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Paizo to Discontinue Dragon and Dungeon Magazines
An anonymous reader slipped us a link to a page on the Wizards.com site marking the end of an era. As of September of this year Dungeon and Dragon Magazines will cease publication. Dragon has been in continuous circulation since 1976, while Dungeon will be marking its 150th issue at the end of its run in August. Paizo Publishing, the current printing house for the magazines, is offering several options for what to do with your ongoing subscription. From the announcement on the Wizards site: "'Today the internet is where people go to get this kind of information,' said Scott Rouse, Senior Brand Manager of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast. 'By moving to an online model we are using a delivery system that broadens our reach to fans around the world. Paizo has been a great partner to us over the last several years. We wish them well on their future endeavors.'" I've looked forward to my issue of Dragon every month for over a decade. It will be sad to see it go.
My first issue of Dragon Magazine was #68. While I have long since stopped reading the mag, I enjoyed it immensely at the time (back when Gary Gygax was still regularly writing for it). While it has changed unrecognizably in the intervening years, it's still sad to hear that this last vestige of this once great magazine is to cease to be. What would Woimy say?
Some of them don't have internet access (or at least not regural access).
Yep, dropping dead-tree distribution definetly expands their user base over having both available.
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Dragon was never quite the same once Tramp vanished.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Like thousands of dweebs suddenly cried out and then vanished.
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I have a few copies of Dragon laying around some place, and I have to say in 15 years of D&D I never really found them usefull. Seems like everyone would be better surved with forums, a web-page and the normal book releases.
It seems ironic to me that you can be sitting here, an ostensible geek, utilizing slashdot, and making this statement.
Anyone who has been following the climb of the internet's popularity knows that it is destined to destroy most types of media. The only difference between them being momentum and thus the length of time it will take the 'net to wipe them out.
The reason is obvious. Moving physical things around is costly and slow compared to the cost of transmitting data. If the ISPs in the USA had not been permitted to fuck us around this long (and of course it is continuing daily) then it would be much easier to get a useful connection and more of us would have the bandwidth to move huge files around. And then physical media would REALLY be in trouble.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the only reason it hasn't happened already is due to DRM. DRM is the reason why I don't buy digital media, I go out and buy the physical media, because even though it has DRM, at least it's not likely to be revoked remotely. Of course, that protection doesn't apply to either HD DVD format... But then, I don't have an HDTV, I probably won't for quite some time, so I don't give a shit. And an upscaled DVD really does look quite good.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And I started off MANY years ago with the Strategic Review.
Websites can vanish. But magazines give you the evolution of the concepts. There's also something about being able to hold the magazine that a monitor doesn't give you.
To quote Rupert Giles: Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell... musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is... it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um, smelly.
Furthermore, books don't give me a headache; but reading from a monitor for a long time does. I also like the feel of the book in my hands, the sound made by the pages as I turn them, and the way it looks on a shelf beside my other books. Here's hoping physical books are around for a long time to come.
This reminds me of the somewhat recent choice by WotC not to renew the license to CodeMonkey for the PC-Gen (character generation software) data sets. Clearly WotC is set to make a big push into online and electronic supplements to their D&D line.
Oh, and I see that Paizo will still be publishing adventures through a publication called Pathfinder. Looks interesting. At least gamers will still have some way to get their paper adventure fix.
Seems like everyone would be better surved with forums, a web-page and the normal book releases.
Forums? Not the same at all. I don't want to have to wade through mindless rules flamewars and irrelevant conversations to find useful stuff.
Existing books? Sure, those have value, if they can get enough material on a topic to create one. But maybe I just want an article with five new, themed spells, suitable for an NPC, new religion, or a dusty tome of "forgotten" spells. Or maybe I want the excellent Dungeoncraft series to continue, or "100 things you'd find in a marketplace".
Websites? We shall see what WotC comes up with, but websites can be impermanent -- the content is only available as long as the site's owners chose to host it. What would have happened had TSR had such a site when they were looking to go out of business? My guess is, the site would be shut down and that information lost; even if not, little of the content would likely still be available on WotC's site today.
Dungeon improved greatly over the past couple of years, culminating in the Adventure Paths -- a series of linked adventures, one per month, designed to take a party from 1st- to 20th-level. The first one, the Shackled City, was so-so in my opinion. The second one, the Age of Worms, was a lot better; I think they were starting to get the feel for writing them. We are over halfway through the third one, the Savage Tide; it will conclude in the final issue of Dungeon. The Dungeoncraft articles are pretty interesting, too; Monte Cook and Wolfgang Baur have both provided wonderful articles about adventure design and campaign-building.
In my opinion Dragon is still of varying usefulness with the addition of monthly columns devoted to WotC's major campaign settings (Eberron and Forgotten Realms) and my favorite series of articles EVER, Core Faiths. Each article explored a deity in the core D&D pantheon and really fleshed it out -- outlook on life, role of the clergy, aphorisms, new spells or magic items unique to the faith, sample NPCs suitable for summoning via Summon Planar Ally, and more. (The Core Faiths for Vecna was a great Halloween treat last year.)
What eventually convinced me to subscribe was the utility of having those articles on hand whenever and wherever I game. No scouring a series of websites, or hoping that WotC's site hasn't "retired" the article. The fact that subscriptions to Dungeon and Dragon were increasing over the past couple of years tells me that I'm not alone in finding this content valuable.
Paizo will apparently be publishing a new periodical, Pathfinder. It looks to be a hybrid of Dungeon (adventures, including new Adventure Paths) and Dragon (new monsters, spells, NPCs, and locales), and all of their material will be released under the OGL. You will be able to get it in either PDF or dead-tree editions, so people who want that electronic content will have it while old fogeys like me can add to the growing pile of gaming supplements. I'm strongly considering converting my remaining subscriptions and grabbing the first couple of issues.
Quite a while ago, they released issues 1-250 of Dragon in PDF format on (many) CDs. Anyone know if they are planning to do the same again now the collection is 'complete'? I'd certainly pay to have the entire collection of Dungeon and Dragon magazines available.
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I think the online model offers a lot of additional potential than dead-tree formats for gaming: when Steve Jackson Games took Pyramid online, giving subscribers access to a a searchable archive of articles from previous issues (including the print issues), discussion forums (which have somewhat faded, though, since SJGames opened public forums), etc., it was a big improvement.
For those who want a replacement for the great Dragon magazines of old, subscribing to Pyramid is a good idea. It fills a very similar niche to those old great Dragons: lots of very interesting articles about many games, not just ones by the magazine's publishers themselves, as well as good reviews, industry analysis, a forum, etc.
This is exactly what happened to BYTE. It was the largest and most respected magazine in its field for at least an entire generation and then the new owners switched to an online model.
It went from a huge subscription to barely on anyone's radar overnight. And content - it sucks.
Sad. The end of an era. Just when role-playing games and the like are beginning to make a strong comeback. Talk about short-sighted.
Ah, Fineous Fingers. I too have the collection mouldering away somewhere, bought in the early '80s. The things I remember most are everyone torturing peasants for directions/info and of course Grond the anti-paladin. But I digress.
;)
And yes, Dragonlance was an abortion of 4th rate Tolkien rip-off only exceeded by anything by Raymond Feist.
Have I alienated enough fantasy readers yet?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
This really blows. And I have no interest in WotCs electronic offerings. They have proved utterly inept at this before and show no signs of getting better. Besides which, pen-and-paper gaming is, for a lot of us, a welcome respite from too many hours in front of the damn computer. Dragon and Dungeon magazines were enjoyable to read, the artwork was good, and they had that underestimated advantage of being able to flip through a back issue and maybe see something you'd forgotten or missed the first read through. Not to mention they were great for those times when someone was taking way to long on their turn. Also, these magazines were an entry point for a lot of talent, bot for designers, writers, and artists.
Damn it, now I can't leave issues laying around my apartment to impress the girls I bring home.