GV, you've posted several complaints regarding Dragon magazine, and I have to finally chime in and say I strongly disagree. While Dungeon has a very specific role of publishing adventures for DMs, Dragon is designed to appeal to DMs and Players alike. Dragon also has the responsibility of fulfilling the needs of a wide range of D&D enthusiasts. Every month features miscellaneous articles that I find useful in some form or another. Pole Arms, Dungeon Delver's Guide, Far Realm, and Plunderer's Handbook, and the recent article on new types of alechemist's fire are just a few articles that I found 100% useful as a DM or as a player. I've even made the Dungeon Delver's Guide a required reading for my players who are all new to D&D and appreciated the ideas brought forth in the article.
These new players have also grown to appreciate Class Acts because it shows them how to really expand on roleplaying ideas beyond what the PHB offers.
Several others in my gaming group are considering subscribing to Dragon Magazine or pick up every issue at the local store because of the value of the diverse range of topics these articles cover.
If Paizo were to have Dragon follow a formula every month, the magazine would then become predictable and boring. I don't want routine in my Dragon; I want something new and different each month. While some months might have articles that I might not care for, there is usually another article in that same issue that appeals to me. Truthfully, for the $3.16 I spend each month for an issue, I am definitely getting more than my money's worth.
Finally, a direct comparison of Dragon to Dungeon is completely unfair. From your perspective as a DM, Dungeon might carry more worth, yet from some of my fellow experienced players' perspectives, they have no interest in Dungeon whatsoever, but look forward to each and every issue of Dragon.
Remember, GV, what's good fo the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.
Frankly, I agree entirely. I've just recently renewed my subscription to Dungeon, but have ZERO intentions of ever re-subscribing to Dragon. To put it bluntly, it's a steaming pile of donkey excrement. The articles are at best puerile, and at worst pedantic. I realize WoTC is attempting to hit younger audiences, but the articles are quite simply of NO use to me. So, continue with poorly aimed content. And, who could forego an article on the Ecology of a freaking Kraken !!! Woot !!! I know I can. And have, with deciding not to continue my subscription. Nothing is more democratic than a business and it's customers. -Flynn Kinkade
If anyone needed evidence of how tatty and threadbare the Dragon has become, one need only look to its sister publication - The Dungeon. To be precise, Dungeon 126.
I think one of the reasons that I have seen so many complain that Dragon is not up to the standard of Dungeon is that Dungeon had a lot of room for improvement, and has improved greatly, but Dragon, in my opinion was not nearly in as bad a shape and as such, even though it has improved, has not done so to the noticable extent that Dungeon has, and becuase of that, it may look the worse for the two just becuase it didn't have as far to go to improve . . .
When has any magazine in the world ever delivered in a way that is expected of Dragon? Never....
When I read Dragon in the 80's, I found about 20% of the magazine was something I could use in my campaign. 40% I read but decided it wasn't for me and the rest I skimmed over.
When I switched to 3rd edition, I initially was put off by Dragon's new design, the weird artwork (at first) and some of the new columns, but due to all the criticism I recently resubscribed and have found that the above listed ratio is still about right and about what I would expect.
Finding an article or two every month that improves your campaign is well worth it to me.
The critics of both magazines that post on these boards seem to want content customized "just for them" and they want to do "no work at all" and be able to plop it straight into their campaign.
D&D is not a computer game. You're the one that has to customize everything to make it fit your game and you can't tell me that even a Dragon issue that has nothing in it for your campaign directly doesn't have a ton of stuff in it that you can use as ideas for an adventure, a setting or whatever for your game.
I fully expect to do work on each and every adventure I read or article I use in order for it to fit my campaign. I used to think that this was just "assumed" by everyone, but all this complaining makes it apparent that it is not as common as I thought it was.
Frankly, I agree entirely. I've just recently renewed my subscription to Dungeon, but have ZERO intentions of ever re-subscribing to Dragon. To put it bluntly, it's a steaming pile of donkey excrement.
well, why don't you tell us how you really feel?
Flynnsster -
I disagree completely. First of all, it seems odd that you are complaining about the puerile and pedantic articles in Dungeon, and then go on to criticize the Ecology of the Kraken... written, I should note, by an author known for the quality of his work in Dungeon.
As for WHY an ecology of the kraken, I would say a few things: first, why not? It's a long term D&D monster that's seldom used. This gives DMs an intellegent non-humanoid sea-based monster to use in their campaigns, and ties in nicely with Stormwrack, which was released on Friday of last week.
What does hitting younger audiences have to do with it? I'm in my thirties, and have been reading Dragon since the eighties... I would say that overall quality is about the same, though I long for the return of Snarfquest or Wormy. I would say that I do miss the occassional really really long article, but this is a minor thing. I like getting an ecology every issue, and a spellcraft article, and while I would like to see the Complete books represented in Class Acts, or the Psionic classes, I am among many who have made my wishes known on that point.
- Ashavan
And, who could forego an article on the Ecology of a freaking Kraken !!! Woot !!! I know I can.
Interesting. I found the ecology of the kraken interesting and fun enough that I've actually pondered ways to include one in my campaign once I think the players can handle the challenge. *shrug* To each their own, I suppose.
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Similar to Amaril, I completely disagree with you GVD. I think that Dragon it still valid and vital and, although I admittedly look forward to Dungeon more, I still can’t wait to see the next issue of Dragon on my FLGS’s shelf.
Dragon covers the whole panoply of gaming…from great features like the Demonomicons, Dungeon Delver’s Guide, the article on darkness, interesting support articles that may help players think about new directions for their characters (like the Noble Born article) or new directions for campaigns to move (such as Far Realms), plus all the regulars like Ecologies, Bazaar of the Bizarre, Class Acts, etc… they have a lot of area to cover and I think it would be rather silly to make them conform to some necessitated ‘synergistic’ publishing regime.
As for the quality of the articles, I am very pleased, overall. I have been exceptionally happy with many of the features and regulars. I think the Ecologies in the past two years have been exceedingly well done… This past month’s Ecology of the Kraken was awesome and I was very excited to see it, so Woot, indeed! And let me for the record say that I never would have thought that Will o’ the Wisps would be the least bit interesting, so thank you Amber for correcting me.
Dragon is a lot like National Geographic… they may hope each reader will love it from cover to cover, but they don’t believe that they can make every article appeal to every reader. Take this month’s NatlGeog as an example… there are the following feature articles
Cave Art of Borneo
Brazil’s Pantanal Wetlands
A retrospective of 60 years living with Nuclear Weapons
future energy sources
China’s Fossil sites
Hurricane
Tecumseh, Missouri
There’s no synthesis of these articles, but you can be sure I’ll read 4 of them, maybe 5, and be happy. In a similar vein to NatlGeog, Dragon covers a huge range of topics to make it more appealing to all the different types of RPG junkies out there. There is simply too much to cover for them to make a neat chain of linked articles and still make it useful to the gaming community at large. It’s not tenable and the quality of the magazine would suffer. You seem to argue that Dragon is not a quality product, well, sorry, my consumer dollar is saying otherwise.
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I fully expect to do work on each and every adventure I read or article I use in order for it to fit my campaign. I used to think that this was just "assumed" by everyone, but all this complaining makes it apparent that it is not as common as I thought it was.
I'm with you, man. Plug and play is great for the computer world, but not so good on the table top. If you're not gonna apply the elbow grease and help wratchet it into your campaign, well, I hope that works for you...it sure wouldn't work for me!
I'm considering getting two subscriptions to Dragon this year to make up for GV's incessant ranting. Actually, I'm pretty sure I will.
-Amber S.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Yawn.
This sort of post is getting a little tiresome, don't you think?
We'll continue to work on improving the magazine every month. If sales go down the toilet, we probably will be canned, just like everyone's second favorite german tyrant suggests. If, on the other hand, subscription and newsstand sales continue to go up--which they have consistently since the relaunch and especially since issue #327--I suspect the result will be somewhat different.
When I came to Dungeon with issue #104, the magazine was a schizophrenic mess trying to serve too many masters. Over the course of a year, James Jacobs and I managed to get things more or less on track by the famous (and very popular) "Maure Castle" issue, but it wasn't until issue #114 that the magazine took its current (very popular) format.
The process from Dungeon #104 to #126 did not happen over night. It's my hope that Dragon can become a "must read" magazine to more readers (it already has that appeal to many out there), but again this is not something that will happen overnight.
I'm fairly clear on what you, GVDammerung, don't like about the magazine. Hell, you tell us about it every month, as is your right. I think, honestly speaking, that you'll like the magazine more in five months than you do right now.
But, again honestly speaking, I think if you hate the magazine so much you might better spend the money, and the time, somewhere else.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Seconded.
While I do think that not every article is totally useful, I always get at leat 1 super useful article, one helpful, and the rest are at least good reading.
This post is getting old. Some issues are off, for sure, but please.
But, again honestly speaking, I think if you hate the magazine so much you might better spend the money, and the time, somewhere else.
Erik - your diplomatic skills continue to impress me. And I couldn't help but smile at your last line.
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Well, i can understand that Dungeon seems more focused as the Dragon, 'cause it's just the nature of the mag. People can expect three to four adventures every month, Dungeoncraft and the Campaign Workbook. This is the concept of Dungeon. As the adventures take the most of the somewhat limited space you can't expect much more and with these three parts of the mag it's clear to me, that it seems far more focused. The Dragon covers a far wider variety of themes and aspects and with this variety is natural that it can't suit everyones taste. And it is this diversity that is the true strength of the mag. Sure, there were months where i found only about one or two articles useful for my game but i could be sure, that this would change with the next issue. And articles that i didn't find useful in the past where very useful some months later with a new campaign or after new aspects came up.
I also have to agree with farewell2kings that even the most useless article was able to fuel my own imagination and could be worked into something cool for my game.
I also have to agree that i'm finding these threads really tiresome. Sure, i'm not forced to read them and could move on to something more interesting, but i have the feeling that a minority of users on this board only come here to complain and to whine about the "fact", that Dragon isn't the same as twenty years ago or that it reached an all-time low or whatever.
If Dragon would be the same as twenty years ago, it won't be here anymore. The times have changed, the game has changed and the audience has changed too. There are many users here that have been gaming for decades and that went with these changes, went through the editions of D&D and appreciated the fact, that there still can be new aspects to a somehow old game. This is great and it's great, that Dragon reflects this. When i'm looking at Dragon #100 for example, i realize how much the game evolved and this isn't only a matter of artwork. I ,too ,like to remember the "golden age of D&D" and i like reading my 1st edition campaign-journals and they give me inspiration even twenty years later, but as much as i love this, i wouldn't want to live without these constant changes.
It is great to have an innovative magazine like Dragon that is run by people that really love the game and that are feeling challenged to try new things and take the game we all play and love towards new frontiers.
i always find this attitude interesting. i don't even play d&d, so none of the mechanics of any dungeon or dragon article are useful to me. nonetheless, the backstory and whatnot always inspires me with a million ideas for use in my campaign. people who complain that an article is completely useless to them have no imagination whatsoever. in addition to what our good editor said about spending time and money elsewhere (than buying dragon), these people should consider finding a new hobby all together that doesn't require any thought on their part. just watch TV or something. ;)
Nicely put, Absinth.
No magazine is static, and Dragon has been around a while. And many is time I've searched an old Dragon for an article I skimmed past the first time.
I love my old Dragons, but the current editors are obviously trying (and wouldn't be reading all this otherwise). We've all got our own view of what would consitute the perfect Dragon (most hopelessly biased toward our own preferences) ... if Erik retires and one of us takes his spot we can give it a shot and see just how "easy" it is to please everyone. Dragon has seen worse days and better days too, and perhaps Dungeon is stronger (which is, as someone mentioned, easier due to the mostly-adventure focus), but the editors are gamers and obviously want the best for the magazines, and I thank the gods for that.
Let's try some polite, constructive comments and specific suggestions, and let's point out what we do like (without falling into abject sycophancy, which gets just as boring as the tirades).
I'd like to see: more medium size articles, less one-pagers, in-depth d20 product reviews, and old-style theme issues (underground, undersea, religion, class-specific, whatever).
What I really like now: the constant acknowledgment of the older characters and history of D&D/Greyhawk. From Saltmarsh appearing on the Greyhawk map to the write-up of Fraz-Urb'luu (go Demonomicon!), it's all good! (Just the suggestion of a write-up for Zuggtmoy in the near future had me reaching for my tattered copy of T1-4...)
Whew; enough gum-flapping from me for now. (Please don't quote that!)
I just think it's time for the disgruntled individuals to find a new hobby.
I just think it's time for the disgruntled individuals to find a new hobby.
Yeah, and if ya don't love america, LEAVE IT !!! YEAH !!!!
Rational thinking at it's best.
What I really like now: the constant acknowledgment of the older characters and history of D&D/Greyhawk. From Saltmarsh appearing on the Greyhawk map to the write-up of Fraz-Urb'luu (go Demonomicon!), it's all good! (Just the suggestion of a write-up for Zuggtmoy in the near future had me reaching for my tattered copy of T1-4...)
I must confess, I was a little disappointed that nothing was done about the old house three miles from town. Don't get me wrong, I think saltmarsh was done well, and there were some appropriate nods to the old adventures, but I longed for more....
Hmmm, maybe I should start writing my next query.
- Ashavan
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Creative Director
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I must confess, I was a little disappointed that nothing was done about the old house three miles from town. Don't get me wrong, I think saltmarsh was done well, and there were some appropriate nods to the old adventures, but I longed for more....
Hmmm, maybe I should start writing my next query.
- Ashavan
I left the old house alone mostly to keep down the spoiler count in that chapter for the people out there who haven't yet played through U1. And if they haven't played it yet, they should!
I left the old house alone mostly to keep down the spoiler count in that chapter for the people out there who haven't yet played through U1. And if they haven't played it yet, they should!
I certainly agree with that, it was my very first 3rd edition conversion, and remains one of my favorite 1st edition adventure series. The group I put through it is about to embark on Bruce Cordell's Sahuagin trilogy, remade for 3.5 and beefed up courtesy of Stormwrack.
On the other hand, I have some fun ideas for that house that could draw on what was done in DMGII for Saltmarsh and really present something cool.
Now if I can translate that onto paper and get you to say the "cool" out loud during a submissions meeting. I still haven't quite figured out what you're looking for.
You'd think, given that I've been reading the magazine since issue 1 that I would.
- Ashavan