Talk:Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 2

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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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Archive 2

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Campaign Settings

I restored the section on the campaign settings, as they are just as an importent part of D&D as the mini's and adventure modules are. If this section was removed to save room, I would reccomend the the computer game & controversy be trimed down into their own articles, but the idea of completly removing somthing as big as the campaign setting just to save room is downright ridicules. Avador 19:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree and have re-removed that section -- this was hashed out in detail on this very talk page. I did make sure there was a seealso tag pointing to the campaign settings article, though. I would not be opposed to refactoring and trimming the computer game and controversy sections also. Nandesuka 01:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps that is a better idea, but if your going to combine the two, why not rename the section Adventures & Campaigns? In addition you could breifly mention what a published setting is, and mention 1-2 well known ones like FR & Eberron. Avador 01:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

What Still Needs Doing?

I'd like to see this article nominated as a Feature Article, again. The content has always been meritorious, and I think with the work that's been done since the original nomination, the article is now near a condition that it will reflect Wikipedia's values. I'm wondering what other people think the article still needs in terms of polishing, and I've got two specific concerns I'd like to get some feedback on:

I feel comfortable that all the images fall under fair use, given their context in the article. And I've done my best to notate the images appropriately. Anyone disagree?
The size of the article is beginning to bloat back up again. We had it under 32KB for a bit, but the constant groth of the pop culture section has pushed it back up again. I've questioned the need for the pop culture section before (see below) -- it seems unmaintainable and prone to exactly the type of bloat that we've been seeing. The way I see it, there are a couple of different options:

Eliminate the section entirely. I don't really endorse this course of action.
Prune the list back to only the most notable pop culture references. The article on Monopoly, for example, doesn't list every single movie, television show, and song that has ever mentioned Monopoly in passing. The problem with this approach is that, given past history, I suspect that it would be a constant battle to keep the list pruned to reasonable length.
Include a short section in the article on pop culture references to D&D, discussing them in general. Work a couple of notable examples into the discussion, without resorting to an impossibly exhausting list. (In the absence of any comment, this is the course I'll take in a few days. I just don't want to act unilaterally here.)

Justin Bacon 03:14, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

We could also spin it off into say List of Dungeons & Dragons pop culture references. But I agree it definately needs to be pruned in the main article. ALKIVAR™

23:25, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, good idea! Prune the section in the main article back to my #3, above, and then dump the current contents of the section into List of Dungeons & Dragons pop culture references. Justin Bacon 00:50, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Dungeon and Dragons Board Games

Well I just added a few board games to the list that weren't on there, and also added a new wiki page for one of them. I know there are some others, can anyone think of any? Eirek 11:36, 11/09/05

The Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Boardgame is not a board game. See talk page for details. --Jamdav86 19:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

This Article is too BIG

This article is too large, at 54 KB well in excess of recommended maximun of 32 KB for a Wiki article. I have condensed a little (from 57 KB) but more needs to be split off into other (new or existing) articles and then greatly condensed in this main article. - Waza 04:56, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we can identify likely targets for splitting off and/or redaction? For a while now I've thought the whole "parody" section could be completely disposed of with a single sentence: "D&D has been the target of numerous parodies over the years." Nandesuka 04:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Good move on Satire. Maybe the whole Related products section could be condensed more or have infor moved to related articles many of which already exist.

I also think the sections on Campaign settings and Criticism and controversies could be spun off into their own articles leaving just 2 or 3 scentence summaries in this article. Maybe Polyhedral dice could go to an article Dice in D&D too, at least that secrtion can be condensed (and be made clearer). - Waza 12:16, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

"Controversies" will be tricky. On the one hand, there's enough material there for its own main article, easily. On the other hand, the controversies are a big part of why D&D is notable to non-gamers, and so we shouldn't just whittle that down to a few sentences. I think we should move carefully in that part of the article.

I think the fan sites can all go; Wikipedia is not a web directory. Usually I'll include fan sites in an article if it's somewhat obscure and/or the reader might have trouble finding them. But D&D doesn't suffer from that problem. I'd also say nuke everything from "Related Sites" other than the link to the open gaming foundation and the "studies about FRPs" link, which is scholarly.

Agree about the dice. The whole "Table" could be summarized in two sentences: "For example, a weak magic user might use a 4-sided die to roll his hit points, while a strong fighter might use a 10-sided die, giving the fighter a better chance of surviving physical combat." If people want to know about every type of die they can either read the dice article (which has substantial information about D&D), or buy the game.

I also agree about the '"Campaign settings" section. Right now when I read it my eyes get to the laundry list of settings and they just kind of glaze over and slide down. Let's spin it off, summarize with one or two examples, and link there. - Nandesuka 12:41, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't write off the value of external links too quickly. While Wikipedia is not a web directory, it is a useful starting point for research on a topic and web links are a big part of continuing research. I do agree the section could be better organised, some links better labeled, and others moved to more relevant (mostly already existing) related articles.

"Controversies" section I think just needs a mention of legal action between creators, and that D&D has been accused of promoting/causing suicide, violence, devil worship and witchcraft in a couple os scentences. Link to main article which would provide specifics of particular cases, organisations that raised them and publishers responses. - Waza 22:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I have discovered much of the text in the contreversy section is identical to text in Role-playing game#Controversy. This is probably the better place for much of the information in this article, as while critics of use the term Dungeons and Dragons they are really using it as a genericized trademark to mean all fantasy/horror RPG's. - Waza 23:19, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm not convinced of the argument "Well, really, these criticisms were directed at all role playing games." As far as the average critic in the 1980s were concerned, there was Dungeons & Dragons, and then that's it. Yes, there were hundreds of other games that those of us who were geeks knew about, but the general public (and the critics) certainly didn't know about them. Note that most of the examples in the Role-playing game article specifically mention D&D! I am leaning towards rewriting this again, expanding it somewhat (although not past what was there before). As I said above, I think that the controversies were actually a big part of why D&D is still notable today. Nandesuka 05:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

This was definately taking up too much of this article and need to be reduced (Though I am open to arguments I did this the wrong way.)
I did not remove any actual useful information (except for a couple os small bits that were redundant or too vague). I moved stuff across to other article, much was duplicated already anyway
As far as the public was concern anything like D&D (ie RPG'S in general) was called D&D even if it was actually not. So even though they used the term D&D, that is not what they are talking about. Like some people talk about Kleenex when they mean all facial tissues.
- For Example: BADD has D&D in the name but if you follow the links it can be seen it is equally against several other RPG's.
Just because the public use the wrong term we don't have to, refer them to the correct term.
I have kept parts that are specific to D&D (like lawsuit and 2nd Ed Changes) and summarised the rest.
All parts need to be summarised and spun of where possible in order to keep article down according to policy in Wikipedia:Summary style
I still think a seperate article from both D&D and RPG may be the most appropriate, but am not interested enough myself to write it.
I think this article should focus on D&D itself more than anything, to give readers an overview and understanding of how the current game works, what is required to play, what optional extensions are available and the games history (including critisms). To fit everything in overview is the key, refering to more specific articles.

- Waza 06:52, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I have been thinking about what is said here about D&D being known by the general public mainly because of critism and contreversy. I still do not think this means this article required an extended section on this topic (this should be part of it's own article) but it does mean mention should be given in the intor to the article (which really inmany ways severs as a summary to the article as a whole) So I have added a mention there. - Waza 23:47, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I split off the whole campaign section into its own main article, and nuked the "laundry list" from this article. The separate article (Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings) needs to be edited and cleaned up in its own right. But I'm too tired to do it tonight. The campaign settings section here is more reasonable now, but could still use some more judicious editing. Nandesuka 02:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Great effort, the article now at 39 KB is much closed to the 32 KB maximum target. I have been editing very heavy handily to try and get the article down to an appropriate size. Trying to move topics not directly about hte game into other new or existing aricles. Also trying to remove POV statements and redundancies where the article says the same thing in two places. My apologies that when I get into very heavy edit mode I miss some of the fine details, and a big thanks to those who have also been moving and especialy those who tidy up after me. Here's what I think needs to be done still and should get a good article under 32 KB:

Condense Game Manuals a little more
Adventures needs a full rewrite and condense as it is very biased to early editions and not totaly accurate. Note debate going on in Talk:List of Dungeons & Dragons modules about the naming of that module.
Campaign settings and Minitures and Computer and video games may be able to be condensed a little more as well
I think the Dice section could do with a good re-write. It should focus on the core disc used d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20. Do we really need examples for each dice use? How about just key and unusual features on main ones d10 and d20?

I bit the bullet and removed the entire section on polyhedral dice. I have three reasons (which largely repeat the logic of others):

Polyhedral dice are already fully covered in the article on dice. I don't see any strong reason for an article on D&D to include a lengthy discussion of them, any more than I would see a need for the article to contain a lengthy discussion on graph paper (for example).
This section of the article contained a factual error by claiming that D&D introduced the idea of using polyhedral dice in game mechanics. Wargames pioneered the use of polyhedral dice and D&D picked up the innovation from there.
The section primarily consisted of semi-detailed explanations of how each type of dice is used in the game. It seems unnecessary, to me at least, for an encyclopedia article to deal with specific game mechanics at this level. Justin Bacon 11 September 2005

- Justin: Thanks. I think this was, on balance, a good edit. It might be worth putting a sentence back in describing how the "funny-looking dice" are a "signature", of sorts, of D&D (if we can find a nice reference for that), but I completely agree that the laundry list of types of dice and their function was overkill. Nandesuka 06:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
  - Thanks. The dice are referred to earlier in the article, and I turned that into a link. Your idea of mentioning the signature nature of the dice is a good one, though. I've gone on to do some additional revision on the article. I have removed the following chunk of text:
    - In fact, the founder and president of Wizards of the Coast was such a fan of D&D that he bought the company in 1997 and gained ownership of Dungeons & Dragons. Most of the creative and professional staff of TSR relocated from Wisconsin to the Renton, Washington area, and Wizards re-hired many game designers who had been laid off during the troubled last years of TSR. D&D products continued to carry the TSR logo until 2000, after Hasbro's acquisition of the company.
  - The pertinent and NPOV section has been removed to the article specifically on Wizards of the Coast. The material seems more appropriate for an article about the corporation, rather than the section of this article dedicated to the legacy of D&D in the roleplaying industry. Justin Bacon 07:03, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I just hacked out the entire sub-section on game manuals. Most of the information in that section was already present in other locations in the article. I incorporated the remaining information I thought was useful for a general purpose article to the appropriate sections of the article and included a link to the article dedicated entirely to detailing the thousands of D&D manuals out there. I've included the material I deleted on my User page for the time being for easy reference in case someone feels strongly that this was a mistake. Justin Bacon 07:22, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Style of Title

Hi. Please make sure that if you add to this article, you use one of these two italicized forms for the name of the game (modified appropriately for version):

Good:

Dungeons & Dragons
D&D

Bad:

Dungeons and Dragons
D'n'D
D and D
Dung3onz AnD DrAgoNZZZZZZomgwtf!!1!11!!one

Maintaining a consistent style throughout the article will help its quality. Thanks, Nandesuka 15:58, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I would add to this by suggesting that we reference different editions of the game by spelling out the edition and capitalizing both words. Editions are not proper titles, and should not be italicized, IMO.

Good: First Edition, Second Edition, Third Edition

Bad: First Edition, second edition, 3rd Edition Justin Bacon 18:57, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

How to refer to editions is a difficult question. Second Edition, the only with products porminately displaying an edition on the cover used "2nd" and not "Second" in the logo (See a 2nd Edition Manual cover). Shouldn't we be following the convention on the product rather than the longer version? - Waza 23:10, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Good point. I went with "Third Edition" because, in my experience, that's the more common way of referring to the 2000 and 2003 editions. It's also the more common way of referring to the editions of "Basic" D&D (for example, in the pages of Dragon). Then I just generalized for consistency. But I don't feel strongly about it, and you're right that there were only two times that the covers of the game actually referred to edition: "2nd Edition" and "v3.5". To bring my rambling to a close, let me propose: We refer to the editions of the basic D&D line from the '80s and '90s as "Second Edition", "Third Edition", etc. We refer to the AD&D game line as 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and 3rd Edition. Justin Bacon 03:20, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Since no one has commented since the 12th, I'm going to go head and make the change. Specifically:

Editions of Basic D&D (from 1974 to 2000) should be spelled out and the first letter of each word capitalized. (e.g. First Edition, Second Edition, Third Edition, etc.)
Editions of AD&D (and the D&D 3rd Edition) should be referenced numerically, in the style presented on the covers of the 2nd Edition manuals. (e.g. 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition) Exception: The Revised 3rd Edition should be referred to as either "Revised 3rd Edition" or "v.3.5" (which is what appears on the cover of the rulebooks).
Edition names are not proper titles and should not be italicized or placed in bold.

Justin Bacon 02:50, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the names for the editions vary with local gamer dialect. Everyone i know of refers to third edition as "3E" and revised third edition as "D&D 3.5" - Orion

Too much archived!

Hey Nandesuka, it's really cool that you archived this talk page and all, because it was getting way too big, but why were things that were still being discussed archived? I think it would have been much wiser to selectively archive sections of the talk page that had not been contributed to in, say, about two or three weeks. I don't want to sound rude, but since you were the one who decided to archive the whole page, you wouldn't mind too much removing topics that were being recently discussed from the talk page archive and moving them back here, or at least copying them from the archive and bringing them back here, would you? --Corvun 04:28, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Nope, I wouldn't mind at all. I thought I caught all the "current" topics and left them here, but if you think I was too aggressive I"ll dial down the amplitude a little bit and restore some of those topics. Thanks for letting me know. Nandesuka 11:33, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Awesome! --Corvun 03:01, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Article Structure

I agree with the sections we have in the article at the moment, bu tthink they should be re arranged. The intro (before table of contents) should be a sumary mini article and I think does a good job of this at the moment. People who want a quick answer can read just the first section (or even more briefly just the first paragraph) to get an definition of D&D and an idea what the rest of the article is about.

Here is how I propose the rest of the article be re-arranged and my reasoning:

Play Overview - D&D is a game, and this is about how the game works and what you need to play. It is fundamental to what D&D is
Criticism and Controversies - This is a large part of what D&D is known for amoungst the general public
Game History - Of great interest to those that have played D&D in the past but have not kept up with what happened between then and now.
Related products - BTW needs to have a comics subsection added if someone knows about these.
Links merge See also (which needs to be reduced anyway) and External Links

- Waza 06:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of moving Play Overview before Game History, although this is going to take some content rewriting to tweak it into form. However:

I disagree with the merging of External Links and See Also. Standard Wikipedia practice would seem to be otherwise. In introducing a Reference section to the article I have moved some of the material previously under External Links. In general, I have only moved material to Reference when I am using (or others seem to be using) material from that site as direct reference material. I have left sites of simply general interest in the External Links section. I have reduced the See also list, particularly eliminating (most of) those links which were already found elsewhere in the article.
I split off non-licensed material from Related products into its own section, primarily to distinguish the list of references to D&D in popular culture. But I would like to question the need for a list of such references at all in an encyclopedia article. If the list were to be eliminated, I would suggest moving the section on Parody back to the end of the Related products section.

Justin Bacon 16:49, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Mythical Beasties

The reason I repointed the links to the various mythical beasties (listed on requested articles) to subpages of this D&D page is that the person who listed the beasties seemed to have gotten the ideas for the beasties from D&D. The list provided wouldn't be a list of mythical beasties that a folklorist would produce. Having played D&D doesn't even begin to give you an understanding of actual folklore. If you don't believe me, do this Google search. A folklore page would be very cool. :-) --LS

Actually, the first few - Elf, Dwarf, etc - were listed because Hobbits were, so it seems they were referring to Lord o' the Rings stuff. I'm planning to put some of that up when I have more time (and, despite your suggestion, I think maybe under Lord of the Rings since that's the name best associated with the world). In any case, I think that many of these span from Tolkien through D&D to pretty much the whole fantasy genre, and as such deserve treatment on the toplevel pages along with the folklore. Exempli gratia:

Elf - little forest fairies, blah blah blah ninety thousand pages of blah. In Tolkien elves became blah, which with some minor modifications (pointy ears, sometimes prolonged mortality) has become the standard in the fantasy genre.

Or something like that. --JG

OK. Notice, hobbits does exist (but should be named "hobbit"). In fact, Tolkien's elves bear very little resemblance to the elves of, e.g., Irish folklore. The similarity seems to be mainly in the name. In folklore, elves are typically very magical, very tiny, supernatural beings more like poltergeists than like human beings; they're often very mischievous. They aren't necessarily little forest fairies. See http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/midwife.html this link for an interesting data point; notice how these stories often use "elf," "dwarf," "hobgoblin," "fairy," etc., interchangeably. There is no neat mapping from LotR/D&D-type mythos to the actual folk myths you find in Europe and America. Not that this matters--it's all just about words. I think it's interesting! -- LS

Tolkien's elves are more closely related to the Sidhe of Celtic mythology, which are similar to humans in appearance but highly magical and skilled. (Don't remember offhand if the Sidhe were immortal or not.

You may be thinking of the De Dannan, the original, superhuman inhabitants of Ireland. Tolkien's elves journey into the West echoes the departure of the De Dannan from Ireland to Tir Na Nog, the Land of the West. The Sidhe (pronounced "shee") were spirit beings. The Bain Sidhe (Banshee) was a malevolent female spirit with a terrifying cry. (Bain sidhe literally translates as "female spirit.") Sidhe in general were not pleasant beings to have about. --Brendano 19:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Tolkien's elves seem to have been based on the Norse Aelfar (singular: Aelf), which is where the word "elf" originally comes from. More specifically, it seems they were based on the Liosaelfar or Ljosalfar (or however you want to spell it), which were "light elves", as opposed to the Dokkaelfar (Dark Elves) and Svartaelfar (Black Elves). Note that is from a combination of the last two that Dungeons & Dragons gets the Drow ("Drow" is also the Shetland Isle equivalent of the Orkney Isle "Trow", a tiny version of the Norse Svartaelfar).

It's an interesting coincidence that the Liosaelfar are light elves and were depicted as angelic beings in Norse mythology, whereas in Abrahamic mythology, Lucifer was the Angel of Light (and also the God of Light in early Roman mythology, prior to Venus, based on Aphrodite).

There's an interesting parallel between Lucifer and Prometheus as well.Brendano 19:17, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

It's also worth mentioning that in English folklore, Hobbits were a creature similar to elves, in that they were tiny spirits. --Corvun 02:10, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've edited the paragraph on Gygax's claim that D&D was little influenced by Tolkien, which is plainly not correct. Gene Ward Smith 22:33, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, I just inserted that part based on one of the linked interviews. He said Tolkien bored him to death and he only added halflings because people that played the game wanted them. He said, "To this day, I don't care squat about hobbits" (or something close to that). But, do as you please. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:39, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think "plainly not correct" is quite correct itself. Tolkien had a habit of shoveling together pieces of folklore and mythology and claiming it as his own work. He claimed to have invented hobbits even though the term was known decades earlier to Michael Denham (whose work was known among those who studied folklore around the time Tolkien claimed to have "invented" the word), beside the fact that his hobbits were nothing more than generic little people/leprechauns/brownies/elves/whatever anyway, claimed that the whole Numenorean/Atlantis thing was a just a pleasant coincidence, made no admissions toward the fact that his complex geneologies and chronologies bore a breathtaking resemblance to Irish mythology with very little modification on his part, took credit for the concept of "sub-creation" that had already been pioneered in works like the Wizard of Oz (wich also featured happy little folk similar to his hobbits, and tree-creatures startlingly similar to his ents), etc., etc.

Reading Tolkien-related pages here on Wikipedia gives a very false impression; Tolkien fans on this site have credited him with everything from the invention of hobbits and ents to the introduction of trolls to the Americas. I don't think we can say definitively that any part of Dungeons & Dragons was inspired by Tolkien, as Tolkien never really came up with any original ideas of his own. Even his magic ring is just a combination of a Greco-Roman story about a ring that makes people invisible and a Germanic story about a ring that allows people to rule the world. Unless someone can point out some feature of D&D that was originated by Tolkien, I don't think there's any reason to cite him as even a minor influence. --Corvun 06:45, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

You mean aside from him being cited as a major source of inspiration in the 1st edition DMG? ---Mr. Nexx 13:18, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

If the 1st Edition cited him as a major source, then that (plus the reference) definitely needs a mention, though that citation and Gygax's more recent claim that he wasn't inspired much by Tolkien IMHO should probably both be mentioned as concisely as possible, and preferably in the same sentence, to avoid people adding a bunch of "However, so & so said this"-type stuff. Though, IIRC, Tolkien's citation as a major source of inspiration was removed when TSR was forced to re-name Hobbits as "Halflings" (which, oddly, was the only one of the two terms that Tolkien actually did invent) and Ents as "Treants", since pint-sized people with pointy ears and talking trees were already pretty common themes in Early-modern fantasy, there wasn't really any reason to cite Tolkien as an inspiration anymore. Personally I think Gygax deserves applause for even being nice enough to mention Tolkien at all — I know I wouldn't have gone out of my way to extend that completely unnecessary courtesy to someone who wrote thousands of pages of fiction yet couldn't even be bothered to come up with a single original idea. --Corvun 03:25, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Actually got to check it; Tolkien is listed amongst the "inspirational reading", but not given any special prominence. Really, I think Tolkien's inspiration on D&D comes, not in the creatures themselves, but in how they're presented. Yes, dwarves have always been short people who lived underground, liked metal and such, but Tolkien's dwarves are very close to the typical D&D presentation of dwarves today; same with elves (though D&D elves are shorter). ---Mr. Nexx 23:59, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

You're definitely right about the Dwarves. As far as the Elves; I think that's a tough call. Tolkien's presentation of Elves wasn't much different from the Norse Ljosalfar (Lightelves), though considering that in the early-to-mid 20th century most people thought of Elves as something more like Hobbits/Halflings, I think it's safe to say Tolkien re-popularized the taller variety. In Dungeons & Dragons, the Elves seem (to me, at least) to be a bit more humanlike than either the Norse Elves or Tolkien's Elves. I think the question here is whether or not Tolkien is really a "major" influence; to me, it seems any influence Tolkien might have had on D&D is unremarkable, blending into the background of a vast array of literary, mythological, folkloric, and other fictional sources D&D drew from. There's also the question of, "if it hadn't been for the recent movie trilogy, would anyone in the 21st century even care? Would anyone consider Tolkien's influence any more inclusion-worthy than the influence of all the other talented and hard working authors D&D drew inspiration from?" If the answer is anything but a definite "yes", and we include Tolkien as an influence, we'd have to include everyone else; if we don't include everyone else, why are we including Tolkien? --Corvun 03:40, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Copyright Expires

I remember getting the Dungeons and Dragons game for Christmas years ago. All copyrights on the year 1976 and before is due to expire in the year 2006. That is the nature of copyright, make your money and move on where after over twenty years of not making your money, then it is worthless.

I think the pithiest response to this is a simple, "WTF?" Justin Bacon 04:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

It'd be nice if that was true. However, due to Disney and others' strong efforts to expand copyright far beyond the life of the actual creator of the work, U.S. copyrights now last over 100 years past the life of the artist, and that's always increasing, because, after all, Mickey Mouse can never become public domain. It just wouldn't be right. 16:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

D&D WikiProject?

The scope and breadth of D&D is impressive and sometimes overwhelming. What does everyone think about creating a D&D WikiProject? There we could discuss issues and come up with some consistent guidelines for articles relating to the RPG. Comments? — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:09, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a great idea. Unfortunately the scope and breadth of the required consistent cooperation of a number of individuals who neither grow disinterested nor overwhelmed with such a project is a daunting enscarpment to overcome. I've been doing a lot of work over at the fantasy article, converting it into a series, but it's proven to be a lot of work for just two or three people to handle, especially if they aren't able to spend several hours each day on the internet working on personal projects. As you've pointed out in the past, we don't get paid for doing this. --Corvun 05:40, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

You're not getting paid to edit Wikipedia?!? Who would work on this without getting paid? ;-) Well, a WikiProject would help organize stuff and would help direct people where to focus their efforts. The ones I've been involved with in the past have been a great boon. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:43, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Agree that a D&D WikiProject would be great. I could help in a few weeks, but do not know how to set one up. Agree the subject is vast, Wikipedia already has alot of good information, but more organization would help. Wendell 22:05, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I think all the information you need is here: WikiProject. It tells you how to get started and has some pages you just copy to make a WikiProject. If no one else does, I'll get around to it eventually. But I won't commit to a time... could be weeks — Frecklefoot | Talk 00:40, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Agree — Like I said above, I think it's an awesome idea. Though I barely have enough time lately to keep up with things, I'd still be willing to contribute whatever time and effort I can once the project gets started. --Corvun 02:58, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Disagree — make a more general Wikiproject such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games (then possibly sub-categorise into D&D). That said, there is already a Forgotten Realms WikiProject.

Controversy

I have removed the entirety of the content added by 70.146.118.249 regarding sexual content in D&D illustrations and parental concerns of "self-gratfication" (a euphemism for masturbation). The content is clearly POV, but that's not the reason I'm removing it. I'm widely read in the anti-D&D literature of the mid-'80s, having studied the topic extensively in the early '90s for an article published in a defunct gaming magazine. The issue of "sexual content" never cropped up in any of that reading. When TSR dropped the age of their target audience with 2nd Edition, they also eliminated the nude females from their art -- but this was proactive, not reactive to any sort of publicized or widespread complaint. Unless some sort of citation can be provided for this anonymous contribution, I don't believe it should be restored to the article. Justin Bacon 01:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

D&D2 Movie

There is an article for Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God, but it's currently terrible. I have not seen it and am thus in no position to edit it into something usable. Could someone...? PurplePlatypus 07:26, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll be watching the movie sometime this weekend, I think. I'll see what I can do about cleaning it up after that. (Unless someone else has beaten me to it.) Justin Bacon 21:28, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Seperate D&D Computer Game Section

I think that all the various D&D computer and video games deserve thier own section, especially the SSI Gold Box games. Taking this section out of this article and giving it its own home would better explain those games and shorten this article some since it is very long (it is very comprehensive which is good).

Well, List of Dungeons & Dragons computer and video games already exists. If you want to do a longer article on them in addition to or as a replacement for that, it doesn't seem like a terrible idea; I'm sure there is interest. Clearly there should also be mention of them here, but cutting it down to a couple of paragraphs seems reasonable if there is a seperate article on the topic. PurplePlatypus 07:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't support the idea of cutting this section of the article down. Right now this section gives a pretty solid beginning-middle-end summary of the history of D&D in computer games. IOW, a basic summary of D&D computer games (which this article needs) would include: (a) the first D&D computer game; (b) SSI's gold box and post-gold box games; (c) Bioware's success with the license; (d) Neverwinter Nights and the transition to 3rd Edition rules; (e) future plans for the license; and (f) a mention that most CRPGs are directly or indirectly based on D&D. And this section of the article pretty much does that and doesn't do much else besides. As PurplePlatypus says, though, there's plenty of room for an article dedicated to D&D computer games. Justin Bacon 16:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Hex maps?

I do not play D&D, so I'm not familiar with the reasons why there seems to be an (unexplained) obsession with hexoganal maps, as opposed to square grids. How does this impact gameplay? Is there a substantive reason for this departure from "typical" gaming systems, or is this just an arbitrary preference? This is one of those things that seems to give "character" to D&D, but as of now, I don't understand how this departure characterizes the D&D community.

Well, the current version uses square grids for combat, square grids for small-scale maps, and quite often no grid at all for large-scale maps (just a scale in the corner, as you typically see for real-world maps); hexes are rarely seen at the moment. But having said that, hexes came into D&D by way of various wargames, which use them because they are in some respects more flexible and easier to work with when dealing with combat movement. Without them your movement rules either need an awkward special case for diagonal movement (such as current D&D, which counts them as alternately one square and two) or you end up with movement rules that just plain don't make sense (like forcing you to count the squares on a non-diagonal path when you move diagonally, making such movement quite expensive and implying a world with truly bizarre physics). PurplePlatypus 20:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Very good explanation, PurplePlatypus. I also found that hex maps were more realistic for natural landscapes. They encourage the map-maker to avoid straight lines. --Tysto 01:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Minor oops

Sorry, my last edit summary got cut off because I hit Enter prematurely. It was meant to say "Note that 'Includes' does not imply a complete list." PurplePlatypus 22:43, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Correction

Baldur's Gate wasn't developed by Black Isle, as the article stated. It was developed by Bioware and published by Interplay (home to Black Isle), as was its sequel, whereas IWD, IWDII and PS:T were developed (in house) by Black Isle and published by Interplay using the Infinity Engine originally developed by Bioware. I attempted to clarify this. --Yst 17:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Character Sheet Image Use Appropriate?

I don't believe the image of the first page of a D&D character sheet should be used here, due to copyright. The user who uploaded it didn't, IMO, give a strong enough reason why it isn't copyright infringement. The fact that the page states that the image is for personal use only doesn't give a site like Wikipedia permission to use it, as Wikipedia is not using it for personal use. 16:23, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

1e, 2e, 3e

I notice a bit on the various editions and their shorthand names. I'm not sure it's right though... I think when people refer to 1e, they mean the first AD&D set, with the Players Handbook, et all. AD&D 2e was the rules revision that saw the Mosterous Compendium in the binder and such (can't really give more detail, I'd stopped playing at that point). And 3e they dropped the A, and just went back to D&D. Which is problematic, since there was the original D&D before AD&D came out. The current text on the article lists the original D&D as 1e, and combines AD&D1 and AD&D2 into 2e.

Anyone know how the terms are really used?

While a small minority will argue with this, since AD&D 2nd Edition came out in 1989, almost everyone uses these terms the way you say, to refer to the various editions of the AD&D family, completely ignoring the original D&D and basic D&D. Most people find it easier, whether or not they think it's strictly correct, to just agree that (in particular) "Second Editon" should refer to the version that says Second Edition on the cover in freaking inch-high letters, not to something else. PurplePlatypus 11:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

1e refers to the PHB, DMG, and MM of the late 70s. 2e refers to the revision of 1989. 3e refers to what Wizards of the Coast published starting in 2000. The original D&D is referred to as OD&D (meaning either Original D&D or Old D&D). The Basic and Expert sets by Moldvay and Cook (1981, and I think 1982) are often referred to as B/X, while the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters sets by Mentzer (starting in 1983) is referred to as BECM (sometimes as BECMI, if the Immortals set is also included). The D&D hardcover based on the BECM is called the RC (for Rules Cyclopedia). The very first Basic set by Holmes is often just called the Holmes edition, even though I believe it was technically the 2nd edition of the game itself.

You might find it helpful to look at the (semi-)graphical timeline in Editions_of_Dungeons_&_Dragons#Time_line to help understand the versions and editions. - Waza 06:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Related products... separate article?

Since this article is so big, why is there such a big section on related products? There should be a separate article on D&D-related products that the main D&D article can link to. After all, related products are not themselves D&D, and should not have as much space in the D&D article as they do.

I agree this section of the article is too big a proportion of the total. There should be a brief summary of the types of related products then a more comrehensive listing in a seperate article - Waza 06:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Fictional Universes not belong in Wikipedia?

See: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#How_about:_Sectioning_off_of.2Fpossible_banning_of_Fictional_Universe_articles. I hope I am not in violation of WP:SPAM by informing talk pages of some Fictional Universes about this thread. Perhaps some other fan can pass the word to other relevant interests, or perhaps there ought to be some NPOV template at top of the talk pages. User:AlMac|^(talk) 14:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Role-playing games

There has just ben started a new Wikiproject regarding Role playing Games. If you would like to join, please go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games and add your self. Angelbo 13:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Related Products... separate page?

I think the related products section should be shortened CONSIDERABLY, with all of the current details made into another article.

Individual Edition entries

Individual AD&D entrys

Since there is a large difference between the different edditions of D&D, I was wondering if it would be worthwhile to construct seperate articles for each eddition of D&D (Basic-Expert, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, I'm not sure about constucting one for the current game, as much of the main article has most of the information on that. My primary reason for stateing this that there are several fans of the previous games who do not appriciate the current rulesystem as demonstated by Dragonsfoot.org, and if information from this page were taken, and given lenthly expansions, it could easily make exellent individual articles. Avador 05:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to this but no motivation to be involved in it either. So if you want to make an article just make sure you have enough encyclopedic edition specific information tand write it. I think this article is important as a comparison for people interested in the game but only familar with some editions (old or new) to understand the key differences - Waza 06:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

The article doesn't really address some of the criticisms that D&D commonly face (other than me). That is, it's kind of the Quake of RPGs.

The way hit points work is a frequent source of jokes, discussion, and confusion. ( Like in Doom-style shooters, in D&D you keep fighting with no penalties until you get to 0 hit points. )

I won't go into how the d20 system is messed up in other ways here and now.

Many games of D&D also devolve into powergaming, munchkin-filled "kill it and loot it" sessions. That fact spawned the card game Munchkin.

Hm. Doesn't seem to mention Hit Points once.

Would this stuff go in some other related article?

And I'll admit, I don't have a very neutral point of view on this subject naturally. I've had some bad D&D play experiences lately. (Fanboys: please don't eat me. kthx) 192.154.130.112 19:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying. Should we create a 'criticism' section, for pet peeves? Yes, the game mechanics are less than realistic. In my view, realism is up to the DM and the players. A lot of the game is not strictly about rules, you see. As for Hitpoints, one optional rule suggests that characters be penalised for losing more than half their remaining Hitpoints in a single attack, which means that when characters are low on Hitpoints, they are certainly less able to fight effectively. -- Ec5618 20:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

i don't think the article should go into too much detail about rule-critizism, as virtually every rule system can be critizised for either too few, too many, too flawed, too complicated or too stupid rules. But maybe D&D's reputation for powergaming and flaws that are used in many jokes might be worth mentioning. We just have to make sure that a common Wikipedia visitor still can understand you. -- Genesis 20:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

House rules are something else entirely. They should probably be mentioned in the article, now that I think about it. But I was talking about Out-of-the-Box rules. Hit points like Quake = odd. Yeah, all game systems have unrealistic bits, but D&D is really out there sometimes. When I said 'it's the Quake of RPGs' I mean that in D&D you can get hit with the equivilant of a rocket to the face and walk away from it.

Right, I don't think there should be too much rule criticism, but very yes on "But maybe D&D's reputation for powergaming and flaws that are used in many jokes might be worth mentioning." There're a lot of web comics that are based on how silly, powergaming, and munchkin-ery D&D can (and, unfortunately, often) become. Maybe a brief paragraph that mentions the concepts of powergaming, munchkin, metagaming, links to those articles, and how they relate to D&D?

Sorry I'm not being as clear and concise as I'd like to be. I haven't done a lot of wikipedia editting yet. And I'm late for class. =/ 192.154.130.112 21:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This article is big enough already and the type of critisms talked about here are only of interest to power games (and only a concern to those interested in total realism - you don't hear of serious chess players complaining of lack of realism in their game). I think that these type of critisms do have a place in Wikipedia but not in the main D&D article, maybe a seperate article on D&D Game Mechanics or maybe more approriately d20 Game Mechanics. This new article could be linked from the play overview section if someone decides to create it. We need to remember this article is the base article for people who want to find out about D&D and are coming at it from a broad variety of directions of intial exposure so have very different base knowledge. it should provide a broad overview with links to other articles for those who want to research specific aspects further. - Waza 22:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Comparing D&D to chess is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion, but okay. So someone should create an article outlining D&D/D20s' play mechanics / quirks / shortcomings. And there should be a link to that article from here. Agreed? What about links to concepts like powergaming, min/max, munchkinism? Those are very common in D&D. I'd argue more so than in a lot of other systems. 130.156.68.205 22:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree yet. If you are planning to create such an article, please show more of what you plan to include. I'm not sure this is worthy of a separate article yet, though D&D quirks should perhaps be mentioned more prominently, to avoid this article set becoming an abstracted rulebook. -- Ec5618 22:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually I don't know exactly what I would include in such a page. I merely assert that such a page should exist. Some research on various forums could turn up a few starting points. ( I'm in class right now so I can't really post too much now. )

D&D is very quirky, and that should be mentioned in an article about it. And again, should this article also link to min/max, powergaming, munchkin (RPG), and/or related topics?

I don't really understand the criticism myself. If a group of players comes together to roleplay, and they all enjoy themselves, that's fine. But if a some powergamers come together and have fun, that's not alright? I suppose it's fine to keep in the article if the criticism is widespread, but I doubt I'll ever understand it. It'd make more sense if regular old DnD was one massive MMORPG, where the players can't change the rules to suit their playstyles. 68.14.76.151 22:31, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I disregarded the OP. The term fanboys doesn't belong in wikipedia. Dominick ^(TALK) 22:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Controversy section

Is there a better way to break this up? It lurches from the stuff about religious concerns straight into the controversy about judges guild, which seems to come out of nowhere. Also, I think this section should at least touch on how Gygax eventually got pushed out / left and the death of TSR and subsequent purchase by WotC.

I've tried a cut at breaking it up with sub-headings and adding the point on Gygax. Are we ok there now, or does it still need work? Fairsing 19:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The computer game section ...

Wasn't Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor the first D&D computer game to use the 3rd edition rules rather than NWN?

If the list contains notable computer games that used the D&D licenses, why is Everquest and Ultima Online even mentioned?

Doug McLaren 23:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

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