Goodbye Dungeon and Dragon...
It was officially announced Thursday that Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine - both of which have served the "Dice and Paper" RPG community (specifically Dungeons & Dragons players) for decades, were going to cease publication after their September issues - as soon as the license with Paizo Publishing is complete.

The first issue of "The Dragon" - before the name was abbreviated to "Dragon" - came out just over 30 years ago, in 1976. I have the first 250 issues on CD-ROM, though I rarely look at any of the issues beyond those from my "formative" geek years when I was new to the roleplaying.

From what I understand (reading the press release and talking to the owner of my FLGS - "Friendly Local Gaming Store" today), content that would previously have gone into these magazines will be appearing online. It is rumored that a quarterly journal may also be released which includes the content previously released online - but that may be only speculation or current plans. A lot may happen between now and August.

There's a bit of a retrospective at Wizards' site --- sort of an early wake for the magazines. The obvious reason for the retirement of these long-standing magazines is that online content has taken over. And it's probably a legitimate excuse. It's got to be hard to run a print periodical these days. But there are some elements of print that just don't translate well to digital. I still end up printing off some articles, just because it's easier for me to read. I'm such a luddite (he announces on his online blog).

Now, the last time I was a real fan of Dragon magazine was around six years ago, when third edition D&D was still pretty new and the issues were helping people come to grips with the new rules and use the flexibility of the system to make it their own. The issues reminded me a lot of the PREVIOUS time I had been a fan of the magazine, way back in the early 80's, where there were so many newcomers to the game and every issue was loaded with fresh ideas. More than anything else, the magazine helped remind me that there was a larger community of gamers out there beyond my own gaming group. Something "online" can do much better, admittedly. But online is much more ephemeral - print is a more tangible artifact (and a somewhat more durable record).

Dungeon, on the other hand, I was a more recent convert to. I've always been the kind of "game master" who likes to write his own adventures, but I've enjoyed building up a library of adventures that I could draw upon at a moment's notice. Not that it happens all that much anymore - but I have had weeks where I just did NOT have time to plan out an adventure, and pulling out a pre-fab module or Dungeon adventure and get it ready and customized in only 2-3 hours of prep time (or less) has been very handy in the past.

So it's not like it'll be a big change in my geeky grown-up-gamer lifestyle with these magazines gone. But it'll be weird not having them around on the shelf of my FLGS anymore.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:22 PM (Permalink)