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. |
Archive 25 | ← | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | → | Archive 35 |
This discussion may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 204.153.84.10 ( talk) 14:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I have expanded the article on Frank Mentzer and added additional sources. Can someone look it over and see if the citations tag can be removed? Guinness323 ( talk) 19:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
The two threads immediately above this one give me hope for a better tomorrow. ;) I've been wanting to get back into improving some of our articles, and there's no time like the present.
For one thing, I was thinking of getting the Ravenloft (module) article up as TFA for the month of October, much like I did with with Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in July. I'll work up a blurb soon, maybe even today.
I also want to get back into improving articles. The best sourcing we have available has proven to be on D&D publications, particularly adventure modules, so I want to continue to focus on that. I'm going to try to come up with a more comprehensive plan soon, but I just want to get that idea out there. To that end, I came up with a list of gaming magazine reviews that we can try to track down to build up the articles we want to improve.
I have the day off, so we'll see what kind of free time I can make use of. :) BOZ ( talk) 14:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to get working on some article improvements again, soon. First though, I'd like to do the (in some ways) easier thing and work on getting the Raveloft module article to the front page. :) I started working on a blurb, so I will post later today. BOZ ( talk) 19:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Ravenloft is an adventure module written by Tracy Hickman (pictured) and Laura Hickman for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. TSR, Inc. released it as a standalone adventure booklet in 1983, including art by Clyde Caldwell with maps by David Sutherland III. The plot of Ravenloft focuses on the villain Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire who pines for his lost love. Various story elements, including Strahd's motivation and the locations of certain items, are randomly determined by drawing cards. The player characters attempt to defeat Strahd and, if successful, the adventure ends. The Hickmans began work on Ravenloft in the late 1970s, intent on creating a frightening portrait of a vampire in a setting that combined Gothic horror with the D&D game system. Strahd has since appeared in a number of D&D accessories and novels. The module inspired numerous revisions and adaptations, including a campaign setting of the same name and a sequel. In 1999, on the 25th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, two commemorative versions of Ravenloft were released. Ravenloft won the 1984 Strategists' Club Award for Outstanding Play Aid, and appeared second in Dungeon magazine's list of the top 30 D&D adventures. ( more...)
One of our main computer programs went down for about a half hour today, so I used that time to get a jump-start on getting my research together. :) I may post it tonight! I also added the Ravenloft nomination for TFA. BOZ ( talk) 01:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
Just to let everyone know I have just nominated Grimlock (Dungeons & Dragons) for deletion. J Milburn ( talk) 14:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I have rewritten the article to explaain antecedents and how it was developed over four editions. I removed the "in-universe" tag as a result. There is still material to be expanded upon:
Guinness323 ( talk) 21:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
A merge discussion is taking place regarding articles about Forgotten Realms deities here. Your participation in the discussion would be greatly appreciated. Neelix ( talk) 13:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
More deletionism at work, this time at the commons:
Includes a couple of Faerun maps. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure how to defend this one, although some of the details in the Maps section may be applicable. Here's the policy:
— RJH ( talk) 21:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
New, relevant AfD. Jclemens ( talk) 02:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
RfC: There's a proposed guideline for determining which classes to include in the Template:D&D character classes, join the discussion at Template talk:D&D character classes. Fixblor ( talk) 16:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick ( talk) 20:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
I found this, and I was just wondering. Obviously, nothing for WP:V, but maybe just a nudge for WP:NOTE? 108.69.80.49 ( talk) 17:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
World of Greyhawk timeline is up for deletion at AfD. I've no real clue if it's saveable, but if it is I figured BOZ and some others here are the only ones who could manage it... Hobit ( talk) 04:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Hey there- I was notified when this article was deleted; a new user, Whisperfoot ( talk · contribs), was working on the article and it has been restored to Whisperfoot's sandbox. I suspect there will be some people here who would be happy to help Whisperfoot out- if there are, please go ahead and perhaps let him know. Thanks. J Milburn ( talk) 22:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to request a reference or references demonstrating the notability of all 59 individual Fighting fantasy gamebooks. There is currently an AFd taking place [ [1]] and it would be helpful if one could be found. Thanks. Szzuk ( talk) 20:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm going to be doing a lot of work on WP:D&D articles in March, and I was wondering if there were any articles that are currently good article nominees, or which could be nominated in the near future? I'd gladly review the nominations as part of my upcoming efforts. For example, is Gen Con ready for another go? It's been two years since its last review. — Torchiest talk edits 00:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Board_and_table_games#Biographies and people in categories
I am hoping to build guidelines for notability criteria for what makes someone notable in the games field i.e. Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Curling. Especially games players that I feel needs to have a section similar to the sports and athletes. An example of a question that has just arisen is does winning the first scrabble world championship count as just WP:Oneevent. Combined contribution issues also need defining.
The other conversation is do we want to have category inclusion criteria does a certain threshold need to be met before we add someone to Category:Chess players. Should Ben Afleck count as a poker player? Tetron76 ( talk) 15:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
I am trying to beef up this article but I am having trouble finding any biographical info about Holian, which is surprising, given Holian's high profile at WotC while resurrecting Greyhawk in the late 1990s. If anyone has any books or magazine articles that give even a sketch outline of Holian--or even mention Holian--please point me at them. Guinness323 ( talk) 16:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Aren't character categories like Category:Forgotten Realms characters, Category:Ravenloft characters and the other categories only meant for actual articles and no redirects? Just wanted to check before I remove any of them, otherwise it could be tedious to re-add them. Harry Blue5 ( talk • contribs) 22:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I moved the page yesterday from E. Gary to just plain Gary, which is what everyone called him and what he wrote under for his last twenty years. I noticed the page doesn't contain a works section. Since his fame is as an author/designer, a list of works would be the place I might have started new EGG space. I was wondering BOZ or another regular could whip up a selected bibliography for the Gary Gygax page. I'll bet somebody here could do it faster and better than I. If nobody else does, I'll take a whack at it when I get time. BusterD ( talk) 12:06, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
An article related to this project has been nominated for deletion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lamia (Dungeons & Dragons) Active Banana (bananaphone 23:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
Just thought I'd let you all know that I've proposed merging Variant Dungeons & Dragons games into Dungeons & Dragons simulacrums. I'd appreciate any input. zorblek ( talk) 06:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I figured this would be the first place to start a discussion.
During a request for sources from BOZ on ENWorld, I discovered that there are a lot of D&D articles that seem to be placeholders. Now, a lot of people have done some very good work on major articles, and I see a lot of excellent work on sources and the like, but I think I see a big problem with some of these articles. I am concerned that there's a lot of articles that aren't deserving of a full seperate article on Wikipedia. I proposed, for instance, the Medusa entry for deletion because of the following reasons. It is not significantly different from the mythological creature in any major way, and the article itself can't be more than a stub, unlike other articles about major monsters.
Simply put, I do not think that every single D&D monster deserves its own separate article on Wikipedia. Precedent has been set because of the guidelines made for Videogames, which have suggested that details like weapons and vehicles should not have their own entries on Wikipedia. Also, in recent years major in-universe descriptions have moved off of Wikipedia to their own entries on Wikia, for instance. Before I go making any additional reviews of articles, I would like to discuss with this community (and the others, such as the RPG project and the Fiction project), on what the limits should be in this coverage. I would not define myself as a "deletionist", but I would like to see more quality and less quantity.
What should the criteria be for individual articles? I agree coverage of game products themselves is a good idea--I don't mind seeing every supplement have a listing, since it's an existing game/literary product. However, my own personal tolerance would be to avoid having individual articles for every monster and every magic item or spell. I'm not sure if the latter are defined, but clearly there seems to be an overabundance of articles of monsters, which are mostly stubs and probably would be better reproduced in larger articles as lists. JRT ( talk) 19:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Not sure exactly how we want to do it, but I took a stab at it. I redirected Chimera (Dungeons & Dragons) to List of Dungeons & Dragons monsters (1974–1976) (and delinked it there but no where else). Not sure if that's the best target, but it's where it first appeared. I changed the class at Talk:Chimera (Dungeons & Dragons) to "Redirect", which helps us keep track in some way (forget how). - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) 15:40, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
OK, I've been talking about getting back to article improvement, and here we go. Naturally, we want to keep our Featured Articles in top shape, and keep working on our Good Articles to make them better, especially those which might one day become FA's, such as Against the Giants or Tomb of Horrors. As we've found by working on other articles, we can get just about any type up to GA or better, but the ones we've had the most far and away success with are the publications, particularly adventure modules. So, it makes sense to me to stick with that as our focus, and do other types of articles when we can.
The best thing to look for, of course, is independent sourcing. There should a few print sources out there, especially older ones, and I'd love to hear about any more. For one thing, our WikiProject has its own References page. From there, Dicing with Dragons is a book that covers everything written for D&D and other games up through the early 80s. From the online preview I've seen, it looks like the book doesn't really cover anything in too much detail, but we might as well use the hell out of anything we've got. ;) Heroic Worlds is purported to be a much better source, although there is no online preview. I'm tempted to track down a copy for myself, but I'm perpetually low on funds.
Anything printed by TSR/WotC about the game in retrospect is good to enhance an article, even though it doesn't necessarily help at all with notability. Dungeon Master for Dummies (not published by WotC, but written by their designers) and Dungeon #116 had lists of the best classic adventures, and some commentary about them, and this has been added to quite a few articles already. I think that 30 Years of Adventure mentioned a few publications, so that is good too.
We need to track down more useable online sources as well. RPGnet would be nice, except I have seen them shot down too many times as being unreliable. We found a nice series of articles in Wired magazine by Ken Denmead about the "Top 10 D&D Modules I Found in Storage This Weekend", which turned out to be very useful. There's got to be more out there on this wonderful world wide web. Some specific books get featured or mentioned here and there, so keep a Googley-eye out.
Probably the best place we've had a lot of luck is with reviews in old gaming magazines. I came up with a list of gaming magazine reviews that we can try to track down to build up the articles we want to improve. White Dwarf covered almost the entire first edition era while it was still doing independent reviews. The Space Gamer cast almost as wide of a net (and even went further back to the pre-first edition days), and like Different Worlds covered the majority of the first edition era, but neither magazine had as many reviews as White Dwarf; Space Gamer included other associated titles such as Fantasy Gamer, and The V.I.P. of Gaming magazine. White Wolf magazine picked up at the tail end of first edition, and went nearly into the mid-1990s, covering the second edition era well with dozens of product reviews. Pyramid and Shadis picked up around this point, and although Shadis did not do reviews for very long, it did feature some retro reviews as well. I don't know if any gaming magazines continued to do product reviews by the time Wizards of the Coast bought TSR; I understand that Pyramid continued to be produced online, and has done reviews on occasion. And of course, Dragon did product reviews on D&D too, which we can use sparingly.
Below, I've started to come up with a list, by book, of all the known sources available for some of our below-GA articles which have at least two known sources. Some of these articles currently cite these sources, but in many cases they do not. Many of those which do not currently cite Dicing with Dragons, Heroic Worlds, and other sources, probably should, but I ranked these by how many of the following sources are used (or mentioned) in the article currently. I used the following codes:
DwD – Dicing with Dragons; HW – Heroic Worlds; DMfD – Dungeon Master for Dummies; Dng116 – Dungeon magazine #116; 30Yrs – 30 Years of Adventure; Wired – Wired; Dragon# - Dragon magazine; Adv# - Adventurer; Arc# - Arcane; Cha# - Challenge; DW# - Different Worlds; FG# - Fantasy Gamer; Pyr# - Pyramid; Sha# - Shadis; TSG# - The Space Gamer; VIP# - VIP of Gaming; WD# - White Dwarf; WW# - White Wolf
* Bloodstone Pass - HW, VIP2
Now, you ask, what should we be working on? Well, all of them! :) Obviously, the ones with the most refs have the most potential to move forward, on to GA at the very least. Nearly everything on this list meets the bare minimum threshold for notability, so why not nurture and improve the ones at the bottom of the list, even if they may never make it to GA? The main task is to find sources. I'll add what I can, although my resources are limited. If you've been around, you know what I'm capable of when I have the time and energy to get to it. :) BOZ ( talk) 02:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
I also started a related thread on ENWorld. BOZ ( talk) 02:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
One of the posters from ENWorld shared the reviews from Space Gamer #35, which include The Village of Hommlet, Slave Pits of the Undercity, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits! I shall be adding these to the articles as soon as possible. :) BOZ ( talk) 15:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Decided to go to my local public library today, and I found out that they have a copy of Heroic Worlds! :) God, if only I had the hours and hours it would take to truly utilize this entire book... if only I hadn't lost my library card! ;) It truly does have a reference to every single RPG book (as far as I know) published up to the 1991 publication date of the book. Most such references are in the form of a short paragraph, but some are only a sentence or two. Many of these entries merely describe the product and its contents, but some do provide actual commentary that can be used for the Reception section. While I'm here, as time permits, I'll try to add as much as I can to as many articles as possible. Need to do some other things first. BOZ ( talk) 00:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Going to add a couple of reviews hopefully tonight - been busy for a while. :) Hopefully people will help me come up with more magazine reviews in the not-too-distant future. BOZ ( talk) 02:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
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. |
Archive 25 | ← | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | → | Archive 35 |
This discussion may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 204.153.84.10 ( talk) 14:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I have expanded the article on Frank Mentzer and added additional sources. Can someone look it over and see if the citations tag can be removed? Guinness323 ( talk) 19:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
The two threads immediately above this one give me hope for a better tomorrow. ;) I've been wanting to get back into improving some of our articles, and there's no time like the present.
For one thing, I was thinking of getting the Ravenloft (module) article up as TFA for the month of October, much like I did with with Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in July. I'll work up a blurb soon, maybe even today.
I also want to get back into improving articles. The best sourcing we have available has proven to be on D&D publications, particularly adventure modules, so I want to continue to focus on that. I'm going to try to come up with a more comprehensive plan soon, but I just want to get that idea out there. To that end, I came up with a list of gaming magazine reviews that we can try to track down to build up the articles we want to improve.
I have the day off, so we'll see what kind of free time I can make use of. :) BOZ ( talk) 14:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to get working on some article improvements again, soon. First though, I'd like to do the (in some ways) easier thing and work on getting the Raveloft module article to the front page. :) I started working on a blurb, so I will post later today. BOZ ( talk) 19:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Ravenloft is an adventure module written by Tracy Hickman (pictured) and Laura Hickman for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. TSR, Inc. released it as a standalone adventure booklet in 1983, including art by Clyde Caldwell with maps by David Sutherland III. The plot of Ravenloft focuses on the villain Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire who pines for his lost love. Various story elements, including Strahd's motivation and the locations of certain items, are randomly determined by drawing cards. The player characters attempt to defeat Strahd and, if successful, the adventure ends. The Hickmans began work on Ravenloft in the late 1970s, intent on creating a frightening portrait of a vampire in a setting that combined Gothic horror with the D&D game system. Strahd has since appeared in a number of D&D accessories and novels. The module inspired numerous revisions and adaptations, including a campaign setting of the same name and a sequel. In 1999, on the 25th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, two commemorative versions of Ravenloft were released. Ravenloft won the 1984 Strategists' Club Award for Outstanding Play Aid, and appeared second in Dungeon magazine's list of the top 30 D&D adventures. ( more...)
One of our main computer programs went down for about a half hour today, so I used that time to get a jump-start on getting my research together. :) I may post it tonight! I also added the Ravenloft nomination for TFA. BOZ ( talk) 01:02, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
Just to let everyone know I have just nominated Grimlock (Dungeons & Dragons) for deletion. J Milburn ( talk) 14:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I have rewritten the article to explaain antecedents and how it was developed over four editions. I removed the "in-universe" tag as a result. There is still material to be expanded upon:
Guinness323 ( talk) 21:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
A merge discussion is taking place regarding articles about Forgotten Realms deities here. Your participation in the discussion would be greatly appreciated. Neelix ( talk) 13:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
More deletionism at work, this time at the commons:
Includes a couple of Faerun maps. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure how to defend this one, although some of the details in the Maps section may be applicable. Here's the policy:
— RJH ( talk) 21:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
New, relevant AfD. Jclemens ( talk) 02:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
RfC: There's a proposed guideline for determining which classes to include in the Template:D&D character classes, join the discussion at Template talk:D&D character classes. Fixblor ( talk) 16:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick ( talk) 20:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
I found this, and I was just wondering. Obviously, nothing for WP:V, but maybe just a nudge for WP:NOTE? 108.69.80.49 ( talk) 17:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
World of Greyhawk timeline is up for deletion at AfD. I've no real clue if it's saveable, but if it is I figured BOZ and some others here are the only ones who could manage it... Hobit ( talk) 04:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Hey there- I was notified when this article was deleted; a new user, Whisperfoot ( talk · contribs), was working on the article and it has been restored to Whisperfoot's sandbox. I suspect there will be some people here who would be happy to help Whisperfoot out- if there are, please go ahead and perhaps let him know. Thanks. J Milburn ( talk) 22:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to request a reference or references demonstrating the notability of all 59 individual Fighting fantasy gamebooks. There is currently an AFd taking place [ [1]] and it would be helpful if one could be found. Thanks. Szzuk ( talk) 20:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm going to be doing a lot of work on WP:D&D articles in March, and I was wondering if there were any articles that are currently good article nominees, or which could be nominated in the near future? I'd gladly review the nominations as part of my upcoming efforts. For example, is Gen Con ready for another go? It's been two years since its last review. — Torchiest talk edits 00:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Board_and_table_games#Biographies and people in categories
I am hoping to build guidelines for notability criteria for what makes someone notable in the games field i.e. Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Curling. Especially games players that I feel needs to have a section similar to the sports and athletes. An example of a question that has just arisen is does winning the first scrabble world championship count as just WP:Oneevent. Combined contribution issues also need defining.
The other conversation is do we want to have category inclusion criteria does a certain threshold need to be met before we add someone to Category:Chess players. Should Ben Afleck count as a poker player? Tetron76 ( talk) 15:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
I am trying to beef up this article but I am having trouble finding any biographical info about Holian, which is surprising, given Holian's high profile at WotC while resurrecting Greyhawk in the late 1990s. If anyone has any books or magazine articles that give even a sketch outline of Holian--or even mention Holian--please point me at them. Guinness323 ( talk) 16:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Aren't character categories like Category:Forgotten Realms characters, Category:Ravenloft characters and the other categories only meant for actual articles and no redirects? Just wanted to check before I remove any of them, otherwise it could be tedious to re-add them. Harry Blue5 ( talk • contribs) 22:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I moved the page yesterday from E. Gary to just plain Gary, which is what everyone called him and what he wrote under for his last twenty years. I noticed the page doesn't contain a works section. Since his fame is as an author/designer, a list of works would be the place I might have started new EGG space. I was wondering BOZ or another regular could whip up a selected bibliography for the Gary Gygax page. I'll bet somebody here could do it faster and better than I. If nobody else does, I'll take a whack at it when I get time. BusterD ( talk) 12:06, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
An article related to this project has been nominated for deletion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lamia (Dungeons & Dragons) Active Banana (bananaphone 23:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
Just thought I'd let you all know that I've proposed merging Variant Dungeons & Dragons games into Dungeons & Dragons simulacrums. I'd appreciate any input. zorblek ( talk) 06:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I figured this would be the first place to start a discussion.
During a request for sources from BOZ on ENWorld, I discovered that there are a lot of D&D articles that seem to be placeholders. Now, a lot of people have done some very good work on major articles, and I see a lot of excellent work on sources and the like, but I think I see a big problem with some of these articles. I am concerned that there's a lot of articles that aren't deserving of a full seperate article on Wikipedia. I proposed, for instance, the Medusa entry for deletion because of the following reasons. It is not significantly different from the mythological creature in any major way, and the article itself can't be more than a stub, unlike other articles about major monsters.
Simply put, I do not think that every single D&D monster deserves its own separate article on Wikipedia. Precedent has been set because of the guidelines made for Videogames, which have suggested that details like weapons and vehicles should not have their own entries on Wikipedia. Also, in recent years major in-universe descriptions have moved off of Wikipedia to their own entries on Wikia, for instance. Before I go making any additional reviews of articles, I would like to discuss with this community (and the others, such as the RPG project and the Fiction project), on what the limits should be in this coverage. I would not define myself as a "deletionist", but I would like to see more quality and less quantity.
What should the criteria be for individual articles? I agree coverage of game products themselves is a good idea--I don't mind seeing every supplement have a listing, since it's an existing game/literary product. However, my own personal tolerance would be to avoid having individual articles for every monster and every magic item or spell. I'm not sure if the latter are defined, but clearly there seems to be an overabundance of articles of monsters, which are mostly stubs and probably would be better reproduced in larger articles as lists. JRT ( talk) 19:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Not sure exactly how we want to do it, but I took a stab at it. I redirected Chimera (Dungeons & Dragons) to List of Dungeons & Dragons monsters (1974–1976) (and delinked it there but no where else). Not sure if that's the best target, but it's where it first appeared. I changed the class at Talk:Chimera (Dungeons & Dragons) to "Redirect", which helps us keep track in some way (forget how). - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) 15:40, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
OK, I've been talking about getting back to article improvement, and here we go. Naturally, we want to keep our Featured Articles in top shape, and keep working on our Good Articles to make them better, especially those which might one day become FA's, such as Against the Giants or Tomb of Horrors. As we've found by working on other articles, we can get just about any type up to GA or better, but the ones we've had the most far and away success with are the publications, particularly adventure modules. So, it makes sense to me to stick with that as our focus, and do other types of articles when we can.
The best thing to look for, of course, is independent sourcing. There should a few print sources out there, especially older ones, and I'd love to hear about any more. For one thing, our WikiProject has its own References page. From there, Dicing with Dragons is a book that covers everything written for D&D and other games up through the early 80s. From the online preview I've seen, it looks like the book doesn't really cover anything in too much detail, but we might as well use the hell out of anything we've got. ;) Heroic Worlds is purported to be a much better source, although there is no online preview. I'm tempted to track down a copy for myself, but I'm perpetually low on funds.
Anything printed by TSR/WotC about the game in retrospect is good to enhance an article, even though it doesn't necessarily help at all with notability. Dungeon Master for Dummies (not published by WotC, but written by their designers) and Dungeon #116 had lists of the best classic adventures, and some commentary about them, and this has been added to quite a few articles already. I think that 30 Years of Adventure mentioned a few publications, so that is good too.
We need to track down more useable online sources as well. RPGnet would be nice, except I have seen them shot down too many times as being unreliable. We found a nice series of articles in Wired magazine by Ken Denmead about the "Top 10 D&D Modules I Found in Storage This Weekend", which turned out to be very useful. There's got to be more out there on this wonderful world wide web. Some specific books get featured or mentioned here and there, so keep a Googley-eye out.
Probably the best place we've had a lot of luck is with reviews in old gaming magazines. I came up with a list of gaming magazine reviews that we can try to track down to build up the articles we want to improve. White Dwarf covered almost the entire first edition era while it was still doing independent reviews. The Space Gamer cast almost as wide of a net (and even went further back to the pre-first edition days), and like Different Worlds covered the majority of the first edition era, but neither magazine had as many reviews as White Dwarf; Space Gamer included other associated titles such as Fantasy Gamer, and The V.I.P. of Gaming magazine. White Wolf magazine picked up at the tail end of first edition, and went nearly into the mid-1990s, covering the second edition era well with dozens of product reviews. Pyramid and Shadis picked up around this point, and although Shadis did not do reviews for very long, it did feature some retro reviews as well. I don't know if any gaming magazines continued to do product reviews by the time Wizards of the Coast bought TSR; I understand that Pyramid continued to be produced online, and has done reviews on occasion. And of course, Dragon did product reviews on D&D too, which we can use sparingly.
Below, I've started to come up with a list, by book, of all the known sources available for some of our below-GA articles which have at least two known sources. Some of these articles currently cite these sources, but in many cases they do not. Many of those which do not currently cite Dicing with Dragons, Heroic Worlds, and other sources, probably should, but I ranked these by how many of the following sources are used (or mentioned) in the article currently. I used the following codes:
DwD – Dicing with Dragons; HW – Heroic Worlds; DMfD – Dungeon Master for Dummies; Dng116 – Dungeon magazine #116; 30Yrs – 30 Years of Adventure; Wired – Wired; Dragon# - Dragon magazine; Adv# - Adventurer; Arc# - Arcane; Cha# - Challenge; DW# - Different Worlds; FG# - Fantasy Gamer; Pyr# - Pyramid; Sha# - Shadis; TSG# - The Space Gamer; VIP# - VIP of Gaming; WD# - White Dwarf; WW# - White Wolf
* Bloodstone Pass - HW, VIP2
Now, you ask, what should we be working on? Well, all of them! :) Obviously, the ones with the most refs have the most potential to move forward, on to GA at the very least. Nearly everything on this list meets the bare minimum threshold for notability, so why not nurture and improve the ones at the bottom of the list, even if they may never make it to GA? The main task is to find sources. I'll add what I can, although my resources are limited. If you've been around, you know what I'm capable of when I have the time and energy to get to it. :) BOZ ( talk) 02:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
I also started a related thread on ENWorld. BOZ ( talk) 02:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
One of the posters from ENWorld shared the reviews from Space Gamer #35, which include The Village of Hommlet, Slave Pits of the Undercity, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits! I shall be adding these to the articles as soon as possible. :) BOZ ( talk) 15:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Decided to go to my local public library today, and I found out that they have a copy of Heroic Worlds! :) God, if only I had the hours and hours it would take to truly utilize this entire book... if only I hadn't lost my library card! ;) It truly does have a reference to every single RPG book (as far as I know) published up to the 1991 publication date of the book. Most such references are in the form of a short paragraph, but some are only a sentence or two. Many of these entries merely describe the product and its contents, but some do provide actual commentary that can be used for the Reception section. While I'm here, as time permits, I'll try to add as much as I can to as many articles as possible. Need to do some other things first. BOZ ( talk) 00:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Going to add a couple of reviews hopefully tonight - been busy for a while. :) Hopefully people will help me come up with more magazine reviews in the not-too-distant future. BOZ ( talk) 02:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)