Forum:What's with using the Past Tense everywhere?!

Why use the Past Tense for describing Races among others? I thought it was generally a no-no in the realm of wikis... The original materials don't do it, and imo it's generally off-putting... When you are playing a tabletop RPG, you don't create your story in the past do you? Why write the wiki as if it's all in the past? "Dwarves were a humanoid race..." No, they freaking ARE, unless general lore considers them all to be extinct... – 124.121.195.234


 * This is part of our Past-tense policy. Please see the explanations there and other discussion on the talk page. In short, it lets us be edition-neutral and eliminates chronology errors and the need to update every time the official timeline advances or changes. Many top wikis do this, like Wookieepedia, Memory Alpha, and others.


 * I create my story in the past – I play in 1375 and 1376 DR. :) Many games are set in different eras, and we aim to cater to all.


 * Past tense doesn't mean dwarves are extinct, it's only a writing style, and a more natural one than present tense. It's also called narrative tense for its use in storytelling. Every Forgotten Realms novel is written in past/narrative tense – you don't worry Drizzt is already dead, do you? — BadCatMan (talk) 06:20, May 20, 2018 (UTC)