Afrika Corps wrote:Good Bye Corporate Dogshit!!!!!!!!!

 I would just like to have my urination on Paizo and WOTC on file. I agree Dragon Magazine and more recently Dungeon Magazine died on me many many issues ago. Those hacks have successfully turned an iconic equilavent of a finely tuned gourmet snack into a low quality stale fast food hamburger.

 My local gaming store has several boxes of back issues of recent Dragon Magazines sitting out for clearance @ 1.00$ each, they dont even sale. Why the hell did WOTC have to buy out TSR...Sacrilage


I cite the the first steps of what I hope will be a colossal failure of these 2 companies and all future endeavors as:

 - A total betrayal / ignorance / appreciation of the classic/roots/history/ and origin of the game

 - Greed..Greed...Greed..Greed

 - Lack of imagination

 - 3rd edition idolization, blind glorification with lockstep obediance and salacious obsession with the average 12 year olds "pokemon" allocation of allowance funds

 - Same goes for the proliferation and shameless promotion and concentration on silly plastic miniatures and self promotion of their own inferior products

  - Piles and Piles and Piles of Dogshit releases that are overpriced and unoriginal...I really get tired of reading throught 2 pages of statistics/feats/abilities/levels/modifiers for every encounter ( can you say page filler) sheesh sometimes an encounter with goblins is just that. Not to mention the cartoony dumbed down artwork for the average 12 year old, so it doesnt scare the mommies.



 Hip Hip Hooray!!!!! Piss on You WOTC and Paizo... now you can get back to what you were meant to do with your collective talent and profit projection analysists: Design a new series of Pokemon cards... or maybe some more goofy plastic toys for kids.. Maybe Hasbro can do a corporate buyout. You souless, gutless Toads.

Did someone forget to take their meds?  

My local gaming store has several boxes of back issues of recent Dragon Magazines sitting out for clearance @ 1.00$ each, they dont even sale.

You must live in one of those odd parts of the country.  The gaming store I frequent is always out of them.

Why the hell did WOTC have to buy out TSR...Sacrilage

Lets see.  One of the greatest game companies ever is losing money left and right due to all sorts of problems.  A new game company that has scads of capital after marketing one of the hottest selling games ever has the opportunity to buy it really cheap.  Kind of a no-brainer if you ask me.

3rd edition idolization, blind glorification with lockstep obediance and salacious obsession with the average 12 year olds "pokemon" allocation of allowance funds

Hmmm.  Lets say that I have an opportunity to market the greatest RPG of all time to a new generation of kids.  Do I stick with the original concept created by TSR back in the 70's or do I go with a new flashier, up-tempo version that will allow me to compete with the high-powered video games that the glassy-eyed, prepubescent, ritalin junkies seem to enjoy so much?

Greed..Greed...Greed..Greed

Yes I am sure all that greed will also cause the downfall of similar companies as Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and Microsoft as well.

Not to mention the cartoony dumbed down artwork for the average 12 year old, so it doesnt scare the mommies.

Seems to me like they are just going with what is most popular with kids nowadays.  The manga/anime inspired stuff is what a lot of kids are into.  And like most "mommies" nowadays even spend more than a couple of hours with their kids on any given day.

Piss on You WOTC and Paizo... now you can get back to what you were meant to do with your collective talent

Geez...if they had only hired you maybe this awful thing wouldnt be happening.  Just because all of the people at WOTC and Paizo didnt put stuff out that you liked doesnt mean that they are a bunch of no talent hacks.  And I for one don't place much blame on Paizo at all.

Regardless of how you feel about WOTC and 3rd edition D&D why the incessant babbling about it on a thread about the demise of Dungeon and Dragon magazines?  Even if their publishing contract didnt (I am assuming) specifically state that only material for 3rd edition could be published, do you honestly think that Paizo would have sold many issues if all they covered was OD&D or 1st edition AD&D?  They are a business that is trying to make money and the only way to do that is by marketing to the masses.

I dont like WOTC much.  And I dont really care for 3rd edition either.  But you seem to have enough venom stored up for just about everyone here.  If you really feel the need to post these unintelligent, immature, blithering rants (and it isnt the first time either) about how much you hate WOTC/3rd edition why dont you go do it on the WOTC boards?  That way you can spew your hate at the corporate giant that doesnt give a rats ass and we can go on discussing the demise of Dungeon and Dragon in a fairly sane manner.

By the way...your name wouldnt happen to be Jim Perleman would it.  

As far as discussing the demise of Dungeon and Dragon Magazine.. I think your several years late. I believe these two publications died in the hearts and conscious of many gamers long ago with the basterdsiation and dogshit machine of a company that inherited the titles. Yes I celebrate the loss of these noble titles and their release from the shitty hands of abuse and neglect from no talent corporate hacks. May Dragon magazine now rest in noble peace and the great quality that gamers remember as from days of past. On the bright side,  I guess you have more money availbale to spend on pokemon cards now.     .

Do you like your fillet mignon burnt to a crisp, soaked in dogshit, and half eaten served to you at the restuarant? But hey its Fillet Mignon though, so I shouldnt complain. The end of Dragon Mgazine and the end of this abomination that it has become are two seperate issues. Im sure all those advertisers will find a new venue.. and the writers can go back to doing whatever it was they were doing before...whatever that was..maybe they will be hired on to help contribute to the new super duper spectacular 4th Ed game.

Afrika Corps wrote:Do you like your fillet mignon burnt to a crisp, soaked in dogshit, and half eaten served to you at the restuarant? But hey its Fillet Mignon though, so I shouldnt complain.

If you were starving you would eat it.  You might gag on it once or twice but you would choke it down if it was all you could get.

On the bright side, I guess you have more money availbale to spend on pokemon cards now. .

Seriously....put the bottle down now before you hurt yourself.  Save some for next time.

Xaxaxe, your avatar of that Dragon magazine cover - it looks like the monster could be looking at his computer screen. Either way it's cool.

gyg wrote:
On a side note - what's your favourite Dragon article?

Mine are - 'From the City of Brass to Dead Orc pass..
and the Princess Arc series - classic stuff

Got to say the Princess Arc as well, great story, maps and information beyond the Known World. Classic.

Favorite Dungeon Adventure: Shadowbane (Ravenloft) Was the one I liked reading and really tried to find when I was first starting out collecting the mags. Now if is favorite to play in, well being DM for most of the time I only know of one my friend ran me through and that was the library one dealing with the bookbinder god I think (someone here should know )

ShaneG.

Xaxaxe wrote:It's got a bit of trivia, too. It's Erol Otus' one and only Dragon Magazine cover.

I figured I'd whip up a quick avatar to not only show my appreciation for Dragon's heritage, but to give a shout-out to Erol, too (he's my favorite artist from Back In The Day).

I'm an EO fan as well!

FormCritic wrote:Erol Otus was the ultimate D&D artist....caught the feel of the early game perfectly.

Just as Morno was the artist for the feel of all the Arduin materials.  I wish we could convince him to revert and become Morno again.

My favorite Dragon articles were always the "NPC" classes such as the anti-paladin, the early samurai, the witch, the bandit the archer and sundry other classes...balanced and sensical or not.

Those NPC's got plugged into our games a lot as PC classes.  What they turned out to be was a series of experiments in expanding the game as a whole.

I also liked the adventures published in Dragon.

My least favorite articles were fan fiction (who cares?) and all of the space wasted on non-D&D subjects.

I remember Gary Gygax, back in 85 or so, explaining the move to 2nd edition AD&D.  

Roughly around the same time there was a readers' poll in Dragon about what we liked and did not like in the magazine.  The goal of the poll seemed to be to get us to say we liked more non-D&D artiticles.

In the section for "What other games would you like Dragon magazine to cover?" I answered:  1) AD&D  2)  AD&D  3)  AD&D.

In the section for "What would you sacrifice from Dragon magazine to make space for new subjects?" I answered:  Get rid of the Ares section and go back to covering AD&D.

Two issues later, the Ares section was gone and the editor wrote, "OK, so we understand that a lot of you want us to focus more on AD&D!"

Presto!  No more space wasted on sci-fi games and Marvel super hero crap!  (Good for toilet paper and little else to AD&D gamers.)

I was impressed that TRS and the Dragon editors had flexible minds that would allow them to adjust to buyer demands...coupled with the sense to see that the TSR spin-off games were a waste of time.

(Now, of course, someone here probably loved Star Frontiers or some such other tripe...you and about six other guys.    )

Dragon and Dungeon were living links with the past.  Now they are gone.  Sad.

It is even more sad to me that the WOTC guys seem to believe that something different will suddenly motivate all of us to buy again.  

Since the start of 2nd Edition AD&D there has seemed to be a creative screw or two loose at TSR/WOTC...(The jump from 3.0 to 3.5 was the sort of betrayal typical of the screws-loose theory)...although sometimes the machine also spit out really good products.  

I would have preferred a less glitzy production, more oriented toward actual gaming than (for instance) articles by Will Wheaton...at maybe half the price they were charging.

But...I'm not celebrating anything.  This is a sad event.

Mark  

The Archer, Samurai and Anti Paladin saw use around the table back in theday in my campaigns also.  Also, got to love the new monster section back in the day. Pre-internet, Dragon magazine really was the biggest event of the month in my house and in our campaign.  The entire issue was picked apart, dissected, and all useful parts incorporated into our campaigns.  Those who started gaming post-1990 just don't realize the influence it had in the gaming circles.  I mean, there was the core rulebooks and after awhile, Fiend Folio, MMII and Unearthed Arcana (all we really used in our campaign).  When a new spell, monster, magic item or character class appeared, official or not, it was probably immediately incorporated into our present campaign!  Now, with dozens if not hundreds of splat books, a little of the uniqueness is lost.  Plus, through the internet, tons of official and non official sites with pages and pages of new campaign additions can be discovered...in the old days, it was just Dragon Magazine.  
 The Len Lakofka articles were very influential in my campaigns (Leomund's Tiny Hut section).  I distinctly remember many of them, including the Segment of action (incorporated in our campaigns), the article on the insectoids (immediately used as monsters to beat up on my players!!!), the charts on where you were born in Greyhawk, what weapons you used, the STR of monsters, charting experience levels to make a worthy foe for your campaign, etc.  One of the few writers who really got me thinking about game balance and "tweaking" your style of play and campaigns for the first time.....when we first started, it was by the book or nothing.  A lot of the ideas, if not the actual innovations, are still referred to by myself when planning campaigns
  If the insert in any typical magazine from #40-#100 wasn't a module we could run and a game instead, we would happily play the game some nights when we were burnt out on D&D!!!!  (not often, mind you, but did happen).  I remember many happy slumber parties where Food Fight, Awful Green Things, Search for the Emperor's Treasure, or Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow was the main attraction. In particular, Mad Ludlow's mansion was attempted many times by various groups, with not a one having a character making it through the entire gauntlet...but who cared, it was fun!
   I do flip through the ocassional Dragon mag when I see them in the game store and HPB.  I don't see the "fun" in each issue and haven't for awhile.  Basically, if you didn't play 3rd edition, the usefullness was very thin.  I really miss those monthly issues in the late 70s that brought so much joy to a bunch of high schoolers hooked on what would be a lifetime hobby.

Mike B.

Well, their "damage control" agents of doom are now out in full force...just look at the response I got when I tried to have a little fun with them.  It only took a suspicious 7 minutes for a response:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.p ... 713&page=3

You'd think they realize they messed up and fix it, but they'd rather spar with me over semantics.  I think it'll be a fun week!