Periodical Entry

Primary Name
The name of the periodical. If the periodical has had multiple names, because it has been renamed, select the most recent one, and add a note to your submission noting the other names. They can then be added as alternate names.

Description
The description should be a short description of the magazine and what it attempts to cover. If you know the printing history (for a magazine which has finished it's print run) please include it (i.e. "Magazine covered 21 issues from Jan 1985 through Nov 1987).

Category
The kind of periodical: Either E-Zine, Fanzine, Flyer, Journal, Magazine, Newsletter or Other.

RPG Genre
This is for the genre most usually covered by the magazine. So Dragon Magazine may have had articles about Star Frontiers (Sci-Fi) and Boot Hill (Western) but primarily was focused on D&D and the High Fantasy genre. It's only the key genres that should be listed. If the magazine covered a wide gamut of genres on a regular basis, simply link in the Generic/Universal genre.

RPG Family
The RPG Family (or families) that were most usually covered by the magazine. Like with Genres, this list should not include any families that were incidentally covered. If the periodical was not linked to a specific family, leave this field blank.

Issue

To add a new Issue to an existing periodical, navigate to the periodical and you will see an Add Issue hyperlink about halfway down the page. You cannot add an issue to a periodical that has not yet been approved.

Primary Name
Magazine Issue titles should be standardized for consistency within a magazine line (so they look pretty in table format!). In general, this should be: Mag Title (Issue N - Mon YYYY) or Mag Title (Volume N, Issue Z - Mon YYYY). Do not zero pad the issue numbers - each magazine issue has an issue index that can be used for sorting. Please check out existing and well-fleshed out magazine entries in the database (such as Dragon or White Dwarf) and follow the format.

Issue Index
Magazine issues have an Issue Index. This number is used for sorting the issues. Normally it is equal to the issue number. So Dragon Magazine #297 gets an Issue Index of 297. Several other situations exist as well:

If the issue number is of the form Volume N, Issue Z, then the Issue index is 100*N + Z. So The Imperial Herald Volume 2, Issue #9 gets Issue Index 209.
Annuals get an Issue Index of 1000 + the annual number. So Annual #1 is 1001. Annual #2 is 1002, etc.
Special Issues and Best Of/Compilations start at 2000+

If you unsure what the Issue Index for a given issue should be due to e.g. strange numbering, leave it blank and add a note to the submission saying that the issue index should still be set.
With the scheme above, normal issues (starting with issue #1) will sort to the top.

Publication Date
This is the date of publication of (the first version) of the issue. If no precise date is available, but you do know the month/year, you can leave the day field blank, and just enter the month and the year. Likewise, if only a year is given, you can leave the day and month blank, and enter only the year.

Authors, Artists and Producers
A listing of the people that have created the issue. Editors (including assistant editors, editor-in-chief, etc.) are listed as author, as well as any featured article contributing authors. Any graphic artists, cartographers and the cover artist should be listed as artists. See the section on [designers] [artists] and [production staff] above for more information on adding persons to the database.

Publisher
The publisher(s) of this issue.

RPGs
This should be a list of all the RPGs the issue provides new source material for.

Version

A issue has versions just like an RPG item. See the Specific Field Rules section above for information how to fill these out.

Nickname
A nickname for the [version] entries must have nicknames associated with them. The naming here is not as strict as it would be for the item title but it should include some distinguishing characteristic of the version being entered. Some examples of names include (but are not limited to):

First Printing
Second Printing
Revised Edition
Blister Pack Version
Rare Magenta Cover
<Foreign Language Title> e.g. Manual del Jugador
etc.

If you are entering an item but aren't sure of the printing you can simply use a nickname of:

Hardcover Version
Softcover Version
PDF Version
etc.

We aren't being too strict here - look at the existing version nicknames on an item to see what makes sense. For versions which are in another language, we ask that you use the nickname field to put in the title as it would appear in that language.

Format
Pages
This is the total number of pages of the item typically excluding covers (unless the covers contain rules). It is the last page number identified plus any extra pages at the back end. Pull out sections should be listed under "More Information" if not included in the count already.

Year Published
Product Code
ISBN-10 and ISBN-13
10-digit ISBN Numbers should be without dashes or spaces. That is: “1234567890” not “1-234-5678-90”. 13-digit ISBN numbers have a single dash and are formatted as follows: 123-123456789.
Please note, ISBN-13 wasn't designed until 2004 and no ISBN-13 was issued until 2005. Some people have been putting the Bookland EAN-13 barcode in as an ISBN-13 (Bookland EAN-13s start with 978). These are NOT the ISBN-13s for that book.

Dimensions
We have a pull-down for common sizes though you are free to hand-enter any size dimensions of the product as needed. The dimensions are in inches only please. The dimensions are the size of the outer cover (not the pages within).

Weight
Languages
Rep Image
Description

Article

Articles are, essentially, a table of contents for the magazine (including any author names and short summaries). All articles for the issue should be included though possibly eliminating recurring columns like the fan mail bag, etc. To add a new Article to an existing Issue, navigate to the Issue and you will see an Add Article hyperlink above the list of articles already in for that issue. The summary of articles will show at the parent [issue] level. We show the page number, the article title and the first 120 characters of the article description.

An article has the following fields:

Name
The title of the article. If you are dealing with a column that has both a "recurring title" and a "episode title", add both of them, separated by a colon: recurring title: episode title. For example, for some period Dungeon Magazine included a column called Critical Threats (the recurring title). For Dungeon #106, the contribution in this column was called Evard - Debased Information Broker (the episode title). So, this article gets the name Critical Threats: Evard - Debased Information Broker in our database.

Description
A short description of the article. If the Table of Contents of the periodical includes small 'blurbs' for each article, you should use these for the description. If no such blurb is available, we suggest you start the description with the following:

For an adventure (or module, or scenario) - List the # of players, the levels (if any) and general theme. Example: "Short fantasy adventure adventure for 2-5 players lasting 3 hours".
For an article, editorial or story - Mention the author and what it's about. Example: "Gary Gygax takes a look at how the Paladin summons his mount"
For a review - Mention the product being reviewed by name. Example: "Review of Mouseguard RPG by Jan Smith"

If can of course elaborate on the description, but since the first 120 characters are displayed in the summary, we like you to list this short description first.

Start Page No.
The page of the issue on which the article starts. If the issue does not use page numbers, this is not required.

Article Index
The position of the article in the issue. The first article gets Article Index 1, the second article gets Article Index 2, etc. This is used to sort the articles.

Author
The author(s) of the article. Artists/Cartographers do not get listed. See the section on [designers] [artists] and [production staff] above for more information on adding persons to the database. Note: if the article contains reader contributed material (contest winners, fan mail, etc) just use (reader contribution) as the author (i.e. do not add every person that ever wrote into the magazine as a fan, contest winner, etc).

Category
A categorisation of the article. Select the most appropriate option:

Adventure
Article
Comic
Editorial
Fiction
Maps
News
Reader/Fan Mail
Review
Setting

If the article matches none of the other categories, it should probably belong in the generic Article category.

Our current best line of thinking here is that if the article mentions some spells, equipment, setting material or monster stats but that's not the primary focus of the article - it should not be listed as Setting or Adventure but rather just 'Article'.

If the focus is clearly on setting (setting is a combination of place, time and notable people/creatures), mark it as Setting.

Only mark something as an Adventure if this is clearly an adventure (with beginning, middle, end - or as part of an ongoing series) should it be marked as adventure. For Dragon, these were usually very clearly marked as: "An Introductory Adventure for Characters of Levels 1-3", etc.
When in doubt, just mark it as an Article.

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