Where oh where has my little dragon gone?

[Zaebos]

Dragon? Where did you go?

I miss my dragon. All I see now is filler within Dragons pages since the new format has taken root in the magazine. Articles like 'First Watch' and 'Players Initiative' just don't feel like dragon content. I find my self skipping over many of the articles trying to find something, anything that my players can use.

The 'special feature' articles in this last issues (and the four previous issues), have had precious little content for my players. My players love prestige classes, they enjoy reading the new spells and history of geological locations of Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, and have a healthy interest in new races.

The entire 'Ecology' column was nice when it came but once in a while. Players really don't need to know the ecology of monsters. I believe that a little mystery is in order for a player to play. Giving away monsters history, physiology and society of monsters is fairly useless to players. Players come to play (hence the name PLAYERS), not to discuss what happens when a Rakshasa reaches puberty. Unless a player wants to play a Rakshasa (I don't know many DM's who would allow this) then why fill the magazine with it?

'Class Acts' do not help my players. I have had my players read those columns and then say, 'This is common sense stuff.' I agree with their assessments. I am hard pressed to find something in 'Class Acts' that is actually helpful. Some of the feats offered help some, but they could have been placed in 'special' articles and not squeezed on a single page.

Finally, I miss the old title. You at Dragon may like it, but it seems you grabbed the first font you found on your 'Photo Shop' program and went with it. The previous title added mystique and flair to the magazine. It begged readers to pick it up and read it. It was creative, unlike your current title.

I can go on about your other articles in the magazine, but I think you get the idea of where I am going with this.

After careful consideration, I have made the somewhat painful decision to discontinue my Dragon Magazine purchases, considering the only useful content I have found in the last four issues has been 'Scale Mail'.

[Taricus]

I personally like Dragon better, since its change-over to the new format.

Like 'Ecology'... It'z good for players and DM alike. It goes in more depth than the monster manual does, so a DM can understand and play his NPC's better. For players, it makes the game world more immersive. There's alot that can be left out when you are just battling Rakshasas. The players' characters live in that world and have heard of stories about this stuff before. There's still mystery involved in them. Think of it this way... We all know all about the FBI and what it is, how it works, blah blah... But all the movies are still fun and still have that air of mystery. Ecology articles can only help your game by making the monsters make more sense and become more realistic. Nothing kills an encounter more than if every monster is the same with just different names and numbers behind them.

Class acts is another favorite of my players and me. It always gets my players to think about their own characters. They always like to read options that they can use to make their characters different or more like how they imagine them. Even if something is common sense, there's always something that you can take from it. As a DM, it has the same effect, only it helps me make NPC's seem different than eachother. Instead of just having another druid, the players can see the difference in the different NPC's by how they go about things, their character flaws, different styles of fighting, ect.

The reason they changed the font on the title was to make it more visible on newstands. Back before I subscribed, I would spend forever combing thru those huge magazine racks in Media Play tryin' to find the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. --and they never put them in the same spot... hehe *SHAKES FIST AT MEDIA PLAY!* NEwayz, I can understand why they changed the font on the front--I don't see how the font of one word could really be such a big issue, tho. Everyone brings that up, like it changed the content of the mag...

I'm not trying to disprove ur opinions, Zaebos, but it'z all about perception. Even if it'z something that I can't or don't want to use, I can find some way to change it and use it if it sounds like it could be fun (like the flaw thing in class acts... I don't have whatever book talks about that, but I can still use them with my NPC's as a role-playing bit--just to make them quirky sometimes, and more memorable).

So, Paizo, Zaebos may be breaking up with you, but you still got me, baby... LOL

[Erik Mona]

Zaebos,

As the brand-new editor-in-chief of Dragon, I respectfully request that you give the magazine a few more issues. I'd be very interested to hear what you think of #330, for example. Please check it out and come back here to let me know what you think.

On the other hand, I do want to mention that you seem to be laboring under something of a misapprehension. Dragon is not, exclusively, a magazine for players. It is a magazine for D&D enthusiasts, most of whom happen to be players. That means that there will, occasionally, be articles that seem to speak more to the DM than to the players. The goal is to publish interesting, insightful articles first and foremost.

Ecologies are staying. They're interesting and fun and help to define the shared experience of D&D.

That said, you'll find more of the things you've been missing as the magazine marches forward into its latest incarnation. I trust you'll like what you see.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

[Guy LeCharles Gonzalez]

Erik Mona wrote:

Dragon is not, exclusively, a magazine for players. It is a magazine for D&D enthusiasts, most of whom happen to be players. That means that there will, occasionally, be articles that seem to speak more to the DM than to the players. The goal is to publish interesting, insightful articles first and foremost.

I really hope so. As someone who's subscribed for nearly a year now, and bought off the newsstand for about six months prior to that, I'd hate to see Dragon become the crunch factory many old-timers seem to want it to be. I've really enjoyed the past few issues in particular and, with my current subscription expiring with issue #328, I have to admit to being a little concerned about renewing every time I see your subtle references about what's going to change in the near future.

I've actually been carrying issues 324 and 326 around with me every day for the past couple of weeks as I begin working on a new campaign for my gaming group (along with Libris Mortis, one of the best supplements WotC has put out yet) because they both featured some of the most useful, well-written information you've published since I came back to D&D 18 months ago. More importantly, though, I've enjoyed READING both of those issues more than any previous ones and that's what will keep me coming back.

You'll never please all of the people all of the time, but I'd caution you on giving complaints about "things aren't as good as they used to be" an inordinate amount of attention, especially at a time when D&D needs to move forward, not backwards. It doesn't mean you abandon the long-time reader, of course, but we all know that's not where Paizo's growth is going to come from. Dragon, Dungeon, et al, need to reach new audiences - or, like me, old audiences returning after years away - in order to remain successful publications, and success comes not from simply giving the people what they think they want, but rather having the courage and vision to give them what they don't yet know they want.

At this point, I'm planning to renew my subscription, but I'll be doing so with the caveat that issue #330, which you seem to be staking your vision for the magazine on, will decide whether or not I cancel that renewal.

I'm hoping for the best, of course.

[Erik Mona]

I'm confident that you'll like #330.

Thanks for giving us a shot.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

[jonathan metz]

I for one hope Dragon gets out of its current slump soon. I subscribed 2 years ago because I had been buying nearly every issue of Dragon anyway. For the entire time since D&D 3e came out, I've found the content of the magazine to be excellent; since "Unleashed," it's been mediocre at best. I liked strong themed issues, especially the Campaign Components issues. I loved always having both useful player content and useful DM content in the mag -- I DM more than I play. Anyway I subscribed to Dragon for stuff to use in my game; since September I've stopped bringing the new issue to my game.

Not to say that I think all is lost. You can easily recover, as I say it just seems to me like a slump as you settle into the new format. And some of the new features are great. I love Coup de Grace. What I would like to see with some of the stuff that's always in the mag is for more of the "familiars" to be tied into the theme of the feature articles. Doing a feature on cat people? Make them the "winning race" for the issue, and use "Heroic Feats" or "The Magic Shop" to add some crunch to their culture. It just takes some planning -- a strongly themed issue is much more interesting and useful than a collection of scattered articles. Thanks for listening.

This to Eric Mona personally: best of luck as the new Editor-in-Chief! :)

[Vic Wertz]

jonathan metz wrote:

...a strongly themed issue is much more interesting and useful than a collection of scattered articles.

Preface: I don't work on Dragon, and can't speak for their editorail views, but I do want to respond to that there notion.

Strongly themed issues are tricky beasts, because if the particular theme isn't of interest to a given reader, the issue as a whole is unlikely to be of interest to that reader. Which means a newsstand buyer won't buy it - and, somewhat less obviously, will be less likely to buy the next issue, too. And, given a couple of those in the year - or even just one that happens to come right around renewal time - a subscriber may choose not to renew based on the theme.

On the other hand, when a themed issue works, it usually works powerfully.

-Vic.
.

[Taricus]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Strongly themed issues are tricky beasts, because if the particular theme isn't of interest to a given reader, the issue as a whole is unlikely to be of interest to that reader.

I was about to say that very same thing. LOL

As a reader, I would care very little about a race of cat-people being the theme of the whole issue--undead, however, would get me excited; but, may not do so for Jonathan. Themed-issues can be alot of fun, if they are done well and are about a topic with strong reader appeal, but we're all so very different in our likes and dislikes that it would be nigh impossible for you guys to actually pull it off ALL the time.