Issue 300
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Editor | |
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Categories | Role-playing games |
Frequency | Monthly |
First issue |
The Strategic Review March 1975 The Dragon June 1976 |
Final issue — Number |
September 2007 #359 |
Company | TSR / WotC / Paizo |
Country | United States |
Website | DragonMag.com |
ISSN | 1062-2101 |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
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Website | www |
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products; Dungeon is the other. 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 (part of Hasbro, Inc.), the publication's current intellectual property rightsholder, relaunched Dragon as an online magazine, 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 restarted the numbering system for issues at No. 1.
In 1975, TSR, Inc. began publishing The Strategic Review. At the time, roleplaying games were still seen as a subgenre of the wargaming 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, which covered miniature wargaming, 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. TSR co-founder Gary Gygax 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."