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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steverooo" data-source="post: 1925403" data-attributes="member: 9410">HHH: Hopefully-Helpful Hints...Ugh!  Meum no read twenty-three pages of stuff!  Me read TWO, but here some ideas!1). All Content MUST Pass The USABILITY TEST!The main objection to fiction in Dragon (it seems to me) is that it fails the "Usefulness Test".  Likewise, an article on Hammered Dulcimers would be of interest to SOME readers, and could easily ties in to Bards, made game-related... but how much USE would the average player (or GM) get out of it?If your answer is "About zero!", then articles on Hammered Dulcimers have no business being in Dragon.  Save it for The Antiques Corner, or some magazine focused towards Renaissance Musicians.  It will better serve its readership, there.Likewise, ALL Dragon articles should be subjected to the same test.  Those that fail should be removed, and replaced with more USEFUL content.2). What's useful to me may be trash to you... and vice-versa!Forgotten Realms?  What are those (apparently, I've forgotten)!  Eberron?  No thanks!  Greyhawk, even?  No, thank you... not anymore!  None of these are of interest, to me.  THEY ALL fail the Usability Test!Now, what I loathe, others may love... BUT NOT ALL OF THEM!  The key, here, is Focus vs. Variety.  In an issue focused on Eberron, I will not be interested...  ALL articles will fail the Usability Test, for me.  Therefore, Dragon needs MORE Variety, and LESS Focus!Say you have an Eberron issue, a FR issue, and a GH issue, a Halloween and April Fools isue...  That's about half the year that I probably won't be buying your mag!  I bet I'm not the only one, either!Perhaps you could have one big Eberron-themed issue a year... but it would be a mistake!  Better to have one much smaller piece an issue, an occasional FR, GH, DS, etc., piece in an occasional issue, and a bunch of crunchy bits, and them some stuff of interest to some, but not all, on a VARIETY of topics.  That way, you might have some people who skip the one Eberron (or FR, or GH, or DS, or...) article, but still get hooked by one or more of the others!3). Variety, not Focus! (Or, No Theme Issues!)I don't care if it's April Fools' month!  Does everything in the mag hafta be foolishness?  If so, there's no reason for me to subscribe (or buy the April issue)!  Halloween is much the same.  Pretty much every theme you can name works the same way.  Go back to #2, now...4). Dungeon notwithstanding, bring back DMing material!There is no reason for DMs to buy Dragon, apparently...  None, whatsoever (unless they're also players).  CHANGE THAT!  (Please).Now apply the Usability Test to this suggestion...  See how that works?5). More non-D&D (even non-D20) material.Variety vs. Focus.  Sure, some people will object, but as long as it's an occasional piece, it'll fly.  Just don't make a theme out of it!  This will fail the Usability Test for some readers (especially those used to a steady diet of D&D, alone), but older readers will appreciate it (remembering the older Dragon), and most will enjoy more Variety!6). Content, Content, Content!If the content isn't to my taste, I won't buy.  It's as simple as that...  Now, you don't know my tastes, and you can't please me all the time...  And even if you could, that shouldn't be your goal!  You have a lot of other customers, besides me!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />But obviously, you are going to have to have interesting content, or no one will be buying!  Instead of trying to please everyone with every article (and failing), try to please everyone with at least one major, and several minor, articles in every issue!  Much easier to do, and not fore-doomed to failure!Now if this means changing editorial policy to get new writers, then DO IT!  Why do you need Word for Windows format when most word processors, these days, can take in ASCII text and/or HTML, anyway?  Why do you have to buy ALL rights to articles?  (I won't be submitting, under those terms!)Content should always be heavily slanted towards usability, as well.  Now here's a piece I did, on wilderness survival, geared towards players.  It was the second-to-the-last post to <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1916316&postcount=16" target="_blank">A Voice from the Wilderness</a> thread.  Kindly take a look at it, and see if it passes the Usability Test, for your magazine...  THIS is the kind of articles I'd be interested in!  Lots of ideas to use (or not), variety, general applicability to any setting, and any class could benefit.  YMMV.  Here's another one, on <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~ad2300/5-minute.htm" target="_blank">"Quick Adventure Ideas"</a>.  All useful stuff, IMHO.7). Subscription/Delivery ProblemsOverseas subscribers have often complained of poor service.  Have those issues been resolved?  (If so, then good job!)  American subscribers have complained about getting their subscriptions AFTER their FLGS do.  (Bad job!  But I understand that that has been/is being fixed!)Also, any magazine which is not mailed sealed inside a Tyvek envelope will never get my business...  I am tired of ripped, crushed mags, with coffee stains on pages 119-20, and arrive without their covers!  Fuhgeddaboudit!8). Customer ServiceYou can see complaints as complaints, or as opportunities to improve your products and ingratiate yourself to your customers...  I assume you're a businessman, and realize that only one of these is acceptable.  I leave it as an exercize for the interested to determine which is which.When 3.5e was announced, I wrote and asked WotC Customer Service how we could give input to the new edition.  I was told that all design decisions had already been made, and it was "too late".  After 3.5e's debut, questions about this-and-that were asked, and the WotC folks told us "Well, that was back in the days when..., and we've since changed that!"  Obviously, things were changed since the Update Conversion Guide was published (magical armour only adding to maximum Enc., not weight, for instance), so it shouldn't have been too late.Anyway, I did a looooooonnnggg piece on what was wrong with the 3e Ranger, and how to fix it, right here on these boards... even though it was "too late".  99% of those suggestions seem to have been incorporated into 3.5e, oddly enough...Anyway, WotC (and Dragon) need to do better in opening channels for feedback, and making them known.  Not just to subscribers, either!</blockquote>

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