Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 8

This is an archive of past discussions. 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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Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for D&D

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, 2 is better than zero! :) Dungeons & Dragons and Drow are a good start - I wonder what it would take to put more articles under consideration? BOZ (talk) 00:49, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's see, based on importance more than actual current article quality, let's see what might be the best contenders... Dragonlance is already in it, although it wasn't rated for the D&D project so you don't see it here. I'd say Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk would likewise be excellent candidates, of course, possibly Ravenloft as well. Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual would be best among the books, and I think Dragon (magazine) could go as well. As for gods, characters, and monsters, I'd say Lolth, Tiamat, Orcus, Vecna, Drizzt Do'Urden, Strahd von Zarovich, beholder, illithid, orc, githyanki, tarrasque, and kender. Think of any modules, game designers (Gary Gygax is also in as well), or anything else that might qualify? Disagree strongly with anything I mentioned above? BOZ (talk) 04:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I like those suggestions. Here is the list of monsters considered product identity by Wizards of the Coast. I'd agree with any quality article on them, as well as some of those demigods and demons, including perhaps Graz'zt, Demogorgon, and any others on Dragon's list of 20 greatest villains, and Iggwilv's Demonomicon.

Wizards of the Coast product identity: beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti.

Must haves for me include Illithid, Drow, beholder, yuan-ti, Lolth, Graz'zt, and displacer beast(although our article on it is very weak). I'd love to see about acquiring CC licensed images for any entry we are considering. Oct 20 is approaching quickly though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zenbabyhead (talk • contribs) 02:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestions. Time is short, so any help you can provide (finding someone else to help out if you don't have the time) will push things in the right direction. :) Plus, since all of this is really leading up to the big 1.0 release, working on this stuff now is always a step in the right direction anyway. :) BOZ (talk) 12:39, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Cross-posting from the Wikiproject Comics talk page, the nomination criteria are:

  1. Articles that give context (Poverty for Poverty in Pakistan)
  2. GA+ articles of mid importance or higher
  3. B-Class articles of high importance or higher
  4. Start-Class articles, only if they are part of a set or are essential.
  5. Articles needed for completeness
  6. Country subdivisions of major countries (for example, Australian states)

I think it would be a good idea to identify which articles do fall under these criteria, and which could fall under them with a little more work, particularly #2-4. BOZ (talk) 12:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

So, after noting and engaging in some conversation at the WikiProject Comics talk page, I have come to the conclusion that we should try to work on and improve the D&D articles chosen by the editorial team to make them the highest quality they can be. Right now, that short list consists of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, Dragonlance, Drow. (If you are interested in more RPGs than just D&D, feel free to link up at the WikiProject Role-playing games talk page and coordinate from there).

The comics project has quite a few articles selected to be in the DVD release, so it seems the best thing to do there is to work on the ones which have already been selected. However, for D&D, since so few of our articles rated highly enough, I think we can afford to look at what else we can work on to make them worthy of inclusion. You can view this stats page to see what was close but did not make the cut. It seems the "overall score" rating comes not only from the quality class and importance we assign to the article, but also from the number of internal page links within Wikipedia and interwiki links, as well as how many hits the article has gotten. So if something was assessed highly but those other qualifiers don't add much, then the overall score will be lower than you'd think, and likewise if an article is rated lower (or not at all, in the case of Forgotten Realms for example) but those other stats are high, this will push it up. As I had noted on the comics talk page, this list seems to be at least a month out of date, as many assessments have changed and are not reflected there.

So, it seems to me that one thing we can do is take a better look at how our articles have been assessed, and see what needs fixing there. Also, we can work on fixing up articles we'd like to nominate for the release. In addition to those I mentioned above (a bit more of a subjective list, I'll admit), I think we could safely add other runners up such as Planescape, Faerûn, Dungeon Master, Eberron, and Underdark, for example. For the sake of arguments about notability, we should stick with articles which already clearly have their subject's notability established, or are nearly established as notable or could reasonably be expected to do so if given time and effort.

We've got a little over a month to get it done, so let's see what we can do. :) BOZ (talk) 18:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to rate Forgotten Realms as a Start/High (it could easily be more, but that's the minimum it should be) and nominate it. It's more than close enough to the 1250 that I'm sure it would have been over if it had been assessed. BOZ (talk) 19:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Forgotten Realms rating. I'm thinking it should be an article that gets some serious editing love in the near future, as one of the longest and largest series in the D&D chronicles, it should be expanded further and brought up the quality scale. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 20:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't even really understand what is going on. Wikipedia is going physical media in the form of CD compilation of some of its featured articles? shadzar-talk 12:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Not just FA's, but I'm sure a large percentage of the ones they go with will be FA's. See the list of articles selected from this project - if you click where it says "All (485)" you'll see all the D&D articles, and anything that got 1250 or more has been selected. Anything that's close could be nominated to get in though, if we work on it. BOZ (talk) 13:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to note that Wizards of the Coast has also been selected; it didn't have the RPG or D&D project banners on it when the selections were made, but it was chosen under the Boardgame WikiProject. :) BOZ (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's how I can help: if you have any D&D related articles that you want to get to GA, ping me upon nomination and I'll review them. Doesn't mean you get a free pass, means you get free attention--I haven't played D&D much since 2nd edition came out, so I really can't meaningfully contribute in any other way. I will give prompt and fair reviews, though. Jclemens (talk) 03:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey, thanks! That's pretty useful actually... and I was thinking of doing this! I'll take a look at some of the B's, C's, and Starts that we have. See here for the current assessment list. Might as well start with the ones currently on the selection list: Gary Gygax, Dragonlance, Drow, and Wizards of the Coast, as well as Forgotten Realms which I am trying to promote. If they fail the GA then at least we will get some helpful advice on how to fix them! BOZ (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and nominate them. If you've never done one before, do take a look at WP:GAC. Again, I'll be as tough on them as I am on any other GA, I'm just volunteering to make them a priority in my task list. I'm always happy to review work of an editor who actively responds to constructive feedback, too. Jclemens (talk) 06:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Being tough means being honest! Even if none of them pass, at least we'll have some constructive feedback to work with. I'll start with Gary's article; whenever someone goes into the "recently deceased persons" queue, it gets a whole lot of attention, so it might be the closest one to a GA. BOZ (talk) 06:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Just based on past experience, I think it pays to choose a subject that has plenty of independent (non-WotC) sources. I'm not sure that some of the subjects I've seen suggested above will meet that criteria. An example of a D&D subject that may have a higher proportion of independent sources is dungeon master; this gets 314 scholar ghits and plenty of google books hits as well.—RJH (talk) 21:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

That article definitely needs some work, then... the DM article is currently totally unsourced! BOZ (talk) 03:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Points of Light Campaign Setting

-Moved to bottom of page-

Are werewolf and lycanthrope syonymous?

Dear all I have posted a Talk:Werewolf#Merger_proposal as everywhere else these terms are synymous AFAICT (though I was just reminded that presumably Gygax et al. made lycanthrope the overarching term for werecreatures in AD&D1...). Anyway, is D&D stuff still on a separate page? Is it ok to merge with a mention of lycanthrope's different usage in D&D? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I will comment on the appropriate page. Turlo Lomon (talk) 06:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Now I was looking for some reference somewhere which discusses the use of "lycanthrope" in D&D. Nothing specific in the old 2nd Ed. Monstrous Compendium, and I can't find my old first ed. Monster Manual. Does anyone recall anywhere discussion on the generalisation of the term in any RPG commentary, or even in a primary soruce which says "Usually lycanthropy refers to werewolves but in this case it refers to all shapeshifters etc.", just so i can reference the use of the term in RPGs in the werewolf article. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Lycanthropes get a writeup in the 3.5 SRD can be downloaded at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35. An HTML version of their 3.5 SRD writeup can be found at http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Lycanthropes have been in the game since the original 1974 boxed set - no idea when/if any discussion over the term "lycanthrope" was made, but it's cetrtainly possible that there has been with 34 years of history to look over. Now that I have your attention, has everyone had a look at the above section? :) BOZ (talk) 05:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ack! Don't have the boxed set but do have big chunk of first Ed. AD&D stuff. As far as above, my vote would be material with broad appeal, maybe Gary Gygax and Dragon magazine. I haven't looked at any of those articles as yet. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

According to list of Dungeons & Dragons monsters (1974–1976), D&D seems to have used the term lycanthrope as a general term for werebeasts since the original original boxed set. By the way, AFAIK D&D only uses "lycanthrope" to refer to werewolves, werebears and other similar shapeshifters, not as a term for shapeshifters in general, for example I doubt the game has ever used "lycanthrope" to refer to a doppelgangers, mimic or rakshasa. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I am not sure what the exact definition was; I think it was humans or humanoids with the power to transform into some form of animal, which is why jackalwere and wol(f)were were not included as they were supposedly animals who could change into humans...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Bah, you make me show my age. Lycanthropy 1) was inflcited by a bite, 2) of a humanoid (or was it only humans? I forget), 3) which forced involuntary change at full moon, and 4) conveyed invulnerability to non-silver normal weapons and similar powers. That was straight out of the AD&D 1Ed DMG. There were Wereboars, Wererats, Werebears, Werewolves, and Weretigers listed, IIRC. Jclemens (talk) 03:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I would like to point out that neither of these two articles have anything to do with D&D. They are based on mythology, not the game. Turlo Lomon (talk) 12:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject:Forgotten Realms

I saw that the project has been closed and archived. Is this project absorbing the work of the former subproject? If so, the main Forgotten Realms article could use a lot of work. The huge amount of literature set in the FR was barely touched in the main article. As well, there seems to be little mention of the progression of the FR throughout the various rulesets. As the FR has one of the deepest lore of any D&D world, I think it would be an injustice to not bring out some of the changes and lore behind the changes in the article. Examples of changes between 3e and 4e. Doesn't go into great detail, I'll admit, but serves to show the changing nature of FR between rulesets. A decent source of FR lore. Torinir ( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options ) 01:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the FR project seemed to be centered around detailing the locations in the Realms, moreso than the characters, magic, gods, and other things that also made the Realms interesting, and dealing with the books themselves. But yeah, I'd say that the D&D project inherits articles on the FR, as well as Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer, and at least somewhat Dragonlance. :) BOZ (talk) 08:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Good Articles

I'm moving ahead on trying to get some more D&D articles nominated for GA status, as mentioned in the above section, trying to get them in the 0.7 and subsequent releases. I've started first with the Gary Gygax article; if you'd like to help, we can get this one moving! BOZ (talk) 06:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Note that although this article did have a prior peer review, that was from 2005 and the article has developed significantly since then. More recent comments were provided on a biography review. BOZ (talk) 06:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

First feedback is at Talk:Gary_Gygax/GA1. It's going to need work. Jclemens (talk) 01:38, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I would like to put the Wizards of the Coast article to the test next - would now be too soon, or should I wait until we resolve the Gygax GA? It looks like it could definitely use some work, but we'll see how that goes. BOZ (talk) 03:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Took a few weeks, but it was worth it! Gary Gygax is now officially a Good Article. I will be nominating Wizards momentarily. BOZ (talk) 02:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Wizards of the Coast is now up for GA review. If you're interested in helping, come join us. :) BOZ (talk) 21:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Success! :) BOZ (talk) 19:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Articles for this project added to main page

I was tired of looking at the main page and seeing more room taken up by articles that have been deleted or almost deleted, with seemingly no accomplishments having taken place by this project. While showing another editor about the 0.7 release and inspiring him to get to work on it, I borrowed something he had worked on at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cue sports. Feel free to move things around, add or remove them, whatever - I just wanted to give people something nice to look at. :) BOZ (talk) 03:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:Top-importance D&D articles only has five articles, which seems extremely low considering the total 1296 articles in D&D. Might I suggest adding the following?

However, it may make some sense to combine the first three above into a single page on D&D rulesbooks (as they form a set).—RJH (talk) 21:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Rework it any way you like. The current setup is based solely on the opinions of one person - me. ;) BOZ (talk) 17:55, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Hurry up!

If you know of any more high quality high importance D&D articles that you really think should get in, now is the time to stop procrastinating! :) Make sure you nominate them soon, because I think the deadline is tomorrow! BOZ (talk) 18:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

If there is a preferred version of an article that needs to be selected over the current version, please post it here. :) BOZ (talk) 12:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Forgotten Realms has been added to the CD release! :) I nominated Dave Arneson, but that one was declined for now. BOZ (talk) 18:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Project assessments (D&D or RPGproject assessments)

There are several articles in Category:Unassessed role-playing game articles that have recently been added that don't really belong under the {{RPGproject}} banner, but more properly belong under the {{D&D}} project banner as their focus in on D&D. I've assessed many such articles, but one editor in particular insists on adding more. Typically this editor (I'll use "he" for ease of use) adds both the {{RPGproject}} banner and the {{D&D}} banner at the same time, when he should really only be using the {{D&D}} banner. I have addressed this on his talk page, but he seems to be ignoring this, even to the point of adding banners back that I have removed (such as here, I've removed the RPGproject banner twice, with explanation why in the edit summary, but it's been added back again). I have asked again that he stop adding both templates to article talk pages.

If someone wishes to take it upon him/herself to assess these pages, it would be much appreciated. Frankly I don't want to continue being this editor's "personal assessor" for D&D articles, especially when I'm not an expert in D&D. (I'm probably not an expert in any particular RPG articles, but I have tried to accurately assess many articles, but please feel free to adjust my ratings.)

I also don't want to edit war over project templates, but truthfully don't agree that many of them should have the RPGproject banner on them as the D&D project is a "child" of the RPGproject and thus (I think) shouldn't typically have both of them on the talk pages. I have tried to reserve the inclusion of D&D-related pages in the general RPGproject scope to those that are most 'important' i.e. notable in some fashion in the general history/development of RPGs, etc.

This morning there were precisely two pages in the "Unassessed" category. When I last checked a minute ago there are now 32, most all of which have had both project banners added to the talk pages, a few of which I have previously removed the RPGproject banner for the reasons given above but it has been replaced.

If you disagree with my reasoning above, please also feel free to say something here about it. Cheers. --Craw-daddy | T | 20:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

No disagreement, just an observation: You say you "don't want to continue being this editor's personal assessor for D&D articles" and you know what? No one is forcing you! :-) If you ease up, perhaps somebody else will take objection. If not, perhaps the issue isn't that important to most people? Either way, you don't have to be on banner watch if you don't want to. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 13:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

D&D Miniatures Game line has been canceled.

I have already been working on adding the latest news in small part to the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game article as it came out, but others who have worked to create it may wish to update with any further information from the link provided in the footnotes and make sure my grammar and such is correct. shadzar-talk 00:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

A few questions

I'm thinking about joining this WikiProject, but I have a few questions:

Is there any commitment?
If I sign up, can I edit the main page? I think that having a to-do list on the main page rather than the talk page would be good, especially if more things to-do were added than there already are. Maybe more specific listings of articles that need work, so that it would be easier to direct everyone's efforts at a single set of articles at a time.

Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 21:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

To quote Fight Club, "you decide your own level of involvement." I'm pretty well involved lately. It's pretty quiet around here at the moment it seems, so people may not say or do much involving D&D articles. Feel free to edit the main page; if someone doesn't like it, they will change it back. ;) BOZ (talk) 21:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 22:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I just added my name to the list, but it isn't showing up on the main page. Is something wrong? -Drilnoth (talk) 22:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

And... now its there. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Templates

I'm fairly new around here so I don't know how to, but would it be possible for all of the D&D Infobox templates to be updated to reflect both 3rd and 4th editions? Maybe with separate sections in the same infobox?

Its just kind of weird as I'm doing these monsters not being able to update them because of the template's design. I think that having both 3E and 4E sections would work best, though.

Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 23:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can always edit the infobox, if you know what you want to do. If there's any way to reflect all editions, that would be even better since we have a lot of monsters that go all the way from 1974 to now. :) BOZ (talk) 04:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but of {{Infobox D&D creature}} the only attribute which is almost certain to be different between 3E and 4E is alignment. If it's changed, it may just be easiest to include two lines for that one attrib. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

4th edition would need an "origin" entry. -Drilnoth (talk) 11:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

How so? Have any creatures' mythological origins changed since 3E? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

"Origin" not being mythological origin by "rules" origin... Aberrant, Natural, Elemental, etc., are all called "origins" in 4th edition and are used in addition to creature types. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, right, yeah. Just changing the label to "type / origin" would do it, no? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Do'h! Should've thought of that. Could someone with a little more experience with creating template than I have make the change? Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 18:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Done Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 12:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Spring Clean Clean-up

A lot of the "spring-cleaning" discussions have been resolved by this time... do you think that some should be taken off of the list? I'm going to do some reorganization, but it seems like a waste of space to have so many closed and resolved discussions. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd be glad to see those dark times archived - they should have been on this talk page in the first place, not the project page. BOZ (talk) 13:12, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd archive the stuff myself, except I don't know how (as I think I said, I'm still pretty new here). I could just delete it, but that doesn't seem like it would be a good idea. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Should I just delete the old stuff that's been resolved from the project page, or should it just be kept there? Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've archived it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Spring cleaning. The project page shouldn't really be used for discussion; those threads should have been on here in the first place. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! Now maybe we should try going through the old lists of AfD stuff and removing the things which have been resolved & dealt with. -Drilnoth (talk) 12:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)