Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Role-playing games

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Role-playing games This page is within the scope of WikiProject Role-playing games, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of role-playing games on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Role-playing gamesWikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing gamesTemplate:WikiProject Role-playing gamesrole-playing game articles

More specific discussions used to take place on these three pages:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Role-playing games/Notability (inactive)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games/Goals (inactive)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games/Style (inactive)

For now, though, please place all discussion on this main Talk page.

Hope you all are well. :) BOZ (talk) 14:47, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi people! ;-)

I wonder if the English Wikipedia should have a separate article for every Fate supplement and world? They are quite interesting IMHO, but I am not really sure if, let's say, Romance in the Air in encyclopedic enough?

Also, I have been playing around with Polish Wikipedia and created this template to organize all the articles (which do not exist yet). What do you think?

Best wishes!

--Kaworu1992 (talk) 08:19, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like an independent UK games magazine from the early 1990s that I had not heard of before:[1] Does anyone know if this could be a WP:RS for notability purposes? BOZ (talk) 17:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm responding months later, but nice find - we could always use more sources like these. I will presume it is usable, as a print magazine by a publisher, with a dedicated statff.--Alexandra^IDV 02:44, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my unending quest to find reviews for existing articles on games, I have found quite a few reviews for games that do not currently have articles (either never started as far as I can tell, or deleted or redirected at some point). Rather than simply let those pass away into nothingness, I’ve been thinking about starting a reviews noticeboard for this project. In other words, list each game by name with a link to any review that I find. Once multiple reviews are found, someone can start the article and remove it from the noticeboard. Does this sound like a good idea, and do you have any suggestions for that? BOZ (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's a great idea! Plazma5000 (talk) 13:39, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Heya everybody! Can anyone help me improve my draft article about Avery Alder? (Draft:Avery_Alder) It got rejected the 1st time so I added more sources but I'm not sure if it's enough. Allcatsarebabes (talk) 19:58, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to have been approved, so the request is likely moot. Intothatdarkness 15:42, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really curious who did the rating of that article as 'low importance.' Alder's "Quiet Year" and "Monsterhearts" have risen to such prominence that they've been used in several top actual play podcasts, her work has won multiple Indie RPG Awards, she helped pioneer the entire Powered by the Apocalypse Genre, her influence has been cited by top gaming journalism websites and game designers across the world, she's been asked to write in publications and queerness in TRPGs and also all of this is already in the article. Is she currently top importance? No. But low importance? Absolutely not.Sevey13 (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote a Wikipedia article for the Lancer TTRPG. You can see it here. What are your thoughts? Also, it hasn't been approved yet even though I wrote it months ago. What's up with that. Plazma5000 (talk) 13:38, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It reads more like a promotional review than an article, honestly. Also, with just one source it's hard to evaluate if the game has wider significance. There's also what feels to me like some POV language scattered through it. Just one example: "harmful stereotypes" used in relation to Dungeons and Dragons. Harmful according to what source? Changing that to just "stereotypes" or "tropes" would make it more neutral if you can't provide RS for the harmful part. Intothatdarkness 15:39, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A completely new version of the article was created at Lancer (role-playing game). BOZ (talk) 04:32, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The last maybe 10 years or so (at best) have seen an explosion in WP:RS game websites to provide a wealth of sources to really make tabletop game articles sparkle and shine. I was reminded today that the 10 years or so before that are a much harder time to find sources for; game websites like we have now were still just developing into a thing, and the old reliable sources – games magazines, that is – were dying out. The second version of Pyramid from SJG was published online until 2008 and the third version after that did not review games from other companies; InQuest lasted until 2007; Dragon remained in print form until 2013; German magazine Envoyer ended in 2008; one rare exception is French magazine Casus Belli which (aside from ending in 2006 and starting again in 2010) has continued in production now for over 40 years. I can't speak to how long any of those continued to review games from other companies, but they all did for a substantial portion of their print runs.

I said all that to say that games made in the past 10 years should theoretically be easier to source than those from the early 2000s, in theory. To test my theory, I went to my games deletion list and picked out some more recently deleted game articles and drafts.

• About Old Storytellers or a Game of Campfire Lore (CSD) - published in 2018 [2][3]
• Baker Street Roleplaying in the World of Sherlock Holmes (abandoned draft) - RPG first published in 2015
• Demon: The Descent (abaondoned draft) - published by Onyx Path Publishing in 2014 [4][5]
• Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (abandoned draft) - published by Steve Jackson Games in 2017 [6][7]
• Event (game) (abandoned draft) - indie RPG published in 2018 [8]
• Genesys (RPG) AFD - published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2017 [9][10]
• Guns of Santa Torina (abandoned draft) - Wild West game published in 2019
• Simple System Table-Top RPG (CSD) - card-based RPG published in 2014 [11]
• The Tiny Horsies Role Playing Game (abandoned draft) - RPG for children published in 2014 [12]
• Uncharted Worlds (abandoned draft) - sci-fi RPG published in 2015 [13][14]
• What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. (abandoned draft) - 2016 RPG by EN Publishing [15]

If you spot any sources that can be used to restore any of these, let me know! :) BOZ (talk) 01:18, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Sariel Xilo, do any of these look like they have potential to you? BOZ (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't looked at most of the list but Genesys (RPG) probably has a decent shot. Star Wars Roleplaying Game (Fantasy Flight Games) uses a version of the system as does the latest version of Legend of the Five Rings (source) & the new version of the Twilight Imperium RPG (source). ICv2 has a bunch of coverage on various product announcements (launch & games that use the system); per ICv2 it was also the #5 RPG in Spring 2018. It also has a handful of reviews now: Tabletop Gaming (a UK print magazine), Gaming Trend, TechRaptor, Cannibal Halfling Gaming (an ENNIE Award nominated website). Hope that helps someone develop the article! Sariel Xilo (talk) 18:40, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Sariel Xilo, good work, it has been restored by the deleting admin based on the strength of the sources you found. :) BOZ (talk) 12:49, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Nodicenomasters, do any of these look like they have potential to you? If so, I can get them restored. :) BOZ (talk) 15:46, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with any of the remaining ones, sorry! 24.187.49.138 (talk) 19:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Timur9008 do you see anything for any of these more recent games? BOZ (talk) 13:53, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nope Timur9008 (talk) 14:14, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks for checking. There will be more.  :) BOZ (talk) 14:38, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Jeeyon Shim needs an AfC reviewer. It's been sitting there for 2 months. It seems to meet all the standards and it's not my article, but I don't meet the reviewer criteria. Nodicenomasters (talk) 15:47, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Nodicenomasters, I agree, but you would be better off asking for this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation. BOZ (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Accepted, added an image. Nice work! --GRuban (talk) 01:23, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review @GRuban and thanks for keeping up with this @Nodicenomasters! We also have Draft:Hit Point Press that was rejected but can hopefully be fixed up and accepted one day. BOZ (talk) 08:29, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both were published in 1998, by same publisher. These bare-bones articles are lacking substantial content. Wonder if an editor here could help combine?

• Transylvania Chronicles I: Dark Tides Rising
• Transylvania Chronicles II: Son of the Dragon

Doubt if they merit seperate articles. Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 15:47, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on an entry for "legendary Dungeon Master" Stefan Pokorny and will appreciate any thoughts, corrections or additions. Thanks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Stefan_Pokorny_(designer) Kstern999 (talk) 01:11, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An article which may be of interest to members of this project—Metagaming (role-playing games)—has been proposed for merging with Metagame. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Sariel Xilo (talk) 17:41, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't mind, here is my request. Pick any of the following articles: Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Cyberpunk, Vampire: The Masquerade, Paranoia, RuneQuest, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Hunter: The Reckoning, Twilight: 2000, Kult, Tunnels & Trolls, Pendragon, Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game, Middle-earth Role Playing, 7th Sea, Castle Falkenstein, James Bond 007, Stormbringer, Toon. Click on the "edit" button and hopefully you will see a little yellow box at the top of the screen. If you find that little box helpful, annoying, confusing, or whatever, please post your feedback at Template talk:Refideas editnotce#Feedback. :) BOZ (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: you don't need to actually perform an edit on any of those articles, unless you would like to. :) BOZ (talk) 22:23, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Handy, but only IF I am editing the article. If I'm simply reading the article, I don't get that notice. Would it be permissible to add that notice in the article following the "Reception" subsection? That way, if I'm reading the article, I'd see the prompt. Guinness323 (talk) 22:54, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would put that in the talk page feedback section I mentioned above so that the admin helping me with this can see it; I don't know how technically feasible that would be, but it's probably no less distracting to readers than templates at the top of an article. BOZ (talk) 23:42, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! :) I would like to make a notice here that as of this week, if an editor clicks "edit" on any article that uses the Refideas template on its talk page, they will see an editnotice above the editing window indicating that there are sources on the talk page that are not currently in use in the article. This would be especially useful for anyone with an active interest in improving that article, and it would also be useful in helping gauge the notability of an article. :) BOZ (talk) 15:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This keeps coming up every now and then (ex. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Board_and_table_games/Sources#More_on_Pyramid_and_associated_publications). Pyramid has many articles that could be useful for expanding our articles on various games, role-playing as well as some board and war games (random example from recent discussion), but it seems nobody I am aware of can access them.

@JHunterJ who ~15 years ago replied in a way that makes it possible they had/have some access.

If nobody has access, perhaps we could contact the publisher (SJG) and ask for an account for Wikipedia? If that fails, I am thinking of posting a request on social media (reddit) or such to see if someone has access and would be willing to share.

And of course, if anyone knows of more gray way of accessing this (warez...), feel free to say so or email me :P Arguably this would fall under fair use just like requests for sources done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:08, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow, if we were able to get a Wikipedia-member only access to Pyramid, that would be awesome. :) There were hundreds of reviews on the Pyramid website that we now only have snapshots of... BOZ (talk) 17:41, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@BOZ Sadly, as you can see, there is little interest in this. I'll go leave a suggestion at https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/suggest/ but I have doubts it is going to happen soon :( Do consider upvoting it, but who else will care but the two of us, given lack of comments here? :( _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:26, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@BOZ Another idea that work: you could try https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid and ask them to sponsor buying all of their ebook pdfs of Pyramid, for the use by WikiProjects here (RPG and Board game). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:30, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There would definitely be more than two of us interested in that. :) But we're not talking a very large number of editors regardless, so you might not be wrong. Still, couldn't hurt to ask - leave your suggestion and I will second it. BOZ (talk) 05:22, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, I will catalogue it all eventually, but I'm not joking at all: User:BOZ/Pyramid :) BOZ (talk) 17:56, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that it's inaccessible in general, right. Even if we got some sort of Special Wikipedia Access to their preview-snippet-only articles, we couldn't cite those sources if only we can access them. Same as how I can't cite my grandma's unpublished book, or the post-it note on the side of my monitor. There would need to be some way for readers to access the sources, too.--Alexandra^IDV 02:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the same at all. It's equivalent to going to a library and checking out a book that is available nowhere on the internet. You can access it, but other readers would not be able to access it unless they also went to the library or found a copy to purchase. We can definitely cite a source like that, just like we can cite a website behind a paywall, even though sadly most readers would not be able to access the source themselves. Sources just need to be able to be accessed by someone, even if every reader would not be able to view it themselves. BOZ (talk) 05:20, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it the case that the Pyramid articles are not even possible to buy access to, and that the only portion that is available to read at all are the snippets? That's been my understanding, but I'd love to be wrong.--Alexandra^IDV 05:26, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've never actually tried to find out. :o If that were the case, then I suppose this entire discussion would be fruitless. It's a format that stopped being published more than 15 years ago, so I'd hope SJG would make it available somehow at some point for historical purposes. BOZ (talk) 05:35, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can buy back issues of volume 1 (the ones published in paper) but those are already available for free in their entirety on the site. You can also buy back issues of volume 3 but those contain no reviews that I am aware of. So it's the entirely online volume 2 that we want, and if that is not available in any form to anyone, then that is sad. BOZ (talk) 05:36, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even if a work cannot be bought or easily found, it is still fine to cite if you can somehow find it (and if it is reliable). For example, in board game reviews one source I cite is Polish magazine Rebel Times, which was never sold and whose official archive is down now and it can only be accessed through Internet Archive if you know the right links. ([16]). The fact that I may be one of the very few people in the entire world who knows this magazine exist(ed) and that it can still be digitally accessed doesn't make it a bad source (discussion at WT:BOARDGAME concluded it is reliable); of course I also link to IA in the footnotes but if, let's say, the digital archive was not there but I was used printed copies from my collection or library, it still would be an acceptable source. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:26, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexandra IDV You are incorrect. If the source is published and reliable, just hard to access, it is still perfectly fine to use (see WP:V, WP:RS). I cite a lot of offline sources (for example books or magazines available in Polish libraries but not digitally), or paywalled academic works, etc. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:23, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I cite hard-to-access print sources, often, too. My understanding was that they were actually inaccessible. Alexandra^IDV 04:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexandra IDV I assume they are accessible, just with a lot of effort for those who don't already have them (i.e few dozen or hundreds of subscribers and customers, none of whom seems to be active here...). Some issues may be print and digital, some digital only, maybe some are just print, but I don't think they are gone (lost media). OF course, if they are gone, well, we cannot use them, but if we can get access to them then we can - and the fact that 99.999% of the readers may not be able to access them is unfortunate but does not prevent us from being able to use them.

Random thought, but I'll ping @Cunard in case he is able to locate them in some of the venues they use. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:25, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: a search for "Pyramid Steve Jackson" in Anna's Archive returns numerous results. Are some of those results what you're looking to find? Cunard (talk) 06:05, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cunard Thanks. Some seem relevant although I am not sure how complete this is. @BOZ who may want to download some stuff :) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:16, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I will take a look later today. I'm curious to see what exactly you found but don't have the time at the moment to look. BOZ (talk) 12:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! :)

I extended the English version of the article about Magia i Miecz on the basic of the Polish one. However, I am not a native English speaker - could somebody look at the aticle and check for grammar or vocab errors? ;-)

Besi wishes -- Kaworu1992 (talk) 00:12, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT: Also, I need the template for translated articles in Talk section - sadly, I see all the templates for Wikipedia, but not the one I am looking for. Eh :/ --Kaworu1992 (talk) 00:15, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi .

I am wondering whether we should have a list of all official books for 13th Age, similarly to the list of all V:tM books? I could try do make something, if others wouldn't be willing, but I thought I might ask here beforehand :)

Best wishes - Kaworu1992 (talk) 06:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, go for it. :) BOZ (talk) 06:28, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is an AfD discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ajit George that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Sariel Xilo (talk) 17:07, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An article which may be of interest to members of this project – Role-playing game system – has been proposed for merging with Tabletop role-playing game. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. – Nodicenomasters (talk) 02:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Live action role-playing game has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Friends.

I see we have no article about Cypher System. I would like to write one (I have read the corebook + a few supplements), but I kinda do not know where to begin. Any advice, words of wisdom, things I should keep in mind etc? ;-)

Best wishes

-- Kaworu1992 (talk) 00:06, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I created a draft of an article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kaworu1992/Cypher_System

Please, tell me what you think?

-- Kaworu1992 (talk) 00:54, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kaworu1992: You need secondary sources (ie. a reception section) to show notability. WP:BOOKCRIT is a good rule of thumb when developing an article on a RPG sourcebook or system (example articles: City of Mist & Thirsty Sword Lesbians). Check out WP:NOTGUIDE & WP:GAMECRUFT on what to avoid. Sariel Xilo (talk) 01:14, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So, basically, I need reviews? ;-) Kaworu1992 (talk) 01:17, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, could you look right now? I found one review on RPG.net (I think its a reputable resource?) and two rather more-than-less active "private" weblogs, I am not sure whether it is okay or not? Could you take a look? ;-) - Kaworu1992 (talk) 01:35, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, it's a Mithral Bestseller on DriveThruRPG, I added a reference cause it seemed ery "official" to me? ;-) -- Kaworu1992 (talk) 02:04, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]