Quote from: droogGreg Costikyan's article on why Traveller is not hard SF appeared in SG.

Good ol' Costikyan.  Some days I suspect he's one of those people who was born a grumpy old man.  But I still love his work.

Quote from: jcfialaHmmm.  One mag that I never see anymore was called Gateways - it was a general roleplaying magazine that never really caught on.

Haikeeba!  I have the "TFOS" issue of that mag!

I've collected Dragon on and off since the '80's. In the past 10 years, I've collected some issues of White Dwarf and Inquest, and a handful of others.

I started with Dragon.  Got heavy into DUNGEON Adventures for a while (getting published by them a few times certainly got me to keep up my subscription).  My favorite, however, was Conan and Savage Sword of Conan.  Not a gaming mag, you say?  That's funny, because I eagerly awaited each new issue, copied them almost word for word into adventure format, and then ran them for my friends when I was, I guess about 12, 13---even AFTER they had read the same issue.  It was still pretty rad.  

Pete

Pete, that's beautiful.  And another reason for me to scrounge up back issues of Conan mags.

Quote from: fonkaygarryI'm with you on that one.  I read maybe one or two issues before Jake Thornton took over as EIC.  Even at eleven I remember thinking that there was no way the mag could ever be worse than it was under JT.

They managed to prove me wrong time and again, though.

The Fat Bloke run was pretty sweet, I thought.  Lots of content, even if half the mag was nothing but vanity shots of Viggo and the crew.  Naturally, he's nowhere to be seen anymore and the mag is, I've heard, the worst it's been in years.

It's awful. I bought two issues last year and haven't bought a single one since because of how bad they were.

Dragon
The Space Gamer ("TSG")
Different Worlds
JTAS
White Dwarf
High Passage
Far Traveller
Fantasy Gamer
Autoduel Quarterly
The Gamer
Shadis
Interactive Fantasy
Arcane

Let's see...

Dragon - the first issue I picked up on the newsstand was 50. I immediately bought 45 through 49 at the same store after reading it. Haven't missed an issue since, and have the Dragon CD-ROM collection. I pitched a ton of those mags, as they were falling apart. The heyday of it was back when it covered games other than D&D, and the Traveller issue is still a highlight, as well as the issue that had a Traveller adventure which included a million-ton battleship and a planet that had just suffered a nuclear war. The current run is really pretty good, but the focus on D&D alone does get tiresome. The current readership reacts negatively to anything that isn't D&D, which is a shame. Hell, it'd be nice even to see articles about d20 Modern/Future/Past etc., just to provide some variety.

Dungeon - I only sporadically bought Dungeon until the release of 3e, and I haven't missed an issue since. Probably the best value when it comes to playing D&D.

Most other gaming magazines simply weren't available in my area when I was first getting into gaming. There were few outlets in the late 70s/early 80s for gaming mags in northeastern Ohio. There were a few I was able to get my hands on, though:

Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society - hard to find, but I managed to land a few copies in the day. The first was the "best of" collection, which was a treasure trove.

Challenge - This became more common, ironically enough, about the time GDW went under. A decent mag. I wish it'd come back.

White Dwarf - the first gaming magazine besides Dragon I ever read. I think my first issue was bought in 1981 or 1982. Fun and with a decidedly different "feel" than Dragon. I only bought a few issues. I have bought a few issues in the past few years, mostly because I enjoy looking at pics of really well-painted minis, and reading the scenarios and battle reports. I'm still a bit wistful for the old magazine, though.

Valkyrie - a magazine shop I haunted carried this for a while. I never thought much of it. It was good to see something besides Dragon, but the content never really impressed me.

Quote from: jrientsPete, that's beautiful.  And another reason for me to scrounge up back issues of Conan mags.

Hey, you know they revived the Conan line, right?  Its fantastic.  Great art, great storyline.  Brings back a lot of good memories.  

Pete

I never read much Dragon. I used to read Inquest regularly; it was from Wizard Press, so it was natural for me to check it out. I did like some of the humor, but it was never terribly informative and insightful. And 'twas WAY too CCG-heavy. Bunch of posers. But I can't really rip on it any better than Fonkaygarry masterfully has.

I had a couple of scattered issues of Shadis. It was a fun magazine with some pretty good content; at least they talked about practical ideas for roleplaying, even if they weren't always good. AND it introduced me to Knights of the Dinner Table, so yay! (Sadly, i'm not into Knights much anymore. It seems to me that somewhere along the line Jolly stopped getting his own joke.)

I discovered Arcane when it was first released and LOVED it, but it stopped showing up in local stores after a few issues. It was a great marriage of Flash and Substance, wich great reviews, thoughtful columns and articles, and beautiful design. A couple of years ago I acquired a crap-ton of the issues on Ebay, and I've delighted in reading through them. Even years later, the content is still great even if the news is out of date.

Peace,
-Joel

Quote from: Pierce InverarityDedalus (edited by what's his face, author of Dust Devils)

Matt Snyder.

I started with a subscription to The General (Avalon Hill's in-house-only-content wargame rag) and probably kept that up longest. I think I stopped when too many issues focused on a specific game or topic that just didn't interest me, but I eventually went back and spot-ordered a bunch of back issues. I also subscribed to Strategy & Tactics, and I have a bunch of copies of The Wargamer and Moves which I picked up one way or another. Even a few issues of Casus Belli and Vae Victis, both of them general wargame/RPG magazines published in France.

Never read Dragon much but I admire its all-hobby approach, at least as it was back in the 70's/80's. I mean, useful articles about Squad Leader and D&D in the same magazine? Cool.

I still have a complete run from my subscription to Ares, SPI's SF&F gaming magazine (had some good fiction & nonfiction articles, as well, plus book & movie reviews). Up till the TSR takeover, I devoured every issue from cover to cover. Many of the games were pretty good to boot, ranging from an arena version of Dragonquest's combat system, various fantasy/SF wargames, a marvellous space merchant game, and several solitaire paragraph-driven games. (I did sell off the game Citadel of Blood, though, a pretty useless random dungeoncrawl type game.)

I should have subscribed to The Space Gamer; instead I read a lot of issues in the store and bought a few here and there. It was more SF&F focused than The Dragon, and more focused on Metagaming (and later SJG) products, but covered a variety of stuff.

I also remember reading some other magazines in the store--probably Different Worlds and Shadis, but they didn't make as much of an impression on me.

I had a subsciption to the original Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society.(JTAS)

 Also subscribed to Shadis for awhile - mostly for the free games they used to give away as part of their subsciption offer.

 Used to love The Dragon - back when they would cover other games besdes D&D. This was in the pre- House Organ edays and before the whole D20/OGL/3.o/3.5 thing started.

 Bought and liked ADVENTURE GAMING magazine - mostly because it was being produced locally and I had met half or the mag's writers at local gaming events. (In the '80s Cincinnati used to have TWO gaming conventions a year . VERY active con scene for awhile)

Liked WHITE DWARF in the '80s - before they went GW all he time. They used to have decent TRAVELLER articles in it back then.

 Be great if there was a more general Gaming Magazine out there , kind of like Shadis was for awhile  or "Kinightrsof the Dinner Table" - but without the comics sections.

 These days I just buy DUNGEON if it has a gorgeous map included that I think I might be able to work into a GURPS game.

- Ed C.

I loved reading Dragon back-issues at my local library when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago. Makes me lament the present zine market. House organs that are  way too hit and miss, and theory mags that would make an academics journal proud.

Both SJG rags: The Space Gamer and The Fantasy Gamer. Also had a subscription to Dragon (or was it The Dragon, at the time--I don't recall).

-Marco

dragon, from issue 64 or so until issue 109-ish.  resubscribed when i got into 3.x, until sometime last year.  also dungeon in my 3.x phase

white dwarf, from issue 62 to around 103.  still get the occasional issue to enjoy the painting pics etc.

jtas, then traveller digest until it ended.  issue 21?  greatest traveller mag, even if you couldn't stand the rebellion bit.  

nothing else with any regularity.