DDI Wiki - Submit your Characters and Monsters!

[Jürgen Hubert]

Given that the Monster Builder was released for Dungeons & Dragons Insider today, I've put in some overtime today and created a wiki framework which allows users to submit their own characters and monsters built with the DDI tools.

I've added explanations on how to submit characters and how to submit monsters which I hope are self-explanatory. If you want to know what the final entries look like, here is a sample character and here is a sample monster.

I've enabled anonymous edits for the time being, so it shouldn't be necessary to register at Wikidot.Com (though it is useful for bragging rights...). Hopefully, you won't have any problems with submitting content.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to answer any further questions right now, as it is quickly approaching midnight in my time zone. But I will try to accommodate your questions tomorrow, and see if the basic structure of the wiki needs any further improvements by the weekend.

Good night, and have fun!

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

So far, there are three monsters in the wiki:

The Sewer Squid:

The Rat King:

And the Sliver Juvenile:

Keep them coming!

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

More entries...

A Storm Ray:

And a Forge Dwarf:

 

[tomBitonti]

Given that the Monster Builder was released for Dungeons & Dragons Insider today, I've put in some overtime today and created a wiki framework which allows users to submit their own characters and monsters built with the DDI tools.

I've added explanations on how to submit characters and how to submit monsters which I hope are self-explanatory. If you want to know what the final entries look like, here is a sample character and here is a sample monster.

I've enabled anonymous edits for the time being, so it shouldn't be necessary to register at Wikidot.Com (though it is useful for bragging rights...). Hopefully, you won't have any problems with submitting content.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to answer any further questions right now, as it is quickly approaching midnight in my time zone. But I will try to accommodate your questions tomorrow, and see if the basic structure of the wiki needs any further improvements by the weekend.

Good night, and have fun!

Ho hum, just a friendly reminder to have local backups of your site, and to double check the legal issues. (E.g., the Fan Site policy applies to the material in the Fan Site Kit.) I would be very careful about posting images which were directly scraped from the Character and Monster builder programs, unless there is legal jargon to allow this, or if you think this is a fair use. (I expect that the program outputs do contain much of the WotC 4E trade dress.)

Meanwhile, that is a very cool site. Too bad the entries are only images ... linking this stuff to a wiki and to the DDI would be terrific. (But I dream of flying pigs ...)

Thx!

TomB

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Ho hum, just a friendly reminder to have local backups of your site, and to double check the legal issues. (E.g., the Fan Site policy applies to the material in the Fan Site Kit.) I would be very careful about posting images which were directly scraped from the Character and Monster builder programs, unless there is legal jargon to allow this, or if you think this is a fair use. (I expect that the program outputs do contain much of the WotC 4E trade dress.)

I've read the WotC fan site policy, and I think I'm on the safe site. I am not a lawyer, but to my mind the stat blocks are not "product images" in the term that WotC created them for their products, only generated by one of their products.

And I've included all the other disclaimers according to their Fan Site Policy. If in doubt, I will claim Fair Use and leave it at that unless I get contacted by a Wizards of the Coast representative. And I doubt that they would want to close down - this site is great for convincing everyone to buy one of their products.

Plus, they have stickied the equivalent thread on the Gleemax forums.

Meanwhile, that is a very cool site. Too bad the entries are only images ... linking this stuff to a wiki and to the DDI would be terrific. (But I dream of flying pigs ...)

While exporting the monsters in some sort of data file format is not yet possible with the current version of the Monster Builder, I think a WotC representative said that such an export function is "a high priority" for them. So once such a function exists, it should be possible to attach the builder files to the pages just like it is possible to do it for the character builder files.

 

[tomBitonti]

I've read the WotC fan site policy, and I think I'm on the safe site. I am not a lawyer, but to my mind the stat blocks are not "product images" in the term that WotC created them for their products, only generated by one of their products.

And I've included all the other disclaimers according to their Fan Site Policy. If in doubt, I will claim Fair Use and leave it at that unless I get contacted by a Wizards of the Coast representative. And I doubt that they would want to close down - this site is great for convincing everyone to buy one of their products.

Plus, they have stickied the equivalent thread on the Gleemax forums.

While exporting the monsters in some sort of data file format is not yet possible with the current version of the Monster Builder, I think a WotC representative said that such an export function is "a high priority" for them. So once such a function exists, it should be possible to attach the builder files to the pages just like it is possible to do it for the character builder files.

Hi,

Of the advice (non-legal: I am not a lawyer), the one I emphasize is keeping a local backup of the data.

Anything else is in the murk of the fan site policy, fair use, and general copyright law.

Questions about copyright would seem to be stronger re: the monster stat-block images, which (I'm thinking) use WotC trade dress, and are a way of presenting the basic data, and that would seem to be copyright. (I would say, as well, because WotC puts their copyright on the image!)

That brings up other concerns, in particular, anything that you put into the stat block you would seem to have given over to WotC.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Hi,

Of the advice (non-legal: I am not a lawyer), the one I emphasize is keeping a local backup of the data.

Anything else is in the murk of the fan site policy, fair use, and general copyright law.

Well, I'm keeping this site up unless a WotC employee tells me otherwise. If WotC does ask me to shut it down, then any backups will only be good for personal use in any case - I certainly couldn't publish them elsewhere.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I've added counters to the side bar. 20 monsters so far...

 

[Sir Brennen]

While exporting the monsters in some sort of data file format is not yet possible with the current version of the Monster Builder, I think a WotC representative said that such an export function is "a high priority" for them. So once such a function exists, it should be possible to attach the builder files to the pages just like it is possible to do it for the character builder files.

The monsters can be saved as RTF as well, yes? I haven't poked around your wiki too much, but it might be possible to create a template page which looks like the monster stat block, and then people could plug the text into it. Many people may find it not worth their while to manually recreate what the output image shows, but a dedicated wiki member could always go through and convert them.

 

[Henrix]

This is awesome, Jürgen.