Tuesday, February 3, 2015

My subscription is expiring...

A few years ago a new company sprang up under the name of TSR and offered subscriptions to a new magazine called Gygax. There was controversy from the start because Gary Gygax's widow did not want his name used this way. The name endured because Gary's sons Luke and E. Gary Jr. were involved in the production. The list of contributors was impressive so I purchased a subscription.

The format of the magazine was very similar to the old versions of Dragon magazine. The heavy paper cover and high quality pages filled with art, text and comics in the back. The first few issues were good but I felt they were redundant. They seemed to focus more on the history of roleplaying than its present or future. There were good non-nostalgic articles in each of the first four issues so things still looked promising.

Last night when I got home issue 5 was waiting and a pink slip packaged with it that stated "This is your last issue". I still have not read all the articles I intend to but I can already tell this is the best issue so far. There are several features that are beautifully illustrated and grab your attention right away. There is a story about a character type that makes an effort to include every version of Dungeons and Dragons. There are great comics in the back including "Order of the Stick" and "Full Frontal Nerdity". A cool one page dungeon from a contest. Pull out game materials as well as an adventure to go with them. And a Kaiju stat block!

The publishers at TSR are sure making it difficult to walk away from Gygax Magazine. It is definitely a throwback to a bygone age when all your news about role-playing was delivered in the form of a monthly magazine. They have made PDFs of each issue in attempt to modernize the concept but its the magazine that makes it. Its the smell of the ink and the feel of the paper as you sit down and immerse yourself in gaming goodness.

1 comment:

  1. If you want subscribe to Gygax for issues 6,7,8 and 9 go to http://gygaxmagazine.com/

    ReplyDelete