This is intended as a sort of "roundtable discussion" on a subject very near and dear to the grodnard in me: Fiction as a device for presenting new campaign setting details and game mechanics in Dragon.
When we old-timers get together to discuss the merits and flaws of Dragon over the years, one complaint seems to get raised over and over. That complaint is that the issues of Dragon that support the most recent D&D versions (3.0 and 3.5) just lack the proper feel; that they're nothing more than dry lists of feats, spells, magic items, prestige classes and other "kewl powerz" with no...spark of life about them.
Sure, some of this can be chalked-up to nostalgia, but a lot of it, I believe, is simply the truth. The "laundry list" method really does dominate a lot of 3.0/3.5 material in Dragon. This isn't really new. It's mostly been the default method of presenting rules expansions from the beginning.
The key term there, however, is "mostly."
Looking at a few old Dragons from the early 90s today, I spotted several features that presented rules bits in a totally different and, in my opinion, much more engaging way. In features like "Voyage of the Princess Ark", "Ecology of the (fill in the blank)", and Ed Greenwood's various articles, the bulk of the article was a short fiction piece decribing monsters, spells, settings and such while all of the game mechanics were presented as footnotes at the end.
Wow, does this make a difference for me! I find myself coming back again and again over the years to reread these issues, whereas I'm currently lucky to make it through another dry list of new feats once. Hearing the "crunchy bits" described in action as part of an entertaining fantasy tale never fails to make me dowright excited about using each and every one in my own game. What was once dry is now dynamic; really "alive" for me, so to speak.
Now, granted, some of these tales were pretty cheesy. Elminster and Mordenkainen discussing the downfall of Raistlin over a glass of Coke in Ed Greenwood's living room? But despite the more tongue-in-cheek aspects, they were good fun reads, pure and simple.
I would love nothing more than some fun and fantasy served up alongside my new rules bits again, but I can see how others might disagree.
What do you think?
Exactly. Call it the Mary Poppins Effect: A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!
As a subscriber since issue 82 iirc, I hear what you're saying Yamo. I miss the feel of the older articles, the wonder of cracking open the new Dragon and seeing what I might drop into my game. I haven't felt that feeling in 4 years plus, and I think it's because of the "dry lists" approach you mention.
Deciding to stay with an older edition doesn't help either, but I don't think the current supported edition of the game has anything to do with the flavor of the articles in Dragon. In fact, that flavor is the only thing this old grogger still looks for in Dragon that interests me. I certainly don't care for the stat blocks or d20 mechanics, as superior as they are heh, and since I have to work around those, I also know I can look past them and get to the primary meat of the article. But it can be tough sometimes to stay focused on the material when you know going in that so much of the feel and mechanics of the articles are alien to what you prefer. Half the time, I find myself trying to figure out how something from d20 might work in AD&D; the other half of the time, I'm trying to figure out the point of the article and dig very deep past the d20 top silt to get to the good loam below. It's a mental gymnastic I'm forced to perform, part in memory of the magazine I once knew, part for the desire for new material to keep my players guessing, and the last part for the collector in me. I mean, how can I possibly stop collecting the only D&D magazine in the world, even if it is d20, after 245 consecutive issues? 20+ years is a long time to dedicate towards anything....