Talk:Chainmail (game)

message: I was motivated to rewrite this article because the statement about Chainmail being developed by people at the University of Minnesota was wrong.  I confirmed this with the man himself (see below).  I have a copy of the 1975 rules in front of me, so I was able to add a short description of the Chainmail rules, something the article was sorely lacking.  I diminished talk about Dave Arneson and Blackmoor.  There are links for the reader who wants to find out more about Dave and his campaign.  I also diminished talk about Swords & Spells.  If someone thinks this supplement deserves a full paragraph, I recommend they create a stand alone article.
Grubbiv 17:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Wikipedia has a rule of "No original research" and Verifiability nearly all of the resources point to one work of original research (Playing at the World). The researcher of this work relies heavily on documents in his personal collection, making it impossible for verifiability. This researcher also makes many assumptions and leaps in logic, making Verifiability important. There is at least one assertion in the work that relies on a source, but when the source actually is viewed others, the quote the researcher based the assumption on does not exist—again heightening the need for Verifiability.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.175.38.192 (talk) 16:16, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: If you think that the book "Playing at the World" is original research, then you probably did not read the policies carefully enough. 76.231.73.99 (talk) 22:35, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tagged quite a bit of poorly sourced material. All these quotes from forum posts are nearly useless, to be charitable. A blog post by an author is still a blog post. This is explained at Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper).<P>If this was only some sketchy facts about an old game, we could maybe find better things to worry about, but almost all of this concerns living people, and that means the WP:BLP policy applies. The discussion of who gets credit for what in the history of game innovation is somewhat controversial, and the policy leaves no wiggle room: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be ".</p><P>Unless better sources can be cited, I don't see how anything using unreliable sources can be kept. Sources that do meet the WP:RS criteria do exist, so this is a solvable problem. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are replying to the wrong thread, as that discussion was from over 1 year ago, and was someone complaining about a book published in 2012, that is clearly WP:RS. Rudolph85 (talk) 20:03, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no time limit. I posted in the right thread, but you decided to start a new one, so fine. I answered you.<P>But the complaint from a year ago still stands: Playing at the World is self-published. Unreason Press is Jon Peterson. Peterson verified at Wired that it is self-published, in case there's any question. We're talking about half the article leaning on this one book or a bunch of forums and personal blogs. This is a problem, even if the Wired article praises the book. The value of editorial oversight vs a self-published writers's complete freedom to say anything is discussed at length in Wikipedia:Reliable sources. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:40, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I can see the problem with an article using too much from one author, and self-published sources are inherently difficult. The book has been reviewed elsewhere, in Notes from the Wargaming Underground: Dungeons, Dragons, and the History of Games. From the abstract: "This review contextualizes Peterson’s book within other work on the history of games. It argues that Peterson offers an important intervention in this discourse by offering an empirical account of the historical player communities which innovated the role-playing genre and its most well-known staple, Dungeons and Dragons." I would also mention that Jon Peterson is an author featured in Role-playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations, which is a textbook on research in role-playing games published by Routledge in 2018. The opening line of description: "This handbook collects, for the first time, the state of research on role-playing games (RPGs) across disciplines, cultures, and media in a single, accessible volume." Rudolph85 (talk) 22:00, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources rely on original research and lack Verifiability 

message: Jon Peterson, in his blog Playing at the World, posted on Jan. 20, 2016 that the fantasy supplement for Chainmail was actually an expanded revision of "a two-page set of rules developed for a late 1970 game run by the New England Wargamers Association (NEWA), which were designed by one Leonard Patt." These rules were used at a Miniature Figure Collectors of America con in October 1970, and published in NEWA's newsletter The Courier. 
Peterson bases this attribution on extremely similar language used in both sets of rules, including the naming of fighter units as "Heroes" and "Anti-Heroes", that both are the last men in a melee to be killed, that a Hero is the equivalent of 5 men (4 men in Chainmail), that wizards cannot be hit by missile weapon, and the inclusion of "fire ball" as a burst effect spell, as well as several other areas of similarity. 
Peterson also points out that Jeff Perren read that particular issue of The Courier, because he subsequently wrote a letter to the editor disagreeing with another article published in the same issue.
Given that Gygax called the Fantasy Supplement an "afterthought" added shortly before publication, it seems clear that Pratt's rules (1970) predate the Fantasy Supplement (1971). Should this attribution, properly sourced to the Courier article, be added to this article? Guinness323 (talk) 20:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If we were to add another Jon Peterson bio about this particular Jon Peterson, his opinions might be appropriate on that article, per WP:ABOUTSELF, but self-published content doesn't qualify as a reliable source. Maybe Peterson's theories will get attention and be published somewhere else that meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Reliable sources, but until then, no. It's not Wikipedia's role to take part in analysis of history or uncovering previously unknown facts, righting great wrongs, or otherwise carrying out original research.<P>I don't think building on ideas in previous games is shocking to anyone. There were lots of precursors to Chainmail, after all. But if a good source takes interest, then great. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:23, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attribution of Fantasy Supplement?