Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/reviews list

Imagine and Dragon
What about Imagine and Dragon? Are these considered unreliable, having been in-house magazines? I noticed that reviews from Dragon are used for some module entries.Drow69 (talk) 11:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there! :)   They're not unreliable at all, but it is true that they add little or nothing as far as notability goes.  I don't know any information about reviews for D&D products from Imagine so I'd love to hear more about that.  Dragon reviews have been added to a lot of articles about D&D products, but I have a feeling there are still a lot more to be done. BOZ (talk) 14:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Since I have nothing better to do - I did a quick browse & here is the list of all Imagine reviews of (A)D&D products, isuses 1-30 (or rather 30-1), i.e. the whole run. There were no relevant reviews in issues 1 and 2. Issue 30 Issue 29 Issue 28 Issue 27 Issue 26 Issue 25 Issue 24 Issue 21 Issue 20 Issue 19 Issue 17 Issue 16 Issue 15 Issue 14 Issue 12 Issue 07 Issue 05 Issue 04 Issue 03
 * The Bane of Lewelyn
 * Journey to the Rock
 * Dragons of Ice
 * Battlesystem
 * Blade of Vengeance
 * Drums on Fire Mt
 * The Book of Marvelous Magic
 * AD&D Dungeon Master’s Screen (rev)
 * The Lost Island of Castanamir
 * Dragons of Mystery
 * Quest for a King
 * All that glitters
 * Dragons of Hope
 * Dragons of Desolation
 * Midnight at dagger alley
 * Eye of the Serpent
 * Conan against darkness
 * Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure
 * Dragons of Flame
 * When a star falls
 * Conan the Barbarian (Unchained)
 * Temple of Death
 * Uk2
 * Uk3
 * WoG (revised, boxed set)
 * DL1
 * The Gem and the staff
 * Maze of the Riddling Minotaur
 * Shady Dragon Inn
 * Expert Set(Revised)
 * AC2 Combat Shield
 * The Assassin’S Knot
 * Lost Tomb of Martek
 * Horror on the Hill
 * Monster Manual 2
 * D&D Basic
 * Dungeonland
 * Master of the Desert Nomads
 * UK1
 * M1 Blizzard Pass
 * I2 Oasis
 * I4 Tomb of the LK
 * I3
 * U2
 * N1
 * X3 Curse of Xanathon

Drow69 (talk) 17:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh wow, and most of those need reviews, too! Do you have these mags? If not, I can try to see if I can track down copies. I think they need to be added, even if they don't really add to notability. BOZ (talk) 19:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I have some hard copies and pdfs of all of them. Why don't you select a top-ten out of these and I'll start to add the reviews to the respective pages. Some of these, like the Dragonlance modules, probably don't need any additional reviews. Drow69 (talk) 21:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll have to disagree - we should take whatever we can get. :)  The more reviews the better! Do you have PDFs of every issue? Would you be able to share the reviews? I'll take a look when I have a bit of time and try to figure out what we need the most. BOZ (talk) 22:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I do have the whole set of pdfs, but I don't think I have any software with which I can extract individual pages from them...so if I have the time I'll start adding some of the stuff to the respective WP pages.Drow69 (talk) 09:39, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Are the PDFs OCR? If so, you could copy and past the text into e-mails and I could help out. If not, I'll take a look and see where we need work the most. BOZ (talk) 12:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

No, they were scanned as pictures... I just did N1 as a test.Drow69 (talk) 17:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent work! Although we could use these reviews on any of the articles you listed above, I think the priority files most in need are the ones that currently have no reviews at all: B5 Horror on the Hill, AC1 The Shady Dragon Inn, AC2 Combat Shield and Mini-adventure, MSOLO2 Maze of the Riddling Minotaur, UK6 Eye of the Serpent, CB2 Conan Against Darkness!, UK6 All That Glitters..., Dungeon Master's Screen, C3 The Lost Island of Castanamir, O2 Blade of Vengeance, AC4 The Book of Marvelous Magic, C5 The Bane of Llywelyn, and B8 Journey to the Rock.

DL6 Dragons of Ice also needs a review; let me know when you want to do that one and I can restore the article first.

I don't recognize "Quest for a King" from issue 28? Keep up the good work! BOZ (talk) 18:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

It's actually C4 To Find a King, they seem to have got the name wrong... Drow69 (talk) 16:56, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting... I wonder if it had a different name in the UK or if that is just a mistake with the name. Either way, as long as you can identify what it really is then we're OK.  Well, add To Find a King to the priority list of modules that don't yet have a review. BOZ (talk) 18:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Great work! Glad to see all these articles finally get a review after years of having little or nothing in the way of sourcing. If you want to do Dragons of Ice, I think the best place to start from is to restore the article from this diff and then go for it. I can do that if you are not comfortable restoring it yourself; that's not a problem. BOZ (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

So I gather that you do not support the past decision to merge these into the Dragonlance entry...Personally, I think it is stupid to have some DL modules on individual pages but not others. -> I'll add the review to the restored version when I get a chance. Drow69 (talk) 11:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It's true that I don't support this merge, because I think they can all stand on their own. But rather than provoke the user who merged them in the first place to try to delete them, I'm leaving them merged for now until we can get reviews... and since you've got one for Dragons of Ice, I'm going to restore that one at least. BOZ (talk) 11:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, you got all of those. :) I just noticed that the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set doesn't have any reviews; I don't know if you want to start a separate reception section, or just put your notes under the "1983" heading? Actually, you might as well have a separate section since it looks like there are other reviews that need to be added eventually. Also the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set also has some reviews listed, but none of them are actually in the article yet. BOZ (talk) 23:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC) Hmm, it might make more sense to have a separate heading - and then put reviews of all the versions there. That way, the article will be more structured. Drow69 (talk) 14:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that makes sense. BOZ (talk) 15:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Were you able to make use of the review for the Expert Set? BOZ (talk) 17:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I tried to, but that Imagine issue was about Egyptian culture in D&D and I got stuck reading :-) Drow69 (talk) 18:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hah, totally understandable! :) BOZ (talk) 19:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Now that all the ones which had no reviews at all are taken care of, if you want my further suggestion on priority, the following articles have only one review in the reception section, so they could certainly use an additional one: X3 Curse of Xanathon, I2 Tomb of the Lizard King, X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, O1 The Gem and the Staff, UK3 The Gauntlet, UK2 The Sentinel, CB1 Conan Unchained!, UK4 When a Star Falls, WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, MV1 Midnight on Dagger Alley, DL4 Dragons of Desolation, DL3 Dragons of Hope, DL5 Dragons of Mystery BOZ (talk) 19:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do...as I mentioned, it is difficult looking into these old mags without getting stuck reading something :-). I should have a chance tonight (European time) to do one or two of these. Ah, Dragons of Mystery...the negative review by Staplehurst notwithstanding, I think that one convinced me to actually play the DL series way back then... Drow69 (talk) 07:52, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hah, no worries, take your time. :)  At this point, all the ones we are dealing with are not in any particular danger and just need to be built up a bit. BOZ (talk) 12:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, how's it going? :) BOZ (talk) 13:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, still here. I had a lot of other stuff to do, both professionally and privately - but I should be able to move ahead with the reviews next weekend.Drow69 (talk) 13:53, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, that may have been premature. Caught a trojan last night on my pc at home, so there may be some delay. :-( Drow69 (talk) 09:06, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh shoot, hope you recover from that quickly! BOZ (talk) 11:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, a question...according to these guys at TSR UK, the module codings had the following meanings: L - low level, N - novice players, I - intermediate level, S - special ("generally high level and deadly"), EX - "designed to be dropped into the DM's own dungeon" (apart from the obvious B, X, WG and C codes). Should this be included somewhere? I put the article reference on the 'When a Star Falls' page... Drow69 (talk) 16:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not able to look at it at the moment, but this page should have explanations for a lot of the module codes. I'll try to remember to review it over the weekend. BOZ (talk) 16:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Great going, today! :) Looks like what you have left is issue #5, #12, #20, and Battlesystem from #30. Awesome! BOZ (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Great progress! :) Not much left to go now! BOZ (talk) 20:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * All done! :) Great deal. BOZ (talk) 21:31, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I also found an old book on FRPGs on one of my more remote book shelves. It lists all of the old modules (ca. pre-1983). However, since it simply is a list of all the modules that existed at the time, it does not really bestow any notability on individual publications. And unlike in that book by Schick, the author does not really comment on the modules much. However, there is an interview with Gary Gygax from 1983 in there from which some info might be extracted...when I get a chance. Drow69 (talk) 10:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool, sounds good! :) I have already gone through Schick's book pretty thoroughly for books and modules, but there were some quotations and stories that might be worth going back for one day. BOZ (talk) 11:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Completed
OK, I recently acquired a full set of Imagine magazines (well, full except for #4 and #29, but I digress), so I figured I would break all of this down into a somewhat easier list format for reading, and with wikilinks! There were a couple of missing items from the original list up top from a year ago - Dragons of Autumn Twilight, as well as the AD&D Miniatures which doesn't (yet) have a corresponding article - so I have included those as well.

Imagine #3: Pharaoh, Danger at Dunwater, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Curse of Xanathon

Imagine #4: Blizzard Pass, Oasis of the White Palm, Tomb of the Lizard King

Imagine #5: Dungeonland, Master of the Desert Nomads, Beyond the Crystal Cave

Imagine #7: Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set

Imagine #10: AD&D Miniatures

Imagine #12: Monster Manual II

Imagine #14: Horror on the Hill

Imagine #15: The Assassin's Knot, Lost Tomb of Martek

Imagine #16: Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set, The Shady Dragon Inn, Combat Shield and Mini-adventure

Imagine #17: The Gem and the Staff, Maze of the Riddling Minotaur

Imagine #19: Dragons of Despair

Imagine #20: The Sentinel, The Gauntlet, World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting

Imagine #21: Temple of Death

Imagine #24: Dragons of Flame, When a Star Falls, Conan Unchained!

Imagine #25: Eye of the Serpent, Conan Against Darkness!, Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure

Imagine #26: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Hope, Dragons of Desolation, Midnight on Dagger Alley

Imagine #27: All That Glitters

Imagine #28: Dungeon Master's Screen, The Lost Island of Castanamir, Dragons of Mystery, To Find a King

Imagine #29: Blade of Vengeance, Drums on Fire Mountain, The Book of Marvelous Magic

Imagine #30: The Bane of Llywelyn, Journey to the Rock, Dragons of Ice, Battlesystem

BOZ (talk) 22:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)