Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Role-playing games/Archive 1

message: This project was started 19 January 2006 after discussions on some interested people's talk pages. I haven't started any projects before, and I don't feel bold enough to outline all the goals and tasks without discussing it with the others first. So feel welcome to edit the project page, suggest changes and raise questions. Now we have a place to discuss where to take this thing.
Do we need the suggested To-do list above? Jonas Karlsson 12:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the to-do list from this talk page a couple of days ago, as I don't think anyone will use it. Feel free to put it back if anyone wants to. Jonas Karlsson 09:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Welcome 

message: I've moved the alternative layout to the Infobox's talk page Percy Snoodle 14:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right here: Template talk:Infobox RPG -- Genesis 19:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox RPG

message: I've set up the WikiPortal, deleted some unecessary categories and included some stuff for testing purposes. It still lacks a lot of entries, though -- Genesis 21:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiPortal 

message: I think that all RPG articles & stubs should include a section for references at the bottom, in the following format:
;Books, modules, supplements, boxed sets, etc: Author or editor. Title of product (publisher, date). Available online:URL, if applicable
;Articles in periodicals, or works within an anthology: Author. "Title." Periodical or anthology title issue# (publisher, date). Available online:URL, if applicable
;Online sources: Author. "Title." Available online:URL
For examples of this check out the contributions listed on my user page. Robbstrd 22:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, as long as it's kept short - imagine the list that could be made for D&D or look at the ugly spinoffs section of Star Wars D6.  Keep it to the core books needed to play the game, no expansions (on a game page) or just the expansion or other work itself if it has its own page. Percy Snoodle 10:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of the standardized sections, but agree with Percy, that they could overflow with more popular articles. "Quantity" should be relative to the article. An article about an aspect of a RPG, like Robbstrd's Greyhawk articles, could well list all the articles ever written about it, but a list like that for D&D would take 30 pages.  GRuban 14:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure if im thinking of the same thing as Robbstrd, but i imagine something like the Discworld pages use (see the bottom of the page)  would be quite nice , with guidelines that require that any referenced article is directly related, and always prefer a higher order article over multiple more specific articles. Brehaut 08:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: Does anyone know how to create a nice task list like the one on WikiProject Computer and video games? It's really good looking. It would be good to be able to list RPG articles that need peer review and to get expanded, and to request new articles. Can someone create one for us? Jonas Karlsson 00:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it's simplistic, but one could link to :Category:RPG stubs and start expanding them into real articles.  Obviously, pick the ones you have some knowledge of first.  For instance, I bet I could do some decent work on the D6 System article. The Bearded One 05:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have taken the Gamebox from theCVG Project and altered it to an RPGBox. Check it out on the Project Page -- Genesis 14:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nice. I couldn't figure out how to do it. If the sketchpad image is something the CVG guys have added perhaps we should have our own? If it's a general image used elsewhere it doesn't matter. Thanks anyway, I'll starting using it. Jonas Karlsson 18:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's just a generic Wikipedia Commons image, and it's used on a bunch of different pages / task lists (see also . I can't imagine anyone would have any trouble with it being used here. – Seancdaug 18:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Task list 

message: I've created a :Category:Role-playing game templates to easier manage our templates. -- Genesis 14:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about this? Percy Snoodle 10:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice one, too. I put it on the same page as mine for now and added an alternate version of mine. We can collect them and check what looks best -- Genesis 21:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Templates 

message: In order to get :Category:RPG stubs below 200 articles, I've proposed WoD-stub and GURPS-stub.
If you think that's a good or bad idea, say so on the stub sorting proposals page. Percy Snoodle 12:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a good idea, and have said so over there as well. Jonas Karlsson 14:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You've got a tough row to hoe, I'm afraid. They really want a minimum 60+ articles for a new stub, and many sticks-in-the-mud who frequent that page are asking for something in the hundreds. I ran into that while asking for  a few weeks back - fortunately that had just over 70, so I made it, but I suspect the 20-some for those two aren't going to. GRuban 20:00, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The page says 30+ if there's an associated WikiProject, which there is now.  I'm not comfortable with the idea of creating new stubs as padding, but if the relevant experts can come up with another ten stubs which are justifiable in their own right that would make the proposals more tenable. Percy Snoodle 10:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll try that for the WoD. Already started a stub about Disciplines anyway.
As a tangentially-related note, shouldn't the stub categories be properly spelled out? That is, :Category:Role-playing game stubs instead of :Category:RPG stubs, and :Category:Dungeons & Dragons stubs instead of :Category:D&D stubs? The templates names obviously need to be abbreviated, but since all of these categories are being automatically populated anyway, there doesn't seem to be any reason to take shortcuts there. – Seancdaug 05:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree - this is also something that's being said about WoD-stub. Percy Snoodle 10:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree. We should correct that at the proposals page. Still I'd say, :Category:D&D stubs and :Category:WoD stubs ougth to be redirects -- Genesis 12:29, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that redirects in the category space don't work (other than in that you can leave a link on an empty category, saying "The category you're actually looking for...")  All the category names should use the full names; templates are a more marginal call, unduly short, ambiguous or obscure template names are dubious, but at least there the redirects do work properly.  Really those, these proposals are for distinctly small sub-cats, when the parent's nowhere near being in need of being split.  I'd strongly suggest it's better to wait until there's a more reasonable number of them.  If someone's really gung ho -- or better yet, several someones -- a specific wikiproject for each case would just-about-justify such these stub types, though of course this shouldn't be done purely for that reason.  (Don't get me started on the number of US roads WPJs...)  Alai 14:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently category redirects do work now (see :Category:Role-playing game stubs in its current form). They're still, from what I gather, discouraged though, because they have the potentially to be an administrative nightmare. – Seancdaug 15:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I never did.  New one on me, obviously some top-level gnomes have been busy.  Alai 00:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As per the discussion below on (permanent) category splits, wouldn't splitting by genre also be a better way to go with the stub types?  Or if people are totally wedded to the WoD and GURPS ones, both schemes, come to that.  Alai 05:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New stub categories 

message: (Archiving these completed projects from the main page --Muchness 19:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've created this article - Demon lord (Dungeons & Dragons), thanks for your hard work. It is a useful resource and there's precedence for its existence; we already have an article on their lawful evil equivalents, the Lords of the Nine Hells. --Muchness 01:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, Pazuzu is up - Pazuzu (Dungeons & Dragons). --Muchness 18:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  D&D demon lord articles  

message: Looking at :Category:Terminology, most of the subcategories are Foo terms not Foo terminology.  I agree with that - the articles are about terms, not the study of terms.  Should we move :Category:Role-playing game terminology to :Category:Role-playing game terms? Percy Snoodle 14:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First up, good work on the article Percy it deserves to exist now. Secondly, i agree with 'terms' over 'terminology' Brehaut 20:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Outstanding work in expanding the terminology article. I favor terms over terminology too. --Muchness 23:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, and thanks. <blush> Percy Snoodle 18:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Terminology" or "Terms" 

message: I created a subpage for discussions on goals, to keep this talk page to more general discussions. You'll find it here. I'll move some discussions over there, probably to an archive page. Jonas Karlsson 22:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now I've moved stuff. I hope I'm not totally confusing people, I just think that we'll have enough goal discussions to centralize them. Jonas Karlsson 22:35, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea - I've put a link at the top of this page too. Percy Snoodle 10:26, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New subpage: Goals 

message: Same thing as the above, but for article style and structure discussions Percy Snoodle 12:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New subpage: Style 

message: I've just discovered that WikiProject Forgotten Realms exists.  I'll add them to our "parentage" section, and say hello. Percy Snoodle 12:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Forgotten Realms 

message: Here are two links that could possible be helpful when looking for sources on role-playing games. The first one is John H. Kim's bibliography, and the second one is linked from his bibliography page:  Studies About Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Good to have if someone has spare time and needs reading suggestions. Also, a lack of sources makes RPG articles less likely to be treated seriously. Jonas Karlsson 22:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible sources 

message: The start of White Wolf's new World of Darkness has led to quite confusing distinctions (or rather, missing distinctions) between new and old WoD. We should discuss those problems and then correct the articles in :Category:World of Darkness.
#Distinction: Classic WoD/WoD 2004, WoD 1.0/WoD 2.0, old WoD/new WoD... Quite a lot terms to differentiate between new and old Setting have arisen. The Wikipedia articles should use one set of terms only, though. A survey at the official White Wolf forum resulted in old/new World of Darkness, so I'd vote for that one.
#Separation of articles: The two settings share a lot of ideas, but often, there are small but distinct differences. While for example the Ventrue from Requiem are based on the ones from Masquerade, I think it's confusing and misleading to talk about both in the same article, as their history and (some) characteristics are totally different. Personally I'd like to separate both worlds totally, but this might not be justifiable, as concepts like Blood bonds are quite the same in both. How far should we go?
##Should the articles be separated, what should we write in the brackets? For example, should we write Ventrue (old World of Darkness) or would Ventrue (oWoD) (or whatever terms we decide on) suffice?
#Template: The Vampire Template causes trouble, especially with short articles, as its length sometimes exceeds that of the article. Percy Snoodle and me have worked on some alternatives. Which one should be used?
##Template separation: Should we decide to split the two settings, I'd say we also should split the template into two.
##More templates: Would such a template make sense for other settings of equal extent? Maybe Werewolf: The Apocalypse or a general World of Darkness template? Does Dungeons & Dragons have one? Templates can make navigating a topic easier, but it shouldn't be overdone.
Any suggestions? -- Genesis 23:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  World of Darkness Issues 

message: I just stumbled over Template:WikiProject Anime and manga. It looks like the template is added to the top of talk pages of manga and anime articles. Would such a template make sense for WP:RPG, too? Or would it be rather agressive to advertise our project on every role-playing related article? -- Genesis 02:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A link to the project is already included in each RPG infobox.  I don't think it's necessary to spam the talk pages with an ad.  =)  Powers 02:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hey...you are right...I really should get some sleep... -- Genesis 02:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Advertisement? 

message: This comment was moved from WikiProject Role-playing games by Genesis
We should add a Category for roleplaying game companies and roleplaying game authors. These are the folks that do all the hard work to bring us these games, after all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.99.135.103 (talk • contribs) 05:18, 2 March 2006 24
::There already are subcategories of :Category:Role-playing games titled Category:Role-playing game publishing companies and Category:Role-playing game designers. They contain what you were looking for. Genesis 13:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: category links fixed Percy Snoodle 16:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: We have both List_of_roleplaying_game_designers and the auto-updating Category page.  Should the List be redirected to the Category? Joshua BishopRoby 22:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List versus Categories 

message: This was in the to-do box for weeks and weeks; I just went ahead and did it.  Someone kick me and revert if it doesn't look appropriate now that it's been merged.  Georgewilliamherbert 07:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merged [[Top Secret/S.I.]] into [[Top Secret (role-playing game)]] per discussion 

message: DragonflySixtyseven has modified the lead sentences of large number of Eberron-related articles in the following way–
Original leads:
:In the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Eberron, ...
Edited leads:
:In Keith Baker's award-winning Eberron campaign setting for the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, ...
I don't have a strong preference either way; the edited version adds more context and notability but in my opinion also adds some redundant/extraneous info. My preference would be something along the following lines:
:In the Eberron campaign setting for the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, ...
It's not a major issue, but since it affects a large number of articles I thought I'd bring it to the project's attention. --Muchness 16:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I noticed that and I should have mentioned it. My apologies. --Muchness 17:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think such sentences would read better if "role-playing game" followed "Dungeons & Dragons." Also, I wonder if placing "award-winning" into the lead sentence of every article dealing with a setting comes off as biased? After all, it's not like the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, etc haven't won any awards. I think a section on "Awards" in the main setting article is more appropriate.--Robbstrd 00:28, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with you on both counts, the sentence reads better with rpg following D&D. --Muchness 01:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Eberron notice

message: I just changed the "Designer" entry for the infobox on GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars, since it had Loren Wiseman listed as the only one. He and I wrote large sections, but Jon Zeigler was the project lead.
My dilemma is that while Loren has a Wikipedia entryy -- as he should -- I don't and so it shows a dead link. *However*, there's a user page for me since I've been contributing to Wikipedia on and off since 2001. Should I (or someone) redirect the dead link to my UserSpace entry? Paul Drye 23:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, on the bright side, the answer to your question is clear: No.  User space is intended to remain completely separate from article space.  The idea is to make the article space self-contained; if we have a link to user space in an article, that's no longer the case.  However, that does still leave the problem of what to do with the redlink for your name.  If you were indeed one of the designers for this book, I think an article listing (minimally) your writing credits and brief biological data would not be unreasonable for inclusion in the encyclopedia.  Of course, you probably want to leave said creation to someone else to avoid appearances of vanity.  =)  Powers 00:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Self-entry Quandary

message: Hello fellow gamers,
The Dungeons & Dragons article is a candidate for the Article Improvement Drive. Please read the nomination on the AiD's page and vote for it if you support the nomination. Feel free to add your own comments in the "comments" section. Let's get this article to featured status. 
Take care,
(^'-')^ Covington 15:39, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dungeons and Dragons Article Nominated for the Article Improvement Drive: Voting Today 

message: I've expanded the Anarchs section, as listed, but this is my first real serious contribution to Wikipedia, so someone might want to check it out before expanding it is taken off a list of things to do (Johnny Copper 11:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anarchs 

message: I'm pondering what to do with some recent additions to the indie category. Should publishing companies (Bully Pulpit Games) and online retailers (Indie Press Revolution) belong to the :Category:Indie role-playing games or not? As for the former it should be enough to have it in the publisher category, but the latter? There's no fitting category for it at the moment. Or should everything indie belong to both the indie RPG category and whatever else category as well? The indie RPG category is called "Indie role-playing games", so only actual games should be included, right? Jonas Karlsson 18:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Indie role-playing games should be games; :Category:Role-playing_game_publishing_companies should be publishers, indie or not. Joshua BishopRoby 20:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indie role-playing game category 

message: New article up now on Dice algebra. אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 18:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are the terms "standard dice notation" and "dice algebra" in common usage amongst role-playing gamers? Google returns less than 40 hits for both terms, but the article suggests that they're established terms within the rpg community. It's a useful article; I'm just concerned it might be using protologisms. --Muchness 20:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always used "Dice Algebra," for many many years, and it is a common notation that millions of gamers have used for decades. However, it looks like "Dice notation" recieves even more hits on Google (341,000), "standard dice notation" "common dice notation" "RPG dice notation" "generic dice notation" "d6 dice notation" "standard gamer dice notation (SGDN)" (in rough frequency order, descending) are all in the search results. Should it be just "Dice notation"? אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 21:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Never heard of "dice algebra".  I don't think the "standard" is necessary either; just "dice notation" ought to be sufficient.  Powers 01:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Absolutely, this is a common and well-established notation; my only concern was the terms that the article is associating with the notation (note that the phrase dice notation receives ~574 Google hits). I support a move to "Dice notation", or a merge to Dice#Application in role-playing games. I'd also consider rewording the lead to document the notation without associating it with those terms, since judging by the Google results, they appear to be ad hoc descriptions and/or terms in non-notable usage. Perhaps something like, "Role-playing games use a common system of dice notation to represent different combinations of dice rolls..." --Muchness 01:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The rpg, '7th Sea', uses an additional notation to indicate rolling (for example) 4d10 but only keeping 2d10 of the player's choice.  I'm sure there are other examples of less common dice usage that we could include in an article about dice notations. The Bearded One 19:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, then. I've moved the page once more to Dice notation and removed the double-redirect from Dice algebra. Now all we need are some snazzy pictures and some sections on expanded or non-standard notations. אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 23:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  <strike>Standard</strike> <U>D</U>ice notation 

message: This is just a heads up for those who have this page on watch but not the Goals subpage.
Added a new topic to WP:RPG/Goals.—Asatruer 20:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested new long term goal