Tys's page

ASEO, I can't answer those three questions. Clearly, those are directed towards the editors of the magazine and perhaps should be directed discretely to their attention via private emails.

As for the Wil Save article, I offer the following as my thoughts and opinions on it.

It certainly is not DM specific, nor D&D specific. To be perfectly frank though, I find much of the magazine to be useless to me. Nonetheless, I subscribed to Dungeon because I feel that one adventure per magazine is generally of use to me. Does that allow me to justify spending $38.00 or whatever a year for a subscription? In my personal life, yes. I merely flip past the Eberron materials, the Cauldron adventure path, and just about 60%-70% of the material in Dungeon. I am however, willing to overlook that and continue to pay for others to enjoy those items I don't because this magazine is about providing content to everyone, not just a vocal minority/majority/even split.

I actually enjoy Wil Save. Besides the ToC, its the first thing I read. I started buying Dungeon at the store back when it first was spun off Dragon and I, like many others, stopped buying it as I adjusted to real life of a career, family, mortgage, life insurance premiums and the monotony of "growing up." Nonetheless, I recently subscribed, in part because of the changes the current staff have put into the magazine, including irrelevant, flippant articles such as Wil Save. I'm not looking for a how-to-text on modules. If I want that, I'll look to third party vendor materials. Wil Save offers me a distraction. Maybe that distraction is better suited to Dragon, but to be honest, I prefer it in Dungeon. Dungeon magazine is a magazine for all DM's, not those wanting only DM materials.

I hated Star Trek and I hated Wesley Crusher. Doesn't impact the fact I still like the article. Burn me if you want for disparaging Gene Roddenberry's creation but I just don't care for the show, in any form. I don't care about Wil Wheaton, his stepsons, his MtG phase, his whining about characters, or whatever else. The point I find in the articles is that he does address things that older gamers coming back to the game sometimes run into. Kids, old fads we were into, bad luck, whatever. It 'clicks' in my head for whatever reason that Gary Gygax never could.

I'm going to reference Downer here. I don't read it. I tried a couple of times and just couldn't stomach it. I won't however, rail against the editors that I want it pulled, or even state it's a bad article/comic/waste of space. Some people like comics; I don't. Some people may find Downer great; I don't. I've tried reading and I just didn't like it. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's bad or that it should be pulled from the magazine. It serves a use to some people, just not me. I don't care it eats up 2-4 pages of potential "content" that could be better spent on other things I would like to see. I'm not the editor, nor do I have the time to submit articles I would want to see. Thus, I'm not going to attack it beyond stating this: It's irrelevant and moot to me and therefore I shall not read it.

I guess my biggest concern is that we have many people railing against Wil Save. Some of us like it, some of us don't. Why is it necessary for you and others to request that it be cancelled when some people out here like it? I won't complain about the Worm Turns or whatever new campaign is coming out and I won't complain about Eberron being focused on too much by Paizo, WotC, or whatannannywhonot. Wil Save's got my vote to stay until the designer's feel he's said what he's got to say and nothing more can be said about what he has to say.

I can't give anyone a clear, direct insight as to the 'why' I like it, I just do. It's a life experience thing maybe; who knows. Let some of us enjoy what we do like in the magazine though, and let us do it in peace without having to defend our likes and dislikes. My wife doesn't like asparagus, I do. I don't know why and I don't try to force her to eat it. She likewise, doesn't force me not to eat it. Think we can all just agree to something along those lines here eh?

First time I've posted here, but I have to ask this. What are the three questions Aseo1 is looking to have answered? The first post seemed to ask Why is Wil Save here and how is it relevant to Dungeon? No offense, but I've lost track of what questions are being asked anymore.

This thread has kicked back left, right, up, down and everywhere in between. The question yourself and others are asking now seems to be "Why is Wil Save still here since we've been railing against it for so long?"

Personally, I like it. It's diversionary from the core of the magazine, just like comics are diversionary from Newsweek, Time, your local newspaper, whatever. For that matter, why does Dungeon include an editorial at all? Why does it have advertisements? It's a magazine, with a core of DM's looking for adventures.

It's the opinion of one person as to what has a utilitarian use in a product. I personally don't find much use for a lot of articles in Dungeon, Dragon, the Economist, Barron's, or a whole host of publications but I don't begrudge the fact that other people out there in this world may have a different view on things than myself. Perhaps the article detailing currency fluctuations in Zaire or some English writer's criticisms of Real Madrid's financing of their soccer team, may find use to someone, somewhere amongst the readership of the magazine. Am I to judge that by my own perspective or perhaps, maybe, I should just stop reading those articles and look upon it as wasted space, like the advertisement the page previous.

In other words, points have been taken that people find no utility in the column. What's the real question then?

Why do some people have to be subjected to a one page column each issue that they don't like?

Sorry for the tone but man, this thread is like an ill-used bully pulpit.

Mr. Alvarez or Walker,

I dropped an email to the customer service account. This is merely to confirm that email as well. As of the 23rd, I had not received Dragon #328. Thank you in advance for attending to this issue.

I'm still waiting for Dragon #328 as well. My subscription states it was shipped on 1/4/05 but I figured that two weeks would have been enough time for it to reach me. Any ideas from the staff as to whether this delay is known?