Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 26
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2nd Edition monster list nearing "completion"
I've been slowly but surely adding in the various Monstrous Compendiums, Annuals and other sources to the List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters. I'm down to the last one, MC 8 (Outer Planes Appendix 1991) (at least this is the last one left on the talk page). I had a previous discussion about this one some time ago in which it was noted that MC 8 is mostly reprinted by the Planescape MC Appendix in 1994. Problem: "mostly" doesn't mean completely, and there are some variations between the two versions. Right now, I intend to go ahead and add the full MC 8 table sometime in the next few days - if there are any objections to this please post them to the list talk page.
In any case, the only things left to add are a couple of setting-specific items for Spelljammer, cross-reference the "other appearances" columns (some of which is done, some not), and standardize the formatting on the Name columns. I have no plans on adding the creature descriptions, that would take too much effort on my part.
Anyway - hope this has been/is/will be of use to someone.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 02:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- Keep up the good work, if you want. But, these types of articles are going to run afoul of some of our policies/guidelines. Mostly WP:NOT#DIRECTORY and WP:NOTE. What to do about it, we haven't really figured out. The problem is that your work may end up being wasted in the long run. I don't know if you're interested in looking for out of universe info from Wizards.com and old issues of White Dwarf and other magazines, but unfortunately, that's the kind of work needed to create articles that will last. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- Not to be discouraging or anything. ;) The lists are fantastic, as lists go, but yeah when you are done, you may want to help out our D&D coverage in other ways as Peregrine suggests. :) We could always use more help building up our articles into real quality pieces. But thanks for your efforts, no matter which way you choose to channel them! BOZ (talk) 03:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah. I kinda feel like a jerk for my comment, or that wikipedia's rules have made me a jerk. Please don't stop doing what you like because of what I said. And, if you want to coordinate, please ask here. We'd love to have another person to talk to. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- Of all the people that Wikipedia's rules have made into jerks (and there are many), you are not one of them. :) BOZ (talk) 04:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah. I kinda feel like a jerk for my comment, or that wikipedia's rules have made me a jerk. Please don't stop doing what you like because of what I said. And, if you want to coordinate, please ask here. We'd love to have another person to talk to. ;-) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- Not to be discouraging or anything. ;) The lists are fantastic, as lists go, but yeah when you are done, you may want to help out our D&D coverage in other ways as Peregrine suggests. :) We could always use more help building up our articles into real quality pieces. But thanks for your efforts, no matter which way you choose to channel them! BOZ (talk) 03:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- No worries. The list has already been up for deletion once; I have no doubt it will get nominated again at some point. That said, I think the arguments used originally should save it. Most of the entries on it probably don't deserve their own individual articles, but as a cross-indexed list it provides a fair amount of useful and relevant information - not to mention some degree of historical perspective on the evolution of the game. I don't know about anyone else, but since I'm currently running a 2nd ed game it's been of great use to me to do this.
- As to other contributions - well, maybe. I have enough to do in real life at the moment, and there are a few other things in Wikipedia which periodically grab my attention :). In any case, thanks for the input.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 03:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- I used to game 2nd Ed quite a bit. :) Gave it up when no one was really around to play it anymore. :P There are some articles like Ruins of Undermountain and Night Below: An Underdark Campaign which I started but never really did anything with, if you ever felt like branching out. :) BOZ (talk) 12:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- Being a fan of completeness: Does anyone own Golden Voyages? Monster number 4 is missing in the list. Thanks! Daranios (talk) 16:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- Monster #4 is "NPC Crewmen"; I don't think that really belongs in the list, since it lists NPCs specific to that boxed set/adventure.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, thanks! I had lost the page, so I did not know. Daranios (talk) 13:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
- Monster #4 is "NPC Crewmen"; I don't think that really belongs in the list, since it lists NPCs specific to that boxed set/adventure.Vulcan's Forge (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- Being a fan of completeness: Does anyone own Golden Voyages? Monster number 4 is missing in the list. Thanks! Daranios (talk) 16:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
- I used to game 2nd Ed quite a bit. :) Gave it up when no one was really around to play it anymore. :P There are some articles like Ruins of Undermountain and Night Below: An Underdark Campaign which I started but never really did anything with, if you ever felt like branching out. :) BOZ (talk) 12:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of completion: My fingers are itching to add one or two more references, that contain only few monsters, but some that are not mentioned yet. I just don't know if it is a good idea to stuff more information into the page that might later be called obscure in a discussion about the article's notability. Daranios (talk) 18:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
- I wouldn't worry about that; the worst thing that would happen is someone might come along and trim it out. I can't see how the obscurity of one section of an article (or list) would affect the viablility of the article (or list) as a whole. BOZ (talk) 19:20, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Cleanup
We've gone form 1736 to Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Assessment 1696. Pretty awesome, considering we did it without the help of any deletionists. Keep up the good work, and add updates on this talk page when you've gotten the number to go lower. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
- 1685, thank you very much. ;) BOZ (talk) 03:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Greyhawk gods cleanup
OK, I was taking my time in getting to this, but I guess I better get a move on before we start getting into more ham-fisted "Who needs a merge discussion?" TTN-style merges. (Which may be inevitable, given his history, but what can you do.) I promised, and I like to be a man of my word, so here we go on the merging of the Greyhawk gods.
What I plan to do is to take a separate page and merge most of the Greyhawk-specific deities in there. The question is, which ones do we keep? De-spite the notability guidelines (and I do-spite them, or spit on them, when I can) which say that damn near any D&D character is "not notable", I think we all know good and well that a good percentage of articles that come to AFD really come down to being a popularity contest and end up as Keeps. Now, I'm not saying we keep something as a separate article based solely on popularity, but I think it's fair to say that certain articles are going to get loyal support even if the current articles do not (and maybe never will) meet the notability purist's demands.
I'll set up the merge location page, and we can talk about it more here in the meantime. First of all, please note that there are a whole bunch of articles in the Greyhawk deities category that I'm not even considering as part of this merger (there can, and probably will, be subsequent discussions which will involve those, which I will be happy to organize at a future date). We have monster gods, archfiends, and other outer planar beings that are generic to several campaign worlds, and I don't consider them part of the Greyhawk pantheon and neither should you. ;) For the purposes of this merge, I am talking only about deities which originated in the Greyhawk product line. Realistically, this includes about 90 or so out of the current 288 that exist in that category.
So what, then, do we keep? I've given some thought to several deities, which I'd like to discuss here before really putting this plan into motion. I've listed them in more or less the order in which I think they should be kept as standalones. These are the ones I'd like us to consider keeping; anything else is probably less significant and will be merged.
- St. Cuthbert. This was one of Gary's two original gods, which he used in his home campaign. He's been around since at least 1976 (if not earlier) and has been in fairly constant use ever since (well, up through 3E at least).
- Vecna and Tharizdun. These are major, major bad guys and have been the antagonist of more than one module each, and heck they are still both 4E campaign gods.
- Pelor and Kord. They have been around since the early days of Greyhawk, and are still both official 4E gods.
- Iuz and Kyuss. Not as major of bad guys, but they have still played a significant part in some major storylines. And Kyuss got a band named after him!
- Boccob, Nerull, Wee Jas, Ehlonna, Erythnul, Fharlanghn, Herioneous, Hextor, Obad Hai, and Olidammara. These were official major campaign gods of 3E. Maybe we won't keep them all, but we should at least consider them individually.
That's about 20% of the ones I'm looking at for merge. Not too bad, eh? OK, let's discuss! BOZ (talk) 03:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- I would suggest all of the original 19 Greyhawk deities described by Gygax in his original Deities of Greyhawk articles published in Dragon that aren't mentioned above, since they formed the core of the Greyhawk pantheon for many years. In addition to those mentioned above: Celestian, Istus, Pholtus, Incabulos, Trithereon, Zagyg, Ralishaz & Wastri.
- Note that Kord was not an "early" god from Gygax's home campaign days. He might be as early as some of Gygax's first creations such as Pholtus, but you would have to check with Len Lakofka, since Kord was actually created by Len for his home campaign (Lendore Isle). I'm not sure when the Lendore Isle campaign started. Gygax subsequently "borrowed" Lakofka's entire pantheon for the 1983 boxed set as the complete Suel pantheon. Nevertheless I agree that Kord deserves inclusion, since he has always been very popular among fighters and did make it to 2nd and then 3rd ed. when most of the rest of the Suel pantheon was cut.
- Likewise Pelor is not an original--he also made his first appearance in the 1983 boxed set. But he should be included because his twin spheres of Light and Healing have always made him very popular with undead-hating, healing-type clerics (especially in 3rd ed, with the infamously broken "Radiant Servant of Pelor" prestige class (or as we called it, "Radiant Servant of Cheese")).
I agree with the other inclusions (Vecana, Kyuss, etc.) as well Guinness323 (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks. :) Unless anyone else has any other opinions, I'll just go with that. BOZ (talk) 17:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with most of your list BOZ, although I'm not sure about the last point... maybe just giving those deities some more space in a list, rather than their own articles, would be good? The others I agree with. (also regarding mergers, I'm working on List of Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks) –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, and see my comment on that talk page. :) Regarding "the last point", do you mean my last point, or Guiness's recommendation on what should be kept? BOZ (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Your last point; I actually have only heard of two of the gods that Guinness mentioned, so I'm not sure about that either... once again, maybe just a larger section in whatever list? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Zagyg and Wastri? :) Anything in my last point, or in Guiness' list that you think should have a shot (at least for now) at a standalone? BOZ (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, 'twas Zagyg (having played Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk) and Celestian (just heard of that one somewhere along the way). They can certainly be considered on a case by case basis, but I'm really not sure if any of them really have a chance of passing WP:N as their own articles. As I said, maybe giving them twice as much room in a list would make sense... they are certainly more important than many of the game's deities. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Zagyg and Wastri? :) Anything in my last point, or in Guiness' list that you think should have a shot (at least for now) at a standalone? BOZ (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Your last point; I actually have only heard of two of the gods that Guinness mentioned, so I'm not sure about that either... once again, maybe just a larger section in whatever list? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, and see my comment on that talk page. :) Regarding "the last point", do you mean my last point, or Guiness's recommendation on what should be kept? BOZ (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with most of your list BOZ, although I'm not sure about the last point... maybe just giving those deities some more space in a list, rather than their own articles, would be good? The others I agree with. (also regarding mergers, I'm working on List of Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks) –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks. :) Unless anyone else has any other opinions, I'll just go with that. BOZ (talk) 17:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
How about, let's try, a list of St. Cuthbert, Vecna, Tharizdun, Pelor, Kord, Iuz, Kyuss, Boccob, Nerull, Wee Jas, Ehlonna, Erythnul, Herioneous, Hextor, Olidammara, and Zagyg? That's 16, so only about 1/5 of the article base we are working with. Fair enough? We can work with a little fewer or a little more, as far as I'm concerned. And there is always the future option of merging more on, or splitting them back out as needed. BOZ (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
- I got sucked up into working on Curse of the Azure Bonds, but I'm almost ready to start on this. Probably sometime this weekend I'll start making some headway. BOZ (talk) 04:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
OK, finally got this started up today. I started by merging the previously-redirected ones into List of Greyhawk deities, since that was just a few and they were redirected already anyway. :) I looked at all the ones I wanted to consider merging, and divided them up into groups by how important they are to the setting, and how many soruces the appeared in (obviously, the lower-hanging fruit will be the first to be merged). I plan to make three more passes; pass #2 will be about 29 merges, pass #3 will be about 32, and if I survive all of that pass #4 will be 15, and we'll see about #5. :) Once I start a pass-through, I'll go until I stop, but I may take several hours, or even days, between a go. If I don't get too bored or busy, I'll just keep going until I'm satisfied. On pass #5, if I make it that far, I'll be looking at all the Greyhawk core D&D deities which are not part of the core 4E cosmology, and assessing their worthiness one by one. Naturally, I'm not messing with the ones we all agreed on keeping above, but the ones in this category will be open to interpretation. I don't mind if anyone wants to help me with this, but I definitely don't mind doing the whole thing myself. :) (And if you've paid any attention to me, you know I can put the work in!) BOZ (talk) 22:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- I think I will have time to do, or at least start on, the second pass today. :) BOZ (talk) 23:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
- 1728. We are machines. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
OK, I just finished my second pass of roughly 30 articles. I procrastinated, because I knew that would take time and energy - I was right about both, as that was an hour and I'm fairly tired. Took about 2 minutes each working at a brisk pace. That wasn't even the smallest pass I was planning, so it looks like I'm going to have to re-evaluate how I'm handling subsequent ones. I'm not done yet though, so please continue to bear with me! :) BOZ (talk) 03:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds great. I've been doing stuff related to Flanaess, and I think I've done at least 20. Cock a doodle doo. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
- It's not quite dawn here, but it feels like I've been working about that long. ;) BOZ (talk) 04:05, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I merged eight more earlier today. I'll try to get more when I can, though I may take my time in coming back around to that! I got pretty much all of the really insignificant ones out of the way, so here's a good point to relax a bit. BOZ (talk) 22:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
- Good work. I'll go do some Flanaess ones. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
FAC - Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate
Here goes! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Tag edit needed
Could someone edit the below tag? I have no idea how this is/was made or how to edit it. The change made shoul be, Mina (without the questionmarks) under Mishkal.
PANTHEON OF DRAGONLANCE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
High God | Chaos | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Paladine | Mishakal | Gilean | Takhisis | Sargonnas | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Branchala | Majere | Reorx | Morgion | Chemosh | Hiddukel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shinare | Sirrion | Chislev | Zivilyn | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kiri-Jolith | Habbakuk | Solinari | Mina | Lunitari | Nuitari | Zeboim | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sephiroth storm (talk) 08:01, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry, but she goes under Mishkal. Sephiroth storm (talk) 17:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
- Whoops... I completely missed that part of your question; I only saw the "without the questionmarks" part. In that case, I really don't know how to make it work; I'm not at all familiar with these templates, either. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
- Ok, we'll leave this open for someone who does, thanks. Sephiroth storm (talk) 23:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sephiroth, I can do it, but I'm not sure who is Mishakal's father. Please email me and let me know, since I'm pretty busy and rarely check my Wikipedia watchlist. Ddcc 07:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sent. I don't know who's mina's father. I only read a portion of the "Meeting of the Gods" where her divinity was revealed, i don't know if it was noted. I'd put to the right of Mishakal. Sephiroth storm (talk) 12:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Just letting you know, I asked Ben from the Dragonlance Nexus, and he said her father is Paladine. In that case, the template should be pretty easy to modify since there's room on either side. Ddcc 00:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Is it OK without the boxes? The problem is that adding the boxes back in shows that there isn't enough spacing between the children of Paladine+Mishakal, so then everything on the last row would need to be adjusted sideways to fit.Ddcc 00:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)- I think that it looks fine, except there might be too much whitespace next to both Chaos and High God. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Finally fixed the entire thing. Don't want to ever edit that again. Ddcc 01:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds good. :) –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Hey, it looks great! :) Have you given any thought to coming back to edit Dragonlance/D&D articles? BOZ (talk) 02:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Finally fixed the entire thing. Don't want to ever edit that again. Ddcc 01:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- I think that it looks fine, except there might be too much whitespace next to both Chaos and High God. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- You could give someone a class on how to edit it, in case it needs to be done again. Not me. lol. Sephiroth storm (talk) 06:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Probably not anytime soon, I'll be going off to college next year. To make it easier, there's something called User:GregU/familytree.js that lets you edit family trees using an ASCII-art style interface. Unfortunately, it was last updated in Dec. 2008 and is a bit buggy. However, the output it produces is reorganized using whitespace, and intuitively makes more sense. If you try to edit the template now, for example, the symbols match up exactly with the graphical representation. (i.e. ! = downward line, ^ = upward parent line, v = downward child line, , = left side of box start, . = right side of box end, - = horizontal line, etc). Ddcc 03:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- Just letting you know, I asked Ben from the Dragonlance Nexus, and he said her father is Paladine. In that case, the template should be pretty easy to modify since there's room on either side. Ddcc 00:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sent. I don't know who's mina's father. I only read a portion of the "Meeting of the Gods" where her divinity was revealed, i don't know if it was noted. I'd put to the right of Mishakal. Sephiroth storm (talk) 12:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
- Sephiroth, I can do it, but I'm not sure who is Mishakal's father. Please email me and let me know, since I'm pretty busy and rarely check my Wikipedia watchlist. Ddcc 07:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
D&Dwiki Support Call
Hello all. From years of reading the discussions here, I know that there is a very active community of D&D players who prefer and still utilize previous editions (i.e. AD&D, 3.0, etc. etc.). We over at D&Dwiki (a D&D-wiki for all editions with over 50,000 pages and ever growing) are trying to get all the previous editions established on the site. We believe this could help bring in a new user base and provide a better service to our users. Anyways, anyone who may be willing to assist in this or in general on the site should come over and help us out. We're currently backpedaling thru 3.0 and will continue backwards in a reverse-chronological order. The more help the quicker we'll be able to serve the player base of previous editions. Also, any D&D related content that may not be suitable here should be brought to us, provided it is OGL or relevant in some way. Thanks and sorry for the ramblings. Have a great day. Hooper (talk) 04:45, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- That looks like a good place to go when I retire from here. :) (No, seriously!) Meanwhile, you can definitely start by grabbing anything which has been redirected. I doubt there are very many pages which have been hard deleted, as I have been making sure that even before I became an admin, they were restored and redirected somewhere to preserve the info under the redirect. If you need any help in locating these, just ask! BOZ (talk) 12:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- Looks like you've had some pretty horrible admin issues recently (q.v. http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/User:Daniel_Draco , http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/User_talk:Surgo , etc.). Any comment to reassure people they're not wasting their time working to someone else's agenda rather than a truly collaborative effort? Thanks, David. Harami2000 (talk) 15:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- Yes. There was a recent "split/fork." It is a very convoluted issue but I can very much reassure you that the wiki is actually doing better than ever. The split was both partly an over-stressed admin and partly very abrasive users. Those users are now gone and that admin is actually doing great (other than having to continually ban people the splinter group sends over to try to cause havoc). In short - the typical stuff you find on any wiki, but nothing that will harm the project. Hooper (talk) 20:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Suggest D&D artists cat be subcat of Fantasy artists
Hi. WOuld anyone object to my adding Category:Fantasy artists to Category:Dungeons & Dragons artists, making the latter a subcategory of the former (the cat is already a subcat of Game artists, but since D&D is surely of the fantasy genre, this seems sensible. . . LSmok3 (talk) 16:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- Be bold! (I have no objections). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:50, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- Well, having done that, I am wondering what I should do, if anything, about pages in Dungeons and Dragons artists which also carry the Fantasy artist category. Since D&D artists is now a subcategory of fantasy artists, is it sensible for pages to belong to both cats? The dilemma arises in the fact that many artists listed as D&D artists have also done work unrelated directly to D&D products, but which are still of the fantasy genre.
- What should I do? Any advice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by LSmok3 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- (note/aside, only) Not just fantasy, even if more closely associated with that, phps, thanks to EGG and subsequent received focus in later years. The majority of the original DMs/GMs had definite leanings to horror and science fantasy as well, if not outright science fiction in the case of Jon Snider. Harami2000 (talk) 19:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
- With regard to te aside, I'm sure some DMs might have emphasized more SF content, although I don'tkno of any myself there's nothing to stop anyone from doing so, I generally assume the large mass of D&D content to be essentially Tolkienesque fantasy, as it was orginally concieved in Chainmail. To make D&D artists a subcat of SF artists (which is what perhaps you were suggesting), there's need to be really good across the baodr evidence to warrant it - generally I think it's enough to add the SF artists cat to individual artist pages where they've also done SF work. . . Same goes for horror, although that more easily fits in with a broad definition of fantasy, which is after all a fairly loose concept unless conceived of in the strict Tolkien et al sense: the presence of vampires or Cthulhu-related content in D&D needn't put it outside the gamut of fantasy.
- I'm afraid I don't know what EGG is?
- Lastly, since no one's siad anything, I'll just go with my instincts and allow artist pages to carry both cats (or more) where they have done work outside the D&D fold but still of the fantasy genre. LSmok3 (talk) 13:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds cool on individual artist pages: thanks for the leg-work. :) Having had a browse through, the hierarchies a bit rough and ready at present (fantasy artists/SF artists, with game artists out on a limb, etc.) and not that well populated, so any addition interlinking and categorisation of individuals will almost inevitably improve the "bigger picture".
- EGG -> E. Gary Gygax. Oops; apols for the presumed usage!
- "...generally assume the large mass of D&D content to be essentially Tolkienesque fantasy, as it was orginally concieved in Chainmail" gets a smile, btw. Has been a long, long-running "debate" that one, despite having (as originally conceived and played) almost nothing whatsoever to do with Tolkien. I'm sure that'll run for another 30+ years, though. ;) Cheers, David. Harami2000 (talk) 14:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I've now read the D&D article's outline of some of the original sources for the game. I wasn't aware of a debate around it, it just seems natural to me to regard most post-war fantasy in the historic northern European vein as what I called 'Tolkienesque', although perhaps the more generic term historic fantasy would be more appropiate. The article cites influences I wasn't aware of, although I still think the definition of a pseudo-medieval world populated by magic, wizards, magical items (like the famous Cloak of Elven Kind), and races like elves as magical beatific woodland folk, dwarves as subterranean miners with an aversion to magic, halflings (originally Hobbits which they had to change) as dextrous and well suited to theivery (a la Baggins the Burglar), orcs as monstrous banditised humanoids (albeit green), and subterranean dwelling dragons guarding hordes of treasure as all very, well, Tolkienesque. Obviously Tolkien drew heavily from northern European folklore and mythology, but he also put it together in a certain form which I would suggest has been influential ever since. Of course, there are differences, the game is not by any means pure Tolkien. Also, I would think that although other contemporary authors are cited, many of these would have been influenced by Tolkien - and I think it was hard not to have been within the fantasy genre after him - and so Tolkien would still be an albeit indirect influence.
- Anyway, my main point was that I didn't want to subordinate the D&D artists cat to SF artists without very good reason, particularly given that D&D for the most part to my knowledge is (what I will now call) historical fantasy. (Sorry for the off topic on this page :) LSmok3 (talk) 16:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
[redent] On the topic of Tolkienesque, Gary Gygax said in several interviews that he found Lord of the Rings to be dead boring, thaat he was never able to make it to the end of the book. (Apparently he was much more of a pulp sf fan--Conan, etc.) He claimed the only reason he included Tolkienesque details such as hobbits, ents, etc., was a marketing ploy to pull LotR fans into his new game of D&D. Interestingly, Rob Kuntz--Gary's close friend a co-DM of Greyhawk for many years--was totally the opposite--he cited Tolkien's LotR as one of the major literary influences of his life.Guinness323 (talk) 22:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Can you guys take a look? Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:49, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
Book of Vile Darkness: ex-GA
This one is going to be delisted, FYI. Not much we could do about that, I suppose! GA standards were different back then... and it's unfortunate that the sources we can find for 1E stuff just don't seem to exist for anything from the past 20 years or so. :\ BOZ (talk) 13:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah; I was kind of thinking that that would happen. It's still a decent article, but not GA-quality. Why aren't there more reliable sources on these more modern things? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:09, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
- White Dwarf stopped commenting on DnD is most of it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
- And a lot of the other mags folded, which is probably the rest of it, and no one else picked it up. I suspect there was a falling out between the WD people and TSR after Gygax left, and/or they just started focuing more on Games Workshop stuff the way TSR was already focusing on TSR stuff. There may not have been much goodwill between TSR and the rest of the industry in the 2E years, and by the time WotC came around everyone was doing reviews on the internet so no one bothered much with print publications - at least, that's my wild guess. :) BOZ (talk) 15:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
- White Dwarf stopped commenting on DnD is most of it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)