Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, along with Dungeon.
This article is about the American gaming magazine. For the Japanese light-novel magazine, see Dragon Magazine (Fujimi Shobo).Editor
Monthly
The Strategic Review
March 1975
The Dragon
June 1976
September 2007 (print), December 2013 (digital)
359 (print), 430 (digital)
TSR / WotC / Paizo
TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The final printed issue was #359 in September 2007.[1][2] Shortly after the last print issue shipped in mid-August 2007, Wizards of the Coast (part of Hasbro, Inc.), the publication's current copyright holder, relaunched Dragon as an online magazine, continuing on the numbering of the print edition. The last published issue was No. 430 in December 2013. A digital publication called Dragon+, which replaced Dragon magazine, was launched in 2015.[3] It was created by the advertising agency Dialect in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, and its numbering system for issues started at No. 1.[4]
History[edit]
TSR[edit]
In 1975, TSR, Inc. began publishing The Strategic Review. At the time, roleplaying games were still seen as a subgenre of the wargaming industry, and the magazine was designed not only to support Dungeons & Dragons and TSR's other games, but also to cover wargaming in general. In short order, however, the popularity and growth of Dungeons & Dragons made it clear that the game had not only separated itself from its wargaming origins, but had launched an entirely new industry unto itself.
TSR canceled The Strategic Review the following year after only seven issues, and replaced it with two magazines, Little Wars, which covered miniature wargaming, and The Dragon, which covered role playing games. After twelve issues, Little Wars ceased independent publication and issue 13 was published as part of Dragon issue 22.[5]
The magazine debuted as The Dragon in June 1976.[6] TSR co-founder Gary Gygax commented years later: "When I decided that The Strategic Review was not the right vehicle, hired Tim Kask as a magazine editor for Tactical Studies Rules, and named the new publication he was to produce The Dragon, I thought we would eventually have a great periodical to serve gaming enthusiasts worldwide... At no time did I ever contemplate so great a success or so long a lifespan."[7]
Dragon is the launching point for a number of rules, spells, monsters, magic items, and other ideas that were incorporated into later official products of the Dungeons & Dragons game. A prime example is the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, which first became known through a series of Dragon articles in the 1980s by its creator Ed Greenwood. It subsequently went on to become one of the primary campaign "worlds" for official Dungeons and Dragons products, starting in 1987. The magazine appeared on the cover as simply Dragon from July 1980,[8] later changing its name to Dragon Magazine starting November 1987.[9]
Wizards of the Coast[edit]
Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR and its intellectual properties, including Dragon Magazine, in 1997.[10] Production was then transferred from Wisconsin to Washington state. In 1999, Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by Hasbro, Inc. Dragon Magazine suffered a five-month gap between #236 and #237 but remained published by TSR as a subsidiary of WotC starting September 1997,[11] and until January 2000 when WotC became the listed de facto publisher.[12] They removed the word "magazine" from the cover title starting with the June 2000 issue, changing the publication's name back to simply Dragon.[13]
In 1999 a CD-ROM compilation of the first 250 issues, called Dragon Magazine Archive, was released in PDF format with a special viewer. It includes the seven issues of The Strategic Review. The Dragon Magazine Archive is out of print because of issues raised with the 2001 ruling in Greenberg v. National Geographic regarding the reprint rights of various comic strips that had been printed in Dragon over the years and Paizo Publishing's policy that creators of comics retain their copyright.[14] These comic strips include Wormy, What's New with Phil & Dixie, Snarf Quest, and Knights of the Dinner Table[14] which is covered in TSR's own statement in the first issue that "All material published herein becomes the exclusive property of the publisher unless special arrangements to the contrary are made."[6]
Paizo[edit]
In 2002, Paizo Publishing acquired the rights to publish both Dragon and Dungeon under license from Wizards of the Coast. Dragon was published by Paizo starting September 2002.[15] It ties Dragon more closely to Dungeon by including articles supporting and promoting its major multi-issue adventures such as the Age of Worms and Savage Tide. Class Acts, a monthly publication with one- or two-page articles offering ideas for developing specific character classes, were also introduced by Paizo.
Return to Wizards of the Coast[edit]
On April 18, 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced that it would not be renewing Paizo's licenses for Dragon and Dungeon, instead opting for online publishing.[1] Paizo published the last print editions of Dragon and Dungeon magazines for September 2007.
In August 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced the fourth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game and that D&D Insider subscriber content would include the new, online versions of both Dungeon and Dragon magazines along with tools for building campaigns, managing character sheets, and other features.[16] In its online form, Dragon continues to publish articles aimed at Dungeons & Dragons players, with rules data from these articles feeding the D&D Character Builder and other online tools.
Print versions:
Digital (online/PDF) versions:
