Sorry, but the sports community is much larger than the gaming community to support such a general genre magazine. More importantly, the gaming community is much more split than the sports community. Try to include a non-D&D article that have no conversion to D&D games nor relevance, and you'll find a virtual mob with torches and pitchforks reminding you the reason why they buy Dragon magazine, so-called 100% official D&D magazine.
I didn't say it would sell, or would be a good business move, or would satisfy more of the gaming audience than the current model. I said that's what i'd prefer. Though i'd be curious to see the circulation numbers for Dragon now vs. , say, '90. Or, better yet, a graph with annual data points. Of course, the trick would be correlating those to number of gamers-- a pretty much unknown quantity over time.
In fact, while there are some gamers that play many different games using different rulesets, there are those who show disdain -- some to an extreme, disgust -- of other games and rules except the one they like.
WotC's own market study--the very one trotted out to support D20 System--showed that the majority of gamers play 2+ systems. True, not the system dilletantes that i am--but one-system die-hards are fairly rare. And the study wasn't detailed enough to determine how many one-system-but-not-D&D players were out there.
You are welcome to try and start up such a magazine circulation, keep in mind that others have tried and failed (e.g., Shadis). Sooner or later, you're going to find out that not many will want to buy a 98-page magazine that have only one article for the game they like.
Well, i'll presume that Dragon is now a self-supporting entity--i believe the editor has said as much--since i don't think Paizo has any non-magazine game revenue to prop it up with. But for the majority of its history, scuttlebut has it that it was a money-loser. Ditto for every other RPG mag out there that has ever been--they were all kept afloat by profits from other ventures, due to the perceived gains in advertising, market presence, attracting new players, keeping fans/consumers happy, etc. (or, at least, that's what i've always been told, sometimes by people in the know). Except Arcane. Which, probably coincidentally, was the most generalist mag of any of them that i've seen--the only one to *focus on* non-system-specific articles, including an entire scenario in every issue that was written up entirely without game stats (the game stats for several systems were then tacked on at the end).
To put it in analogy, American fans will buy an American Football magazine, Canadian fans will buy a Canadian Football magazine, and the rest of the world buy the traditional Football (soccer) magazine, with only a few (like you and me) will cross over.
I don't contest this. I contest the cause-and-effect relationship put forth to explain it. I'm not convinced that it isn't because people are told that they can't use material that isn't explicitly written for their game system of choice, that they don't want material for other systems (or no specific system). [As opposed to people only want material written explicitly for their system, so that's what is provided.] IOW, if you started from the basic premise that a semi-generic article, perhaps with multiple stats for multiple game systems, was a good thing, and *told* the market that the value was in having something to adapt to your particular game/setting/scenario, they might follow suit. Likewise, i wonder to what degree the current D20 System, or even D&D3E, player base actually wants crunch above all else, and to what degree they've been convinced that crunch is what is hard to produce themselves, and thus has value, while fluff is easy to do and thus doesn't have value. [Which is exactly the opposite of my experience: i can whip up a new magic system to plug into any game system i'm familiar with in a weekend, and create new classes on the fly as i create a character, but it'll take me a long time to invent a new religious order, or satisfactory NPC background. ] Likewise, new widgets may be great, but i think that there's already an overabundance of those, even just in the core books, and what is rather lacking is things like GMing advice--the sort of thing that is hard to encapsulate, quantify, or, admittedly, transmit.
A related point: it is precisely a crunch-emphasizing article that is most at risk of only being of use to players of a particular game system. As an extreme example, picture an article on firearms that consisted of nothing more than 2 or 3 tables with all their D20 System stats, and a paragraph or three of non-content introduction. To make any use of that at all, i have to at least be familiar enough with D20 System to know what the numbers mean, and translate that to my system of choice. Now, the same nominal purpose: an article on firearms, which describes them much the way a non-RPG "all about firearms" sort of book might, with notes on specific numbers/details ("This pistol is favored because it has twice the range and 50% better accuracy than the older model."). The latter could be useful in any RPG that has, or could have added, firearms. Add [abbreviated] stats for 3-4 systems, judiciously chosen, and even the minimal conversion work could be minimized. Given that level of detail, you'd only need to stat one or two weapons per system to effectively provide stats for the whole bunch, with just a little extrapolation.
I have heard a fair number of complaints over on EnWorld at the ever-crunchier direction Dragon appears to be taking, pointing out that if the crunch in an article isn't applicable to their setting, there's nothing left. By trying to focus ever tighter, Dragon is risking the very fate you warn against: having only one article per issue applicable to a given gamer/game group. I continued my subscription to Dragon for about 7 years after my last D&D (or, for that matter, TSR) game. I continually found useful articles, despite the fact that i can't recall seeing a single article written for a game system i was playing at the time. [oh, wait, i think there may have been one Ars Magica article in that period--though not one i could use in our Ars saga.] I still go back to my Dragon collection, and pull out all sorts of useful articles. I recently borrowed the Dragon issue with the Githyanki invasion stuff in it, and read some articles. In particular, i was interested in the Githyanki stuff. Read it, and was left with that anticipatory feeling, like i'd just read the intro to a book, and now it was time to get to the actual content. 'Cept i'd already read the whole article. Ditto for several other articles on topics that interested me in Dragon mags of late [i've read a few articles in the store, to figure out if i want to buy it]. Difference? They're all crunch now--everything is expressed in terms of game mechanics. Yes, if your standard for usefulness is "must be able to open the magazine and drop a fully-statted widget into my campaign without any thought beyond ECL/CR/XP value", then the current technique is great. But if you broaden the definition to "of use in my campaign in large part, but i might have to tweak a few things here, invent a few numbers there", then an article for any game system (or no game system--Omni was the greatest RPG mag ever) is of use to you. In short, i don't think any RPG mag with non-crappy articles could ever fall into yoru hypothetical of a 98p mag with only one useful article. And, frankly, i have a little trouble wrapping my brain around that attitude--isn't the whole point of RPGs creativity and imagination? Sure, i want a jump-start now and then, but that doesn't mean i need it handed to me on a silver platter.
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BTW, do they ever run Ecology of... any more, and, if so, is it still something like 3-8pp of great content, with all the game mechanics compressed into a page or less at the end?
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woodelf <*>
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"If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats." Richard Bach -- "Illusions" _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
