Forum:Spell pages, combining editions

Forums: Helping Hand > Spell pages, combining editions

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Please take a look at User:Moviesign/Sandbox/Spell example 1 and tell me what you think of documenting spells this way. I think it looks better without the Table of Contents, but feel free to preview it both ways. Think this will work? Be accepted? Most recent info would be at the top, with older edition info preserved below. Love it or hate it, please comment.

—Moviesign (talk) 01:24, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I think the general, no-crunch description of a spell would be more-or-less the same in each edition, though I'm not familiar with many outside 3.x. A fireball is always a big ball of fire, after all. Some small differences could be handle with notes or alternating references. Dividing the page by edition would get a bit repetitive and lengthy. Meanwhile, the Realmslore for a spell will always be the same.

I think the only bit that will change much is the crunchy details in the infobox. Perhaps the Template:Spell infobox could be modified for multiple editions, as the Template:Person is?

— BadCatMan (talk) 02:36, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

I agree with BadCat... updating the Spell infoboxes like the Person infobox with editions would be very cool :)

Darkwynters (talk) 02:43, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking of the players/DMs that are using a particular edition of D&D. Delineating them by edition would allow readers to see everything at a glance, without having to wade through explanations of discrepancies and notes. They would just scroll down to their preferred edition and done. History could be a common section at the bottom of the page. I agree it would be a bit repetitive but I don't think it would be very lengthy. If the descriptions were exactly the same, then we could say "see above" or "see below", but copying a paragraph is just as easy.

If we add editions to the template, then school, type, and level would need to be editionified. Mystra help us if they ever change a spell's descriptor. :-/

What do you think?

—Moviesign (talk) 03:12, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

I still think most spells would be more or less the same in flavour and description across editions, like your scatterspray example. The description is still applicable in each edition of the spell. Where there are significant variations, rather than making separate subpages, it may be better to make subsections to express the differences while still having the one article on the page. For example:

Scatterspray was an alteration or transmutation spell in general use throughout the Realms.

Effects

This spell caused a....

2nd edition

etc.

3rd edition

etc.

Broadly, I'm against split-pages or pages with two separate articles on it if we can help it.

If two spells are wholly different in nature between editions, such as disrupt undead in 2e and 3e (high-level spell to a cantrip; see devastate undead), then a separate page with disambiguation may be more appropriate. This is especially the case where 4e made major changes to how spells functioned.

— BadCatMan (talk) 07:21, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I rearranged the sections, so please take another look and see what you think. Do you like having separate infoboxes or should we try to make one infobox work for all editions?

—Moviesign (talk) 14:52, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

I like the direction you are headed in (example 2). I would say even more could go in the general description (first one and half sentences from each edition section for examples with only the variances described in the edition sections.

--Ijkay (talk) 22:04, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

I like the concept, especially since 5th ed. is just around the corner but couldn't we accomplish this in the infobox rather than splitting the entire article? Most spells functioned similarly between editions. The differences were mostly mechanics (duration, damage, range, etc.) which we try to avoid and spell level. It would seem that we could place this information at the top of the article and leave the description generic without referring to edition.

Boo Too - "Go for the eyes!" (talk) 23:16, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

I also like example 2, but agree with IJ... there seems to be some duplication... hmmm... or take Boo's idea, which could be like the edition sections in the Person infobox... or the novel ones, like Darkwalker on Moonshae... Template:Book

-Darkwynters (talk) 23:25, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Two more examples to look at. I reduced redundancy as per User:Ijkay's comment and I kludged the Spell template to be like the Person template.

• Example 1 — has the advantage of putting everything for each edition in one spot.
• Example 2 — combines the opening definition and breaks each section by edition.
• Example 3 — tries to minimize redundancy
• Example 4 — Combines all infoboxes into one (and I added an inventor and a descriptor for fun)

Please look again and let me know how you feel about the merits of these, and especially make suggestions at improvement, if possible.

—Moviesign (talk) 01:09, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

Great work so far, Movie... I love how you get ideas in your head and will stop at nothing to complete them... aka the gem pages :) Personally, I like example 4: 1) I like having one infobox... 2) I like the use of the sections, like effects, and history, over edition. I guess if there is only a small difference between editions, you could just use the Notes/Discrepancy section. Nice work :)

-Darkwynters (talk) 01:18, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

I prefer Example #4, and I love the multi-edition infobox. I still say the edition divisions are unnecessary, at least in the scatterspray case, but eh. It works for other spells that vary more.

My main philosophy in this is that, if we are being edition-neutral and crunch-free, then we shouldn't give much attention to the editions, and keep them minimal. Edition sections break the in-universe focus. (I'm also of the opinion that spellcasters in the setting shouldn't notice changes in the game rules, but FR has always been badly handled in this regard.)

One point: you say "a total weight limit of about 1,250 gp". Do you mean a cost limit or a weight value?

— BadCatMan (talk) 02:51, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

If we don't use edition divisions, then what? Use the Formerly: notation? Or did you mean in the text?

You can't really remain edition-neutral when they change things so drastically, especially spells, which are arguably the heart of the fantasy gaming genre. I really want to accommodate players from all editions, so I'm hoping this work on the template will facilitate creating useful pages that look nice and are easy for anyone to use. We should help readers bridge the gaps between editions, not pretend they don't exist, and I think our wiki is uniquely positioned to do that. About crunch, we should include just enough crunch so that our categories will be as good or better than the sourcebooks for quick reference and research. Once they find what they are looking for, the citations take them to the details. I feel if we don't do all of the above, and set an example for the next wave of editors, our wiki will become a relic. /rant

I meant as a weight value. I think the "50 gp ≡ 1 pound weight" conversion is still used, right? It makes it easy to compare treasure weight versus value and us old-timers got used to converting everything into gold-piece equivalents. If the dwarf says a gem-encrusted rock is worth at least 8,000 gp but weighs 150 lbs, which would you rather schlep out of the dungeon, the rock or 150 lbs of coins? (depends on the coins!)

—Moviesign (talk) 05:42, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

I like what you have done in example 4 as well. Only thing, isn't a spell descriptor a edition thing? I could easily be wrong as I haven't looked at edition differences in a long long time.

--Ijkay (talk) 15:39, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

Descriptors are optional in the template and apply to some but not all spells in editions 3 and higher, I believe. As long as they don't change a spell's descriptors between editions, it can go above the edition-specific sections when appropriate. If they do change them, then the template would have to be modified again to include descriptor3e, descriptor35, descriptor4e, etc.

—Moviesign (talk) 17:35, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

Movie: Again, I think most spells won't change much in general flavour and description between 1st/2nd/3rd/3.5 edition, and only 4th and maybe 5th will see the greatest changes. For most spells, a single description does the job for all versions, and for few, edition subsections would be preferable. Maybe scatterspray is a bad example? Disrupt undead in 2e and 3e saw major differences (likely unintentionally) and could have worked with edition subsections, except I found it rewritten as devastate undead instead.

I guess this is just a philosophical difference. I prefer a more unified article where possible.

As I said in the other thread, I'm fine with the basic crunch of levels and such for organisation purposes.

Yes, 3e uses 50 coins weigh 1 pound. But I find that weight in coins thing very confusing. The spell says 25 lbs, so why not say that?

— BadCatMan (talk) 12:33, July 10, 2013 (UTC)

{{forum post| Okay, there seems to be a consensus for the new spell template, so unless anyone objects, I will modify the official template and let people start using it. The main problem I see is that the at-will, daily, and encounter templates are currently all stand-alone, so I'd have to replicate the changes across all of those unless there is away to write them so they include the core changes from a single source. I will look into this before I make the change.

I can live with philosophical differences. If you want to rewrite scatterspray, go ahead :) I used the gold-piece equivalent because I didn't want to quote the source too closely, but if that bit of crunch is acceptible, it would make it less awkward. |—Moviesign (talk) 13:50, July 10, 2013 (UTC)}