Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH Archive/Plot summaries for RPG adventures
This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. 1358 (Talk) 19:16, June 6, 2013 (UTC)
OOU articles on Wookieepedia typicaly do not get much attention, and there is a lot of problems that have yet to be sorted out. One of these is the Plot Summary for RPG adventure scenarios. As you may know, these scenarios give multiple different paths that can be followed. Since the article is about the OOU subject, and not on the event that is described by the adventure—where assumptions on the course of path taken be made—how should the Plot Summary section be formatted? Should all paths be described, or should assumptions be made, and a BTS scene added to describe those? Any thoughts would be appreciated. 501st dogma(talk) 22:12, February 11, 2013 (UTC)
- I think the plot summary section could just break the fourth wall and say, in an OOU voice, something like "The adventure can then proceed in several ways, depending on the choices of the player," then the article could describe each path one by one. If each description is long enough, they could even each get their own subsection. The later "Continuity" section could then establish whether or not any of them have been later established as canonical by the CSWE or something. Thoughts? Menkooroo (talk) 02:40, February 12, 2013 (UTC)
- Sounds good Menk. <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 02:43, February 12, 2013 (UTC)
- Well, we tend to treat the scenarios from two angles: we assume players always make the "best" choice that benefits their characters or best accomplishes the goals of the adventure, and we assume they always choose the light-side option when good-vs.-evil paths open up. This is the same logic we use for video game articles. I wonder if the plot summary should follow these strictures and then describe alternative possibilities in another section? Just another possibility. ~Savage
12:47, February 12, 2013 (UTC)
- I think the plot should have the multiple possiblities in it, like Menk said, as this is the plot, and we can't really decide what is right, because we are not in an article for the event, but the source itself. 501st dogma(talk) 01:25, February 15, 2013 (UTC)
- I agree with Menk and dogma. IU articles have to pick one path to stay IU and not break the fourth wall, which is why we make the assumptions mentioned by Bob in those articles. OOU articles are, well, OOU. They already break the fourth wall by definition, so they can easily describe all paths in the plot summary, and because they can, we shouldn't be making arbitrary assumptions when we don't need to. —MJ— Holocomm 04:39, February 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, that makes sense. I wasn't sure which approach we should privilege for an entirely out-of-universe article, but it makes sense that the conventions of the BTS section would prevail in such a project. ~Savage 12:05, February 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, that makes sense. I wasn't sure which approach we should privilege for an entirely out-of-universe article, but it makes sense that the conventions of the BTS section would prevail in such a project. ~Savage
- I agree with Menk and dogma. IU articles have to pick one path to stay IU and not break the fourth wall, which is why we make the assumptions mentioned by Bob in those articles. OOU articles are, well, OOU. They already break the fourth wall by definition, so they can easily describe all paths in the plot summary, and because they can, we shouldn't be making arbitrary assumptions when we don't need to. —MJ— Holocomm 04:39, February 15, 2013 (UTC)
- I think the plot should have the multiple possiblities in it, like Menk said, as this is the plot, and we can't really decide what is right, because we are not in an article for the event, but the source itself. 501st dogma(talk) 01:25, February 15, 2013 (UTC)
- Well, we tend to treat the scenarios from two angles: we assume players always make the "best" choice that benefits their characters or best accomplishes the goals of the adventure, and we assume they always choose the light-side option when good-vs.-evil paths open up. This is the same logic we use for video game articles. I wonder if the plot summary should follow these strictures and then describe alternative possibilities in another section? Just another possibility. ~Savage
- Sounds good Menk. <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 02:43, February 12, 2013 (UTC)