Dragon Magazine - 404.pdf - Dragon Magazine - sensei_13

Editorial:

Open

Window

by Christopher Perkins

Illustration by Howard Lyon

This month in Dragon ® and Dungeon ® , we offer a

savory blend of Oriental intrigue and Halloween

terror—two great tastes that, like chocolate and

peanut butter, go great together. The latter makes

sense given the season, and the former came about

as a result of resurrecting the idea of monthly

themes. Mike Mearls suggested the idea of a Kara-

Tur theme earlier this year, and several freelance

writers delivered kick-ass content to back it up. In

November, we have articles tied to the theme of

fey magic (to support Player’s Option: Heroes of the

Feywild ™ and the next D&D Encounters ™ season),

and in December you’ ll see content tied to a theme

we like to call “touch of evil” (in support of The Book

of Vile Darkness ™ ).

We have a few themes in mind for early next year

(“romance & royalty” in January, “gods & primor-

dials” in February, and “skullduggery” in March),

and we’re hoping to build future themes around the

articles and adventures we receive from our con-

tributors. In a recent poll , folks expressed interest

in themes tied to classic D&D ® campaign settings

(Dragonlance ® , Ravenloft ® , and Planescape ®

being the three most popular), and we’re open to

Oc t ob e r 2011 | DRAGON 404

Editorial: Open Window

seeing 4th Edition article proposals that hearken

back to classic campaign settings, particularly if the

articles can be adapted for a DM’s home campaign

with minimal effort. The extent to which we tie

content to a given theme will vary month to month;

sometimes it might be just three or four articles,

and other times (like this month) the theme might

carry the bulk of the content. Some other themes

we’ve kicked around the office include “demons &

devils,” “anchor’s away,” “war,” “undeath,” and “the

Underdark.” The themes we choose are ultimately

informed by what you send us. Which brings us to

the topic at hand . . .

The submission window is now open! Until the

window closes on November 30, 2011, we are accept-

ing article proposals for Dragon and Dungeon . The

next submission window doesn’t open until March of

next year, so if you’ve been sitting on a good idea for a

D&D article or adventure, now’s the time to write it

up and send it to submissions@wizards.com . First, be

sure to check out our submission guidelines .

We promise to reply to your email proposal no

later than 60 days after the window closes, although

chances are good that you’ll hear back from us before

then. We reply to email submissions in the order in

which we receive them, and it’s okay to send mul-

tiple proposals in a single email; in fact, we prefer to

receive proposals in batches. However, we judge each

pitch on its own merits, so volume is less important

than quality.

Greg Bilsland and I are the first line of defense

when it comes to proposals. It’s our job (and plea-

sure) to sift through the submissions inbox in search

of gems. We pull out the shiny ones and set up

meetings with the staff to discuss them. After each

of these meetings, Greg or I condense the group’s

feedback into rejection letters (boo!) or requests for

complete articles (yay!).

Our readership has diverse tastes. Some subscrib-

ers prefer “rules lite” story content, in particular world

development and character-building advice. Others

prefer crunchy mechanical content—feats, powers,

magic items, and the like. Still others favor something

in between. We urge writers to err toward story-

focused content, since heaps of new feats and powers

end cluttering up an already cluttered system. And

frankly, designing a feat or power that’s both good and

original is a lot harder than most people think. Con-

sider articles that tackle a particular subject in greater

depth than we’re accustomed to seeing in a print prod-

uct, or that takes something that exists in the game

currently and recasts it in an interesting way (for

example, an article we published last month took the

artificer class out of the Eberron ® setting and found a

home for it in the Forgotten Realms ® setting).

Pretty much the only thing we don’t want to see

are articles chock full of new mechanics with only a

thin veneer of story to explain away their existence—

that, and your 300-page campaign setting! We’re

unlikely to accept a proposal for a new class. Given

the time and resources it takes to playtest a new class

and program it into the D&D Character Builder, we

prefer to design classes in-house. We’re also wary

about adding new races to the game, but we’ll make

an exception if it’s thematically appropriate; the heng-

eyokai, which releases this month, is a good example.

Here’s one recipe for a good article proposal: Take

an idea you’re passionate about. Run the idea past

some of your gamer friends and see if they think it’s

cool. Do a bit of research to see whether the idea’s

been done before. Find a way to make the idea reso-

nate with as many readers as you can. Then submit.

The best proposals are short and concise. You

can usually encapsulate an article or adventure idea

in a short paragraph. Be sure to include a title and

estimated word count as part of your pitch, and let

us know what new mechanical elements the article

includes. For example:

Title: The Ecology of the Modron

Estimated Word Count: 5,000

Description: Modrons march to the beat of a dif-

ferent drum. This article explores their orderly,

clockwork life and the mystery behind “rogue

modrons.” The article also includes statistics for a

rogue modron NPC companion.

When we read a proposal, we’re looking for ideas

we haven’t seen before (or in a good long while)

or which address a perceived need or demand.

Although we rarely have time to participate in

forum conversations, we skim forums and message

boards to see what folks are clamoring for. You can

scour the forums, but be warned: You are not alone!

Other would-be contributors are doing the same

thing, and so the competition is fierce. Six months

ago, after players on our forums clamored for more

runepriest class support, we were bombarded by

runepriest article proposals, of which we could

only hope to publish one or two. If you’re the type

Here’s one recipe for a good article proposal: Take an idea

you’re passionate about. Run the idea past some of your gamer

friends and see if they think it’s cool. Do a bit of research to see

whether the idea’s been done before. Find a way to make the

idea resonate with as many readers as you can. Then submit.

Oc t ob e r 2011 | DRAGON 404

Editorial: Open Window

of writer who doesn’t thrive on competition, your

research time is better spent elsewhere.

Character themes are the new hotness. The con-

cept was introduced in the D ark S un ® Campaign

Setting and featured in the Neverwinter ™ Campaign

Setting , and we’ve published several character themes

in Dragon (and have more in the pipeline). If you plan

to submit a proposal for a new theme or two (or three

or four), be advised that you’re not alone. You’ll be

competing with lots of other folks for our attention.

If you’re looking for the path of least resistance,

consider submitting an idea for a “Backdrop” article

(which explores a location in one of our published

campaign settings), a “Bestiary” article (new mon-

sters tethered to a clever theme), a “Bazaar of the

Bizarre” article (thematically linked magic items),

a “History Check” article (mechanics-light, edition-

proof recounts of the classic stories of D&D), or one

of our recurring planar articles such as “Domains of

Dread” (all about the darklords of the Shadowfell),

“Demonomicon of Iggwilv” (all about the Abyss),

“Codex of Betrayal” (all about the Nine Hells), “Lords

of Chaos” (all about primordials), or “Court of Stars”

(all about archfey). We also have a popular series

called “Channel Divinity,” which explores various

gods and their devout worshipers. Although we’ve

pretty much exhausted the core deities at this point,

we hope to explore more campaign-specific gods in

future installments. If you’re looking for a challenge,

try pitching an “Unearthed Arcana” article (optional

or variant rules). We’ve published several good ones

of late, including jousting rules and 0-level character

rules, and we have a few more in the works (rules

for arcane duels, a different take on the Far Realm,

and a way to track combat injuries using a print-it-

yourself deck of cards). You could also try your hand

at a “Class Acts” article (articles that show a familiar

class in a new light).

Adventures are harder to write than articles, but

our DMs can’t get enough of them! You need to sell

us on three things: the plot (what the villains are up

to), the hook (how the heroes get involved), and the

setting. We’re looking for memorable villains and

locations with character, particularly dungeon set-

tings. (The magazine is called Dungeon , after all.)

We’re looking for adventures of all levels, and if you

really want to get our attention, take something that’s

familiar to D&D players, like goblins, and put a clever

spin on it. Goblins riding behemoths, for example,

is something we’ve never seen before. Similarly, you

might think bandits are boring, but that’s probably

because you’ve never considered a gang of treant

bandits (“when nature attacks!”) or a tief ling bandit

who’s stealing paintings of the Nine Hells for some

fell purpose. A clever spin can do wonders.

We could use more Side Treks, which are single-

encounter scenarios that DMs can use as interludes

between longer adventures. If you’re new to adven-

ture writing, a Side Trek is a nice way to get your

feet wet. That said, if you have an awesome idea for

a longer adventure (between 5,000 and 15,000

words), pitch it. When it comes to adventures, the

only proposals we don’t want to see are for adventure

series . Please, just send us one-off ideas. If we publish

an adventure that turns out to be very popular, we

might commission a sequel, but don’t try to sell us on

a 45,000-word adventure broken into three 15,000-

word parts. We’ve had great success with series in

the past, but we prefer to come up with those ideas

ourselves and assign series adventures to freelance

writers we’ve worked with before.

If the past is any indication, we expect to receive

between 1,500 and 2,000 unique proposals over

the next two months. Compare that number to the

number of freelance articles we publish in a typical

year (around 100 to 120), and you get a sense of the

competition. The two most common reasons for rejec-

tion are (1) your idea is similar to another idea we

liked better or (2) we’ve explored that idea to our sat-

isfaction. For example, we don’t need and can’t afford

to publish three different articles about runepriests in

one year. If someone proposes a really cool runepriest

article and we end up requesting a first draft, that

doesn’t bode well for the other runepriest proposals in

the submissions inbox. We still read every proposal,

because who knows—we might stumble upon a second

runepriest article that’s different enough from the first

one and cool enough on its own to warrant publica-

tion. This did, in fact, happen—which is why we have

a runepriest article this month and another one tenta-

tively planned for December. But that probably means

we won’t be publishing any runepriest support in

2012, given the number of other classes in the game.

The realities of the publishing business aside, I

look forward to seeing your article and adventure

ideas over the next two months. I’m also anxious to

f lesh out next year’s themes and pack the schedule

full of articles and adventures that will surprise and

delight our readers. Dragon and Dungeon remain,

after all these years, the best ways to break into the

RPG publishing industry. We pay well for the arti-

cles we publish, and we take pride in helping our

freelancers develop as writers. If you’re a struggling

perfectionist like me, who sees rejection as an oppor-

tunity for improvement rather than a barrier, then

you’ll succeed one way or another. Best-case scenario,

you might end up becoming one of our most prolific

contributors if not a future employee. As someone

who kick-started his gaming career by writing adven-

tures for Dungeon , I know what I’m talking about.

If you’re not interested in submitting article and

adventure proposals but have opinions about this

month’s theme or issue themes in general, we’d love

to hear from you. Feel free to drop us a quick note at

dndinsider@wizards.com .

Oc t ob e r 2011 | DRAGON 404

Class Acts: Assassin

Secrets of the Ninja

By Dave Chalker

Illustration by Kerem Beyit

Look into my eyes as your life slips away.

You may be illed with terror. You may

want to cry out, but ind you cannot. You

may be wondering what happens next.

You probably hate me for bringing you

to this point. But you are about to learn

the ultimate secret, and go where even

the gods fear to tread. You are about to

experience the mystery that we spend our

whole lives trying to understand; and in

these inal seconds, I wish to share it with

you, as I have with hundreds of others.

NINJA IN D&D

The ninja appeared in the 1st Edition Oriental

Adventures as a fully playable class for the Kara-

Tur campaign setting. Such characters were

required to have a dual class of ninja and a “cover

class” to hide their true nature, and divided their

XP between the two. In 2nd Edition AD&D, The

Complete Ninja’s Handbook presented the ninja

as a complete class, with a variety of kits to

further customize the ninja’s abilities (while also

opening up the option of an all-ninja campaign).

A full ninja class appeared in the 3rd Edition

Oriental Adventures handbook, for playing such

a character in the world of Rokugan. This article

brings the Kara-Tur ninja to 4th Edition D&D

as an option for the executioner assassin from

Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow™.

Most modern historians in the real world

agree that the images of ninja in popular culture

are pure fiction, from their style of dress to their

choice of weapons and their purported abilities.

In the mythical world of D&D, however, this may

all be fact. And besides, what better way for the

ninja to hide than to be dismissed as invention?

The Ninja Assassin

Of all the warriors in the realm to draw steel in

combat, the ninja is the most mysterious. The streets

are full of whispered rumors about these silent spies

and killers, who seem able to appear anywhere at

any time. Some say that ninja can alter their appear-

ances so skillfully that one of them can stand before

a victim in the guise of a lifelong friend or trusted

retainer, and awaken no suspicion; and that they can

kill with a single sword stroke. Even mighty warlords

in their castles are careful to never offend a ninja

Oc t ob e r 2011 | DRAGON 404

Dragon Magazine - 404.pdf

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