''Dragon'' is one of the two official

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

s for source material for the ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ac ...

and associated products, along with ''

Dungeon A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...

''. 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. Shortly after the last print issue shipped in mid-August 2007,

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidia ...

(part of

Hasbro, Inc. Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products o ...

), the publication's current copyright holder, relaunched ''Dragon'' as an

online magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer ma ...

, continuing on the numbering of the print edition. The last published issue was No. 430 in December 2013. A digital publication called ''Dragon+'', which replaces the ''Dragon'' magazine, launched in 2015. It is created by Dialect in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, and its numbering system for issues started at No. 1.

History

TSR

In 1975, TSR, Inc. began publishing ''The Strategic Review''. At the time, roleplaying games were still seen as a subgenre of the

wargaming A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...

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'' after only seven issues the following year, and replaced it with two magazines, ''

Little Wars ''Little Wars'' is a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers, written by English novelist H. G. Wells in 1913. The book, which had a full title of ''Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for t ...

'', which covered

miniature wargaming Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which military units are represented by miniature physical models on a model battlefield. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use ...

, 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. The magazine debuted as ''The Dragon'' in June 1976.
The Dragon
' #1 (1976-06) TSR co-founder

Gary Gygax Ernest Gary Gygax ( ; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') with Dave Arneson. In the 1960s, Gygax created an ...

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." ''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 ''Forgotten Realms'' is a campaign setting for the '' Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as ...

campaign setting, which first became known through a series of ''Dragon'' articles in the 1980s by its creator

Ed Greenwood Ed Greenwood (born July 21, 1959) is a Canadian fantasy writer and the original creator of the '' Forgotten Realms'' game world. He began writing articles about the Forgotten Realms for '' Dragon'' magazine beginning in 1979, and subsequently so ...

. 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, later changing its name to ''Dragon Magazine'' starting November 1987.

Wizards of the Coast

purchased TSR and its intellectual properties, including ''Dragon Magazine'', in 1997. Production was then transferred from Wisconsin to Washington state. In 1999, Wizards of the Coast was itself purchased by

''Dragon Magazine'' suffered a five-month gap between #236 and #237 but remained published by TSR as a subsidiary of WotC starting September 1997, and until January 2000 when WotC became the listed de facto publisher. They removed the word "magazine" from the cover title starting with the June, 2000 issue, changing the publication's name back to simply ''Dragon''. In 1999 a CD-ROM compilation of the first 250 issues, called '' Dragon Magazine Archive'', was released in

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

format with a special viewer. It includes the 7 issues of ''The Strategic Review''. Because of issues raised with the 2001 ruling in '' Greenberg v. National Geographic'' regarding the reprint rights of various comic scripts (such as ''Wormy'', '' What's New with Phil & Dixie'', ''Snarf Quest'', and ''Knights of the Dinner Table''"Actually, as was back then, and remains today, the cartoonist contracts in ''Dragon'' and ''Dungeon'' allow for the artists to retain all their rights, and gives them the ability to publish compilations of their work."- Sean Glenn-Art Director Dragon and Dungeon magazine
"Where's Wormy?" Thread
/ref> 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.") that had been printed in ''Dragon'' over the years and Paizo Publishing's policy that creators of comics retain their copyright, the ''Dragon Magazine Archive'' is out of print.

Paizo

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. It ties ''Dragon'' more closely to ''Dungeon'' by including articles supporting and promoting its major multi-issue adventures such as the ''

Age of Worms The ''Age of Worms'' Adventure Path (or simply ''Age of Worms'') is the second Adventure Path for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game, published over twelve installments from July 2005 through June 2006 in ''Dungeon'' magazine. A campai ...

'' and ''

Savage Tide The ''Savage Tide'' Adventure Path (or simply ''Savage Tide'') is the third Adventure Path for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game, published over twelve installments from October 2006 through September 2007 in ''Dungeon'' magazine. It ...

''. ''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

On April 18, 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced that it would not be renewing Paizo's licenses for ''Dragon'' and ''Dungeon'' in favor of the Internet. 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. 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.

Cessation

In the September 2013 issue of ''Dragon'' (#427) an article by Wizards of the Coast game designer and editor Chris Perkins announced that both ''Dragon'' and its sibling publication ''Dungeon'' would be going on hiatus starting January 2014 pending the release of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' 5th edition. The final online version released is Issue #430 in December 2013.

Dragon+

A new and fully digital bi-monthly publication called ''Dragon+'', was launched on April 30, 2015, succeeding the existing versions of ''Dragon'' and ''Dungeon'' magazines. Created by Dialect in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, the online edition ceased continuity with the printed and digital versions of both magazines, and restarted its numbering system for issues at No. 1. The magazine branded itself as an app with content "showcasing what’s new in Dungeons & Dragons – from backstory and world information to discussions about what's coming next from the creators and developers of your favorite D&D products". Articles included cover content such as: game strategies and insights; details of the current D&D storyline; interviews; ongoing comic series; lore; Forgotten Realms world information; community updates and fan submissions; and videos. Additional content in the magazine is also accessible through links to the magazine's content in

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

feeds. ''Dragon+'' ran for 41 issues in total with the last issue published in April 2022; Wizards of the Coast published an update in July 2022 announcing the cancellation of the publication. On November 15, 2022, Wizards of the Coast announced that "''Dragon+'' will be removed from app stores on or around November 15th, and dragonmag.com will be redirected and its content will no longer be available".

Content

Many of the gaming world's most famous writers, game designers and artists have published work in the magazine. Through most of its run the magazine frequently published fantasy fiction, either short stories or novel excerpts. After the 1990s, the appearance of fiction stories became relatively rare. One late example was issue #305's featured excerpt from

George R.R. Martin George Raymond Richard Martin (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948), also known as GRRM, is an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and short story writer. He is the author of the series of epic fantasy novels ''A Song ...

's later Hugo-nominated novel ''

A Feast for Crows ''A Feast for Crows'' is the fourth of seven planned novels in the epic fantasy series ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' by American author George R. R. Martin. The novel was first published on October 17, 2005, in the United Kingdom, with a United ...

''. It also featured

book reviews __NOTOC__ A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review may be a primary source, opinion piece, summary review or scholarly revie ...

of fantasy and science fiction novels, and occasionally of films of particular interest (such as the

TV movie A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

of ''

Mazes and Monsters ''Mazes and Monsters'' (also known as ''Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters'') is a 1982 American made-for-television film directed by Steven Hilliard Stern about a group of college students and their interest in a fictitious role-playing game (RP ...

''). From the magazine's beginning until issue 274, from August 2000, ''Dragon'' published articles for various versions of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' and, at various times, other gaming systems. With issue 274, ''Dragon'' published exclusively 3rd Edition ''D&D'' content, or content for other games published by Wizards Of The Coast's d20 System games. With the release of the 3.5 Edition update in July 2003, issue 309 onward published only Edition 3.5 content and carried a "100% Official ''Dungeons & Dragons''" masthead. The magazine switched to exclusively 4th Edition ''D&D'' content from issue 364 on the release of 4th Edition in June 2008.

Articles

Most of the magazine's articles provide supplementary material for ''D&D'' including new prestige classes, races,

monster A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive with a strange, grotesque appearance that causes terror and fe ...

s and many other subjects that can be used to enhance a game. A popular long-running column ''Sage Advice'' offers official answers to ''Dungeons & Dragons'' questions submitted by players. Other articles provide tips and suggestions for players and Dungeon Masters (DMs). It sometimes discusses meta-gaming issues, such as getting along with fellow players. At the end of its print run, the magazine also features four comics; ''

Nodwick ''Nodwick'' is a comic strip created by Aaron Williams, based around the conventions of fantasy role-playing games, in particular '' Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). It debuted in '' Dragon'' magazine issue No. 246 (April 1998), first with short ...

'', ''

Dork Tower ''Dork Tower'' is an online comic created, written and drawn by John Kovalic. It chronicles the lives of a group of geeks living in the fictional town of Mud Bay, Wisconsin. Mud Bay's design is strongly influenced by the author's home town of M ...

'', ''Zogonia'', and a specialized version of the

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be c ...

The Order of the Stick ''The Order of the Stick'' (''OOTS'') is a comedic webcomic that satirizes tabletop role-playing games and medieval fantasy. The comic is written and drawn by Rich Burlew, who illustrates the comic in a stick figure style. Taking place in a mag ...

''. Previous popular gamer-oriented comic strips include ''

Knights of the Dinner Table ''Knights of the Dinner Table'' (''KoDT'') is a comic book/strip created by Jolly R. Blackburn and published by Kenzer & Company. It primarily focuses on a group of role playing gamers and their actions at the gaming table, which often result in ...

'', ''

Finieous Fingers Finieous Fingers (often misspelled ''Fineous'' even in Dragon magazine's own FAQ) was among the earliest comics that appeared in ''Dragon'' magazine. Finieous Fingers, the title character and self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Thief", was a good-n ...

'', '' What's New with Phil & Dixie'', '' Wormy'', ''Yamara'', and '' SnarfQuest''. A feature of ''Dragon'' for many years is its "Ecology of ..." articles as sometimes discussed by the fictional sage

Elminster Elminster Aumar is a fictional character appearing in the ''Forgotten Realms'' campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game. He is also known as the Sage of Shadowdale, and is depicted as a powerful Wizard (Dungeons & ...

, in which a particular D&D monster receives an in-depth review, explaining how it found food, reproduced, and so forth. Under Paizo's tenure such ecology articles became heavier in "crunch" (game mechanics) as opposed to "fluff" (narrative and description) than previously. The ''Dragon'' submissions guidelines explicitly state that Ecology articles "should have a hunter’s guidebook approach, although it should not be written 'in voice'" and further call out the exact format of Ecology articles, leaving less room for artistic license by the author. In the early 1980s, almost every issue contains a role playing adventure, a simple board game, or some kind of special game supplement (such as a cardboard cut-out castle). For instance, Tom Wham's ''

Snit's Revenge ''Snit's Revenge'' is a two-player board game developed and illustrated by Tom Wham. It originally appeared as an insert in Dragon Magazine in 1977, and subsequently as a boxed game first published by TSR, Inc. and currently by Steve Jackson Games ...

'', ''

The Awful Green Things from Outer Space ''The Awful Green Things from Outer Space'' (''AGTFOS'') is a two-player space combat board game developed and illustrated by Tom Wham. Publication history TSR ''The Awful Green Things from Outer Space'' was first published as an insert in the Ju ...

'' and '' File 13'' all started as supplements within ''The Dragon''. These bonus features are infrequent after the 1986 launch of ''

'' magazine, which published several new ''Dungeons & Dragons'' adventures in each issue. During the 1980s, after TSR had purchased

Simulations Publications Inc. Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) was an American publisher of board wargames and related magazines, particularly its flagship ''Strategy & Tactics'', in the 1970s and early 1980s. It produced an enormous number of games and introduced innovat ...

, the magazine had a subsection called '' Ares Magazine'', based on SPI's magazine of that name, specializing in

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

and

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...

role playing games, with pages marked by a gray border. The content included write-ups for various characters of the

Marvel Universe The Marvel Universe is a fictional shared universe where the stories in most American comic book titles and other media published by Marvel Comics take place. Super-teams such as the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians o ...

for TSR's '' Marvel Super-Heroes''.

Special issues

As noted above ''The Dragon'' was preceded by seven issues of ''The Strategic Review''. In the magazine's early years it also published five "Best of" issues, reprinting highly regarded articles from ''The Strategic Review'' and ''The Dragon''. From 1996 to 2001, ''Dragon Magazine'' published the "Dragon Annual", a thirteenth issue of all new content.

Editors

Print versions: * #1 – 34: Timothy J. Kask, Editor * #35 – 48: Jake Jaquet, Editor * #49 – 114 & 199 – 217: Kim Mohan, Editor-in-Chief * #115 – 198:

Roger E. Moore Roger E. Moore (born July 11, 1955, in Winchester, Kentucky) is a designer of role-playing games. He is best known for his long-running tenure as editor of ''Dragon'' magazine and was the founding editor of ''Dungeon'' magazine. Early life Moor ...

, Editor * #218 – 221:

Wolfgang Baur Wolfgang Baur (born 1968) is an American game designer, best known for his work with '' Dragon'' magazine. He designs role-playing games and is known for his work at Wizards of the Coast. Baur is also the founder of Open Design LLC, later know ...

, Editor * #222 – 238: Pierce B. Watters, Editor-in-Chief * #222 – 229:

Anthony J. Bryant Anthony J. Bryant (February 14, 1961 – December 25, 2013) was an American author and editor. Biography Bryant was born in Franklin, Indiana, and was adopted at age 5 by Robert M. and Margaret Bryant. After Robert M. Bryant's death in 1967, T ...

, Editor * #230 – 273 & 274 – 287:

Dave Gross Dave Gross () is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. He is also a magazine editor, and has held the position of Editor-in-Chief at ''Star Wars Insider'' and at ''Amazing Stories''. Career Dave Gross, Michael Mikael ...

, Editor & Editor-in-Chief * #288 – 311:

Jesse Decker Jesse Decker is an author, designer, and editor of roleplaying game material. Biography Decker began playing '' Dungeons & Dragons'' in 1983 during recess at his elementary school. During the summer of 1996, he began doing "temp work" for Wizar ...

, Editor-in-Chief * #312 – 315: Chris Thomasson, Editor-in-Chief * #316 – 326:

Matthew Sernett Matthew Lee Sernett is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career Matt Sernett was part of the SCRAMJET team, led by Richard Baker, with designers James Wyatt, Ed Stark, Michele Carter, Stacy Longstreet, and Chris ...

, Editor-in-Chief * #327 – 359: Erik Mona, Editor-in-Chief Digital (online/PDF) versions: * #360 – 387: Chris Youngs, Editor-in-Chief * #388 – 430:

Steve Winter Steve Winter (born December 8, 1957) is an American game designer who worked on numerous products for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game, which was originally published by TSR and later Wizards of the Coast. Early life Winter ...

, Editor-in-Chief * (''Dragon''+) #1-7 Matt Chapman, Editor-in-Chief; #8-13 John Houlihan, Editor-in-Chief; #14-present Matt Chapman, Editor-in-Chief

Awards

* 1984:

Origins Award The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so (for example) the 1979 a ...

for ''Best Professional Roleplaying Magazine of 1984'' * 1986:

for ''Best Professional Roleplaying Magazine of 1985'' * 1987:

for "Special Award for Outstanding Achievement of 1987". * 1990: Origins Award for ''Best Professional Adventure Gaming Magazine of 1989'' * 1994: Origins Award for ''Best Professional Gaming Magazine of 1993'' * 1995: Origins Awards for ''Best Professional Gaming Magazine of 1994'', ''Origins Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame'' * 2004: Origins Award for ''Best Game Related Periodical 2003'' * 2007: Origins Award for ''Best Non-Fiction Publication of the Year 2006''

Other releases

A collection of ''Dragon'' was released as the ''Dragon Magazine Archive'' in 1999. It was released as a CD-ROM with a Windows application and PDF files. The ''Dragon Magazine Archive'' was directed by Rob Voce, and published by TSR/

. ''

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilate ...

'' reviewed it, saying that the archive was "worth the price", but that its application's Windows-only format limits other platforms to read the PDFs manually. It was reviewed in ''Backstab'' #19.

References

External links

DragonDex
– a complete, exhaustive index of the contents of ''Dragon'' magazine through the final printed issue #359 (last updated in 2007)
Dragon+ digital magazine

Dragon+ digital magazine iOS app
* Archived Dragon Magazines on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dragon (Magazine) Defunct magazines published in the United States Dungeons & Dragons magazines House organs Magazines disestablished in 2007 Magazines established in 1976 Monthly magazines published in the United States Online magazines published in the United States Online magazines with defunct print editions Origins Award winners Role-playing game magazines TSR, Inc. magazines Wargaming magazines Wizards of the Coast magazines