Farewell, Dungeon. Hello, Pathfinder!

The news is all over RPG messageboards now, but I first heard about it on Slashdot. Wizards of the Coast are taking back the Dungeon and Dragon magazine licenses from Paizo in order to do something online, while Paizo will concentrate on its other product lines and launch a subscription-based adventure path book series called Pathfinder. Paizo's press release is pretty thorough on the subject, including nice preview pictures.

As mentioned in a previous post, I consider Dungeon one of the tools in my DM toolkit. I enjoy the blend of adventures, campaign workbook articles, comics, and letters. Even the advertisements have led to valuable discoveries a time or two. It will be sad to see it go.

That said, I have great confidence in the Paizo staff and their contributing artists and authors. It sounds like many of the component parts of Dungeon (adventure paths, single adventures, comics, etc.) will be moving into their own product lines. Letters from and to the editor will be available in the messageboards and blogs, so the only thing I expect I'll be losing is the advertisements. I assume that (and the book binding) are the main reasons the Pathfinder series will be $20 a month for 96 pages instead of Dungeon's $8.

So I'll probably continue to pick and choose from Paizo's product line the way I do today. I'm not sure if I'll subscribe to Pathfinder, as I've still got 2 1/2 adventure paths ready to run (Age of Worms, Savage Tide, Ptolus). Still, I expect it will be great and I wish Paizo every success!

Derek Poppink
GameMastery Uberfan