Why _DON'T_ You Buy Dragon Magazine?

[pogre]

Erik,

Thanks - I appreciate your efforts.

Keith (aka pogre)

 

[JoeGKushner]

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.

Greyhawk is awesome. Will these include Initiate Feats like those found in Races of Stone? Will they be somewhat like the old Gods of the Suel Pantheon from way back in the day?

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.

Cool. That's about all I can say at this point until we see or know more about it.

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.

A Best of Dragon would be completely fantastic. If it started when 3.0 hit and updated some of those mechanics to 3.5 for example, that would be a good start. Heck, take some of the 2nd edition stuff and update it to 3.5.

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.

Meh. D&D isn't historical and isn't really based on it except in the most losest sense of the fashion so if it's great, I'll use it.

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.

Excellent. that's about all I can say about this. I hope that we see some of the older stuff updated. Some may note that I've mentioned older material a few times and the way I see it, Dragon is one of the few monthly or regular sources, that could do this in any type of fashion that meets it's old standards.

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.

I still use some of that Greyhawk material. The regional feats for it were great. If doing stuff like that in the future, more ideas on how to place those reigions in a generic setting would be great. And of course, we still miss Spelljammer.

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

Good stuff overall Erik. Here's hoping that the 2005 run down is a list of the accomplishments of your reign.

 

[Erik Mona]

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.

It was always a time and money issue. Our previous publisher, Johnny Wilson, flipped out due to the negative reaction of the fans to the d20 Annual, and made a petulant post that suggested that the negative reaction was the reason we stopped doing it. I couldn't account for that decision then, and I certainly can't now.

I don't think it was a lie as much as a "these things kill my staff and my budget, and no one likes it, so screw it." I can't apologize for something I didn't do or say, but I can say that I strive to be honest and professional in all of my posts, and don't anticipate using these types of tactics in the future.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

 

[Nellisir]

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.

I want OGC. I DON'T buy a good amount of WotC stuff, or ANY Kalamar, Ravenloft, or Dragonlance material, because it's not OGC. I suspect, though I don't know, that Erik (who's done some 3rd party work himself) would like OGC in Dragon.

I'm just saying, if it ain't happening, don't assume it's his decision.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[velm]

I would LOVE to get them online. When I read about some of the current issues, I was really interested in them. I like the Outer Planes and Demons/Devils, and when I read that one of current issues had some info on one of the major demons, it got me interested.
Selling them PDF would be a good thing, either as an issue per issue basis or maybe do another (mini) dragon archive, or sell them in blocks of 10 issues or what not.

 

[The Gryphon]

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.

I think dropping Winning Races to an occasional feature is a mistake. Sure most people aren't going to create 12 new characters per year, but just like the other articles which are staying in every issue not every article will be useful to every person each month.

Also the races are not just a player resource, they are an aid DMs when creating new areas of the campaign world or adding a twist to an adventure. I'm sure a few DMs could use more than 3-4 new races a year.

Dropping the frequency of Gaining Prestige is also an error in my opinion. There has only been a single prestige class every month since the change, from this column I might add (this is already a large reduction compared to dragon most of the time before the change of format). Contrary to popular opinion not all prestige classes need compelling cultural and roleplaying information, as some are just a widely held archetype which has previously been unexplored. Often making a prestige class too specific is the problem.

This again is also a DMs resource. Whether the class is exactly what you're looking for or not it gives you ideas and a basis for a class you might want to create for your game.

Here's what's basically staying every issue: Ecology, Spellcraft, Bazaar of the Bizarre, Sage Advice, Class Acts.

I think you mean Magic Shop not Bazaar of the Bizarre

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.

Since you are insistent on continuing this column could you please format it like the rest of the magazine, 3 columns per page and continue the articles on one after another instead of starting each class on a separate page. As at 11 pages per issue this column seems excessive, as it occupies around 10% of the magazine's total page count (and around 14% of the total gaming content).

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.

Of the repetitive familiars which are being cut back and were specifically mentioned, such as Winning Races and Gaining Prestige, these are often more fluff than crunch (especially in the case of Winning Races) in the first place so it makes little sense to cut them in preference to more dynamic features. While cutting back the page count for Class Acts will get more room without cutting content that I like


Thank you for listening.

 

[qstor]

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

Well these are all good reasons for me to renew. I still dont care for the Class Acts articles. I think the 6 pages they take up is better used for other stuff. I'm glad you're keeping the comics. I hope the fiction stays too. I'm looking forward to the article series on the Core gods.

Mike

 

[shady]

So ... ummm ... didn't see an answer (maybe I should have made my question more obvious). Can Paizo not do adaptations of MtG material for d20, or is it just a bad idea?

 

[Ranger REG]

Can Paizo not do adaptations of MtG material for d20, or is it just a bad idea?

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

If you're going to feature Greyhawk, you might as well transfer the LGJ back to Dragon.

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.

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.

 

[khyron1144]

One reason I don't buy Dragon as often as I used to:
$6.99 is a bit more than $4.99


Also, there used to be a Media Play within pretty close distance of my dad's apartment that carried Dragon. It closed about a year or two ago. Since then a new giant book store, second location of a local independent store, has opened up fairly close by but they do not carry Dragon. So, add at least a half hour walk to closest place to buy Dragon to my reasons.



Third reason: the themes and articles of specific issues. Some things just don't appeal to me, April issues whose only nod to the Holy Day of Fools is longer comics being one.


Things that will get me to shell out $6.99:
I like gameable April Fools' content like the "Crazed Book of Mog" from Dragon #204, so jokes with stats.


Things that show a respect for or at least an acknowledgment of the long history of our game, specifically 3e conversions of older races and classes.


Barbarian-friendly prestige-classes.