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Dungeon® Magazine Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary
James Jacobs Promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon
Paizo Publishing, LLC® is pleased to announce that Dungeon® magazine, a source for new official Dungeons & Dragons® adventures, maps, and other necessary tools, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with the upcoming September, 2006 issue (#139).
Dungeon was first published in 1986 by TSR, Inc. as a bi-monthly adventure magazine and quickly joined ranks with its sister magazine Dragon® as one of the best hobby gaming magazines on the market. Paizo Publishing acquired the license to publish Dungeon (and Dragon) in 2002 and in 2003 Dungeon switched to a monthly format.
Paizo Publishing is also pleased to announce the promotion of James Jacobs to the position of Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon. Erik Mona, former Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon and current Paizo Publishing Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Dragon, is excited to see where Dungeon goes under the captainship of Jacobs:
"I make no secret of the fact that I think editing Dungeon is the best job in the gaming industry. I can say without reservation that there is one man to whom I am willing to hand over the magazine, and that man is James Jacobs. James has been an invaluable part of the Dungeon team for the past several years, and I am very excited to see where he takes Dungeon in the future. We're all in for a fantastic ride!"
James Jacobs began his interest in the hobby gaming world back in 5th grade when a teacher ran his class through Dungeons & Dragons adventures. He's remained fascinated with the game ever since and over the next two decades had several articles published in Dragon and Dungeon. "I've been writing for Dungeon very nearly from the magazine's debut (my first article appeared in issue #12)," said Jacobs, "so I'm excited and honored to take on the role of Editor-in-Chief."
Jacobs has written and co-written a number of official Dungeons & Dragons books published by Wizards of the Coast, such as Fiend Folio™, Dungeon Master's Guide™ II, and the recently released Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss™. He also helped develop some popular Dungeon mainstays such as the Campaign Workbook and the incredibly popular Adventure Path series.
Jacobs starts his tenure as Editor-in-Chief with the September, 2006 issue. "I've worked with all the previous Editors-in-Chief, and they're all talented people—I just hope I can live up to the quality and imagination that precedes me."
Original news link:
http://paizo.com/paizo/news/v5748eaic9k91
NOOOOOO!!!! All is lost! Abandon hope all subscribers - It's only going to be ninja dinosaurs from here on out...
Seriously James, congratulations. I enjoy your work, I appreciate your posts on this board, and I am certain you will do a teriffic job.
I would venture that you are one of the few persons with feet of sufficient size to even come close to filling the shoes left behind.
Congratulations James!! ....and congratulations to Dungeon magazine. I remember issue #1 well....picked it up as a 19 year old college freshman to help me keep my GH campaign going as I no longer had as much prep time...who would have thought that 20 years later the magazine is still my creative crutch and my timesaving lifesaver....thanks Dungeon!!
HOLY MOLY!!!
This is sooooo cool! James!!! Congrats! The silent puppetmaster steps into the spotlight and gets on the throne!!! This is crazy!
Erik and you have made Dungeon a magazine I can't not buy every issue of...that is super impressive considering I am total closet commie...but you guys have me going all capitalisto for Dungeon babyee!!! I can't even begin to imagine where Dungeon will go under this new leadership.
Congratulations again James!
Oh man!
When I started to read this thread I thought:"NO! Don't kick Erik, please!!!!"
But after reading who'll become the new editor, everything calmed down again. As long as one of those two has something BIG to say concerning Dungeon or the Dragon mag, everything will be fine!
Congrats James and all the luck and good success for your new job;
And thanx for bringing Dungeon to where it is today, Erik!
Hmmm. I guess this means I have to start coming in to work now.
Seriously, though... thanks for the kind words, everyone! And I promise to try to resist the terrible urge to put dinosaurs and kenkus in every single issue.
Although we haven't done an adventure that features BOTH dinosaurs and kenku yet. Hmmm....
Gratz James, got promoted a few days ago myself, it's nice to be appreciated isn't it? Mind you it's nicer to be paid more :) Managed to get 40%, W00T!. Shop, shop, shop, shop, shop *looks at Paizo art with interest*
Hmmm, they have compensated you well for this I hope? Otherwise I'll feel like a git (no change there then). No need to answer of course, pennies is personal :)
This is great news, James! This is the most secure I've felt in any change-of-command thus far (I've been buying the mag since its inception). You have my full faith & trust that Dungeon will continue to be an outstanding product - innovative, original, creative, constructive, and inspiring. But I hesitate to mention ... sniff, sniff, does this mean we will only enjoy a token influence from Erik? Say it ain't so!!
Well done, James. Well done. Quick question since we're on the subject. You guys often make comments about how short handed you are at Paizo and stuff. I was just wondering... exactly how many employees are there in the Paizo offices?
Also, now that you left behind the mantle of Managing Editor, who assumes that position?
Just curious.
And I promise to try to resist the terrible urge to put dinosaurs and kenkus in every single issue.
I am interested in knowing though, do you have plans for any changes, be it in regular features, adventure format, types of adventures featured, or anything like that? Or were you so embedded in developing the current incarnation that it's basically how you want it already?
Well done, James. Well done. Quick question since we're on the subject. You guys often make comments about how short handed you are at Paizo and stuff. I was just wondering... exactly how many employees are there in the Paizo offices?
Also, now that you left behind the mantle of Managing Editor, who assumes that position?
Counting the entire operation, there's about 20 or so of us here at the Paizo office.
The Managing Editor position is sort of being absorbed by the Editor-in-Chief position, I suppose. We don't have anyone scheduled to take its place, so I'll mostly be handling all of those responsibilities still.
Well done, James. Well done. Quick question since we're on the subject. You guys often make comments about how short handed you are at Paizo and stuff. I was just wondering... exactly how many employees are there in the Paizo offices?
Also, now that you left behind the mantle of Managing Editor, who assumes that position?
Just curious.
At last count, I think there were 22 of us at Paizo, but Dungeon itself is run by 3.5 people - Jacobs (Editor in Chief), Jeremy Walker (Assistant Editor), and myself (Assistant Editor). The 0.5 is Erik, since as publisher he's still got plenty of sway with the magazine, even if he's not doing the day-to-day editing. I don't think there'll be a new Managing Editor any time soon - with a staff this small, titles are kind of funny - Dragon has 2 Associate Editors but no Assistant Editors, and Dungeon has the opposite. We all do a little bit of everything, so at the end of the day, what matters is that the magazine gets out.
Isn't Erik gonna get bored now from lack of stuff to do?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
As for JJ's promotion, all I have to say is:
"O captain! My captain!"
I am interested in knowing though, do you have plans for any changes, be it in regular features, adventure format, types of adventures featured, or anything like that? Or were you so embedded in developing the current incarnation that it's basically how you want it already?
I don't actually have any crazy plans for the magazine yet; it's pretty much where I want it to be right now since I was deeply involved in the relaunch and all that anyway. There might be a new type of Campaign Workbook showing its face soon, but for now, that's about it.
We all do a little bit of everything, so at the end of the day, what matters is that the magazine gets out.
In the museum field they normally include sentance that includes the phrase "and other duties, as necessary" in your contract. It's probably like that in several other fields. It means that, no matter what your salary, you are not above being asked to grab a broom and sweep the damn floor if that's what's needed.
While working at a good sized museum in Indiana (20+ staff, and the large gallery was 5000 sq. ft.), we had a large gallery opening and artist's reception. Afterward, the Museum's Executive Director, the Curator of Collections, Supervisor of Administrative Services, and I (one of the peons), were standing in a cluster. The ED rubbed his hands and said brightly "Okay, who vaccuums with me, and who washes dishes?"
So do we continue to send our bribes to James or his replacement? Or both?! This could get expensive...
That's the one thing that will be changing. James won't be taking bribes—he'll be taking bids. This new system should maximize the efficiency of what we're now calling the "potential direct profit delivery system."
-Vic.
.
This sounds like it was a re-organizational move designed to help equalize the workload across the two magazines, to me...
but that's a good thing. the high standards I expect from dungeon will almost certainly remain satisfied, and with erik having more time for dragon (hopefully), both magazines can only get better.
and congrats james.
That's the one thing that will be changing. James won't be taking bribes—he'll be taking bids. This new system should maximize the efficiency of what we're now calling the "potential direct profit delivery system."
Hrmm... I didn't think of that, you could drive down the costs associated with the magazine by having all those who have acceptable proprosals invited to a reverse auction (there are several websites that provide the format). The auction would then be held with 10 or so authors bidding on how low they would be willing to get paid for an acceptable (read: good quality) adventure.
Funny part is I am only half joking. Since I doubt what is paid to the authors of the adventures is that large a portion of the bottom line of the magazine it probably wouldn't make that big a bump. But who knows...
Seriously though, congrats to James, but I am actually more interested in Erik taking over Dragon. I had let my subscription lapse a couple of issues after I decided wormfood and class acts weren't enough to keep the subscription. A few more things of the quality that Erik is known for and I will have no choice but to re-up.
Sean Mahoney
