A question for the powers that be:
Any chance we could get write-ups on the iconic characters we see in the illustrations of the magazine. For the write ups to make sense they would each need at least three descriptions, one for each low, medium and high level adventures.
How 'bout it?
Uh...what for?
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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Because a Rogues Gallery of our new favorite Iconics is cool, that's why. Who knows maybe a DM would want to have a ready made Adventuring party to use in his campaign or even give to newbie players??? There's lot's of options to play with here!
-"I am a Vrock, I'm a Tanar'ri!"
Creative Director
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A rogue's gallery of these characters is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. To tell the truth, aside from appearances and race and class, we don't have much of anything nailed down for these guys and gals. Some of them have been appropriated by editors here as player characters for Erik Mona's Age of Worms campaign, though (the paladin and the as-yet-to-be-unveiled cleric, who makes her debut in issue #124), and they're the only ones that we've kinda been calling by name so far.
"Who knows maybe a DM would want to have a ready made Adventuring party to use in his campaign or even give to newbie players???"
Doesn't the DMG already have sample characters that could be used for this?
I just don't see how this could be a real asset to an average D&D game. Lord knows Dungeon already has more than enough stuff like Downer and Wil Save that falls squarely into the plum useless category, so why add more?
I just don't see how this could be a real asset to an average D&D game. Lord knows Dungeon already has more than enough stuff like Downer and Wil Save that falls squarely into the plum useless category, so why add more?
Yeah! And what's with that table of contents! TWO WHOLE PAGES - for something that could fit on the spine! And for that matter what's with the font size. Whatever they're using for the indicia is just fine. And the art for God's sake! It just tamples all over my imagination - just stick the important stuff in like maps and hands-outs in. Heck without the art they could do the whole thing in black and white saving tons of money! Dungeon will then be able to hire an adminstrative assistant and get through more submissions. The savings in printing costs will allow the magazine to accomidate twice as many pages and editors. With the reduction in wasted space and the smaller font there will be enough room for 8+ adventures every month. I guess they could leave the cover in color and have some fantasy character looking all tough on it though really all they need to do is start the first adventure there. They could ditch Monte, Kyle, Wil and whoever that hack is who writes that "From the Editor" column near the front. Get rid of those guys, the table of contents, and those letters from people I doubt anyone but their relatives and the staff care about and you officially have 100% Dungeons & Dragons content in concentrated form! And those 11 pages would translate into something like 20 without "cartoony" or "noncartoony" art at font size 6.
GGG
Oh, yeah I wouldn't mind seeing their stats. No pictures! Just stats.
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Oh God.
No. Don't do it. Just don't.
I swear that I've just about had it with the game. I'm at my wits end. If it has to be dumbed down any more, I won't play it. Seriously, making a character is part of the game. Sure, having a pre-gen for a one-shot game is fine, but there is no reason we need to see them in the magazine. Let me explain the number of problems I have with that.
1) What level do you make them at? If you make them at level 1, they're practically indistinuisable from any other 1st level character. They have nothing that a free character generator can't make in 2 seconds. If you make them at higher level, they become useless. Players start making changes until it doesn't even look like it did before. "I want to be Tordek, but I want to dual-wield Dwarven Waraxes using the 'oversized-two weapon fighting' in Complete Adventurer." At that point, they aren't using the character as presented, so what's the point. If you make them play iconic characters, you're stifling creativity.
2) The whole point of an iconic character is that it could be anyone. Once you individualize them sufficiently, they can't be anyone's character. They're a unique individual rather than an icon. It creates an oxymoron.
3) The amount of space to do it properly is well-beyond what I'm willing to tolerate in the gaming magazine. Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Socerer and Wizard - 11 base classes. I feel like I'm forgetting someone, but still - and aren't there two iconic fighters? Considering how it wouldn't benefit my game AT ALL nor could it serve any purpose not filled better elsewhere that would be it for me.
Now, I don't speak for everyone, but the staff seems to care about our opinions. Dungeon has been treading in dangerous ground for a while. There are a lot of things I really like about the magazine, and there are things that I really don't. The last six months I've become less and less excited about the direction the magazine is heading in. It seemed it made marked improvement under Paizo, but now I can't tell where they're going. More Adventures is the only direction I want to see it head.
Dragon has improved and remained at a higher level. I don't want to see Under Command there anymore than I want to see Wil talking about Steve Jackson Games. So, forget about the stuff that polarizes the community. There's just so much controversy loyal subscribers can stand.
"More Adventures is the only direction I want to see it head."
Amen. The original Dungeon did not sport comics and "blogs" and articles that, while useful, are traditional DRAGON fare. All adventures all the time. Dungeon now seems increasingly in danger of going the way of MTV in the 90s: You got your game shows, reality shows, making-the-video shows, interview shows, cartoons, but, uh, where's the music videos, dude?
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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The last six months I've become less and less excited about the direction the magazine is heading in. It seemed it made marked improvement under Paizo, but now I can't tell where they're going. More Adventures is the only direction I want to see it head.
If you can't tell where Dungeon is headed, I submit that you haven't been paying very close attention.
Three adventures. Monthly. Sometimes a fourth adventure. Sometimes something else like a Backdrop. Eight pages of the Campaign Workbook. Monte Cook. Wil Wheaton. Downer. The end.
Would more editorials explaining the magazine's philosophy help? I've been thinking most people are getting sick of those, but perhaps they just haven't been reading them.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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The original Dungeon did not sport comics and "blogs" and articles that, while useful, are traditional DRAGON fare.
Four years ago the original Dungeon was within a meeting of cancellation due to low sales. I was there. I saw the faces of the editors involved, and saw how hard they had to work to reverse trends that were putting the magazine into the toilet.
Dungeon now seems increasingly in danger of going the way of MTV in the 90s: You got your game shows, reality shows, making-the-video shows, interview shows, cartoons, but, uh, where's the music videos, dude?
Your opinion is in the minority. Sales are up. Subscriptions are up. Letters to the editor and reader feedback has never been more positive.
Dungeon now contains three (or possibly four) adventures, monthly. At, say, seven adventures every two months, that's pretty much what you were getting back in the days of yore, when the magazine was bi-monthly.
So, sorry you don't like a Dungeon that acknowledges that DMing is about more than just prepackaged adventures, but the new format is not going away. We've brought more people to the magazine this way, and it's not changing back any time soon.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon
"Your opinion is in the minority."
Oh, yeah, I'm used to that. I don't expect it to change just because I see it as a problem. Lots of great enterprises can't garner enough popular appeal to pay the bills. Look at tv. Babylon 5 struggled against cancellation for years. Futurama, the smartest, best animated cartoon in years and years was pulled right when it really hit its stride. Firefly couldn't even get a second season.
But as long as you're offering your bandwidth, I may as well use it and say what I'm moved to say. I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic with no financial stake in the fate of Paizo, so I can afford to dwell on "But it was just BETTER before!" and damn the real world. :)
"Would more editorials explaining the magazine's philosophy help?"
I don't think so. We all understand your motivations. We just don't always like the results. That's not something an editorial can reconcile. I'll just focus on the 75% of the mag I do enjoy a lot: The adventures. Right now, I'm still holding out hope that my Prison Mail fawning over The Styes will see print. Then I can have a letter in Dragon and Dungeon. :)
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When I say I can't see which direction the magazine is going, it isn't that I can't see what strides have been made. The magazine is at a good place.
But the magazine is dynamic. It won't take much to change it. There were a few magazines (not for a while) that didn't have three adventures in them. I'd really like to see four, or the equivalent. For example, the issue with Isle of Dread was excellent. There have been a number of great issues.
But, and you already know this - I don't like Wil Save. I don't like Downer. I'm not quite at the point where I'm drawing a line in the sand, but we're getting close. It wouldn't take much useless filler (like stat blocks for ho-hum characters) to cause me to resent the cost of the subscription. Afterall, I did have to get it approved by my fiancee (she still doesn't understand).
Now, you've just gone and said I don't have to worry about this, so I won't have to make an issue of it. There are a lot of ideas the community has come up with, and many of them I support. There are others that I'm vehemently opposed to.
A recent good idea was including maps for vehicles, like a sailing ship. Even if it wouldn't be immediately useful, a time will come when that would certainly be worth having.
I think I'd like to make one more point. I keep all of my old Dungeon magazines, and I have issues going back to #24. Even with a change in editions, I can still get useful information or ideas. Maps never cease to be useful. A compilation of Dungeoncraft articles can actually be a terrific boon when creating a new campaign. If I can suggest a litmus test for material in Dungeon, it should be 'will this be useful 2 years from now?'
If the answer is yes, it belongs in the magazine. If the answer is no, well, the answer is no.
And a final point - Dungeon is doing better for a lot of reasons. Changes in the publication certainly has something to do with it. But it also has to do with readers like me. I've been purchasing both Dragon and Dungeon for a long time. Now that I'm a self-supporting adult, I can afford the magazine all the time. I'm happy to contribute to the financial well-being of a magazine that supports the hobby I most enjoy. But despite my general high regard for the mission of the magazine, I have minimum standards, and as I've gotten older they've gotten somewhat more stringent. The very success you've had in increasing the quality has also increased expectation. As long as the magazine continues to be a high quality resource, I will remain a happy subscriber.
Still, I can't know what you intend, and if it were more articles like the one suggested here (that had at least some support on the staff) I want to make sure you realize that a significant number feel that would be the wrong way to go.
As a personal aside to Erik - I trust you. I mean, I still don't know how Wil Save ended up here, which bothers me a little, but I think if it were entirely up to you, things would be fine. However, it isn't entirely up to you, and you may feel pressure to change according to market pressures that I'm not even aware of. Just don't make changes blindly without considering the traditions the magazine embodies.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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>>>
If I can suggest a litmus test for material in Dungeon, it should be 'will this be useful 2 years from now?'
If the answer is yes, it belongs in the magazine. If the answer is no, well, the answer is no.
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Well, sure, but that would leave us completely without a letters column, and I enjoy those as a reader and as an editor. The thing is, the magazine can't just be for 2 years from now. There's got to be a little pizzaz, a little something for today.
Downer and Wil Save fill that role. Many, many, many of the letters we receive testify to this. Despite the fact that they have their fair share of detractors, many readers cite Downer or Wil Save as "the first thing" read when they get a new issue.
Downer is a wickedly clever long-form cartoon in the tradition of Wormy. I appreciate that not everyone likes it, but I do, and it's staying.
Wil Save is one page. One page to remind us that being a gamer is about more than just playing the game. At its best, Wil's column examines the intersection of life and the game we all love (not poker). And a lot of people really like it. I think it adds a human element to the magazine, and it's likewise staying.
Again, I appreciate that these three pages are not universally popular. And as a decades-long reader of Dragon and Dungeon, I sympathize. I never cared for things like "Robinson's War," or "Worms of the North" or any of a thousand other regular features and articles run in Dragon. Truth be told, my long-held impression of Dungeon was that most of the adventures that they published were lousy or too specialized to be useful for my campaigns.
Not everyone likes everything. I see it as my job to make the magazine a worthwhile purchase. If not liking these three pages makes subscribing or buying the magazine a dicey proposition, so be it. Sorry we couldn't meet your needs.
I realize you've said that the magazine continues to be a good value to you, and I appreciate that. All I can say is that we'll keep trying as hard as we can to deliver the finest product for the price.
Seems like a fair deal to me.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon
I've been roleplaying for years, but only started playing D&D about 2 years ago. I had a regular group at the time, discovered Dungeon, and pretty soon had a campaign mapped out from the adventures in just two issues (The first issues I bought were the one with Totentaz and the Elf Whisper, and the one with Against the Lady of Pain or something similar) - three quality adventures in each issue, each issue less that five english pounds. A published adventure is going to cost me more than twice that. The group fell through, and I stopped buying Dungeon for a time. When I next picked it up, they were down to one adventure per issue for non subscribers. That's still better value than any published module, but has a tendency to hit the "s!%+, this doesn't fir into my campaign" factor, or even the (less bothersome, but still problematic for those of us with less time) "how can I convert this away from Forgotten Realms" factor, so I pretty much stopped buying Dungeon. Riught now, we're back with three adventures, plus a bunch of really useful plug-in stuff. Dragon has improved too, and, without a group currently (though that's set to change) reading things like Wil Save and Dragon make me feel part of something I love, gaming and the community around it, of which things like Downer and people like Wil Wheaton are a part. Excuse the ranting testimonial, but Dungeon is the best D&D aid money can buy, and right now it's as good as I've ever seen it, and I think to look at the big picture, a more useful purchase to a D&D player than any magazine for an equivalent hobby to said hobbyist. Well g!+ d~!n done.
"I sympathize. I never cared for things like 'Robinson's War'..."
And here I had a letter printed in Dragon a few years back calling for another "serious" serial comic. :)
So to sum up.
Iconic character stats: no. Table of contents: yes.
Life is so unfair,
;) GGG
By all means, speak your mind, brother.
--Erik
I'll chime in on that note: I love the changes. I like knowing I'm getting 3 (or 4) adventures, as well as the campaign workbook information, and even if I don't read 'Downer' I'm aware that there will never be a magazine that I read cover to cover and enjoy 100%. I'm quite happy to settle for the 90-95% I get from Dungeon. The changes are why I just subscribed last week, instead of perusing and buying at the magazine stand (which, since the changes, has been every issue for about a year now, so why am I wasting more money when I could send more useful money right to the source?)
I've even bitten the bullet and just finished a second query letter - the style and ideas of the new Dungeon layout and presentation is easier to conceptualize, so I've got it in my noggin that I might be able to mimic said style. Why not try?
And before my praise becomes too vapid, I have to note that I've never before come across a magazine that listened as much as Dungeon has. I've managed a bookstore for about seven years now (Augh! Where did the time go?) and the number of magazines that go smash is dazzling - Dungeon didn't.
Here's hoping y'all continue to listen as you have, and change in ways that continue your success.
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I stumbled across this post while searching for the iconic characters (and their stats) that I see in each issue of Dungeon, and was a bit at odds with what some earlier posts said. I've been playing D&D very frequently since the release of 3rd edition (and less frequently during AD&D), and I think that the current version of Dungeon is the best attempt to find something that everyone (player or DM) can integrate into their sphere of the game. The concept of guaranteeing three adventures each issue, of equally varying levels, ensures that each group that reads the issue can count on a new bit of inspiration no matter what level their group is at, and as a DM who sometimes stuggles to come up with interesting and dynamic material, I greatly appreciate that.
I think that mincing over the last three pages of the magazine, when the staff is already doing their best to bring AT LEAST three (and often more) quality adventures to us in the first 97 pages or so, is kind of presumptuous. And Erik is right; Downer and Wil Save do offer something that three adventures might not, mainly in the form of clever humor and perspective on the game we all love.
So, with that rant out of the way, I would also like to voice my desire for stats, maybe just posted to the website, of the four previous iconic characters from the Cauldron-era of Dungeon (the paladin, ranger/rogue, druid, and sorceror), as well as the new additions (the drow, tiefling, and wizard from the Age of Worms cover). I personally am intrigued by seeing the stats of the characters represented in the art of each month, and thinking about them progressing through the adventures that my own group has just finished. Until my wish is fulfilled, keep up the great work.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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I'm still all for a rogues gallery... even if it's just here. Hell you don't even need stats... I love fluff more than crunch. Give me the story of how these iconics came to be! More of the pencil sketches...
For my money's worth Dungeon has NEVER been better in the 11+ years I've been a subscriber. I usually plop down the jink for a 3 year hitch... hard to beat $3 an issue.
-"I am a Vrock, I'm a Tanar'ri!"
You know, I can't say I know Erik personally, but through various Greyhawk channels I've been given a glimpse of the progression he's made from the early days of the Oerth Journal through his association with Green Ronin and WotC and eventually as a grunt trying to breath life into Polyhedron, to finally attaining the crown at Paizo.
He and I might not see eye to eye on a lot of things and I've certainly given him a hard time or two, but at the end of the day, you have to give praise where praise is due. In his tenure at the head of Dragon/Dungeon, he's given a lot of fans what they want, and a lot of people have been satisfied by the changes to the magazines, myself included. In everything he's done, you can see he's made an effort to make it the best and in most cases has succeeded (except his feats... sorry, they're just not your strong point).
That deserves a little benefit of the doubt, don't you think? If he makes a judgement call on something and sticks to it, you have to at least bite your tongue for a second and think, "Well, he's been right most of the time before, maybe I'll just shut-up and give it a shot?"
And believe me when I say that I'm not the type of person to give praise lightly. In fact, I have a net reputation, developed over the last eight years of posting to RPG boards and chat channels, of which I'm currently serving a life-time ban in several, for NOT giving praise, and telling people exactly what I think of them. If even I can come down off my high horse and see that Erik is worth giving the benefit of the doubt, surely other people can also do the same. So what if you don't like one or two aspects of a magazine? Support the other 90% that you DO like.
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