In its early days, Dragon was a thriving community of fans. Letters pages were one of the main focal points for gaming fandom, and you could feel a real sense of connection to other gamers reading the magazine.
At its height, it was one of the most prestigious role-playing magazines in the world and many of the gaming industry’s finest writers, artists and game designers published work in the magazine. However, the magazine has always been primarily a house organ for TSR’s (or more recently Wizards of the Coast’s) role-playing games and has tended to focus on D&D.
During its run, the magazine often included fiction stories or excerpts from fantasy novels, as well as book reviews of fantasy and science-fiction titles. In later years, such appearances tended to be more sporadic.
The magazine was also a regular source of articles about D&D prestige classes, races and monsters. Some of these articles were tongue-in-cheek, and others were a bit more serious in tone.
A number of different comic strips were published in Dragons, including Knights of the Dinner Table, What’s New with Phil and Dixie, Dork Tower and Finieous Fingers. Most of these were originally found in the Dragonmirth section, but some were included as their own column.
Another series of columns was Rogues Gallery, which examined the characters used in D&D and other role-playing games, focusing on heroes, villains and NPC’s. The series ended in September 2007. Spellcraft, a series of articles by various authors, focused on the spells and magic items available to D&D players.