Talk:Dungeons & Dragons

Popular culture

Why is this section "reemergence in pop culture—on the Netflix series Stranger Things, whose main characters play D&D in a basement; on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory; or via the host of celebrities who display their love for the game online". Under Development history and not In poplar culture. Aojrocks (talk) 07:40, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

In Popular Culture sections with lists of pop culture mentions are generally discouraged on Wikipedia. Instead, reliably-sourced "trivia" should be incorporated into the rest of the article when relevant. Of course, you'll still find these sections in some articles, but moving trivia has become a growing trend over the past decade or more. You can read more about it at MOS:TRIVIA and WP:POPCULTURE. Woodroar (talk) 12:32, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok that makes sense thanks Aojrocks (talk) 16:13, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, that quote from the Los Angeles Times is focused on the contributing factors to the "game's resurgent popularity" so even if this article had an "in popular culture" section, the focus of the quote isn't really on what media the game has appeared in. The focus is on why are more people playing this edition of D&D which fits best as part of the development history. 16:48, 7 September 2024 (UTC) Sariel Xilo (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

planes (creating/restoring infobox)

Years ago Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) planes were in plane (esoterism) infobox but I didn't think fiction should mix with philosophy/metaphysics/spirituality/religion, so removed D&D section (50% regret).  Is it Wikipedia guideline/rule don't mix fiction with other subjects?  If not, I'd like to restore, but best to create all-editions D&D planes infobox.  They can combine, such as when Advanced D&D (AD&D) second edition (2nd ed, 2e) merely renamed AD&D 1e planes, list together, with newer planes' editions in parentheses, and maybe cosmology sections (earlier standard D&D simpler than AD&D, and though I only asked ChatGPT, it said D&D 4e (2008 not original 1983) added 'world axis' and 5e (2014 not original 1991) used 'great wheel' (see Editions of Dungeons & Dragons about early lack of edition naming resulting in duplicates) but I don't have later/duplicate D&D 3e (2000), 4e (2008), 5e (2014) (just original 3e (1981), 4e (1983), 5e (1991))--I only know earlier standard D&D planes (from 1970s to Wrath of The Immortals) and AD&D 1e, somewhat AD&D 2e/Planescape).--~~~~ dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 07:40, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

proper encyclopaedic style

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates_and_numbers#Ordinals says don't use ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) through nine, rather than writing out their complete words, which I don't see done right in D&D articles. I know many gamers prefer ordinal or even new abbreviations like 1e, 2e, etc., but it's not proper encyclopaedic style, and neither is capitalizing 'edition' (which I've just had to correct once). I'm not going to go through and change all these, but apparently it should be done. One exception might be if you abbreviate a full name of the game where ordinal is official (e.g. 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd ed.') but presumably not when you talk about an edition without referring to name of a game--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 09:22, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@Dchmelik: Please don't go on a campaign to remove all uses of "2nd", "3rd", etc. First of all it's just not true that such forms are not used in formal writing - this is trivial to show. Second of all, that style guide is talking about the normal use of "second", "third" - e.g. "he went back to the cafeteria for a third helping of food", not "he went back to the cafeteria for a 3rd helping of food." The D&D case is closer to a title or a common name. In fact, there's a clear example right there - using "&" rather than "and" is discouraged, but if it's part of a title, it's fine, we don't "fix" it to "Dungeons and Dragons". Maybe one form should be used or maybe the other, but the argument should be on common usage in high-quality sources, not on a MOS guideline intended for normal text rather than titles. Checking say Shannon Appelcline's "Designers & Dragons", I see lots of forms - "third edition", "3E", "2nd Edition" / "3rd Edition" (when quoting a WotC Press Release!), etc. It's not clear published writing agrees with a more absolutist stance here, although I only checked one source. SnowFire (talk) 15:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I disagree, but won't oppose abbreviation. Formal writing doesn't use ordinals, or only for 10th and above (depending on style). The only case 'edition' was capitalized is in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, despite usage is ungrammatical, it's part of the name... but isn't part of any other official rulebook names. I don't care what press writers say (my ninth year/class/grade English teacher said media is typically on sixth year/class/grade writing level at best) rather than what University of Oxford's style guide, says, etc. (Cambridge would be fine if has one, and possibly a few other UK university style guides, such as in Edinburgh, though Oxford is definitive, and doesn't seem to give the 'above 10th' exception of American technical writing)--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 11:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The brand uses Edition capitalized; lower case would be grammatically correct for multiple editions of the same book rather than different versions of the game. Sariel Xilo (talk) 13:05, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

If that's the case, it'd have to be shown as part of a name, as in my example (possibly sole such example) and used fully as such. When talking about editions of anything, if 'edition' isn't actually written as part of a name, it's incorrect to capitalize... there would have to usage as a name such as Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (form of proper noun), not just non-name referencing such as '5th edition' (not proper noun), but even in such case, I don't think they've actually done that since AD&D 2e (nevertheless even '2nd edition' when not in the name isn't a proper noun either)--dchmelik (talk|contrib) 01:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter what some outside style guides say, because we have our own Manual of Style. MOS:GAMECAPS says the term should be capitalized (and possibly even italicized, depending on whether it's part of the title or simply a related term). In addition, at MOS:PROPER, it says that proper names are typically capitalized. That links to proper names (actually the article proper noun) which has a section on brand names (Proper noun#Brand names): brand names and other commercial terms that are nouns or noun phrases are capitalized whether or not they count as proper names.

I'll also note that the Dungeons & Dragons article has more than a thousand page watchers, and it's a Featured Article (since 2007), which included a compliance check with our MoS. That "Edition" hasn't been de-capitalized in the past 17 years strongly suggests the status quo version is favored by the community.

dchmelik, as an aside: something in your signature is breaking the normal Reply functions on Talk pages. You'll definitely want to look at that. Woodroar (talk) 01:01, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

dchmelik, looking closer, it's because your signature doesn't include a time/date-stamp, which is required. So not only is it breaking the Reply function, but probably also archiving of Talk pages. Woodroar (talk) 01:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

'Sign your contributions to a Talk page by using four tildes (\~\~\~\~), which produces your username and a time/date stamp'--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing#Talk_pages (I 'escaped' tildes in the quotation to prevent them being converted there). I've always done that, which you can see above unless your web browser isn't working (odd, now I see in most previous case it wasn't produced right)--dchmelik (talk|contrib) 01:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)