This article reviews the Dragon Warriors Wiki, a collaborative online effort by the fan community of the Dragon Warriors RPG. The Wiki is free to join and anyone may do so – links and instructions may be found at the bottom of this article.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have been a fan of Dragon Warriors (henceforth DW) for many years and am currently a contributor (albeit a very minor one) to the Wiki under review.

If you have never heard of DW, please read the (heavily paraphrased and tweaked) excerpt from Wikipedia below:

The current article is NOT a review of either the original or the updated edition. I plan to write a separate review of the new edition, however given that I live well outside Amazon (or anyone else's) delivery zone, I will probably only get my copy in a few months time. Meanwhile, you can find some reviews of the updated edition here http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=11118 and here: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=60924.

In that case, why review a Wiki? Well, those who love DW really love it, and mainly they love it (like me) because of the incredible atmosphere generated by the original DW gamebooks. Somewhere in second place would come the fairly light rules system which even in the 1980s was a pleasant contrast to the tables and niggling rules arguments of many rivals.

Now the Wiki has become an important part of the DW ressurgence in recent years. It grew out of the DW mailing list which started in 1998 and later was transformed into a Yahoo Group which has continually grown in membership. The Wiki was started in early 2008 and now has some 75 contributors of whom about a dozen appear to be regular writers.

General Observations

In terms of layout and functionality the Wiki is easy to navigate and edit, with a generally pleasing appearance. Pehaps the only feature missing is the ability to export certain pages as PDF for easy printing, emailing and general offline use.

To avoid copyright issues (Magnum Opus Press has yet to pronounce either way on whether they “bless” the Wiki), the Wiki makes clear which content is “canonical” and which is user-contributed. The atmosphere of the wiki is good and mostly keeps to the spirit of “canonical” DW. The reviewing community is fairly active, without leading to a “designed by committee” situation.

[This might seem excessive and inconsistent with my earlier comments about DW being “Rules Light” - but if you have ever read Dave Morris' prose in any of the rulebooks, you will see why other game manuals appear turgid in comparison.]

Now, a brief look at each major section of the Wiki.

Adventures

This section is invaluable for any potential GM – or a player who wants to know where to start.

First up is a comprehensive reference to the “canonical” adventures – now republished as “The Elven Crystals” and “Sleeping Gods”. Even if you don't play them these adventures are classic for building up the “DW feel” and showing how its superficially simple ruleset can handle a wide variety of situations in practice.

Secondly, we find some twenty “scenario ideas” which in fact range from one-paragraphers to fully-worked adventures. I liked the variety of styles and plot drivers. It appears that several of these adventures are write-ups based on actual play sessions by DW groups.

Finally, there is a list of Play-by-Mail/Play-by-Forum games: eight at the time of current writing. I GM one of these games, have played in another and lurked on a couple more so I can vouch that they are all very active, with between 5-8 players each.

Lands of Legend

This is perhaps the largest and richest section at time of writing. A wee aside is in order so as to introduce the world of Legend.

“Legend” is the default setting for DW – a kind of medieval fantasy europe. This trope has been done before but rarely, I believe, in such a delicious way. So while some can and do use DW as a rules system in several other settings, for most of us fans its heart and soul is squarely on the continent(s) of Legend. A free map is downloadable from DriveThru – see the links section at the end of this article.

Back now to the main thread of the review. This section is a well-structured gazzetteer to all parts of Legend, with special attention to some regions by GMs who have set campaigns there. The focus is on Ellesland (Legend's equivalent of Britain, if history had turned out different and folk-tales were true), but other parts of the continent are well-represented – for instance the Rathurbosk section is a magisterial treatment of the famous “city on a bridge” and is practically a supplement in itself.

There is also a very interesting investigation, complete with spatial projections, of how big the planet of Legend would be if we had a map of the whole globe.

Overall this section is excellent and I return to it regularly to keep up with the development of Thuland, the craggy northern land where the campaign I GM, is set.

Lore of Legend

This section is still quite sketchy in parts, though even so its worth a read. Special mention goes to:

• Inhabitants (famous PCs and NPCs) – could eventually lead to a Marvel/DC style “crossover” adventure between different gaming groups!

• Magical Items – provides a handy reference to the large variety of “unique” and generic magic items found in DW. Worth reading as so many of these items have a very particular, atmospheric effect rather than just being “sword 1”.

• Mythology – contains a very well-worked and consistent attempt at providing a “creation myth” and “long ago back-history” for Legend. I personally didn't like it as I don't feel it fits well with the DW ethos – but it is certainly worth considering, especially if you are running a campaign with very high-ranking or non-human characters (note that superpowered PCs, and especially non-human PCs are somewhat rarer in DW than, say, in D&D).

Rules Interpretations

As mentioned previously, DW has fairly light rules by modern standards, and lacks a single “core mechanic” through which all situations are resolved. This, plus the strong interest in “moderate historical realism” among the DW community – as opposed to “high fantasy” - has led over the years to many house rules and variant interpretations. Most of these are summarized on the wiki in a succinct and unpedantic way: so if you find your players trying to do something and can't find the the/a rule for it, this section will probably give you a good steer!

Professions

DW officially has seven professions (Barbarian, Knight, Mystic, Sorcerer, Elementalist, Assassin and Warlock) of which “considered opinion” in the community is that the latter three are somewhat unbalanced in terms of power. However inventing new professions or classes seems to be a favourite pastime of any RPG fan and the DW crowd are no exception – so over the years many home-brewed professions have grown up, either to deal with perceived rules imbalances, or simply as part of conversions from other systems and worlds.

The Updated Edition of DW apparently rebalances the core professions somewhat and also introduces a more consistent and flexible skills system. In my opinion, this does not make the fifteen or so additional professions detailed on the Wiki any less useful. I think they fit in especially if a GM wants to create a campaign with a certain feel or focus, where a low-ranking group of PCs really needs to have a diverse range of abilities and backgrounds simply in order to survive in the harsh medieval world of Legend. For instance:

• Magic-using is traditionally rarer in DW than some other fantasy RPGs but if you want to run a campaign focussed on magic (for instance, if it were set among the magic-riddled principalities of Krarth), then the wiki offers a huge variety of nuanced options: Enchanter, Necromancer, Priest, Shaman, War-Mage and Wizard. Although these might appear just to be “clones” from other games, when you read the descriptions on the Wiki you see that in each case an effort has been made to tailor to the DW feel

• If (like me) you would prefer a game set in Albion (Merrie Englandde as it never actually was), where magic is subtler and quieter, then the Trickster, Forester and Herbalist might be more your cup of tea

Monsters Etc.

This section contains a fair set of creatures – both “canonical” with expanded descriptions and completely new creatures. Of these latter I sampled three and in all cases found them to be joyously savoury examples of the “DW feel” I keep going on about:

• Fell Toads: tiny amphibians with hallucinogenic skin

• Yener: graveyard scavengers based on a real 12^th century bestiary http://www.amazon.com/Book-Beasts-Translation-Bestiary-Twelfth/dp/0486246094

• Impundulu: a lightning-bird found deep in the south of the Mungoda continent

Useful Links

1. http://dragonwarriors.wetpaint.com/ Wiki Home Page – Subject of the Review

2. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dragwars/ Ask here to join the wiki

3. http://www.magnumopuspress.com/?page_id=10 Publisher's Dragon Warriors page

4. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=2630 DW at DriveThru

5. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=61489 Free Map of the Continent of Legend

RPGNet Scoring

Style: 4.0 - easy to read and almost as easy to contribute to

Content (Volume): 3.0 – still far from complete

Content (Quality): 4.0 – but what there is tends to be good stuff

Author Information

Cameron Smith (originally of Glasgow, Scotland)

Maputo,

Mozambique,

23/05/09

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