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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ravenloft (module)/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [1].

Ravenloft (module)

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Nominator(s): Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I think it meets the FA criteria. It's been nominated before, but it's changed so much since then that I don't think they matter. Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - sources look okay, links not checked with the link checker tool, as it was misbehaving. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:49, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Throughout the article I made minor changes, such as word choice or changing the publication "history" section to publication background.

Just a couple other concerns:

  • When Ravenloft' was released, each Dungeons & Dragons module was marked with an alphanumeric code indicating the series to which it belonged.[9]. - what is with the extra marking?
  • In 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game, Dungeon magazine ranked the module as the second greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time—behind only Queen of the Spiders. - cite
  • Judge Clark Peterson single out the maps and Strahd for praise, saying the vampire is "perhaps on of the best villains of all time". - cite, after a quote
  • In the July 1984 issue of White Dwarf magazine, on a scale of 1 to 10, the module was given 9 for presentation, 9 for playability, 8 for enjoyment, 6 for skill, 6 for complexity, 8 out of 10 overall. - cite
  • It was likened to a Hammer horror production and praised as enjoyable, although the reviewer said the game's puns were tedious and detracted from the spooky atmosphere. - cite

Great work! ceranthor 16:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:BOZ fixed all the issues you mentioned. Thanks BOZ, and thanks, Ceranthor, for the support. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
De nada. BOZ (talk) 17:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
De nada as well. ceranthor 17:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Jappalang

Plot

  • "... selects five cards."
    Randomly drawn or deliberate decision?
  • "When Strahd is destroyed, the adventure ends."
    96-hour non-stop gaming session?
    Basically, "When Strahd is destroyed, the adventure ends." is not correct. The adventure can also end when every player character has died (darn traps and natural "1"s!!!). An imaginative DM might create a post-Strahd's-destruction scenario to further flesh out the session (celebrating at the village, finding more mysteries in the castle that lead to other adventures, etc). Furthermore, a layman might interprete the sentence to be "You cannot stop the game until Strahd has been destroyed." My suggestion would be "The main objective of the game is to destroy Count Strahd." Jappalang (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Publication background

  • "They play-tested it every Halloween for five years ..."
    Between the two of them? Did they not play Dragonlance with friends (some of whom were notable TSR employees as well) before putting it to paper? Is it the same case here?
  • "When Ravenloft was released, eachEach Dungeons & Dragons module was marked with an alphanumeric code indicating the series to which it belonged."
    Compare to "When the war ended, buntings were put up at every high location in the city." Pay attention to the spatial references. The modules were numbered that way before Ravenloft was released.
    According to the cited FAQ, they were marked that way up through late 1994. Not sure how to word that so I went with "At the time of Ravenloft's release..." BOZ (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That is fine too. Jappalang (talk) 14:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Strahd had fallen in love with a young girl, ... and Strahd found that he had become a vampire."
    This whole chunk seems more suited to Plot.
  • "... to kill the vampire at the end of the adventure, despite having the Sunsword, he refused, and his companions were forced to complete the task."
    It seems that the Sunsword is not required to kill Strahd... so his refusal seems somewhat non sequitur to his possession of the weapon.
  • "... by introducing a combination monster/character, with the abilities of a vampire and a magic-user."
    Rather confusing sentence to a layman, might be clunky to those in the know. Suggestion: "... by introducing a monster with the abilities of a player character class, that is a vampire magic-user."
    Got it. BOZ (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ravenloft II

  • "Although Ravenloft II is credited to the Hickmans, Tracy Hickman left TSR before the module was complete."
    "Credited to the Hickmans", so what happened to Laura?
    The sentence reads strange; first part talks about two, the second only one. Since no reliable sources chronicled the fate of Laura, it would be better to change the focus of the sentence entirely to one: "Although Tracy Hickman was credited in Ravenloft II, he had left TSR before the module was completed." Jappalang (talk) 00:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Despite these problems, he said it included "Lots of monsters, plenty of roleplaying, lots of offstage action, items and crucial information to be gathered, and topped off with an excellent ending. What more could you ask? Excellent, highly recommended.""
    Highly promotional tone, despite the quotation marks. It can be trimmed to "Despite these problems, he highly recommended it for "lots of monsters, plenty of roleplaying, lots of offstage action, items and crucial information to be gathered, and [...] an excellent ending.""

Adaptations

  • "Ravenloft has been revised and expanded twice."
    Module or campaign? Since the campaign has been mentioned just before this, it is better to clarify here.
  • "(8 session)" and "(4 session)"
    "x sessions" or "x-session"?

Reception

  • "Judge Bill Slavicsek", "judge Andy Collins", "Judge Clark Peterson", "Judge John Rateliff"
    Besides repetitious, I would prefer to have their credentials stated. "Judge" is no means of knowing why they are experts in the field.
  • "... on a scale of 1 to 10, the module was given 9 for presentation, 9 for playability, 8 for enjoyment, 6 for skill, 6 for complexity, 8 out of 10 overall."
    I am not entirely certain ratings are encyclopaedic.
  • "... use of normalcommon D&D monsters in D&D,"
    The sentence this fragment appears in should be re-written. The reviewer is saying that the typical monsters of D&D (e.g. goblins, orcs, etc) do not fit in a gothic horror atmosphere. "Normal D&D monsters" means, to me, all the monsters in the game, unmodified in any manner.

Images

  • Images are appropriately licensed; the use of the sole non-free image is justified by its fair-use rationale.

Awaiting feedback. Jappalang (talk) 11:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed everything that BOZ didn't get to except a few things.diff
I'm not sure what you meant by "96-hour non-stop gaming session?"
I changed it to "They play-tested the adventure with a group of players each Halloween" but I'll have to check the source (which I don't have handy right now) to make sure. I think it's common sense that it wasn't just the two of them.
"Strahd had fallen in love with a young girl, ... and Strahd found that he had become a vampire." I put it in plot. Although that info is also in the module, I got my summary from Hickman's summary in another source, so I cited that. The problem is that it's three sentences in the middle of the plot section, so I'm not sure if I should cite each sentence, or what. I currently just cited the end of it, but then it's not clear where it began.
"Credited to the Hickmans" I'm pretty sure she never worked there other than with her husband, but the source doesn't say.
The Judge part. I've made sure that each has a wikilink now. I think the source (which I don't have handy) mentions there credentials, so I'll add that soon and not use judge so much.
Thanks for the detailed review. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed the judges thing. The source doesn't say much about who exactly play tested it. I can leave it with "a group of players" or I can go back to how it was earlier if you think that's OR. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon my attempt at humor, I have expanded on the "96-hour non-stop gaming session" issue. Jappalang (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your attempt made me laugh, but belatedly. I fixed the 96 hour ( ;-) ) problem.[2]
"Although Ravenloft II is credited to the Hickmans, Tracy Hickman left TSR before the module was complete" I've looked for sources on when Laura left TSR and why to add in. No luck. Her last work for TSR seems to be 1986, the same year as House of Strahd, but that's as close as not committing OR as I can come (without a better source), and I think it's too close.
Thanks again. You're comments have really improved this article in my opinino. (I'm not saying you can't find other things. I'm just impressed.) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on sources: I just looked through the references. Out of 29 sources used, 21 are in no small way affiliated with the publishers of the module or the authors themselves... While Ravenloft is no doubt notable (as evident from third-party sources on D&D), the large use of primary sources might be of concern. This could be understandable, as RPGs are quite a niche low-profile (unless we get into those "products of evil" media condemnations) products. Jappalang (talk) 00:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't really disagree. But, as you say, there aren't a ton of independent sources. I basically grabbed all the RSs I could, regardless of independence. I can reduce the number of non-independent sources (although it would make the article smaller), but I don't have a lot of options for increasing the independent ones. There is a review of it in an issue of The Space Gamer #72, which I don't have. I'm not sure how to get it, either. I think it's pretty rare. Even with it, it won't change the ratio that much, and it's info would go in the Reception section, which is one of the few balanced sections at the moment. So, I'm not sure what to do. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the last unstruck item brought up by Jappalang, here is the exact quote from the source: "The House on Gryphon Hill was the final project Hickman worked on before he left TSR to pursue a career as a freelance novelist in the wake of the success of the Hickman-Weis Dragonlance novels, and he didn’t manage to finish it before he left. Hence, although Tracy and Laura Hickman are credited for their outline and having come up with the overall plot for the adventure, most of the actual writing was done by a hastily assembled crack team of TSR designers in order to meet the rapidly approaching release date" BOZ (talk) 01:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I don't believe that Laura was ever a TSR employee (the work she did was likely freelance). BOZ (talk) 01:12, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind making the change, but I'd like to hear what you think now, in case you feel differently, Jappalang. Thanks for this very detailed review. It's a lot of fun. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my latest thought. How about attributing the statment and saying it doesn't say what Laura did. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But, I made the change you recommended. I like it, so unless you want me to change it, I'll leave it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support (outdent): After resolving the above, I am putting my support for this article. The quality of the prose is not judged (as it is not my forte), but I believe this article is as comprehensive as it can be with the sources available, putting forth a summarized neutral view of the subject, and its image use is compliant with policies and guidelines. Jappalang (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments – Reviewed this at the last FAC, which I don't remember that well. Didn't find too much in a full reading; just the points below:
  • Plot: "The next two cards determine the locations of Straud and the Tome of Straud. The Tome of Straud...". Notice the repetition from sentence to sentence? The best solution is to merge the two sentences, as the resulting sentence will have good length and flow.
  • "and made a pact with evil powers in order to live forever." Tiny bit of wordiness that can easily be removed. I saw another one of these later in the Ravenloft II section.
  • I assume DM is the Dungeon Master? That briefly confused me. Might be a good idea to either spell it out or include a parenthetical abbraviation on the first use.
  • Publication background: "It consisted of a 32-page book, with seperate maps detailing game locations." The with+-ing sentence structure is something FAC prose reviewers have worked hard to reduce, since it is a generally awkward structure. Fortunately, a fix here is easy: "maps that detailed" or "maps which detailed".
  • Tracy and Laura Curtis...". The linked article implies that this is incorrect, and should either be "Tracy and Laura Hickman" or "Tracy Hickman and Laura Curtis".
  • "to make it distinguishable it from the original". Little typo there.
  • Reception: Comma after "were teleported away and replaced with undead wights"? Also need an apostrophe inside "adventures" in this sentence.
  • "the module was given 8 out of 10 ovarall". Double-check last word. :-) Giants2008 (17–14) 01:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Looks like a pretty good one to me. I do wish there were a few more secondary sources, but this is not the sort of thing that would have been widely discussed in the general media at the time. I'm confident that the best avaliable sources are in here. Giants2008 (17–14) 01:32, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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