Talk:Living campaigns

I'm sorry

There's simply no way to justify separate articles on each of these campaigns. All the information appropriate to Wikipedia can be encompassed in this one article. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC) (got his first writing checks from TSR)

Notability

I don't have time to address this, but for someone that does (or wants to research it more) they should look into how many Living-style games and modules run at gaming conventions and the impact it has on product development and sales. For example Living Greyhawk has to be considered a huge success for Hasbro and it's no surprise to see them replacing it with a Living Forgotten Realms for D&D 4.0. It may also be interesting to see how it has affected other companies -- e.g. how much influence did Heroes of Rokugan (formerly Living Rokugan when it was part of the RPGA) have on AEG's decision to drop the d20 line and the hybrid books and go back to their Roll and Keep roots? Note that the person in charge of the HoR campaign has been an editor on the last two L5R books AEG has put out and there is a strong turnout at Orgins and Gencon for HoR. Or how much of an impact has Living Spycraft had on Crafty Games? Anyway, just some food for thought. Argel1200 (talk) 00:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I took the notability tag off as anyone familiar with gaming conventions knows this is a notable enough topic. Even moreso given that gaming companies suh as Hasbro/WoTC and others are factoring in Living-style campaigns when designing and marketing products. The problem with this article is that it needs to be expanded to show the notability of it and the other problem may be finding good sources of information. Argel1200 (talk) 23:18, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Suggested Update to Lead Paragraph

I have constructed the following paragraph to replace the curent lead paragraph. The rationale for this change is to provide a better degree of context for readers who are unfamiliar with the topic. Input is requested.

Living Campaigns are a gaming format within the table-top role-playing game community that provide the opportunity for play by an extended community within a shared universe. In contrast to traditional isolated role-playing games, Living Campaigns allow and encourage players to develop characters that can be played at games run by many different game masters, but which share a game world and campaign setting, as well as a plot line that is overseen by a central core of professional or volunteer editors and contributors. Many living campaigns serve a dual role of providing a creative outlet for highly involved volunteer contributors while also serving as a marketing tool for the publisher of the game system that is the focus of the living campaign. While the earliest living campaigns were run by the RPGA (Role Playing Gamer's Association), now a division of Wizards of the Coast, many groups around the world run active living campaigns which are independent or sponsored by other publishers. (Howie23 (talk) 09:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC))

Well done, I like it! Wyatt Riot (talk) 14:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Non RPGA non WOTC campaigns

It seems we have some deletion of every non-WOTC campaign. The largest living game was also deleted. Lets work together on adding them in and sourcing them. It is a trivial task to source, rather than delete, so lets try applying WP:CHALLENGE rather than an axe.Dominick ^(TALK) 20:04, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. Not to the idea that they should be sourced, but that it's a trivial task. I looked for WP:RS and found nothing, which is why I deleted much of the content. I'd be glad to be proven wrong, though, because I really like the idea of LC. I just don't like "references" that point to the publisher or their forums. Just my $0.02. Wyatt Riot (talk) 04:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I said trivial because the Paizo website shows a remarkable number of Pathfinder Society publications, professionally produced, and support at larger independent convention events internationally. Out of all the non-WotC campaigns that were deleted, most of the Living campaigns played since 2010 has been outside WotC. LSJ, Living Arcainis, Pathfinder Society and a few others have very large fan bases, and verified by another source, the GenCON schedule, that shows they are notable campaigns.

Self-published means a pay to publish operation, an example is an author that publishes by going to a printer, creates a book and hawks it at a flea market would be a unreliable source. Most of the non-WotC campaigns you deleted have professionally published, distributed, and presences in professional conventions. Lets agree that if the campaign has a persistent presence in large gaming conventions, is promoted at stores in a significant market, and publishes online so we can verify those same characteristics, we will consider that source objectively notable. This works hand in hand with WP:SPIP

As an editor, we can't go by "like" or "feel", we need to be clearly objective, even if it means benefit of the doubt. As long as we agree to the nature of reliable sources, lets go forward. Dominick ^(TALK) 12:42, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

But what you're saying is that if a publisher markets their product effectively—putting games in hands at stores and people in seats at conventions—then it's inherently notable, and I don't think that's the case. (If I've misunderstood your position, please feel free to correct me.) That goes against our basic editing policies, like WP:SOURCES and even WP:NOT. We don't have an article on New Coke because Coca-Cola did their job, but because plenty of other people commented on that job. Perhaps Living Campaigns—or even Dungeons & Dragons or role-playing games in general—is such an insular community/industry that we don't have high-quality sources, or that the few high-quality sources that we do have are far from independent, but if we're going to follow community consensus here, we'll have to ignore those sources until something both reliable and independent comes along. If we rely only on convention and sales figures, then we become the "sales catalog that anyone can edit". Wyatt Riot (talk) 14:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I think in the conversation there are two issues, first for sources. The requirements for sources that are appropriate for this article are listed in your reference, "Sources should directly support the material presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context." Since this is a game, people who freely play the game (we assume they are not being paid) are the indicator of notability. Lets read further, "Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications." In the gaming community, mainstream would be the published schedules and websites of large conventions that are independent. Another mainstream gaming source would be publications which pass for journals in this community. We can source every campaign deleted by showing they are freely offered not for pay, but for fan notability and demand, similar to how we consider notability for entertainment topics here.

The second problem you have pointed out in editing comments and here is notability. We should not rely on what we feel, but Wikipedia policy, so lets refer to WP:NNC, "The common theme in the notability guidelines is that there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability." Attention from the fandom, and from the conventions that serve them certainly indicate that third parties care about them even if marketing does a good job. To restate that, people in the seats, fans writing about the games, and third party support for the campaigns all indicate notability by Wikipedia policy. Conventions, fans, and publishers are not paid, but are free to include or not consider a campaign. If we also apply the longevity tests we get a good indicator for notability.

Unfortunately, as editors we shall not choose a impossibly high bar for notability or sources. I proposed an objective test we can try to agree upon. If you have a counter proposal for notability or sources, please offer it now before I start editing.

Right now this is a poor article, because most of the market share in Living campaigns is not even listed in this article. It would improve by including more easily verifiable notable campaigns. I would rather discuss this with you. The basic editing policy we should consider is WP:Preserve, and I think that is going to be a change from how the article has been edited so far. Dominick ^(TALK) 15:43, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm concerned about the notability of these releases, but also about WP:UNDUE. Even if a significant percentage of the population plays a particular game, we're still going to need reliable, independent sources on which to base our article and give us guidance for what to include in proportion to those sources. We can't ask convention players or the publisher for their opinions on the matter, because they're unreliable and biased. Of course we can use publisher material to fill in details, but we shouldn't be writing articles—or even sections in articles—based on industry convention and sales figures unless we've already got reliable sources suggesting that we write that article or section. Essentially, the reliable sources have to come first, and then we can fill in details with WP:SPS and so on.

I don't think I'm setting the bar too high here. If anything, I feel that your suggestions would open the article to anyone who can 1. run a website, 2. pay for print-on-demand services, and 3. buy a table/booth/room at a convention. That's pretty much the opposite of what we want. Again, if I've misunderstood your suggestions, please correct me.

I'm also open to WP:3O if you'd like to get more opinions on this. Wyatt Riot (talk) 16:29, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Your assumptions are bad, let me correct you. 1) A club website documenting activity, or a convention schedule is considered notable, and what they document on those sites is a valid source. A guy who creates a website, is certainly not a source. 2) Nothing that was listed was published by a pay on demand. Nothing that was deleted depended on pay on demand. They were campaigns supported by the community, and sourcing them isn't hard. 3) You can certainly buy a booth at a convention, but you can't buy a gaming slot. I don't know if you attend conventions for gaming, but you are mistaken in your assumption that you buy tables. These are schedules set by a independent game director, for the enjoyment of players.

Can you please tell me what is a valid source for inclusion? Not to offend you, but I assume you are not the James Wyatt who is a WotC employee? Dominick ^(TALK) 17:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm neither James Wyatt nor a game designer, unless you count my homebrew world which I can assure you is entirely non-notable and unlikely to warrant an article on Wikipedia. :) As far as reliable sources go, I think that's a good question. Tabletop/pen-and-paper RPGs is an interesting industry, where it seems that all of the major game publications and conventions are owned in some way by the game publishers themselves. In some ways, it's like the indie video game community—where many of the "review" sites are pretty much flashy advertisement machines paid for by the game developers—where there's a bias inherent in the "journalism". Unfortunately, I can't think of a single source that I'd consider truly reliable and independent. (If you've got specifics, feel free to mention them.) The closest I'd come, and this is a stretch, would be to say that publications would be considered reliable for their competitor's products, but even that has complications. Perhaps you know better than I, but does WP:RPG maintain a list of reliable sources (similar to WP:VG/S)? I looked and couldn't find one. Wyatt Riot (talk) 18:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Just asking! Not an accusation.

I would say Kobold Quarterly is an example of an independent publication. I know Supercon, Neoncon, Dragoncon, and Gencon are not currently owned by a publisher. MACE, Megacon, Midsouthcon and DDXP are independent.

Most of the games have a paper trail at many of these events, that they did not buy. Dominick ^(TALK) 18:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Consider my mind blown about Gen Con! I guess I'd always assumed it was still like BlizzCon, run by WoTC as a marketing tool. (Not to say that's bad per se, just hardly independent.) Kobold Quarterly looks reliable, but there's always the concern that Wolfgang Baur has a connection to other publishers, which makes its independence questionable. (As an aside, I always laugh when I see the name Wolfgang Baur. I bought a Spelljammer boxed set from him—or someone who chose the username "Wolfgang Baur"—on eBay years and years ago, only to find out later that he worked on one of my favorite settings, Planescape.) But I think on a case-by-case basis, Kobold Quarterly would be fine.

Okay, so assuming we've got some quality sources like KQ that give us material to write about other Living Campaigns (WoTC or otherwise), I'm perfectly fine with including SPS to fill out non-self-serving details. Feel free to revert my deletions when you've got some sources, and also let me know if I can help in any way. I'm hoping to get around to reading Bandit Kingdoms Summary one of these days, maybe it will lead to some better sources as well. Wyatt Riot (talk)

I read through that summary, Bandit Kingdoms had some great stories. There are four I can source, but there are more sources than that. Wolfgang is independent and does his own thing. I also would point out Gamerati, and Ed Healy's podcast are good sources. I am pleased you can see value on some SPS. Dominick ^(TALK) 20:02, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi all, I'm an admin for Ashes of Athas and have been a volunteer for a variety of organized play / living campaign programs. I try to learn as much about organized play whenever I can. I find the current page to have become a "Wizards of the Coast Organized Play Progams" page, and even then lacking, while the previous version was a true "Living Campaigns" page and attempted to cover that broad topic. I can criticize most Wikipedia pages, and certainly this one wasn't great, but I don't think removing mentions of well known campaigns improves anything. I would rather we revert the page and work together on sources, rather than to have this version lacking in information. There are many people playing Living Arcanis or PFS or Shadowrun Missions, to name just a few, and they should be on a page about Living Campaigns. I understand the issue about not qualifying an official company page as a source, but frankly that is a bit difficult for some of these campaigns. A campaign might have thousands of players but have a very low profile on the Internet. Heroes of Rokugan is a great example of this. So, being a complete newb to the politics of Wikipedia, how do we go about reverting the page and rolling up our sleeves to make the content meet the standards? Thanks, --Alphastream (talk) 01:53, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The issue is that we're not here as a means of advertising for to provide a directory to Living Campaigns in general, but to write an encyclopedia article about those that warrant being mentioned. Our focus should be on such campaigns in proportion to their representation in reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. So if, say, our sources only discuss the Living Campaigns of one or two (or ten!) publishers, then we should only be writing about those specific campaigns. After all, Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information or a place for things made up one day. If you can expand the article with information found in reliable sources, please do so. (Dominick has mentioned quite a few, as I'm sure you've noticed.) But simply reverting back to a version filled with fancruft (for lack of a better word) isn't the way to go about bring the article "up to code" so to speak. In fact, it would be up to you to bring the source along with the revert. Now I'm not trying to be antagonistic here, but Wikipedia has enough random junk on it already, and the answer isn't to add more random junk merely because it's random junk that you or I happen to enjoy. A few of my favorite bands are unlikely to ever have an article about them, simply because they don't attract the type of press that we require; it's unfortunate, but that's why Facebook and blogs and other social media exist. I hope this helps. Cheers! Wyatt Riot (talk) 02:45, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree that it isn't about advertising, it is about being encyclopedic. But, this is a difficult area. These campaigns can have thousands of followers, but not be written about in great detail outside of fans. Look at the recent addition of Pathfinder to the page. Pathfinder is a great program with thousands of players, but you won't find many people talking about it or writing about it outside of A) The Paizo web site and forums, B) fan blogs/web pages, and C) things that aren't a source. Luckily for Pathfinder, the OGL means that lots of third-party companies write things for PFS and someone can find 3rd-party sources mentioning that campaign. The same isn't true for Living Arcanis or Shadowrun Missions or Heroes of Rokugan, but those are all well known living campaigns. In addition, not listing these and past campaigns really ends up telling an incorrect picture of what living campaigns currently are and have been. That's where this page is most lacking. It really ends up being a page that is incorrect and inaccurate. If you want to set a cap on what gets in, then the writing needs to be adjusted to make up for that. Alphastream (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Ha! And now the PFS mention is gone. Wow. Alphastream (talk) 23:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to step back here and suggest that you take some time to read WP:V, which is one of our core content policies. In short, it says that Wikipedia is based on verifiability, not truth. (It's been significantly beefed up and clarified, but if you needed a pithy version of WP:V, that's it.) And please trust that I'm really not trying to be a dick here, but there's no difference between this article and any others. This article doesn't get a bye from our policies because reliable sources don't exist. It absolutely doesn't matter if thousands of players participate in any one campaign, or if the publisher talks about it, or if fans talk about it, because that means little or nothing to us. We base our articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and our articles present information in proportion to how it's found in those reliable sources. Period. So if you feel that a particular game or campaign is underrepresented, then all I can say is that it's underrepresented because no reliable sources have written in depth about it. And what you or I or fans in general think is important, quite frankly, isn't important for our purposes here. That really cuts to the heart of the matter: a quality source will provide an elevator pitch of sorts for the article, highlighting from an outside perspective what's important and what's not, because biased insiders can't be trusted to write a neutral article. And those reliable sources, as referenced in the article, will provide a solid foundation in a way that citing Wikia can't. Believe me, the alternative is that articles are written by companies and fanboys—and probably more than a few haters—and every product out there cures cancer and is the key to world peace. Plus, I will write an article about myself filled with lasers and epic guitar solos. But that's not what we're about. I hope this helps. Wyatt Riot (talk) 06:14, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

There was a discussion on the woeful inadequacy of the Living page, and wikipedia on many table top games. I started on this a while ago but I can see its still not going anywhere. I am glad you are sitting on this page Wyatt, because your option on whats important for wikipedia is much more important than the facts. Dominick ^(TALK) 01:17, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking of updating this page but decided to check the discussion before doing so. However, if Wyatt Riot is still deleting completely valid and highly-played living campaigns just because he doesn't think they should be listed then this page should just be deleted. As it stands, it serves absolutely no purpose. twilight20 (talk)

Lets get to work. Dominick ^(TALK) 11:37, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Ashes of Athas

There is some chance for wider distribution of the adventures, so I kept the AoA campaign under the active section for now. If that falls through after Origins, we should move it to the extinct/concluded category. Alphastream (talk) 16:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Categories of Organized Play

This article has in poor shape for far too long. It no longer reflect reality in Organized play/Living campaigns. For years the largest campaign at the Flagship con, [Gencon], has been Pathfinder. They outstrip every other Organized Play program by leaps and bounds. This article needs to be updated, and needs sources to update it. Lets get to work. Dominick ^(TALK) 11:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

LFR is no longer run by WOTC. RPGA no longer exists. Most of the cmapaigns under the sponsored link were never run by WOTC in the first place and only Arcainis was supported by them, but it was administered by a different organization than RPGA. The term Living is not used by the vast majority of OP campaigns (check the references). I also went through the events pages of many of the campaigns, and if thy no longer have events for the past year, they went in the extinct pile. Conspicuously absent is the Dungeons and Dragons AL reference for the campaign. That edit is coming when I have time later to add it to this list. It may be better to refactor the whole bottom of this page, and sort by founding year. Dominick ^(TALK) 16:27, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

One other thing, Wizards Play Network administered the oldest game on the list LFR. LG was run by RPGA, but by then it was a shell organization for WoTC Marketing. Dominick ^(TALK) 16:37, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Hatchet edits

The last edit to remove almost every mention of anything but wizards is a bit issue. The largest in terms of numbers has been DDAL and PFS. This article has no mention of either now. Removing content because we are not a list of links, doesn't serve the topic. Working on an edit. Put your two cents in now! Dominick ^(TALK) 11:08, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The last edits seem to match a narrow PoV. No mention of the largest Living campaigns in existsnce. We can do better. Dominick ^(TALK) 13:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)