Forum:SH Archive/Game stats and canon

All three of our status article nomination pages include some sort of stipulation of completeness:
 * At Featured article nominations, we tell users, "An article must… …have significant information from all sources and appearances, especially a biography for character articles."
 * At Good article nominations, "An article must… …have significant information, especially a biography for character articles. For articles under 1000 words in length, comprehensive detail is required with all information covered from all sources and appearances. For articles over 1000 words, broad coverage addressing all major aspects of the topic is sufficient.
 * And at Comprehensive article nominations, "an article must… …have all relevant canon information presented."

In short, we require our status articles to be comprehensive. So how should we treat game statistics from RPGs, video games, and card games?

According to Leland Chee, "Game mechanics are designed to try to match continuity to fit the purposes of the game for which they were created. They can serve to provide a scale from which to compare how one character or piece of technology stacks up against another. Because RPGs use dice, there is always the element of random chance involved, which isn't quite applicable to a book. "But stats themselves aren't created randomly; they are based on what is already known. As such, we can always look to them as a basis when writing books. I often look to RPG stats to see for example, what type of Force powers a character may have. Or if we haven't determined the stats of a particular vehicle, we can look to RPG stats for a basis of comparison. "Conversely, I think it would be a determinent if books were artificially limited by game stats. So I would agree that a book is going to overrule a stat if there is a contradiction." 

So, this brings up a few questions…


 * Should game stat information be allowable in the body of articles, or should it be kept to "Behind the scenes" sections? As an example, would it be fair to use game stats to say a bantha is faster than a nerf? That Lando speaks Bocce? That Lumiya knows how to use the Blahblah power? Or should this information be relegated to BTS unless it appears in a storyline?
 * Should game stat information be part of considering an article comprehensive (no matter whether it's in the body or the BTS)? Or is there a line of when it's relevant and when it's not? And if so, what is that line?

Hopefully we can come to some agreement on this, as it's been something that's been poorly understood and inconsistently handled on the site for a while. ~ SavageBob 03:25, November 24, 2010 (UTC)