Wikipedia:Peer review/Dungeons & Dragons/archive1

Dungeons & Dragons

This article was formerly nominated as a FAC and, rightfully, failed. I and several other people have worked hard to get the article whipped into shape since then. I'd like to see it nominated as a FAC again in the near future, but before doing that I want to get some feedback for a final polish. I'm particularly interested in getting some outside eyes on it: If you don't know anything (or very little) about D&D, is the article's presentation of the subject clear and informative? Thanks. Justin Bacon 04:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly, in the player's handbook it says that you cannot use the character sheet for commercial purposes, so I'm not sure you can really use this image in wikipedia. Also, can't you get a picture of the book cover of one of the recent editions?
- Note that there are now v3.5 cover scans on the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual pages. — RJH 15:28, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Can you link to the BBC news report quoting the figure for book sales in 2004?
I think the Eye of the beholder series of games for PC and SNES was popular enough during the 90s to deserve a mention in the computer and videogames section of the article. It would also fill up nicely the 10-year gap you have between titles.
The criticism section should be expanded considerably, including approppriate references and other mentions by the media.
Wizards of the Coast has been criticised for publishing dozens of supplementary books that are said to add little or nothing to game play. Maybe you should include this as well if you find a proper reference.
- Actually I believe that a lot of the quality-related criticism was generated back in the TSR days, when some of their publications were complete tripe. WotC has done quite a bit better, although not always. They have also been criticized for dividing up their new game material (such as spells) across multiple supplements, making it difficult to reference a single source for material. — RJH 14:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - Oh yes, you're quite right. I was mixing up the two things. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 15:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The use of inline references would do a lot of good to this article.
I'd re-read the feedback by User:BanyanTree in the previous FAC nomination.

-- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 12:55, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The specific prohibition no longer exists (and never existed for the version of the character sheet currently on the page), AFAIK. And, while commercial use is not authorized by WotC, I think this use (particularly in an illegible and unusable form) falls well within fair use.
The BBC article is linked to in the "References" section.
The Eye of the Beholder games were part of the SSI line, which is already discussed in the article. But I'll expand the discussion of the games to show a clearer history of D&D computer games.
The criticism section is in summary form and links to the more substantive discussion in a more appropriate article.
The supplement criticism belonged largely to the 2nd Edition. I'll see if a mention can be worked smoothly into the article somewhere.
Much of BanyanTree's feedback in the FAC can't be addressed because they're based on false premises: For example, 2nd Edition never saw a notable decline in market share (except in those few months where TSR was near-bankrupt and the game wasn't being produced). TSR's bankruptcy was triggered by massive returns in their novel division, not due to arguable mismanagement of the D&D brand. And so forth. I'll see what can be salvaged from the rest.

Thanks for the feedback. Justin Bacon 15:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the lead needs work, it is overly burdened with jargon and bogged down in ownership history, and a bit sensationalist linking it to bizzare criticisms when those criticisms of the product warrant only a small mention at the end of the article. The paragraph in the lead describing what a RPG is is also unnecessary. The lead should be a summary of the articles content, and it should definately metntion d20 since that is why third ed has been so popular.

The campaign settings section should be clear so that the reader understands that it is only about campaign settings that are up to date with 3.5, and not those from earlier editions. This section doesn't mention that all core books use Greyhawk as the "default" setting. In the related products section there is no point having ===h3=== headings for sections that are one or two sentences, they make the TOC long, I'd suggest rolling magazies, comics and novels into one section and calling it literary spinoff's or something like that. It could probably mention that the first film was notoriously bad, and a sentence of two describing that cartoon and films in more detail couldn't hurt.--nixie 02:06, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. I'd like to ask a couple of quick clarifying questions:

'Lead': I'm not sure what you mean by ownership history or jargon in the lead, could you explain? Do you feel that an article on D&D should not describe the nature of the game, or do you just feel that this section of the article should not be summarized in the lead? I'll also comment here that I think you've got the relationship between D&D and d20 System inverted; the latter is popular because of the former, not vice versa.
'Campaign Settings': Good point on the Greyhawk-as-core-default. I'm not clear on what you mean by "should be clear that the reader understands that it is only about campaign settings that are up to date with 3.5". The section is not, in fact, limited to campaign settings that are up to date with 3.5; and the section specifically mentions the only campaign settings actively supported by WotC are currently Forgotten Realms and Eberron. What exactly are you looking for here?
I agree that the magazines and comics sections need expansion, but it would definitely be inappropriate to roll magazines into a "literary spinoff" section, IMO. Neither of those magazines is literary. Justin Bacon 03:03, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]