Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 18

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Good Topic proposal

To try and focus the project's energy on a specific task, why don't we try to get a Good Topic? Dungeons & Dragons is already an FA and could be the lead article. Dungeons & Dragons controversies, Dungeons & Dragons game mechanics, and Editions of Dungeons & Dragons could round out the topic. I'm not including some articles, like Dungeons & Dragons in popular culture, because they aren't as essential to an understanding of D&D; I think that a good coverage of the game needs those four key articles. Do you think it's a good idea? Do you think that a different article selection is needed? -Drilnoth (talk) 15:36, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! I had never heard of this concept before. Can we, say, start with Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, and Wizards of the Coast, and then add more as we are able? BOZ (talk) 18:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that we need a good goal... if we put Gygax and WOTC in, we'll have to also include Arneson and TSR. I think that we should try to start with the core articles about the game and its history, not people, companies, and individual books. Maybe we should just try to choose one "core" article at a time to get to GA-Class... starting with, say, Editions of Dungeons & Dragons. That would be needed for any semi-complete discussion of D&D, so it would be a good place to start. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds fine. :) BOZ (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Be careful how you choose. I know at Featured Topics they're really strict, although GT might not be. You can't "cherry pick" your GAs, according to the criteria. You might want to ask before hand. I think one with Arneson and TSR would pass, but I don't know about the other one. They might require the Pop Culture one or some other article. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:04, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I know; that's why I think that we should focus on getting a few core articles up (liked Editions or Controversies), and then take a look at what is needed to round out the selection. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Should we open some kind of discussion with people more in the know, and see what they think would be a reasonable goal? BOZ (talk) 01:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that that would be a good idea once we've gotten closer to being ready; any nomination is still a long ways off, as our core selection of articles needs to be worked on first. Why don't we try and choose one major article to get up to GA-Class (such as Controversies, Editions, Rulebooks, or Game Mechanics) and focus on that for now? -Drilnoth (talk) 01:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Featured topic questions is designed for questions about what groupings would be acceptable topics. If you cast your net wide you're going to have a hard time including enough articles to convince people that you're not cherry picking. If your topic is "Dungeons & Dragons", you'll have a very wide net indeed. If your topic is "Creators of Dungeons & Dragons", then you're down to the five articles in the navbox under "Creators". Of course, you then add the problem that you have no lead article. Pagra shtak 16:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point, although there are FTs (like Simpson family) which obviously aren't inclusive of all possible topics... the FT specifically includes only the five main members of the Simpson family, and not additional members like Abe Simpson and Patty and Selma. My idea was that a core D&D topic would be about the basics of gameplay and impact on the world, without treading into the areas of biographies and specific rulebooks. If that wouldn't work, a more specific topic could be tried for, although we should still try to work on those "basics of D&D articles." Also, even if there was a Creators of Dungeons & Dragons article, there would be many more people that would need to be covered than are listed in the navbox... that's just the bare basics. What about Jonathan Tweet or Mike Mearls?

If a more specific topic is warrented, I'd say that Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks could be a good lead article, with the rest of the topic consisting of all rulebooks which have appeared in more than one edition of the game (which implies that they are more popular or important to the game than other rulebooks). Just a thought. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

If you look at where our GA's currently stand and seem to be going, it seems that if we fix up Adventure (Dungeons & Dragons) really nicely, we could get an FT out of that, with Ravenloft (D&D module), Dragons of Despair, Tomb of Horrors, and a few others on our plate. That might be the most viable FT idea at the moment. :) Anything else will probably take a lot more work. Note that Dwellers of the Forbidden City is waiting for a GA review, and I have suggested Isle of Dread for our next GAN... BOZ (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That would actually be the hardest one possible. All adventure articles would need to be GA. That's the whole cherry picking thing. You could get a topic out of one of the series, like S1 through S4 or something. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

A specific series of modules would work nicely, although I agree with Peregrine that doing a general "adventures" series would either be much to large (and difficult!) or have too much cherry-picking. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh... I didn't realize that was how it worked. In that case, a FT for us is going to be a long time coming, no matter what we go for. :) Still, as a long-term goal, it's a good one. :) BOZ (talk) 22:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

If we said "S-series modules," covering the four modules themselves and a to-be-created lead article, that would only be four left. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That said, if we have ToH already, I'm sure White Plume, Expedition, and Lost Caverns are prime material for GAs on modules... But it might be tricky writing a S module series article, especially since the four aren't strongly connected. BOZ (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that it would be possible, since you could have a brief overview of each module plus a description of what the series was meant to be ("Special," I think). -Drilnoth (talk) 22:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I just worked on Expedition to the Barrier Peaks a bit to see where this could head. I'm not being overrun with reliable info on it, although it is Stephen Colbert's favorite. If we could get only two up to GA, we could merge the other two into a larger S series article, that summarizes two, and is comprehensive on two. Barrier Peaks definitely has enough info to be a nice part of a larger article. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:42, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Wired.com, the unquestionably reliabe source with D&D info

I added some searches to the reference page.[1][2] It has stuff like this awsome commentary on Tomb of Horrors. A lot of the refs are from the blog part of wired.com, but if you check the author and they also write news stories and other official commentary for wired, then they are reliable. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Great! -Drilnoth (talk) 22:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Coolness. :) I also used wired heavily for the Gary Gygax article. BOZ (talk) 22:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Restarting - and reinventing the Forgotten Realms Work Team

WikiProject Forgotten Realms has been absorbed into this WikiProject and relaunched as a 'work team' for Forgotten Realms.

But that doesn't change the fact that the project had mostly stalled.

I think that delition of D&D articles in general has made a lot of Wikipedians feel that they 'enjoy' Wikipedia less than before.

I also think that Forgotten Realms Wiki has emerged as a way for people to write a lot more detail about Forgotten Realms than they are 'allowed' to write here.

I think the fact that people here have had a feeling that they are 'swimming up hill' against a delitionist tide has led to a bit of a brain drain of FR aware editors from here to FR Wiki. But rather than blame that wiki, I actually think they can help this WikiProject to reinvent the FR Work Team.

I have posted a topic over in the FR Work Team discussion area called: A call for formal cooperation between this 'work team' and Forgotten Realms Wiki.

I have also gone to the FR Wiki forum and posted an invitation for them to join the discussion. That invitation is in a topic called: A call for formal cooperation between this wiki and the D&D WikiProject 'work team' for Forgotten Realms.

I hope that people from the main project will work with FR Wiki to get this work team working in a way that benifits both projects.

(Please reply in the FR Work Team discussion area, rather than here.) Big Mac (talk) 01:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Call for a 'How to avoid having your D&D article deleted' tutorial to be created

I joined Wikipedia a few years ago. In more recent times I have seen a lot of D&D articles tagged for deletion. I even lost two images, because I hadn't given all the correct information to stop someone tagging them and erasing them. To be honest the page they were added to got rearranged and it wasn't worth my while to find a way to put them back into the new context.

But I know from my experience that writing on Wikipedia can be frustrating. And I think that a lot of people are getting fed up and either stopping or going somewhere else. Forgotten Realms Wiki is doing very well, as is the Greyhawk related wiki on Canonfire! Dragonlance fans have the Dragonlance Lexicon, which isn't a wiki, but is a DL encyclopedia.

I have seen that some people here have been trying to combat the delitionist tagging of D&D articles (and putting in a lot of effort to preserve the work of others). But it seems to me that there are a lot of badly written D&D articles and that 'fighting delitionists' instead of creating new D&D related content, is probably not what people in this project want to be spending most of their time doing.

I wonder if it might be sensible for this project to spend a bit of time helping inexperienced Wikipedians to write 'better' D&D articles. If new Wikipedians (and Wikipedians making common mistakes) could be pointed towards a few 'how to's that explained things, that might avoid the need for some of the table tennis battles to save endangered articles.

I know that there are tutorials on Wikipedia. I've been pointed to many of them myself. But I personally find that there is too much information (and that the help doesn't really allow you to work out what parts are most important). I think that a series of shorter articles that explained the Wikipedia issues specifically from a 'D&D fans point of view' could cut through all the non-vital Wikipedia policies and help people understand (and address) the biggest issues that are causing D&D articles to be tagged. (And don't forget that they could still point people onwards to the fuller articles that deal with more universal subjects.)

There has recently been a push to make D&D artiles 'better' and I would like to see the people who know how to do that 'pass that knowledge on' and enable more of us to pick up on their tips and tricks. So a 'How to expand a D&D stub' tutorial or a 'How to improve a D&D article' tutorial would be benificial to people who don't necessarily want to join this project.

If we had some 'How to's like that, then maybe someone could make some (polite) templates that could be placed onto people's talk pages when their D&D articles got tagged for problems. I think I would rather be told why my article caused a problem (and how to fix it) than just have my work deleted.

I even wonder if we could get some of the people who have been tagging D&D articles and nominating them for deletion to help write tutorials that point people to the secondary sources and other resources that can help them write articles that are more stable. I know that some of them have caused people here to do some unnecessarily hard work saving articles, but if they genuninly want Wikipedia to be better, I would hope that they would be willing to help people create documentation that will reduce the need for articles to get tagged in the first place. Big Mac (talk) 02:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that project-specific tutorials are what's needed at this point in time, although I wouldn't be opposed to the notion. How would the how-to's be beneficial to people who don't want to join? -Drilnoth (talk) 14:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with trying to get article taggers to write tutorials pointing to secondary sources is that they probably don't think those sources exist in the first place. I tag articles that appear non-notable sometimes, but I wouldn't put a {{Notability}} tag on an article if I knew where to find suitable secondary sources for it. The best thing you can do is to start merging the small, least notable articles into larger works. Fewer non-notable articles means less time wasted by editors working on them. Pagra shtak 14:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Some efforts of merging can be seen at List of Forgotten Realms characters and List of Forgotten Realms cities. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Since you mention it, I was planning on getting List of Greyhawk characters going today. :) BOZ (talk) 15:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! -Drilnoth (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

You've done some great work with merging. If you compare the article stats from 29 Dec 2008 (earliest available) with 16 Jan 2009 (most recent available), you'll see that the number of Stub-Class, Start-Class, and total articles is on the rise, so I expect there's plenty more to be done. If anyone else feels like taking a look at merge candidates, Category:Stub-Class Dungeons & Dragons articles of Bottom-importance will probably be your best bet for finding such articles. Pagra shtak 15:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

At least the total number of articles hasn't gone up. I wonder how many D&D article WP should really have? My guess is 100-300. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know; I don't think that there is a number that WP "should really have," as long as they are all well-written. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

No—the total number has also gone up, as I stated. Theoretically, there is a ideal number of articles that this project "should have", as the number of notable D&D elements and related subjects should be a fixed (at any given moment) finite number. There's no point worrying about it too much, though—we can just add what's missing, merge what needs to be merged and see where we end up. By the way, what ever happened to Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Deity article merge proposal? Pagra shtak 17:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The deity merge proposal seems to have just fallen by the wayside, although it could probably be revived fairly soon once some more of the character and location articles are merged. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

The best tutorial is to try and bring a D&D article up to good article status, and ask questions here. You do that, you're good to go. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I've learned plenty from the GA noms for Gary Gygax, Wizards of the Coast, Dragons of Despair (all successful), Gen Con, and Unearthed Arcana (not successful on the first try). BOZ (talk) 15:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

And more GAs to come! -Drilnoth (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion policy pretty much covers the process. It helps a lot if you actually participate semi-regularly in the deletion process. That way you get a feel for what will keep an article alive, and what to avoid. You don't actually have to tag articles for deletion; I regularly go there to look for articles worth rescuing (and an occasion delete). There's usually at least one every few days that others have dismissed but I try to find reasons to save (not always successfully, mind you). A well-presented counter-argument (or finding some citations) can occasionally turn the tables on even a snowball delete. Doing so can be an enjoyable experience.—RJH (talk) 18:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

External help requested (and obtained) for Spelljammer artwork

Just to give you a heads up. I saw the Beholder article had a snazzy infobox that the Giff] article didn't.

As I am a fan of Spelljammer, and know a couple of fan artists who make very good SJ artwork, I put in a request for help over at the Spelljammer forum at The Piazza called Wikipedia artwork request.

I got speedy help from a fantastic 3D artist, who goes by the name of Silverblade and has a ton of 3D Spelljammer art (as well as some 3D Dark Sun art and 3D Forgottten Realms art). His website is called Silverblade's Suitcase.

I can't make promises for other people, but he has made a 3D model of a Neogi and (if he can get it right) he might be willing to make an image for the Wikipedia article. (I also write over at Spelljammer Wiki and am hoping he will help me out over there.)

But what I have noticed, is that there are some great fan artists out there, who are willing to make free art, but are not so keen on writing HTML or wikicode. I wonder if it is worth this project creating some sort of 'outreach program' to find external helpers who will work with Wikipedians to help illustrate some of the D&D articles that don't have artwork (or that currently have artwork that shouldn't be on the articles). The Dragonlance Nexus website (and its smaller Dragonlance Lexicon encyclopedia project) are very good at attracting in fan artists. I bet there are a number of people out there, who just don't know this WikiProject exists.

People were proposing that additional teams (to go with the DL, GH and FR) teams were created. I wonder if an 'outreach team' could be used to obtain external help from people like artists (and even D&D authors). I know that, while I don't have very much time at the moment, I would be interested in being part of a Spelljammer Work Team. Big Mac (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

External help or no, we could use them, but only as nonfree images as regards stuff that Wizards regards as product identity (i.e. illithids and beholders; I'm not sure about some of the rest). I can help if need be; just tell me where to go. -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 02:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

External help would be great, and I can definitely see a work force being set up for it. At this point, I'm not so sure about having teams for specific settings beyond the "core 3" that we already do; once the project is bigger that'll be a good idea, but right now most of the smaller settings (like Spelljammmer) can be handled by the project in general. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be careful about this—a fan drawing of a copyrighted work could very well be considered a derivative work and inherit the original copyright. Before you get started, I'd pop over to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions and clarify the situation. Pagra shtak 14:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Fan images are just as non-free as taking them from wizards.com, unfortunately. If you look at File:Beholder sketch.png, it has a fair use rational. Images in general with D&D monsters is a problem. Fair use requires that we don't replace the original, so if all you have is a summary of the MM with an image, that may be so close to replacing the MM, that it isn't fair use, but instead a copyright violation. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:19, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but they are a little more acceptable fair-use, since they are different from the "official" images, even if they are non-free. Certainly fan-made images of uncopyrightable monsters, and monsters already depicted in similar ways in third party products, are free... a giff is fairly iconic, but drow are described as "dark elves" with virtually identical appearances in many places, so images of dark elves could be free and used to depict drow. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think fan art is actually more frowned upon.[3] The other issue is more interesting. If you put an image on Drow it might be free, and on Drow (Dungeons & Dragons) it might not be. I'm not totally sure, but I don't think there's a loophole. Could be wrong, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

If the artists are willing to release the images under suitable rights, I think fan art is fine. (See Wikipedia:Image use policy.) I've done plenty of illustration for WP, most of it computer rendered, and have only run into a couple of issues. One was over release rights for a campaign cartographer image. In that case I had to concoct a special license section that adopted ProFantasy's software license information. Personally I enjoy art and would love to see some good quality D&D contributions.—RJH (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

(responding to Peregrine Fisher): But isn't the concept of a D&D drow actively used by numerous others legally and without license? Third-party RPG companies, like Paizo Publishing and Green Ronin Publishing use an almost identical depiction of drow as Wizards does, but they don't need a license for it. Other products that don't even use the Open Game License use a similar deptiction, also, like the computer game Age of Wonders II. So, couldn't someone create an image of a dark elf for use on Wikipedia in a similar way to how those other companies did for their products? I'm not arguing that images of things like beholders or illithids should be free, as those creatures are used almost exclusively in D&D and so they are completely copyrighted, but a concept like a "dark elf" isn't. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Basically, I don't know. I don't think this stuff has been tested on wikipedia yet. I think we could use File:Holbein-death.png to illustrate Skeleton (Dungeons & Dragons), although it's not a pic of D&D skeletons. The idea of undead skeletons is old enough to be in the public domain (where the author died over 100 years ago). So, fan art of a skeleton might be cool. It would have to not be based on D&D though, if there's some famous D&D skeleton with distinguishing features.

Drow are based on elves. In the old days elves were short ugly creatures, but the high fantasy elves we have now apparently come from The King of Elfland's Daughter, a 1924 book which is still copyrighted I think, then Tolkien and D&D. I would think the copyright holder of that book would have a case against everyone since then. Obviously everyone hasn't had the pants sued off them, so it seems like tall elves with pointy ears, at least, are not copyrighted. And maybe making their skin dark isn't a very big change.

It's all based on the idea of the Derivative work. Basically, if something is copyrighted, and you make some art that uses it, they own the copyright on your art as well. If your art changes their thing enough, then they own the copyright, but you own the copyright on the changes. For example, a photo of a painting doesn't change it enough, and a photo of a statue does change it enough. Commons has some liches and other undead. Liches are used on GPL games, apparently, so someone thinks the idea isn't owned by WotC. We could probably start making images for goblins and whatnot, and at least get away with it for a while. These things are never for sure till they go to court. We could also ask at WP:NFCC, although they don't have all the answers either. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

My brain hurts. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. ;-) Sometimes we just ask our resident lawyer, because it's a hard part of the law. Maybe we should just throw an image on a page, and then ask at WP:NFCC. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Arb break

Sounds good, now we just need a good piece of fan art of a non-iconic creature like a dark elf or a red dragon. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

(redent) We could put this on Elf. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Done, although I'm not sure if that would be as controversial an addition as a drow-like image, we'll see if anything comes up. Or should we initiate something at WP:NFCC? -Drilnoth (talk) 02:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I would like to find a better (more controversial) one. Maybe the user above could get someone to make one. I tried coloring the elf dark, but I'm not good with images. Some other possibilites.[4][5][6] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

These are correctly licensed.[7][8] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Centralizing merge discussions

From conversations above, I think it's clear that there are quite a few articles in the project that need to be merged, or at least need to undergo a merge discussion. Rather than hold numerous separate merge discussions on multiple talk pages, does anyone think it would be more productive to create a subpage of this project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Merge workshop or similar) where all such merges can be proposed and discussed? Pagra shtak 17:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that merge discussions should be kept on the relevant pages, although maybe we could have a page to link directly to active discussions. I'm also not sure if we need such a location except for controversial merges... a lot of articles are merged without a clear consensus into pages like List of Forgotten Realms characters, and longer discussions would probably just slow things down. That said, if someone disagrees with a merge, it should most certainly be discussed so a central location would be helpful. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought I'd see if I could make some progress toward clearing out Category:Stub-Class Dungeons & Dragons articles of Bottom-importance, but I'm not sure where everything goes. For example, Banshrae and Faun (Dungeons & Dragons) each have only two sentences and could easily be merged into some higher-level article, but I don't know what's appropriate. Fey (Dungeons & Dragons)? Or one of the monster lists? Pagra shtak 15:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Fey (Dungeons & Dragons) would probably be good for those... reformat what content is already there so that it is more suited for a merge, and then merge it. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, done with those. Feel free to move anything around if there's a better place. In general, I suppose I'll merge any of these short creature stubs to their type-article. By the way, Category:Eberron stubs only has eight entries and could probably be cleared out rather quickly by someone in the know. Pagra shtak 15:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Good idea; I'll see what I can do. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I was looking for an article like that when I kept running across location and plane articles. Probably the best approach. Pagra shtak 16:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Daanvi and Dal Quor could be merged in there as well. Pagra shtak 16:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! I'll probably do those later. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just created a mergers department. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Pagra, thanks for handling the little monster stubs. I'm much happier to see them merged somewhere where they can still be fed, cleaned, and cared for rather than deleted. ;) BOZ (talk) 16:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem. So far I don't think I've had to lose any content when merging, since the articles are so small. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit here. Category:Stub-Class Dungeons & Dragons articles of Bottom-importance is looking better, down to 11 now, but Category:Stub-Class Dungeons & Dragons articles of Low-importance is rather daunting at 325. Pagra shtak 16:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Those distinctions are kind of arbitrary at the moment; Drilnoth only recently started adding articles from the Low to the Bottom, so undoubtedly a majority of the Lows would be Bottoms if reassessed. Not all Bottoms need necessarily be merged, but I supsect a clear majority should. BOZ (talk) 16:46, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

What BOZ said. ;) -Drilnoth (talk) 22:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Participation?

.:Hello, i'm a newish wikipedian and i would like to participate in this project. Where is the list of users who participate in this project? Eleanor Cramphorn (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

To participate, you can add your name at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Participants. It's great to see a new face around here; I hope you enjoy it! If you've got any questions about the project, feel free to post here. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Drizzt Do'Urden's is being reviewed for GA

Keep an eye out. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

LOL, I was about to come and say. :) Anything in wired about Drizzt? BOZ (talk) 19:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There's this. I guess it could go in reception. Are you familiar with googles "site:" keyword? Doing a search for "site:wired.com drizzt" (without quotes) brings back all pages from wired.com that contain the word drizzt.[9] The page I found is a blog, so then you have to check if they are a real writer, otherwise it's not an RS. The writer was John Baichtal, who is listed as a "core contributor" on the right side of the page, so I would say that's a reliable article. If you want to add the info, go ahead. I prefer to wait for the review, because you never know what they'll say. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Drizzt Do'Urden/GA1 The review page. Looks like we can have this done today. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

"Don't get cocky, kid." ;) Actually, I am familiar with how to use that function on Google, but I am lazy. ;) Yes, add that, and I will mine the source later to use on Drizzt and other articles (as I did with their piece on Gygax). We have the initial review, so no need to hold back now. :) I recognize John Baichtal's name from a number of 2E-era Dragon articles. BOZ (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! -Drilnoth (talk) 22:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow PF, you were right - that was quick! Excellent work you guys. What's next? :) BOZ (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking Dungeons & Dragons (TV series) would probably be relatively easy to find sources on. I think Dave Arneson and TSR would be good ones to do, but I do all my research using the web, and I think they would require sum book lernin. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather focus on some of our other Top-importance articles first, but I'm open to most anything. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The TV series article actually looks like it has a lot of in-universe stuff... it might make sense to work on stuff that already meets WP:WAF. Personally, I'd go with the controversies or editions articles, or one of the core rulebooks. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking about Monster Manual, but the sources were harder to find than I though. Wired.com comes in nicely again, though.[10] If we one of those for each edition, we'd be set. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That would work; I'll see what I can find. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

As the guy who used to run the Creature Catalog, you won't find any disagreement from me on going with the Monster Manual next. ;) BOZ (talk) 02:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean this Creature Catalog!? -Drilnoth (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

One in the same, my friend. I entrusted it to Shade when I realized I wasn't really having fun working on it anymore, and then I starting spending my free time here. :) BOZ (talk) 02:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Gotcha. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I smell a GA

I did some work on Tomb of Horrors. Please comment here or there if you have any opionions. The one thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have many sections. I merged a bunch of them into publication history because they didn't have enough info to support themselves. I think the plot could probably be expanded into it's own section. I could do it by reading the module, but I'm hoping someone here already knows the plot. Anyone? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

It's up at GAN. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks better. I'll have to take a closer look later. BOZ (talk) 15:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Acaeum and RPGNet

What is our rational for including these sources? I've noticed a number of other sources in our GAs that are also questionable. If you want to use them, that's fine. I certainly wouldn't put them up for GAR or anything. I just think we should iron out which sources we want to use in GAs, and have a rational backing them up. Ideally, we should get reliable sources/noticeboard rulings from uninvolved editors in our favor that we can point to. Looking at Ravenloft (D&D module), I would question Dragonlance Nexus, The Fraternity of Shadows, RPGnet, and EN World. I don't want to put this on the peer review page and get people thinking about them too much, or maybe that would be a good way to get a ruling (if anyone ever shows up)? If we don't think we can get a positive ruling, but want to use them anyways, maybe we should make a project subpage with a rational for each source on why it should be allowed. That would be nice to point to in FACs and GANs. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed that we should establish a better guide to what sources are reliable; hopefully WP:DND/R can be used for that soon. I did make a request at the RS noticeboard awhile back and found out that Acaeum is generally unreliable (although I personally would still think that it is OK in an external links section). There's been quite a bit of discussion about DLNexus, although I don't know what the outcome was. When User:Ealdgyth did his reference check on the Ravenloft article for the FAC, he didn't seem to think that Fraternity of Shadows was unreliable, and I'm not sure about ENWorld; it probably depends on what part of the site you're using. RPGNet may be reliable in certain locations, but the vast majority of it isn't.
And that's the problem with trying to find reliable sources to D&D articles. I, personally, trust most of those sites... like Acaeum and DLNexus, but using WP:RS, they're not. There really aren't many good online sources for D&D. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Those sources shouldn't be any real problem for a GAN (we've passed with flimsy sourcing before), but they probably won't fly at FAC. DL Nexus and Acaeum and some others are very well researched and all, but until we know what sort of editorial review they use and whatnot, they won't count as "reliable" sources. BOZ (talk) 15:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Merging deities

There are numerous short deity articles, and these should be one of our primary focuses for the merge effort. How do we want these organized? Drilnoth has suggested three ideas—"by setting, by power level, or just all together"—but I'd like to rule out any in-universe groupings, such as power level. Right now we've got List of Dungeons & Dragons deities, List of Dragonlance deities, List of Forgotten Realms deities, and List of Greyhawk deities for top-level articles. Are these going to be sufficient merge targets, or do we need a different structure? Pagra shtak 15:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that setting works, although I'm just not sure what to do with multi-setting deities (that's why I suggested the other methods as ideas). -Drilnoth (talk) 15:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the DL deities page is about as well set up as it's going to get, and maybe that should be a model for the other setting lists. FR has a little overlap, but WoG has much more. The nonhuman deities should maybe be a separate list? I think we should treat each deity based on what setting they originated in, including "generic" setting. For example, the nonhuman deities who debuted in Deities & Demigods and Monstrous Mythology would be generic setting, as would any human and nonhuman gods that debuted in non setting specific products. Pelor, Kord, and Vecna would be treated as Greyhawk deities, although because in 3E and 4E they were setting generic, I feel they should be mentioned on a generic D&D gods list but not merged there. Easy, right? ;) It's probably a case-by-case basis thing. Keep in mind that I added those "publication histories" to something like half of the deity descriptions, and that needs to be maintained as much as possible in the case of a merge because that may be the only out-of-universe text we have. BOZ (talk) 16:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't merged any deities yet (I think), but I've been making sure to keep the publication history for any monsters I merge. I usually rewrite it into one section instead of five sections with two sentences each, though. You two know far more about this than I do—if you can set up the framework I can help with the grunt work. Pagra shtak 17:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there some out of universe way we could do it? By year, or by book, or something? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You mean like the lists of monsters? BOZ (talk) 20:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Aren't those lists linking to the individual monsters, which are then redirected to their monster type? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean to use the same format, but rather listing the deities by book in the same manner as we have the monsters listed by book. BOZ (talk) 00:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't "by campaign setting" an out-of-universe grouping? Pagra shtak 15:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it's been done that way for a long time, and I haven't seen a better idea. BOZ (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good; I thought I'd bring it up just for discussion. Using {{see}} for multi-setting deities should work. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, especially for the likes of Lolth, Moradin, Corellon, Tiamat, etc. BOZ (talk) 16:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright, and how will this intersect with Dragon deities, Drow deities, etc.? Pagra shtak 17:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe keep those separate with {{see}} links from the setting-specific articles? -Drilnoth (talk) 14:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If all deities are covered in the lists by campaign setting, we may not need those articles after we're done. Pagra shtak 15:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent)I'm not opposed to the idea of merging those, but most of the deities in the by-race articles are general and don't really belong to one setting, so most of them would be in the "general" list. Having them split out would make that larger list a bit shorter, but it doesn't really matter to me. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, perhaps we need to consider the detail then. In List of Dungeons & Dragons deities, coverage of Boccob is limited to "god of magic, arcane knowledge, balance and foresight". In the Boccob article we're getting down to such small details as "Those granted access to a true library (done with the approval of Boccob himself) can find the answer to any questions as if a commune spell were cast. One hour of research is required for each question answered." That's a little overkill for a general encyclopedia like Wikipedia. We need to decide the individual importance that these deities have in D&D and find an appropriate level of coverage. Pagra shtak 21:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I say keep it all. But I'm a real inclusionist that way :). IMO, trimming some of the stuff like the example you have wouldn't be too bad, as long as most of the possibly encyclopedic content is kept. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright, let's try to get moving on this. How do I know which list to merge to? Do I start by merging entries of List of Dungeons & Dragons deities, and if anything's not found on that list I merge to List of Forgotten Realms deities or another campaign setting list? Pagra shtak 15:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say start with the setting-specific lists and then work out to the general list. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

So if a deity is a general D&D deity as well as a Forgotten Realms deity, you want it merged to the FR list? Aren't there deities shared by several campaign settings? What about them? Pagra shtak 16:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, when you put it that way, starting from the top would work better. :) -Drilnoth (talk) 16:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a great deal of overlap from FR deities into general D&D, although Bane has become a member of the D&D pantheon with 4E. If you look at List of Forgotten Realms deities, virtually everything in the "Faerûnian pantheon" section is FR-specific, with some exceptions. The elemental gods (Akadi, Grumbar, Istishia, and Kossuth) are basically FR, but they were all listed in the 1E Manual of the Planes, and I think they may have been used in Greyhawk, and have definitely been in generic-setting D&D stuff. Lolth, of course, is not limited to FR; likewise Tiamat. A few, like Mielikki, Tyr, and Oghma, are named after real-world deities, but the articles describe the FR-unique versions, so I wouldn't quibble over those and I'd assume they should be covered only as part of FR. The "Nonhuman racial deities" section is a totally different story, with most of the gods there being D&D-generic, and a fraction (10%?) being FR-specific. Focus on the human gods first, and then we'll deal with the Nonhumans. BOZ (talk) 16:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Kobold Quarterly

The KQ is a magazine like Dragon, that is still publishing and also appears to be independent. Issues listing here. It's not free, unfortunately. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Wish I could afford a subscription. :) How is it anyway? BOZ (talk) 02:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

It's like Dragon. Has some OGL stuff, and each issue seems to have an interview. I found it with bittorrent. I don't think there's a normal free version. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Boz, you should pitch an article proposal to KQ. It'll be an excuse to snag a subscription. :) Shemeska (talk) 04:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

What should I write about? :) Any ideas? It's been awhile, now. BOZ (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Aaargh - I just posted for the first time at Enworld in 3 years...this is getting way too time consuming. Maybe converting some old Fiend Factory monsters to 4e (not sure on the copyright)...I am still in mourning for the loss of LE, CG, LN and CN....Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Hah - this, this, this, and this were me collecting and converting old D&D and other material to The Fantasy Trip (progenitor of GURPS), heck, may as well boomerang some to 4e...Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Crap, I even did this... Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:54, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

@BOZ. How about writing about this wikiproject and its successes and travails? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:03, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Cas, awesome. :) Yeah, I hear ya on the alignment system changes, which are not hardly the only change I'm not in favor of. Peregrine, LOL, but then again you might be on to something. Perhaps a rant/editorial about the whole exclusionist/inclusionist debate. ;) Oh yes, and of course, the past six months or so of improvements that we've been doing to get this project back on its feet as a legimiate WikiProject, rather than yesterday's news better left forgotten, as it lay practically dormant for the previous six months. :) BOZ (talk) 15:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

LOL! Speaking of Kobold Quarterly and EN World... [11] BOZ (talk) 19:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

List of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition monsters

Due to the introduction of roles for monsters in the 4th edition I think they should be included in the monster list. Also variants may appear in different books or pages. Because in this edition there is not base monster I believe some type of monsters will have large number of variants. ex: Dragons already have 5 variants (Wyrmling, young, adult, elder, ancient). So what I am driving at is that maybe the table format should be changed for 4th edition. I give example below.

Extended content

Example as it stands now

Creature	Page	Other Appearances	Variants	Description
Aboleth	8	PHB2	Aboleth Lasher,Aboleth Slime Mage,Aboleth Overseer	ABOLETHS ARE HULKING AMPHIBIOUS CREATURES that hail from the Far Realm, a distant and unfathomable plane. They live in the Underdark, swimming through drowned crannies or creeping through lightless tunnels and leaving trails of slimy mucus in their wake. Malevolent and vile, aboleths bend humanoid creatures to their will, and more powerful aboleths can transform their minions into slimy horrors.
Aboleth Servitor	9	PHB3		A HUMANOID IS TRANSFORMED INTO AN ABOLETH SERVITOR by way of a ritual. When a creature transforms into an aboleth servitor, its skin becomes a clear, slimy membrane that allows it to swim and breathe in water.

The type of list I have in mind

Creature	Variants	Role	Page	Other Appearances	Description
Aboleth	Aboleth Lasher	Brute	8	PHB2	ABOLETHS ARE HULKING AMPHIBIOUS CREATURES that hail from the Far Realm, a distant and unfathomable plane. They live in the Underdark, swimming through drowned crannies or creeping through lightless tunnels and leaving trails of slimy mucus in their wake. Malevolent and vile, aboleths bend humanoid creatures to their will, and more powerful aboleths can transform their minions into slimy horrors.
	Aboleth Slime Mage	Artillery (Leader)	8	PHB2
	Aboleth Overseer	Elite Controller (Leader)	8	PHB2
Aboleth Servitor		Minion	9	PHB3	A HUMANOID IS TRANSFORMED INTO AN ABOLETH SERVITOR by way of a ritual. When a creature transforms into an aboleth servitor, its skin becomes a clear, slimy membrane that allows it to swim and breathe in water.

comments?--LexCorp (talk) 00:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(I've collapsed the tables for length) I'm not sure; it would be worth mentioning roles in the description section, but I don't think that the tables need a redesign. Also, having a separate line for each variation of monster would probably take up a massive amount of space and probably isn't needed on Wikipedia. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

ok. Just an idea. Probably makes sense to keep current format. It can be modified later if needed.--LexCorp (talk) 15:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

No offense intended, but to me the tables look a little awkward because of the disproportionate size of the descriptions compared to the other fields. Perhaps it could be formatted somewhat like the following?

Creature

Variants

Role

Page

Other Appearances

Description

Aboleth

Aboleth Lasher

Brute

8

PHB2

Alternatively the description could be on a separate row. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I could see the description being on a separate row, but I don't think that having a collapsed box would look any better than what we have right now. Thing is, most of the descriptions aren't long enough on their own to really warrant having their own line. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking for someone with the novelization of the "Baldur's Gate" series.

I could use some information regarding Minsc in the book if possible, more readily how the character differs from the video game counterpart and what happens to him. Need the info so I can add info about his appearances in literary work to the character article.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 18:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

You're coming along quite nicely with that one. If you want any help in getting it to GA, see what we did with Drizzt Do'Urden. :) Unfortunately, I don't have the novelization, but I could maybe ask at EN World for you? BOZ (talk) 23:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I managed to find the second book in the series, which makes it pretty clear Minsc isn't in the first (side note, it's a terrible handling of a character if there ever was one). Only question that really remains is if Minsc appears in the Throne of Bhall novel or not.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 23:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll ask around! :) BOZ (talk) 23:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, but I just wanted to say keep up the good work. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Started a thread on ENWorld as threatened. ;) BOZ (talk) 19:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page.
Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project.
No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work.

Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good! -Drilnoth (talk) 21:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

We hope to have at least 10 GAs before the month is over. :) BOZ (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

And we have our 10, long before the month is over. :) BOZ (talk) 07:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

With a bit of work, we could have the whole S series as GA, and if we did that, a summary article FL or GA would be easy. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan! -Drilnoth (talk) 15:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Out of universe material.....for Purple worm needed

I recall somewhere reading that the inspiration behind this was the Sandworms in Dune, but I can't for the life of me recall where I read it. I feel this is the sort of info that would improve Purple worm greatly. Does anyone remember this as well? Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope. :) But that doesn't mean you didn't see what you think you saw. BOZ (talk) 02:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

maybe in Dragon mag? 204.153.84.10 (talk) 18:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

WotC Connections

Does anyone have any pull with them? If we explained that we need out-of-universe info on subjects, I wonder if they would provide some? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The trick is it has to be published already. I had gleaned some material from various commentaries and interviews. Depending on age, they may know where to look though. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping they could just publish it on their site. Like, "Hey, we're trying to get Ravenloft to featureda article status. Could you publish some info on production details, sales figures, print run, etc." - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. But no, I don't have any pull with them. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Ravenloft

I've renominated Ravenloft (module) at WP:FAC. All input on the review page would be much appreciated. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, cool! I just noticed a link on the White Plume Mountain article that links to "Dungeon Master for Dummies" at Google books. This one has notes for 10 classic adventures... one of which is Ravenloft. :) Don't have time to do anything with this at the moment, but maybe in a little while I can take a hack at it. BOZ (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Specifically, the 10 listed there are Tomb of Horrors, Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, White Plume Mountain, Slave Pits of the Undercity, The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Pharaoh, Ravenloft, and The Temple of Elemental Evil. I'll try to source all of those as I get the time. BOZ (talk) 15:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Nice find! -Drilnoth (talk) 15:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That is cool. I didn't notice it was top ten. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, top ten by the guys who wrote the book (and not presented as a 1-10 list, but just "these ten are the best", in order of publication). I've been adding notes here and there based on this source. Because of who wrote the book, it doesn't so much help with notability, but it will bulk up a reception section and can be used to verify some info. BOZ (talk) 19:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Every extra ref helps for NOTE. I think the problem is more that they don't say much than that they're not independant. Dummies deemed them to be experts. I don't think they picked any that they themselves had written. I did notice that it's a top ten from first edition, and not overall, which we may want to note. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Dummies says they list them in order, starting with the oldest (Tomb of Horrors) then they say G1 (#2) is the oldest. What's the deal? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't ask me. :) I noticed that too, but whatever. BOZ (talk) 20:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

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