bg2soatob's page

Ray Winninger's articles were definitely a classic. They were extremely helpful to me in understanding how to make adventures as a DM (something I have found WOTC to be useless with. The MM gives a lot of monsters, DMG gives a lot of dungeon features. Nowehere does it help with actually designing dungeons, or worlds for that matter). If the articles were turned into their own sourcebook, I would be the first to go out and buy them. Monte Cook's articles aren't bad, but focuses on different things than Winninger. And seeing as dungeon and dragon's reformatting eliminated any other kind of DM advice article, Winninger's articles are needed now more than ever. Together they're over 150 pages, which means that once pictures and "the scar" and whatnot are added, it's long enough for a full sourcebook.

I'm in the midst of writing a campaign workbook (actually, I'm almost done), but am unable to figure out what category it should go into. Without ruining it (not that I expect it to get accepted), let's just say that it has to do with adventure hooks. My co-author thinks that should be 'the journey', as the journey is about the path to adventures, but I think 'the journey' is specifically about the wilderness and that it should be 'the dungeon'. Who's right?

Back in 2004, I sent dragon a query for several articles, one of which (a class acts) was accepted. I sent in the article, and have not yet recieved a response. Months later, I sent in a new query, which included a questioning of the status of the first article. As of today, no response. A couple moths went by, and I sent a follow-up of that in, no response. A while later, another follow-up. Guess wat the reply was.

Question 1: Has this happened to anyone else?
Question 2: How do I solve this?

Back in 2004, I wrote a query to dragon, one article of which (a class acts) was accepted. I sent in the article, and have not yet recieved a reply. Several months ago, I sent a new query, in which I also mentioned the last article. No response. I sent a floow-up to that several months later, an a little while ago yet ANOTHER follow-up. Guess what happened. So I guess I have 2 questions:
1) Has something similar happened to anyone else?
2) How do I solve this?

Way back in 2004 I sent a query to dragon and had one Class Acts article accepted. I sent them the full article in January 2005, and have not yet recieved a response. On march 16th I sent a new query, in which I also asked about the status of the article. No response. April 14th, I follow-up the query and the article. No response yet.
Do others have similar experiences or do I need a new email server?

I've noticed that even in the new guidelines dragon - unlike dungeon - requires a query for EVERY article. Dungeon does not require them for Campaign workbook articles, which are two pages long. Kal Vachomer that for a one-page article such as the Class Acts articles a query should likely not be required. Why should a person need to go through a multi-month process for a one-page article? It gets more absurd with Power Plays (my congragulations, btw, on adding them), which have a maximum word-count of 150 words. The query will be as long as the article!
I strongly reccomend dragon follow dungeon's path and abolish queries for the shorter articles.

As some of you might remember, I posted a similar thread here a while back, but I can't find it now. It's about articles, advice and otherwise, that are aimed mainly at DMs rather than players. These were some of my favorite articles, and now they're gone. Obliterated. The unleashed edition of dragon and dungeon has been done in such a way that DM articles have been neglected entirely, not fitting in either.
The dragon writers guidelines specifically say that articles focused at DMs will not be accepted. And the dungeon articles, aside from adventures, allow nothing but backdrops and campaign workshops (all column articles with specific formats).
Funnily enough, one of my favorite dragons was #322, which was loaded with DM articles (Collaborative campaign worlds, darkness,...). It was the last one before the unleashed came out.
Don't get me wrong, I love unleashed in both, but as [u]the[/u] d&d magazine I think it's important for you to provide some DM advice content.

A recent subscriber, I've only been reading dragon since #310. Loving it, I have since bought several backissues, though they were all in the $6 range (#286 and more recent). Though the main reason was economical, there was one other: I have no idea of the content in the earlier magazines. Aside from the rather low-quality (at least as far as reading the words goes) pictures of the covers, I have no clue what's in them, as there are no descriptions presented. This is unfortunate, as I'm sure many were excellent issues. I really do not believe it would be much work to add descriptions to the issues, and if it would give backissue-buyers the ability to buy the older issues then why not?

Additionally, I would request a slight elaboration on the "one line per article descriptions of those beyond #286, which make them rather hard to judge. Of course, that is a much more minor issue.

My bad, should have posted in General discussion.

Let's face it: aside from the occasional Nodwick, the comics in dragon are not very good. I haven't laughed at them for a long time. So where have I gone to enjoy quality d&d comics:

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript

The writer, Richard Burlew (who was one of the three finalists for WOTC's world and lost to Keith Baker, as well as writing the illusions spellcraft article in #324) writes hillarious comics, which crack me up every time. So I got to thnking, why not try to manipulate both him and dragon to get them to talk and put the funniest d&d comic in dragon! I've already posted a thread on his website's messageboards, so I'll do the same here now.
Dragon staff: look at the comics (111 so far), and you'll see how funny they are. Then beg him to have a monthly one in dragon.

When I picked up dragon #323 the other day, I started looking at the Wyrm's turn, then the scalemail. Then I saw something missing. I checked back to see if I had accidentally skipped a page, but no, there was no "up on a soapbox article". Oh, the shame of it all. That was an excellent article, one of the most entertaining I've read in dragon. And if you can have article completely worthless in actual play like Knight vs. Samurai, why can't you spend one page each month for the man who wrote the bloody game?

I just picked up dargon #323 today (live halfway around the world), and while the new format of more, shorter articles and more familiars were interesting, there was one thing that I found missing that seems like it truly should be there: core classes. With winning races and Gaining prestige a new race and new prestige class is added each month, but for some reason there's no article that presents a single - levels 1 through 20, core class. Why not? The only core classes that seem to come out of dragon are tweaksof existing ones, and it would be nice to see an original class eahcm onth along with the others. Personally, I would find that much more useful than a race or prestige class.

I found out the details of unleashed only about a week after I extended my dragon subscription for another two (might even have been three) years. Like many, I don't like the new player focus of dragon (from things I've seen of course, 323 hasn't arrived half-way around the world yet), but do like the new advice articles in dungeon (bought lone issues with a bunch of backissues). I therefore wonder if it would be possible to "switch" subscriptions (if it comes to that) to be able to get one instead of the other. Given that everything's been changed around, I don't think it's so unreasonable a request to be able to change things around a bit with my subscriptions too.

The weirdest thing has happened in the revision. Dragon has taken a more player-oriented style, while dungeon has added dungeoncraft. However, it did not add other articles for DMs, and the advice articles I enjoyed so much seem to have vanished. Take dragon #322, for example. Articles like "who's afraid of the dark", and "collaborative campaign building" were excellent, and they will no longer exist. Nor does the Campaign Components series, which I believe I speak for most dragon readers when I say was the best series in the magazine. Dragon is just for players, and dungeon has only 'critical threats', which are two-page articles about specific topics. I don't mind the revision, making each magazine point to a specific audience, but go through with it fully. Find space (by either shortening the adventures or reducing their number) and put in some quality DM articles!

The 'new' dragon magazine , with its updated look and shifting of articles, seems to have forgotten a very important article. The Campaign Components articles, which I believe I speak for most of your readers when I say were probably the best articles in the magazine, seem not to fit into the new format, as they're rather DM oriented. Dungeon has selected only a few articles alongside adventures in its magazine, and Campaign Components doesn't appear to be there either.
Are you really going to give up on your best article?

Am I the only one who thinks dungeon's focus on adventures is too much? I mean, not only can many adventures be found online, but they're not too hard to make. In fact, published adventures are quite difficult to use in a campaign. I liked dungeoncraft in dragon, and now I'm having trouble deciding between losing one of your best articles or subscribing to a whole bunch of adventures. If you're going to switch to a magazine with DM content and advice in addition to adventures, go all the way. Don't squeeze a few advice pages in at the end.

I haven't been buying dragon for that long (first issue I bought was #310), but recently I've started buying backissues. Since it would be a good idea for a thread anyway, I'm starting this thread to get info on what you think were some of the best issues ever (and conqequently help me with my shopping list).

Note: Magazines that cost only $6.00 are the best (#286 and more recent).