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Would a question trying to identify a published adventure be appropriate for this site? Something like the following:

The first adventure I ever GMed was a premade D&D 4e adventure from Wizards that involved the priest of some good god (Erathis, I think), telling some people that they needed to sacrifice their hands and eyes in order to make it rain (I didn't realize that any experienced players would know instantly that the priest worshiped Vecna). It had a final showdown and the temple, and a side encounter with a town full of people that turned into zombies at sunset. I can't remember the name of the adventure though, but it was definitely a premade adventure, not one I made up. Any ideas what it was?

Another possible adventure identification question, but with a different set of information and a narrower focus:

I remember that one of splat books for the original Deadlands had an adventure in the back involving an Arab magician who had Huckster-like powers. He was after some sort of talisman, as I recall. Given the focus on magic, it was probably in Hucksters & Hexes or Hexarcana, but it could have been in The Great Maze or one of the other location books. Unfortunately, RPGNow listings for the books don't say what adventures these contain and my Google-fu has failed. Can anybody tell me what the name of this adventure is and which book it is in?

Previous discussion about whether system identification questions were allowed had the most upvotes for allowing them, although there was a fair amount of dissent as well.

I imagine the main barrier would be the fact that it's harder to identify these adventures and there's a fair chance that, if it's a player asking the question, they might be thinking of a homebrew adventure a GM made up, in which case it can never be identified. But if they are quite sure it is a published adventure (a GM would probably be able to remember if it was) and could narrow it down a bit (the second example, for instance), and especially if it's for a fairly well supported game, I imagine it could be identified and therefore would be a valuable question to have answered.

Should adventure identification questions like this be allowed?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ And for those of you playing at home, the adventures described in the example questions are "The Tariff of Relkingham" which was a free online adventure from Wizards and "Abracadabra and an Arab Cadaver" from the Hucksters & Hexes book. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thunderforge
    May 1, 2013 at 4:58
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    \$\begingroup\$ I believe we have the [product-identification] tag that's been used for this before, for what it's worth. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    May 1, 2013 at 5:35

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These questions seem appropriate to me, with a couple of reservations.

They're clearly within the RPG domain, and there's certainly no other SE where they're more appropriate. They're definitively answerable, not subjective.

The closest comparison I can think of is to book/film identification questions on SF&F. These are common and seem to do the site no harm whatsoever.

However, these questions will often only be useful to a small subset of users. Do we want want a policy of "talk in chat first, then ask"?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Users with low reputation cannot talk in chat. They can ask questions, though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Yianes the Sneak
    May 10, 2013 at 15:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Also, I'm not clear if you are for or agains allowing said questions. \$\endgroup\$
    – Yianes the Sneak
    May 10, 2013 at 15:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ @YianestheSneak: (1) True, but that's a problem with several issues, and we usually deal with it OK. (2) I'm for allowing them, but I think they'll sometimes be "too localised", so we should encourage asking casually in chat before writing up a question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tynam
    May 12, 2013 at 21:48
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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm fine with it only being useful to a subset. \$\endgroup\$
    – okeefe
    May 13, 2013 at 21:07

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