Rulebooks

[Kralik]

So, I'm just going to throw this out there: It would be great if someone would like to start porting some information over from the Comprehensive Rulebook to the wiki. It could be formatted in a variety of ways to show that it is a "quote."  Some ideas:

http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/wiki:syntax#boxes_and_notes

In the meantime, I am going to facilitate as much of the backend as possible, linking words and phrases so that, in the end, most every term should be clickable.

[TelTura]

"Someone".

A linkable version of the Comprehensive Guide was my initial vision for the wiki back before we could actually play with it, and now that we've got a bit of a framework up I still see it having a place.  I'll throw it on the pile.

[Kralik]

I'm seriously hoping that a few... dozen... more people take up working on the wiki and not just you and I.

[TelTura]

Aye.  I have no hope for it until the wiki's to a point that a complete noob could learn how to play the game simply from reading the rule portions; once this backbone exists it will be easier to add to individual cards (I will be next to no help in that department anyway, being as bad as I am at the game).

[Kralik]

You can check out Minion and Roaming for templates. We'll use the "info" box with a hard paragraph break between the rulebook's text and the italics examples. Also, avoid manually linking to items, as I will be adding most/all of the keywords shortly (as well as an autolink to the rulebook PDF).

When possible, Wiki articles //should// start with the rulebook text and then switch to other details/examples/explanations afterwards.

[TelTura]

I'm wondering if it might be better to have a translated version of the Comprehensive Guide, and then simply link and quote as needed (so you could simply hit {{Comprehensive Guide#Roaming}} or whatever)...confusion can arise where the wording of the Guide contradicts the current state of the game, the current Condition page being a great example.  You start the page off with an authoritative statement that conditions are always played in the Fellowship/Shadow phase, and then later will likely end up with a statement contradicting this.  Makes either the Guide look crappy, or the Wiki look wishywashy.

I think the Wiki should be written in a manner that more or less stands on its own.  Naturally there should be heavy quoting, cross-referencing, and deconstruction of the Guide where needed, but requiring a quote from the relevant article at the very top, while consistent, might ruin the flow a bit; not to mention the risk of redundancy and length.  Perhaps there should instead be a section further down within articles?  So you start with a layman's explanation, context, etc, then the second or third header down is the actual quote.  That way we have all the reference with none of the rigidity.

I've taken the liberty of quickly crapping out an example with Condition.

[Kralik]

I like what you've done with condition and I think that it's a great model. So we'll go with this:

I'll add rulebook entries as I have time. When/if the pages are edited, the rulebook entry can be pushed to the bottom.

Regarding Condition: even though the rules contradict certain cards (Bilbo, Bearer of Things Burgled, for example), they are the most current rules and were printed well after those cards were already in play. I don't think we need to take responsibility for any of Decipher's mixups, but I do think that we should have the relevant rules section available for reference.

EDIT: I cleaned Condition up a bit. Let's avoid blah blah, eh?

[TelTura]

I like what you've done with condition and I think that it's a great model. So we'll go with this:

I'll add rulebook entries as I have time. When/if the pages are edited, the rulebook entry can be pushed to the bottom.

Sounds good to me.

Regarding Condition: even though the rules contradict certain cards (Bilbo, Bearer of Things Burgled, for example), they are the most current rules and were printed well after those cards were already in play. I don't think we need to take responsibility for any of Decipher's mixups, but I do think that we should have the relevant rules section available for reference.

Now that you mention it, I suppose the very point of those sort of cards, like I said myself in the article, is to change the rules...and you can't change the rules without having solid rules defined.  I suppose like you say it's just a mixup on their part to having such an absolute word as "always" when they knew #$&*@! well that was not the case.

EDIT: I cleaned Condition up a bit. Let's avoid blah blah, eh?

heh, I was taking to long to make my post and just wanted it up there; I fully expect to rewrite it soon.  Yours is a good point though; contrary to popular belief there are people besides you and me who look at the wiki. Right?

...right?

[Kralik]

Errrrrrrrr....

...

Comprehensive Rules or Comprehensive Rules 4.0 will now link to the PDF.

[TelTura]

Alright, I've begun a complete conversion of the Comprehensive Rules 4.0.  First pass will be a text dump (I'm up to the beginning of Section II), preserving the formatting as much as possible (in spite of the change of page format).  Second pass will be to add images (turns out decipher cheated for most of the images, so I'll just 'shop some replacements at that point).  Third pass will be cleaning up all the autolinker references so the page doesn't look like a clown shat all over it and putting real section links in place.  Once I've done that, I'll do the last seven CRD's, which should then put us in a good position to start whipping nicely asking some other forum members into helping. 

[Kralik]

Hmmmm... you think it would be better to have it all in one document? I strongly prefer the idea of having each of the rulebook sections be its own wiki page, which is what I had started working on originally. That way, the autolinks work nicely and are actually useful. The game text of each card is processed by the autolink code, and it is far simpler to have it link to individual pages rather than sections of the rulebook page. For example, when someone clicks on exert it goes to the wiki page for exert, which currently only has the rulebook entry but could be expanded as necessary. What are the advantages of one huge document versus individual pages?

EDIT: I guess what I'm trying to say is... why recreate the wheel? The PDF is already a one-stop document with all of the rules. It should be read-only. If it were converted to a wiki page, the end result is just another one-stop page that shouldn't be edited. It gains very little from the change in formatting vs. multiple pages that cite the rulebook and can be edited as needed.

[athenamat]

http://decipher-games.com/lotr/regeln/rulesTTTdeluxe-EN.pdf

I found that link to the rulebook which isn't linked on the master link thread.  I know the Deluxe is redundant but ... for the sake of completeness, that is available as a PDF online.

[razvid]

Hello all,

Is there any1 who have the starter rulebooks? The links in wiki are broken. Thank you!

http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/rulebooks

[dethwish07]

Try here:

http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,345.0.html

[TelTura]

For future reference I have fixed the links in the wiki; http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/rulebooks now has links to everything again.