Kobold Quarterly

Dyne · Post by **Dyne** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:16 am

Wolfgang Baur seems to be putting together his own little e-zine to help fill the void left by the deaths of Dragon and Dungeon magazines. In fact, the first issue is already out and can be purchased through Paizo.com.

I know some of you probably avoid anything with 3.5 on, but I've always enjoyed the Dragon magazines for their flavor and background information, such as in the Ecology articles (as opposed to the WotC books nowadays, which are basically "Here are some more stats to empower the munchkins in your group," and most of the fluff can be summarized as "This is a hat. This is where the hat goes. This is how you wear the hat. etc.").

Anyway, I miss the Dragon/Dungeon magazines, and this looks like a decent enough substitute. It's a little short though, at 34 pages released every 3 months. Anyone here get the premiere issue? What's it like?

By-the-way, Kobold Quarterly can be found here:
Premiere Issue at Paizo.com
Wolfgang Baur's Kobold Quarterly

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:07 pm

I've been reading about it in a thread on ENWorld. It sounds like the content is prety good and worth the 3 or 4 dollar per issue price.

Where in AZ are you?
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Dyne · Post by **Dyne** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 8:52 am

Treebore wrote:
Where in AZ are you?

We live in the county, a couple miles north of Peoria.

Do you have a link to that thread on ENWorld?

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:05 pm

Dyne wrote:
We live in the county, a couple miles north of Peoria.

Do you have a link to that thread on ENWorld?

I'm down in the S/E corner, East of Tombstone.

ENWorld thread:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=201208
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Dyne · Post by **Dyne** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:09 am

Treebore wrote:
I'm down in the S/E corner, East of Tombstone.

Ah, so you're on the complete opposite corner from me.
Hmm, the KQ print subscriptions seem rather expensive. I suppose I should try out the PDFs, though.

ephealy · Post by **ephealy** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:57 am

Have any of you been reading Kobold Quarterly? I'd be interested in your opinions.

Full Disclosure: I'm the Ad Sales Manager for KQ. Thought I'd get that out there in the open...

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:57 am

ephealy wrote:
Have any of you been reading Kobold Quarterly? I'd be interested in your opinions.

Full Disclosure: I'm the Ad Sales Manager for KQ. Thought I'd get that out there in the open...

Nope. I went with James Mishlers Adventure Games Publishing for the awesome Wilderlands content he is going to have. Plus he has a lot more content, 6 times per year, with better bang for my money.
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kelro · Post by **kelro** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:34 pm

I took out a subscription for a year of KQ. I have the first two issues. I havent had a chance to really read the second one. I mainly took out the subscription because I like Wolfgang's work.

Both have an ecology article, similar to Dragon. The first issue covers the Derro and the second the Barghest. I liked the Derro article.

The both also have an article relating to a demon or devil. Like the first issue has the scribe of hell, while the second issue has a demon of laziness or some such. The scribe article I thought was good, has ink devils...which I think would be fun to use.

The only other articles I found interesting in the first issue was a write up on red hats, a type of fey.

I found the Zobeck article to be kinda lame, and while I liked to read the Q&A with Eric Mona...that just isnt something I get excited about in a magazine.

The second issue is bigger (I believe its 40+ pages, but dont quote me), and looks to have plenty of interesting articles, I just havent had a chance to read it yet.

serleran · Post by **serleran** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:48 pm

From what I hear of the Kobold Quarterly, it has exactly the same stuff I did not buy Dragon for... I dunno, I guess I'd just prefer a magazine that had advice on this and that, with idea generators, and not "so, this is where the lemur-donkey comes from."

Ecology articles bore me to tears. If I want the monster in my world, I'd better think of why it exists... at least, why its going to be where its going to be. I don't need an ecology for the entire freaking species. And yes, I know some people love that... I don't.

Anyway, umm, I'm waiting to hear if it does have something I'd like. Before then, I'm not even going to look.

CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:40 pm

I got the second issue of KQ from Paizo. What happened to the first issue?

If a magazine had one (1) page of counters (the little stand up dudes you stick the plastic base on and move around on your map) I would get it just for that. Well, articles about gaming and fantasy/sci-fi don't hurt. Making these little dudes on my computer is kind of fun. But always a new magazine has a new kind of monster. Like ink demons or whatever. KoDT has a Trecorn in their new issue. This is fine and dandy. Now when I want to use it though, I have to look on every disk I got art stuck on to try and find the ol' "what looks most like this guy?" creature and then recolor it or something and then make one. This is less fun then just making cardboard dudes at random (my normal method).

Making new monsters is not hard. Getting magazines for games is fun. Using new monsters from a magazine should be fun and easy. Put one (1) page of map-counters or tokens (whatever you guys call them) and make some of the counters for the new monsters or character class that is in the magazine.

If I find chainsaw-wielding ninja zombies with lightning eyeballs in a magazine it would be too cool if there was a counter to go with it.
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Dyne · Post by **Dyne** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:45 pm

I was thinking about checking it out, but the price seems a little high (especially for the print copies). That, and I'm not buying much supplemental stuff anymore.

ephealy · Post by **ephealy** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:24 am

For those of you who have read either of the current issues, I'm wondering which article you found the most useful and which you thought was the weakest.

Thanks for all the feedback, BTW.
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Tadhg · Post by **Tadhg** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:41 am

Interesting. I know of Baur because of Frostburn, one of the few 3.X books that I have. I like the book for the few chapters that actually deal with environs and such and not rules.

Anywho, I see in his biog that he grew up nearby here in the Chicago area.

Heh, and he quit wotc because of all the layoffs which bugged him.
So, I have more interest in this project and will investigate.

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Dyne · Post by **Dyne** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:47 am

Rhuvein wrote:
Heh, and he quit wotc because of all the layoffs which bugged him.

Now this interests me. Also, I found Frostburn to be a very enjoyable and worthwhile supplement.

Ghul · Post by **Ghul** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:53 am

He wrote an excellent version of City of Brass for 2e called Secrets of The Lamp, a slim boxed set that's packed with maps and excellent adventuring. Very easy to use for C&C or 1e.

Prince of Happiness · Post by **Prince of Happiness** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:38 pm

Hmm! I'm curious to check it out! I've been a Baur fan since the Doom of Daggerdale. Only thing on that one I'd change up now is the intro, some better hook than "Randall Mourn rides up to your party and says 'You look like honest and trustworthy adventurers..."

CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 3:01 pm

Actually, my favorite part is the monster ecology articles.

Ed Greenwood's article was neat.

Cartoons are always nice. (need to get more space for the ones in KQ)

Sigfried Trent was a good read.

Cover art for issue 2 was lacking.

I always skip the ask the kobold. It just never seems timely and cataloging those kinds of articles ("I know somebody asked the sage this in one of these... which one though?") .. yeah.
I thought it would be bigger for eight bucks.

I know this sounds corny, but I like the ads. Ads in magazines are how I discovered Grimtooth, Cloud Kingdom Games, and (of course) GameMastery/Paizo. Where would my game be without these? Probably still here, just a lot less flashy.
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