At Dungeons & Dragons Experience this weekend, Goodman Games announced it will start publishing a new magazine in April. Called Level Up, the 32-page publication is the only print magazine that will exclusively present D&D 4e content, all licensed under the GSL. Level Up will provide a wide range of D&D 4th Edition content, including new monsters, character options, an adventure in every issue, and even a “Dear Archmage Abby” column. According to Joseph Goodman, a primary goal of Level Up is to get gamers down to their local retail stores, so for the time being, a subscription plan has not been determined. [UPDATE: subscriptions have been set at $4 per issue, either print or PDF] The quarterly magazine will retail for $1.99 per issue, and Goodman Games hopes take Level Up monthly in the future.
That is very cool.
Did they have any preview material? I don’t see anything on their web site about it yet.
Nothing yet – not to my knowledge, at least. But then again, this was definitely breaking news – a friend of OgreCave was at the show, heard the news, and told me. I spoke with Joseph Goodman by phone the next day.
I’ll see what else I can get out of Joseph at DunDraCon in a couple weeks. 🙂
I like the price.
“is the only print magazine licensed under the GSL”
So far. Any of us that have signed the GSL can use it for any product we want, I could start a print magazine tomorrow that is licensed under the GSL.
Anyways, I’ll be buying it.
Aww dude…
Do they the info up to subscribe to puppy already?
If not, when.
This has been sent to the Twitterverse – http://search.twitter.com/search?q=4emagazine (let’s see if it gets retweeted).
And it is awesome news.
I posted your scoop at ENWorld and BalckDirge came along and made some comments.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/249818-goodman-games-publish-d-d-4th-edition-print-magazine-under-4e-gaming-system-license.html
” a primary goal of Level Up is to get gamers down to their local retail stores, so for the time being, a subscription plan has not been determined. The quarterly magazine will retail for $1.99 per issue, and Goodman Games hopes take Level Up monthly in the future.”
guivre said:
“is the only print magazine licensed under the GSL”
So far. Any of us that have signed the GSL can use it for any product we want, I could start a print magazine tomorrow that is licensed under the GSL.
Yes, I know other companies/individuals could follow suit. But at this point, Level Up is indeed the only GSL-licensed print magazine.
Would you have preferred “first”? 🙂
–
Allan Sugarbaker
OgreCave.com
Looks like it is out. And available via subscription and (or?) PDF.
http://goodmangames.com/9101preview.html
Oops, sorry.
Not ‘out’. But the subscription is purchasable.
is this thing working
I don’t like being the bearer of bad news but this magazine is NOT the only print magazine licensed under the GSL that prints 4ematerial as they claim. Dragon Roots print and pdf magazine is licensed under GSL and the OGL and prints both 3.5 and 4e material and is at least 70 pages high quality print. Also, I am sure that Kobold Quarterly also contains 4e material. You can find out more information about Dragon Roots magazine at DRAGON ROOTS.
As to price, without knowing the full details about the print they are running or what their print run size is but going off of what I know from researching printers for Dragon Roots, $2 an issue would barely cover the printing costs after you pay for things like art and stuff. I have my doubts too about how long they can keep this price up.
I full support any magazine or company or individual that tries to promote the role playing industry. I am concerned that they claim to be the “only” licensed magazine for the GSL. That is not factual.
-Rocco
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon Roots Magazine
DRAGON ROOTS
There we go, now it is posting. Sorry for the extra posts but it didn’t seem to be working. The website for Dragon Roots is http://www.dragonroots.net, that didn’t seem to take for some reason.
Also, I worked for almost a year closely with Linae Foster and then Scott Rouse to get WOTC to allow magazines like ours to be able to print the content that we want. To have you boldly claim that you are the only 4e print magazine under the GSL is a slap in the face to me and all those that paved the road before you. I would ask that you please retract that claim.
-Rocco
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon Roots Magazine
Ah, there it is.
I guess I didn’t make the claim.
And really, I don’t think it was meant as a slap in the face, but simply an honest mistake.
Rocco said:
“I don’t like being the bearer of bad news but this magazine is NOT the only print magazine licensed under the GSL that prints 4ematerial as they claim. Dragon Roots print and pdf magazine is licensed under GSL and the OGL and prints both 3.5 and 4e material […]”
That doesn’t sound like bad news to me. I’m all for having more gaming magazines out there. 🙂
To the best of my knowledge, Level Up is the only print magazine licensed under the GSL that is doing 4e, and nothing but 4e.
Is Dragon Roots available to retailers through distribution? If not, that might be why I hadn’t heard of you, and why Level Up made the claim of being the only GSL print magazine. (I agreed with that claim, but wasn’t the originator of it.)
“Also, I am sure that Kobold Quarterly also contains 4e material.”
KQ did recently start providing 4e material, yes. But their 4e material is not published under the GSL. They also provide 3.5 material under the OGL. So I guess the distinction there is that Level Up is entirely GSL and 4e material.
From what I see on your site, Dragon Roots is like KQ, doing both 3.5 and 4e, right? But if you signed the GSL, how is it that you are publishing 3.5 materials in the same publication? I thought that was verboten.
“Also, I worked for almost a year closely with Linae Foster and then Scott Rouse to get WOTC to allow magazines like ours to be able to print the content that we want. To have you boldly claim that you are the only 4e print magazine under the GSL is a slap in the face to me and all those that paved the road before you. I would ask that you please retract that claim.”
Umm… I’m not sure who that last post of yours was addressed to. OgreCave did not claim to be the only anything – I merely made observations that mirrored claims made by Level Up, claims that seemed accurate. You appear to be talking to Goodman Games through me now, and if you plan to be offended and make demands, I suggest you take it up with them.
–
Allan Sugarbaker
Editor/Founder,
OgreCave.com
Allan said:
To the best of my knowledge, Level Up is the only print magazine licensed under the GSL that is doing 4e, and nothing but 4e.
Yes, but that is not what you claimed, or reiterated. You said it was the only magazine doing 4e material and the only GSL, but didn’t mention nothing but 4e until this post. It just isn’t true. You could have made the distinction that Level Up is the only magazine to do only 4e material and that would be factual. It is a simple distinction but a very important one.
Allan said:
From what I see on your site, Dragon Roots is like KQ, doing both 3.5 and 4e, right? But if you signed the GSL, how is it that you are publishing 3.5 materials in the same publication? I thought that was verboten.
It is, but it isn’t. I opened the door for magazines to be able to print both 3.x and 4e material in the same pages. It is a special agreement with WOTC, Linae Foster and later Scott Rouse. When Scott gets time to finally update the GSL it should be reflected.
Allan said:
“Also, I worked for almost a year closely with Linae Foster and then Scott Rouse to get WOTC to allow magazines like ours to be able to print the content that we want. To have you boldly claim that you are the only 4e print magazine under the GSL is a slap in the face to me and all those that paved the road before you. I would ask that you please retract that claim.”
Umm… I’m not sure who that last post of yours was addressed to. OgreCave did not claim to be the only anything – I merely made observations that mirrored claims made by Level Up, claims that seemed accurate. You appear to be talking to Goodman Games through me now, and if you plan to be offended and make demands, I suggest you take it up with them.
This were I partly am at fault, I thought Ogre Cave was connected with Goodman Games and Level Up because of a link from ENWorld. So, I apologize for that, however, you did make the claim here as well, so for placing false information on your website, the right thing to do would be to acknowledge the mistake.
-Rocco
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon Roots Magazine
Actually, now that I took a look at Goodman games website, I don’t see where they claim to be the ONLY 4e or GSL magazine. The claim seems to originate here from what I can tell.
I’ll adjust the initial news story to reflect the new information.
It’s certainly exciting to hear that you “opened the door for magazines to be able to print both 3.x and 4e material in the same pages”, but the way you’ve reacted seems a bit strong. If this is all to be proven by a revised GSL at some point in the future – and if it is, that’s great – it’s rather unlikely I would have known about it, as the update isn’t available yet. (How a link from ENWorld made you think OgreCave was connected to Goodman Games is interesting as well…)
Please, if you’re still upset about the implications of the statement, take it up with Goodman Games. I merely reported what a rep from the company told me, which as far as I could tell, was accurate. The statement was made here first, but only because we had the scoop.
Can gamers expect to see your magazine in retail stores soon?
I hate posts for this very reason. It is very hard to get a feel for the tone of voice and what not in a e-mail or post. If you and I were just sitting at a bar chatting, it would be a different conversation completely.
Concerning the GSL, I didn’t mean to be snippy, I just wanted to clarify. I don’t expect you to know about our top secret agreement with WOTC unless you bugged my house 🙂
The whole thing with the link from ENWorld was short sightedness on my part. I assumed that the link brought me to goodman games and just assumed that this was a part of Goodman Games without actually looking around. My apologizes.
I sent an e-mail to Blackdirge but he has not responded. A rep cam on the ENWorld forum and made a statement. Hard to tell if he was being snide or not, but he didn’t retract the claim. I guess if that is the way they want to roll, I can’t go over there and break there legs or anything. I just think it would be professional of them to clarify.
We are only in a few gaming stores in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Louisiana. I can’t seem to find a distributor that wants to pass on magazines. I know that KQ works with one, but I am not sure which one, only that it is not any of the ones I contacted. So mainly we are a mail order magazine or selling to stores that contact us. You can order the magazine in print or PDF through our website, http://www.dragonroots.net. Note, we offer a free pdf of the print version with every print you buy. So it is like a two for one deal. Who doesn’t like that?
I created Dragon Roots to take the place of Dragon and Dungeon when they went out of print. I love nothing so much as the feel of paper in my hands, not the strain of a computer screen. So, Old School Publishing, the name of my company, is mostly a one man show with a few other writers and artists. I guess in the competitive market of magazines, I do tend to get a little defensive about things like this.
Anyway, thanks for clarifying and I hope to have you as a reader. If you send me a, e-mail at my personal e-mail address, I will send you a pdf version of issue #0 so you can check it out.
c.e.rocco@comcast.net
Agreed, Rocco – online posts are one of the easiest ways to be misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying things. I certainly didn’t mean to cause confusion or offend you. Your defensiveness is understandable, it just took me by surprise.
I just might have to take you up on your offer. 🙂
Best,
–
Allan Sugarbaker
Editor/Founder,
OgreCave.com