introduce a new PC race in the form of "Winning Races," for example, but six issues later I am left with the conviction that we simply don't need to be running "Winning Races" every single issue. Very few D&D players realistically create 12 new characters a year, so we'll be easing off this feature a little. Ditto "Gaining Prestige," but perhaps even moreso. We will of course continue to publish prestige classes, but we'll try to do so only when there's a really good reason, surrounded by all sorts of compelling cultural and roleplaying information.
Erik Mona said:Here's what's basically staying every issue: Ecology, Spellcraft, Bazaar of the Bizarre, Sage Advice, Class Acts.
Erik Mona said:To be clear, while Dungeon is the magazine for DMs, Dragon is the magazine for D&D enthusiasts of all stripes, so look for material that speaks to both players and DMs. Class Acts really speaks directly to the casual player--those guys in every campaign who only own the Player's Handbook, or maybe not even that. It's a monthly place for them to turn for easy-to-digest articles about their favorite class, meant to be read at the game table during a break. The continued success of the hobby revolves around converting these folks into more active players, so in my view Class Acts is absolutely critical and is staying. We'll do what we can to make each installment as inspiring and exciting as possible, for novices as well as old hands.
Erik Mona said:As to the general comment that the magazine is "too boring," well, it's my hope that cutting down the repetitive "familiars" (or at least the frequency with which they appear) will allow for more room for dynamic features. Also, see my comments above vis a vis the crunch/fluff ratio.
Erik Mona said: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.
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
Bad idea, at least for anti-TCG guys like me.shady said:Can Paizo not do adaptations of MtG material for d20, or is it just a bad idea?