Christopher Rocco's page

So can anyone comment on the content of this magazine? Specifically is it 3.5 or 4e or a mix of both?

HI. I am the editor-in-chief.

Sorry, I was just checking posts and didn't see this until now.

Dragon Roots handles both 3.5 and 4e material. If you are only interested in 4e material only issue #2 has 4e material.

I hope that helps.

Hobbesgoblin wrote:

Erik Mona Wrote:

"Care to elaborate? I am dying to know. :)"

- I wouldn't pander to his ego by caring. But thats just me ;-)

You know, I found some of the responses toward Christopher harsher than his responses. While passionate I still view them as normal spoken critiscism than someone shouting. And I guess that Eric or James also view them in the same sort or they would not have replied as much.

Besides it's allways interesting to view someone else's point of view, that way you might learn something from that persons critiscism (is that even a correct word, cause I'm not sure :p)

;)

Christopher Rocco wrote:

I think Erik Mona did a remarkable job considering he juggled both magazines, but he was over burdened and had a dangerous way of thinking of things at times.

I'm sorry I missed this thread until now. I can't argue that I wasn't over burdened running both magazines, but I'm very curious what you mean by "had a dangerous way of thinking of things at times."

Care to elaborate? I am dying to know. :)

--Erik

That is a story for another thread, and one that I am sure would either bore you or "pander towards my ego." However, one example that you can view in private was my e-mail that I sent you pertaining towards your theory on cover art and how the magazine doesn’t sell itself anymore. That is a small one, but it gives you an idea. I won’t say more here, but you are always free to reply to that e-mail and we can have a conversation :)

First, some of you guys are writing hate, and I can take it. You are just as passionate about your defense of James and Paizo as I am about gaming material that should be included either in the Magazine or available in a timely manner in pdf form for free download. I won’t fault you for that or pick apart your arguments; except to say that I needed a number for my mock dialogue of the editorial table and just took 10,000 off of the top of my head, so there. I must have been right about 17 cents though, no one told me that was absurd :)

I also see that some have started to understand where I am coming from. You might not agree with the way I went about dealing with the situation, but you understand the principle behind my argument. Thank you for your support and thanks for not going nuts at a shouting match with the others. Typically, the point is lost once that kind of thing breaks out on a forum, as I am sure will happen once my critics comment on this post.

Now, to James…

I've been a reader/subscriber (and writer) to Dungeon from the start as well. I certainly hope that, going forward, I'll be able to fill the shoes of the talented folk who've run the show before me. I can only ask that you check out the next few issues and decide for yourself. I certainly regret if my tone in previous posts sounded disrespectful to our readers and subscribers—that was certainly not my intention at all.

I take nothing on faith, I’m a recovering Catholic (see, I have a sense of humor), but for as harsh and to the point as I can be in my opinions and comments I always judge others on their merits. I will be reading the next few issues with great interest to see how well the mantle has been passed and judge you on that work, because this forum and your role as Editor and Chief are two different things. I wish you luck in your new capacity.

As for the availability of the Savage Tide Player's Guide... here's the details as far as I understand them: it will be available to everyone who wants it by the time the first Savage Tide adventure is available. Issue #139 (which has the first adventure) will be getting to subscribers near the end of August, at about the time we plan on making the supplement available as a free PDF.

Now you get it. That is all I wanted, the Overload material in pdf format in a timely manner. This is not the information you shared at the beginning of this thread as indicated here:

Yes. It's called Savage Tide Player's Guide. It'll be initially available at Gen Con as a free bonus to anyone who buys or extends a subscription to either magazine, or to anyone else for five bucks. After Gen Con, whatever's left over gets sold at paizo.com for 5 bucks a pop. Once we're sold out, it'll probably go up online on our site as a PDF.

And here…

That'll be up to you to decide. If you want to start Savage Tide as soon as you get the first magazine, you'll probably want to buy the print copy. If you can wait a bit, the free download might be better.

It would be nice if I could go to GenCon and I might have, or mostly would have, sprung for a $5 version because nothing beats a physical copy in your hands; but my frustration was never about being left out of that mix or not getting one free in the mail.

It was when you had said you would not release the pdf version until ALL of the left overs were sold at paizo.com. Either I am now grateful that you have changed your mind or that it was an oversight on your part and misspoke/wrote. I suppose I could be a dink and ask you to clarify which is correct; pdf released once ALL are sold or when the first issue is released? Since you mention it being released with the first issue three times in your last post, I would assume the later.

It's worth noting that the Age of Worms Overload wasn't made available as a download until 2-3 months after the campaign began, mostly because we underestimated the work and logistics of generating all the information. So the supplementary material for Savage Tide is actually going to be more timely than the material for Age of Worms. Is it a perfect solution to spread this information over multiple articles and products? Probably not, but it's the best we can do.

Then I didn’t really miss out too much on the Age of Worms Overload section, but that too would have been nice to have from the beginning. While I was going through the Age of Worms, I loved the supplements in Dragon and thought that was all there was. It was great that there was more. I am happy to see that you have again more material for this path and that it is ready in a timely manner. Now, I am also happy that you have said it will be ready in a pdf format around the same time as the first release of the path in Dungeon.

It bears repeating—the info in the Savage Tide Player's Guide will be available ASAP as a PDF download to go along with the release of the first adventure in the campaign.

That is all I wanted.

Good luck, I await your first editorial.

And yes. Selling the leftovers from Gen Con may sound like a cash grab... because it is. Paizo's not made from money; far from it. I'd love to send copies of the Player's Guide to everyone who has a subscription, but that type of generosity is unfortunately a poor way to keep a niche-market magazine afloat. What you might call greed I'd call necessity.

See, even after all of the above, you don't get it either. It really isn't about offering us or not offering us the product.

It is about when you make it available to those of us not going to GenCon. Stick to shirts and posters an avoid offering information that should be free and ready to download when the first issue of the path comes out.

The only reason I saw this thread was cause I did a search to find the overload material, hoping to get a glance at that information. In the Age of Worms, after going through the Whispering Cairn and going to the mines, my players wanted to confront Balabar Smenk via an ambush. The only information I had was that he was a 7th rogue. I made the encounter as hard as I dared, but it should have been more after reading the Overload section, which I didn't even know about until later.

I would have loved that information from the beginning and I should have had it. You don't want to give a copy to everyone, fine, I don't care. However, where you, and Paizo, become unbearable is when you would rather turn a profit at the expense of customer loyalty. You are going to make the pdf available to us anyway, sooner or later. Why not do the right thing and make it available when the first issue of the path comes out? Why hold the rest of us accountable for a Paizo profit scheme?

The problem has a simple solution, don’t give away information that is really part of the magazine. Just stick to things that don’t directly effect game play, like shirts or whatever and get the overload pdf material out in a timely manner. Heck, even just getting the overload material out the same time as the first part of the path would be fine.

…and, if the magazine needs to sell $5 handouts to stay afloat, you might want to find another accountant.

Oh my god… okay, I thought the name was familiar. James Jacobs, the future Editor-in-Chief of Dungeon Magazine. Not that it matters, but since I now know to whom I am addressing, I do have a thing or two to tell you. Hmm, I hope your customer relation skills improve and your attitude toward long time customers changes. I think Erik Mona did a remarkable job considering he juggled both magazines, but he was over burdened and had a dangerous way of thinking of things at times. Perhaps concentrating on just dragon may make him shine a bit more.

You on the other hand have big shoes to fill, and I am not referring to Erik Mona‘s. I think that if you continue with a line of thought to milk your potential customers, while ignoring the needs of those who have long ago paid for others to pave the way into this position, then you are going about this new position with a very dangerous attitude indeed. It seems you are ignoring a simple request to make available a pdf in a timely manner at the expense of customer satisfaction. Until I read this post, I was satisfied in general with my service. After reading your responses and your attitude I think that you are walking a double edged sword and you’re not sure of were to jump for safety. Sure, I may have been, shall we say, a bit sarcastic and harsh in tone, but I am not running a magazine, now am I?

As a cover to cover reader since issue one, I pray you re-evaluate your positions and ask for aid from those who have paved the long road behind you and seek aid for the road you will have to pave yourself. Erik Mona says, “but the time has come to pass along Dungeon -- my favorite magazine -- to the capable hands of Mr. James Jacobs.” I am not so sure now that you have as capable hands as he so glowingly proclaimed. I hope your editing skills are better than your ability to relate to customer issues; and I pray you can find a balance between keeping the magazine afloat and doing the right thing. I think you will find the later harder than you might think.

Christopher Rocco wrote:

I think you are being cheap and petty in regards to this matter. Yes, we can wait for a few months and download it, but we shouldn’t have to. You, who are providing a service to us the consumer, should make available, for free either through the pdf or preferably through a mailing of the actual module style document, when it comes out, not months later when the last of your limited printings has been sold. Your printing run should include one for every current subscriber and enough for a projected amount of sales and give-aways at Gen Con. When the first issue with the first part of the adventure path comes out, you should then also release any overload material you have on-line.

Things sure have changed in the years since I had a subscription and at times I regret getting another. I remember when Dragon and Dungeon would give out free Cds and DM screens. I guess we...

Dude, you need to check the magazine a little more thoroughly before making such an asinine comment. You've been a subscriber for a while? Hmmm. Guess the mailman simply removed all of the tons of cool extras Paizo put in the magazine before he/she delivered it to you. The quality of the content alone is payment 3 times over for your money. And cheap? You have no clue do you? Maybe you should check the thread about the guy that was running one of the APs and had every single issue the AP adventures were in stolen from his car and Paizo replaced them all for FREE. Does that sound cheap to you?!!!

Dude, get over it! You have to wait a month or so to get it for $5 and all of a sudden the magazine is cheap and petty. The only person cheap and petty seems to be you! Dink, indeed.

I don’t need to justify my comments to you; but I will say a bit more anyway. Why? Cause you don’t understand; and I don’t think you ever will.

Do I hate Dungeon Magazine? No, or I would not buy it any longer. Do I think that I am not getting what I paid for? No, or I would not buy that magazine. Can I be pissed off that some one from the magazine said they will not release a PDF pertaining to the magazine until they “Sell” off the remaining print run left over from GenCon? You bet your ass I can and will.

I didn’t know about the Overload section for Age of Worms until the 6th issue came out in the path - I don‘t cruise www.paizo.com everyday; but I am sure the overload section for that path was available from the beginning since they didn‘t give it out at GenCon last year. If it was not, it should have been. Now that I know there is an overload section for the Savage Tide Adventure Path and I know they have it ready before the first issue of that path comes out it, seems greedy on their part not to share that information. Personally, if they combined shipping on the physical copy of the Overload with my regular order, I would not mind paying $5 for it. My problem with the whole deal is that they disregard customers who buy the magazine on-line versus at GenCon. Wow, order it on-line and you save $1. Take time off of work and away from the kids and go to GenCon, you get a $5 product, while supplies last.

It is a comparison value between placing an order at a convention or ordering on-line or an order card. For me it screams that they value orders taken at a convention over orders they get on-line. He says they get a fair amount of business from that, but when you take into consideration that they get my business without having to coax me into their stand that they have to rent and man (basically free money by getting me to order it on-line) then it is a slap in the face that they are giving them free items and we get nothing; I‘m sorry, $1 off. Worse, we won’t most likely see that item in a pdf format for a month or two.

If they want to give away an art print for a GenCon subscription, fine, no problems. If they want to give away free t-shirts, no problems. If you want to give away backdrop information that can and will aid in the smooth running of an adventure and not make that very same information available to the rest of us until a month or so later, big problem. What is the difference? You don’t use an art print or a t-shirt to run the adventure. Either make us the same offer and combine it with our first issue of the path (to save on shipping) or be a man and offer it as a pdf right away, when the first issue in the path appears. You can’t change my mind on the way I feel in that regard. It is a back up plan to satisfy their greed.

I am sure the conversation around the thinking table went like this:

“Hey, what should we do for GenCon this year?” Guy One queries around a table.

“How about we offer them the Overload material before anyone else could get it and we bind it in a DM style screen? That would be awesome,” Guy Two delights at his idea.

“Are you nuts,” screams Guy Three? “what if we print too many?”

“I didn’t think of that,” replies Guy Two.

“I know,” states Guy Four firmly, “we can sell the remaining ones on-line for, I don’t know, what would be our cost?”

“17 cents per unit if we do a 10,000 print run,” adds a voice from the background.

“$5 for any extras sold on-line after GenCon,” replies Guy Four.

“That won’t work,” complains Gal One, “why would they pay $5 to purchase the Overload material when they can get it for free by downloading the pdf like they did for the Age of Worms? The shipping alone would cost more than the product.”

“Simple, we just won’t release the pdf version until everyone buys the printed versions first.”

After much back slapping and self congratulations they go for an espresso and order in Chinese for lunch. If you don’t think they do this, then you are wrong. I still get offers in the e-mail to, “act now, we only have three miniatures left, buy it today before they are gone.”

Yes, I can get bitter at times and when I see, in what I personally consider greed, then yes, I will say something. As to some guy who got a bunch of back issue magazines from Dungeon, hey, that is great, but no, I didn’t see that. Would it have changed my mind? NO! One good deed does not a saint make. Would I write that on a forum? NO! I was a subscriber since the 1st issue of Dungeon and starting buying dragon since Issue 51 and a subscriber since issue #92 of Dragon. A fire claimed issues 1-95 of Dungeon and 51-302 of Dragon including best of Dragon volumes 1-5 and all my 3.0 books (the loss of the 3.0 books wasn‘t too bad, 3.5 was right around the corner; good thing my AD&D books were in a different box and location). You didn’t see me asking for freebies from Paizo. Would I love to have those issues back? Yes, I love re-reading them, even after all these years those old articles and modules are a great resource. Do I expect Paizo to sift through their back issues and ship me one of every magazine? No. How ironic it is then that I get pissed at them cause they are too cheap to post a free pdf when the module comes out versus a month or two down the road?

They want to do a good deed for the subscribers, then offer the pdf when the first issue of the path comes out or make a double sized issue to kick off the adventure path and include the overload material and the “DM” style screen. Charge an extra buck or so for it if ya want, but don’t be a dink about it by denying those of us who can’t make it to GenCon a product that can make the running of one of their products a lot smoother.

Oh that is a problem, since I live on the other side of the pool. :( And am very sad to hear this. But perhaps I am lucky enough to get a copy here. Thank you anyway.

I am also one of those people who do not make every Gen Con that WOTC likes to throw around and, furthermore, when I subscribe, I do so 3 year at a time. You are offering a free product to those that pay a higher price, most likely through a one year subscription, or who pay $5 to get one at Gen Con. How about helping out those of us who loved Dungeon since the first issue and have been loyal fans and supported this magazine and Dragon for every year it has been in circulation..

I think it is very unfair that those of us who don't drop everything we have going in life just to visit a stand at Gen Con are excluded from your offer. What you should do is offer this product as part of any renewal, and just not ship them until after Gen Con. For those of us with 3 year subscriptions, you should also just mail us a copy as a bonus thank you for receiving our money 3 years in advance. Consider it interest on the money we have already given you.

I think you are being cheap and petty in regards to this matter. Yes, we can wait for a few months and download it, but we shouldn’t have to. You, who are providing a service to us the consumer, should make available, for free either through the pdf or preferably through a mailing of the actual module style document, when it comes out, not months later when the last of your limited printings has been sold. Your printing run should include one for every current subscriber and enough for a projected amount of sales and give-aways at Gen Con. When the first issue with the first part of the adventure path comes out, you should then also release any overload material you have on-line.

Things sure have changed in the years since I had a subscription and at times I regret getting another. I remember when Dragon and Dungeon would give out free Cds and DM screens. I guess we are just lucky that every once and a while you think enough of our support to add a map into the works. I guess I should be happy that you honor us by taking our money and make a magazine out of it. I guess I should just be content that we have given you a job through our constant buying of your thoughts and time and efforts. I guess I should, but I am not.

Stop being a dink about what we will eventually get for free and try being grateful for once and give us a break every once and a while. Some of us has been buying longer than you have been working.