The Last Dragon

I frequently come up with things to post & share here that I never get around to actually posting to this blog. I even pop open NOTEPAD at work (or more frequently now days, Google Notebook, "scribble" a few notes and paste a couple of links when an idea hits me. Then it seems a week or so flies by and I decide it's not really timely enough to post anymore.


But of all the World Events, Cool New Gadgets, Second Life news and Stupid Human Tricks that have come to mind to comment on since I last tossed my two cents into the World Wide Abyss it seems kinda funny that the thing I actually end up musing on is something so seemingly mundane as a magazine. If you're an "old school" gamer, perhaps you'll appreciate this for what it is. A momentary reflection on a part of our youth "when things were much simpler" and good times could be had spending a long summer day or weekend with a group of your friends, gaming. By gaming of course I mean sitting around a table in a garage or dining room, amped up on soda, consuming massive amounts of pizza and other junk food, and swearing at your comrade-at-arms who just managed to blow your whole Ingenious Plan of Conquest(TM) by stealing the Bright-Shiny-Jewel-Encrusted-and-Obviously-Cursed-Prosthetic-Leg-of-The-Demon-God-Asmodeus out of the Evil Wizard's Footlocker of Doom. Later, when the few surviving members of your once gallant band sit penniless in local tavern and press your comrade-at-arms (somehow THEY always managed to be among the survivors) "Why, why, WHY?!?" had he purloined the plagued peg-leg? He informs you it was to buy the services of yon costly Strumpet-of-Legendary-Pneumatic-Talents(TM). Figures, since he's CHA 2 & INT 2.

Fucking Fighter class...dumb as a bag of hammers....

But as I was saying...the last Dragon. Next month will see the publication of the last Dragon Magazine, issue #359. Wizards of the Coast announced Paizo Publishing's license to produce Dragon magazine (and sister magazine Dungeon) would end effective September 2007. [Link Here]

"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." "We at Paizo are very proud of the work we've put into Dragon and Dungeon during the past five years," says Erik Mona, Paizo's Publisher and Editor in Chief of Dragon. "While we'll all miss working on these venerable magazines, our talented editorial and art staff as well as our phenomenal team of freelance contributors will continue to produce high-quality, exciting, new OGL releases that are aimed at supporting our existing customers and beyond. We look forward to sharing useful and provocative new products that support our favorite hobby."


First published in 1976, the magazine became THE magazine for role-players and covered not just D&D but included articles across the spectrum of RPGs (Gamma World, Star Frontiers) including some games by other publishers (Space Opera, Traveller, DragonQuest, MicroGames). The first Dragon I picked up was #100.




The table of contents shows the sort of articles one might find in Dragon of that period, some of which I'm sure will be familiar to at least a few of my readers.



The magazine still makes me smile and chuckle by reminding me of old stories and old adventures. Granted that in the last years Dragon had become a rather anemic publication compared to the hefty issues from its heyday. Granted that it was almost exclusively D&D focused and not broadly encompassing of the whole hobby. Granted it had lost is "hobbyist" look and feel for a more slick production style of an established game industry. But I still hate to see it go. And that is the purpose of this post. To mark the passing of the last Dragon.