Though I was dissappointed with Dragon in a general sense and am going to try out Dungeon mag for a year, I thought you might like some feedback that can be seen as constructive.
I think the table of contents really needs to be expanded or an index at the end needs to be added. I and my friends have tried to go back through issues and look things up and it is not very helpful; the table only contains major items.
Basically, it is still a good periodical and other than some small grammatical things it is worthwhile. I dont find enough content for players like myself who have been around for a couple decades with well developed worlds. There are of course still some gems and many things of value, but considering that I haven't open the last three until recently should just demonstrate how lackluster the issues have been. There is nothing wrong with the issues or the information, it just isn't currently useful. For instance, there has been many issues that deal with extraplanular things and places; it just doesn't come up in my or any other campaign I have been in very often. I consider this to be mostly where the magazine is in developement with topic choices for the year though and not a problem; I just wasnt hooked on the years theme.
Still, that said, the only thing I would change is the table of contents or add an index - perhaps a separate issue we could own to give us a nice breakdown of what issue to find what information in; after all, we tend to use this magazine as a resource. I will of course still buy some, but will probably only buy issues of interest to myself.
This doesnt really need any feedback or comment and is not a flame or anything like that; am just trying to give a honest feedback.
I have to admit that while I do not use 90% of the stuff I get in Dragon magazine, it is mainly because I don't want to have to lug all those magazines to the game, which is not held at my house, usually.
However, I'm very entertained by the magazine. I love to read it, even if it's just for fun. I don't need to find everything useful for it to be worth my money...sometimes my thoughts are "hmmm...that's kind of cool....not for my game...but kind of cool."
What I like about it is that it gives me a "reserve" of ideas to throw at the players...like the Suel Lich from last year...and the curses article...and the demonicon articles....instant mini-campaign or twist on an existing one...whenever I want it, it's there.
I don't disagree with Valegrim at all--I can see where he's coming from, but I still think there's a tremendous amount of value in the magazine for the price of a subscription. I don't look at unopened Dragon magazines as a waste of money--I think they're potential goldmines ready to be cracked open when I need them.
I think a special index issue once per year is a GREAT idea!!!!
Especially for people binding the magazines at the end of the year. Lots of scientific journals do this.
Sam
There is nothing wrong with the issues or the information, it just isn't currently useful.
I'll have to say that I share the same feeling. I'm running our group thru The Shackled City AP right now and neither my Dragon's nor Dungeon's gets the attention that they deserve.
If I had more time to spend reading them, I'm sure that I would find the information in them of greater value - and when we're thru the Shackled City AP, I'm sure that I'll return to these lightly read issues for new inspiration and adventures to string together.
I would imagine that I'll want to run a few stand-alone adventures after finishing the SCAP and before embarking on another AP.
A thing that would make the magazines perfect would be the ability to do a full-text search on Paizo.com... Search for "Wee Jas" and get all articles, adventures, npc's and items with issue number and article heading.
I would rather have that than a yearly index or an improved table of content.
Kind regards / Henning
I agree; was just pointing out that finding information in the Dragon is the most difficult thing to do; an index or greater contents list would help; but does not solve the problem of searching through 20 or so dragons for articles on a topic; I use Dragon as a reference source and believe most people do; for classes; feats, rules clarification, whatnot and it would really be helpful if it was indexed as one or had some online query thing to tell us where articles are and in what issue; that would be great, but a bit beyond what I expect from a magazine.
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I agree; was just pointing out that finding information in the Dragon is the most difficult thing to do; an index or greater contents list would help; but does not solve the problem of searching through 20 or so dragons for articles on a topic; I use Dragon as a reference source and believe most people do; for classes; feats, rules clarification, whatnot and it would really be helpful if it was indexed as one or had some online query thing to tell us where articles are and in what issue; that would be great, but a bit beyond what I expect from a magazine.
That's definitely true. I always see posts about it.
An index somewhere would rock.
For those of you looking for indices, check out DragonDex:
http://www.aeolia.net/dragondex/index.html
It's a fantastic index of Dragon articles.
If you're looking for monsters, BOZ and I maintain the following two lists over on ENWorld:
Dragon Magazine Monster Index:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=9651
Dungeon Magazine Monster Index:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=67183
not to mention the Creature Catalog site itself. :) plenty of conversions straight out of the magazines in there!
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I understand the reluctance to drag a bagfull of mags to a game 'just in case' their contents are required; that's why I slice my mags up, and bag the contents into themed binders (cries of "Heresy!!" from the crowd). Am I alone in this, or do others do something similar?
What would seriously improve the mags for me, or others like me, is if
1) the articles could be kept 'on topic' as much as possible (ie, classes, feats, spells in articles of their own, rather than a pot-pourri mix);
2) articles be kept physically separated by at least one page of adverts, so you don't have the last page of article one backed by the first page of article 2 (which means xeroxing one or other of the sides).
I have no problem with ads; I understand the neccessity of them, and often find them informative and/or amusing.
I just think more use could be made of them as 'bookmarks', or to facilitate the odd double-page spread.
3) any headers and titles be reigned in, to appear in full on the first page of the relevant article, which is the one visible in the front of an A4 sleeve.
Obviously, I accept you may not always have 100% control over either of these aspects; you may have a wonderful article which details many game-aspects of a region or race, an advertiser may insist on controlling the placement of their ad, you may have received some gorgeous artwork that just screams out to be used, and which forces the text to the second page, etc..., but if the 3 points above could be kept in mind, and occur more often, that would have a great impact on how long I spend copying, cutting & bagging (& swearing!).
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I understand the reluctance to drag a bagfull of mags to a game 'just in case' their contents are required; that's why I slice my mags up, and bag the contents into themed binders (cries of "Heresy!!" from the crowd). Am I alone in this, or do others do something similar?
I actually do this; issues I cut up (which means painstakingly dismantling the magazine for rebinding) are replaced the following month from my FNGS (70% discount). At the end of the year I bind the collected and reorganized articles into a couple or more thin journals, similar in design to a leatherette edition of the JAMA that comes out every quarter. This costs a little, though not much, and allows me to utilize my PageMaker; and the best part is being able to pull a tome from the bookcase that contains all the new monsters of a given year, or all the planar articles, or, as I'm working on, all the Demonomicon articles.
While I would not cry heresy, I would never be able to cut up my mags - my heart bleeds at the thought of it. Instead, I´ve taken to copying interesting articles and put them in a binder. In a few cases, I scanned pages and printed them, as copying did not have satisfactory results. One of the greyhawk feats articles and the hobgoblin ecology were printed on black background, and the copy machine I have access to just could not make a legible copy. Since these I don´t recall any problems with copying, and I copied the demonomicon, the core beliefs and the class acts since they started appearing.
To get a little back on topic, I browse dragon for interesting bits, like those I mentioned above, even if they are not immediately useful to me. I generally don´t read anything too specific for settings I don´t play (or collect), and just browse over magical items, spells, feats and prestige classes. To me, there have been enough of those already. I like ecologies, especially of "basic" monsters, new and unusual ideas for the game, like using the staff of a wizard as a familiar, or building a character from the readings of the Three Dragon Ante deck, or alternate uses for divine energies - things that are easily integrated into a game without studying too many details. New monsters - or revisits of classic monsters - are ok once in a while, but not too often. The additions to the APs are a good idea. Demonomicon, Core Beliefs and Class Acts are things I always read, in case of class acts sometimes browsing only.
Just some opinions.
Stefan
Thanks for the links, Shade. That Dragondex is immensely useful!
I've been subscribed to Dragon for a year now and I've found most of it to be interesting <i>reading</i>, though not terribly useful to any of the campaigns I've run or been in because it's such a hodgepodge. My favorite articles have been related to the planes or to classic campaign settings (the recent issue was a fantastic nostalgia trip, though not nearly enough), and the Demonomicon has been consistently excellent. I really can't complain much about any of the work done in Dragon apart from some of the rather bland prestige classes and feats that are, unfortunately, the bread-and-butter of the industry and perfectly unavoidable in a publication such as this.
Overall I'm quite happy with Dragon and Dungeon both. All I would want is fewer rules, but that's a complaint I have about all of D&D, and it's unlikely to be addressed any time soon.
Keep up the good work.
I'll throw my support behind an annual index. Lord knows it took me forever to find that damn spellcraft article with the snake theme by mike mearls when I needed it.
I find I use the crunch elements in dragon rarely, but my pcs have always been impressed when I have. When they see an issue of dragon at the table, they tend to get curious and get a bit of anticipation.
indeed - an annual index would be mighty cool!