Talk:Timeline of tabletop role-playing games

Gemini

Gemini: Dark Fantasy Roleplaying is missing. It was published by Cell Entertainment (swe) in 1998 or 1999.

Missing Game Links Fix

Many of the game titles have no separate article under the names listed here. Most of them do, however, exist as subsections of larger articles. I propose to fix the links. I'm mot asking permission, I'm just making a note of it here in case it warrants discussion. --Vampyrecat (talk) 17:56, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Table of Contents

I think the table is a lot more useful with years but now the table of contents is too long. Is there a way to reformat the table of contents to spread sideways rather than being one column? If not, I or someone else should remove the heading format from the years. I hope that makes sense. --Vampyrecat (talk) 18:37, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Worlds of Wonder (game)

An IP removed this from the list with the comment (Removed Worlds of Wonder which was only an expansion of the already existing Basic Role-Playing). I'm afraid I disagree. WoW did use the same system as BRP, but expanded it dramatically, fivefold at least, adding 3 different connected settings. Other no less full fledged games that were based on BRP include Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, and Ringworld. So I'm reverting the edit and restoring the entry. --GRuban (talk) 14:34, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

The Worlds of Wonder edit was made by me. I do not want to start an edit war, but I would prefer to restore my edit. WoW consisted of four booklets, one being a reprint of the BRP rules; the other three expanding on them to adapt them to different settings. BRP was always intended to be a universal RPG, so more detailled rules for specific settings dod not make WoW a new game, just a new, expanded edition of an existing game. CoC etc. however, while of course based on BRP effectively in a reverse way thar BRP was based on RuneQuest, was designed and published as a standalone RPG to be used with a specific setting. CoC was not really intended to be compatible with Stormbringer or Ringworld, while characters created in the different WoW settings were explicitly meant to be used in all BRP settings. Also, you could not easily separate the setting-specific parts form the non-specific rules in the later systems, while WoW made that separation abundantly clear with those different booklets. (Oh, and note that Superworld would later become a RPG in its own right.) I concede, however, that Chaosium explicitly wrote "three interchangeable role-playing games" on their product. Is that enough to consider it a new RPG?

- Andreas

Thanks for responding, Andreas! First, I'd strongly urge you to create an account - we could use a thoughtful editor like you with an interest in RPGs. I do consider it a separate RPG, as Chaosium wrote; it's not just another edition of BRP, but an adaptation of it (or rather 3 adaptations), like ElfWorld, and Elric!, and others. The first edition of CoC also contained the BRP rules, for example. We can ask other editors for their opinions if you like - either on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Role-playing games or more generally on Wikipedia:Third opinion (though I suspect most people who don't play RPGs would not have an idea what we were talking about). --GRuban (talk) 20:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the 1st edition of CoC being published in the same format muddles things up even more. I still believe that a razor-sharp delineation would leave WoW just outside the definition of a standalone RPG, but it is becoming clear to me that enough people would disagree with me that it is better to just leave it on the list. This page is a bit in an awkward place anyway, providing information which could in theory just be added to the alphabetical list of RPGs if that page was using a sortable list. However, I feel that this chronological overview is so helpful that it justifies having its own page just to make sure this information does not get buried. Ideally, we'd have a series of "xxxx in Roleplaying" instead, similar to music pages, where not only newly published RPGs were listed, but also new editions as well as important supplements and settings, but this is probably too large an undertaking - I know _I_ would not be willing to put in that much work. This page is the only one I care enough about to systematically update it. I have become really wary of joining any kind of internet community, and since I already do my best to exercise my editing power responsibly, I'm not sure what difference it would make if I did so using an account - Andreas

Well, that wp:account link lists some, but here are mine. Basically it lets other editors see you as a person. We can post on your talk page to ask your opinion about things. "Hey, here's a question about RPG history, I know one person who knows a lot about it." We can look at your edit history to see that you are an experienced editor in certain areas. In many discussions, your opinion becomes more valuable because of this. "This isn't just random-string-of-numbers, this is Andreas, Andreas is one of our local experts on history of RPGs."

Also, you get a user page where you can write about yourself as a Wikipedian, and humbly show off - take a look at mine for example. Every so often new friends or casual acquaintances ask what I do for fun, and I say "I edit this volunteer online encyclopedia", and often people ask for specifics, and I can pull up my user page, and say - "look, here are some articles I wrote". You get a user space, where you can organize a "todo" list, or a list of useful links, or references. One of the things I do is find and upload free licensed images, so I made User:GRuban/Images that lists a few tools, and a list of "images to upload" that I get to every so often, upload a few, add a few to upload later, etc. --GRuban (talk) 14:04, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

99% complete RPGs

Technically, Farscape and the 1st edition of Spycraft were not complete RPGs by themselves, since they relied on the D&D 3rd edition Player's Handbook (they did explicitly say so). However, their rules were 99+% complete by themselves, including character generation, explanation of the basic rules mechanics, and combat. Both refer only a handful of times to the Player's Handbook, and only in cases where it seems easy to do without it (for example, generating ability stats known to be in the 3-18 range).

I think it's fine to keep them in this list, because most players will probably consider them standalone RPGs, but I'm interested in what other people think. -Andreas — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.49.251.65 (talk) 20:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Red Link better than DAB link?

Can someone explain to me why a red link is preferrable to a link to a disambiguation page? It seems to me that linking to a little information is better than to none. -Andreas — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.55.204.41 (talk) 18:03, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

In general the disambiguation link is preferred, but I could imagine exceptions - can you be specific as to which link you mean? --GRuban (talk) 19:11, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I was referring to the latest revision on this page made by Narky Blert, which makes no sense to me. However, I didn't want to undo it without asking if there was a hard rule I didn't know. -Andreas

Let's ask. @Narky Blert: Hey Narky! In this edit, you replaced a link to Dark Continent, which is a disambiguation page including "Dark Continent: Adventure & Exploration in Darkest Africa, a role-playing game published in 2000 by New Breed", which is almost certainly what was intended, with Dark Continent (role-playing game) which is a red link that provides no particular information. Any objection to restoring it, until an actual article, even a stub, appears at that red link? --GRuban (talk) 14:35, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

@GRuban: (1) I'd overlooked that unlinked line in Dark Continent, which shouldn't have been there at all! Every entry on a DAB page should link to an article containing at least a little information about the topic. You're right, the two games have to be the same. Solution, which I've just done: redlink to the full name on both pages, and bluelink from the DAB page to the Timeline article. That satisfies MOS:DABRED. (2) There's a double problem with links to DAB pages. Firstly, no-one reading that Timeline article would suspect that an article was missing. Secondly, direct links to DAB pages are no-nos under WP:INTDABLINK. I found that link in one of User:DPL bot's error reports. Yrs, Narky Blert (talk) 14:58, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. That's less than ideal; there is still more info on the Disambiguation page than in this Timeline, and yet while the Disambiguation links to the Timeline, the Timeline does not link to the extra info. Ideally, we should make a page for the game, but I haven't found more than Rpgnet reviews. Is there a "list of minor Rpgs" page somewhere, or is this page it? --GRuban (talk) 17:12, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

I guess this page is it. There is a "List of role-playing games" page, which is a lot more comprehensive overall, but it claims to only list "notable" RPGs according to the stricter Wikipedia standards for notability of standalone articles, which periodically leads to random single entries being challenged and deleted, even though I'm pretty sure that the majority of that page's entries doesn't meet that standard. One reason I am working on this timeline page instead is that it uses the more relaxed standard generally applying to lists. -Andreas — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.14.14.187 (talk) 20:04, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Please use the options to review and explain your edits!

There is a field called "edit summary" directly below the editor window, and just below that, there is a "show preview" button to review your changes before they go into effect.

A review will prevent most flawed edits by allowing you to look at the result before they go into effect, and also helps you to do multiple smaller edits at once (if you feel they're important enough at all) instead of spamming the update page with micro-edits. This also makes it clearer to others what you did.

Explaining your edits, once again, makes it clearer for others to see what you did, but also what you INTENDED to do (which isn't always the same), and why. You should also use the opportunity to read up on others' explanations for their edits.

If you find that someone rolls back or modifies an update you consider valid, not having provided an explanation in the edit's summary might play a part in it.

-Andreas — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.55.29.169 (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup

Following the rules for lists, if it was a black link, a redlink, unsourced, or anything other than a link to an active RPG article, out it went. There's too damn much scope for people to promote their self-published debris otherwise. Ravenswing 07:17, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

While I agree with the application of the rules and this series of edits in a broad sense, more active editors of this article should be aware that it has created some specific unhelpful discrepancies.

As an example: all of the Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay games are listed except Only War (2012), because Only War is the only one of the five without an individual page on Wikipedia (it redirects to the main WH40KRP page).

By contrast, only Star Wars: Age of Rebellion (2014) is listed out of the three Fantasy Flight Star Wars Roleplaying Games, despite it NOT having its own page, and sharing a page with the other Fantasy Flight Star Wars games, the earliest of which released in 2012.

All of these games would appear to me to be unique RPGs by the Basic Roleplaying/Call of Cthulhu rule described above, and have comparable verifiable notability. The independent decisions by their respective articles' editors about how they should be presented on Wikipedia are all reasonable, and not in violation of any Wikipedia rules as I understand them, but I do not think that should be a reason for an inaccuracy to be maintained on this list.

For the time being, I've moved the link to Age of Rebellion to 2012, and modified it to read "Star Wars Roleplaying Game by Fantasy Flight," in keeping with the format of the other Star Wars games on the list. I've also added Only War in 2012, linking to its redirect, to maintain consistency and because my interpretation of the Wikipedia rules regarding lists is that they don't exclude relevant redirects. That's something reasonable people could disagree on, so if it gets reverted tomorrow, no hard feelings. Hopefully someone writes an article for Only War soon.

~DMZ2112: 108.16.31.239 (talk) 04:20, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Forgot I had a Wikipedia account; that's how rarely I do this. Dmz2112 (talk) 05:35, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Think of the Reader

I find this list incredibly valuable, but I think its additive encyclopedic value is hampered by what appears to be a well-intentioned reluctance to include multiple editions of the same game.

Finding Shadowrun's original release date, or the release date of any of its later editions, is something for which I can and probably would go to the main Shadowrun article. What this list is good for is answering questions of relative timing: what games were released in the same year as Shadowrun, or did Shadowrun precede or follow X game, for example.

In this regard, I think it is important to include the various editions of major titles, not because their release dates can't be found more easily elsewhere, but because knowing when a game was first released tells a reader nothing about the relative timing of later editions, and that information exists nowhere else on Wikipedia, to my knowledge. These major releases also serve as widely recognizable milestones, and would provide context to the greater list.

~DMZ2112: 108.16.31.239 (talk) 05:29, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Just updating with my actual account details; as above. Dmz2112 (talk) 05:35, 2 July 2023 (UTC)