Category talk:Role-playing games

d20 System

I want to add a d20 System category; should this be the parent of Category:Dungeons & Dragons? If there are no objections in a month or so, I will add it as such. ··gracefool |☺ 02:45, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sub-categories?

This category is beginning to get bloated and will soon need to be organized into sub-categories, most likely by genre. Any thoughts? — RJH 19:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

As a stopgap, I'm going over things and categorizing more strictly under the existing subcategories. That will help somewhat. GRuban 19:59, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

What about a new category called "Published role-playing games"? That would separate the game articles from the more general "List of ..." and for example "Collaborative fiction". The published RPGs could then be further divided if needed. I think I'll do that later today if no one stops me. Jonas Karlsson 15:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Now I've started the subcategory, and will start moving articles. I'll add it as a short-term goal on WikiProject Role-playing games to get some help. I hope no one disagrees. Jonas Karlsson 22:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

"Published role-playing games" is not a very descriptive name for what the category is being used for. CRPGs and LARPs are both published, although neither of those are included in that category. Furthermore, no unreleased RPGs have WP articles that I know of. A better name for the new subcategory, given its contents, would be Category:Tabletop role-playing games. -Sean Curtin 00:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I used "published" to distinguish the articles from the ones on general concepts or role-playing forums and such. I admit I come from a tabletop background and didn't think about CRPGs and LARPs, as they have their own subcategories. The problem with renaming the category that way is that you would have to rename Category:Role-playing game designers to Category:Tabletop role-playing game designers, and so on, to be consistent. I'm all for a discussion, as I want it to be correct. Jonas Karlsson 01:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:Role-playing game designers still could include designers of LARPs, couldn't it? I see the dilemma about computer game publishers though, as we don't want to mix it too much. Maybe it would be possible to include a subcategory Category:Computer and video role-playing game designers in the category which would also be linked to Computer and video role-playing games? -- Genesis 08:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I agree with Sean Curtin - "Published role-playing games" is not a very descriptive name for what the category is being used for. It seems hard to understand what goes where. For example, "role-playing game publishers" go under "role-playing games" but not under "published role-playing games"? And the "concept articles" and "forums" generally discuss ... published role-playing games. I like the idea of categorizing -- including most of the ones that have been made in the last few days - thanks! -- but think this specific category needs re-thinking. GRuban 13:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

NRPGN

It seems to me that Category:NRPGNetwork should rather be put into Category:Computer and video role-playing games. The NRPGN article itself doesn't even include itself in the Role-playing games Category, but articles about various games from the network do. I'm a bit confused about whether it rather counts as an online RPG or as a computer game, but if it's the second, the whole subcategory should be moved -- Genesis 19:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Moved it for now -- Genesis 13:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Main articles in category and subcategory?

I've been going through the list a bit (hope I didn't mess it up too much) and realized that some of the games which got their own subcatory (e.g. Lone Wolf) still are listed in the category itself. Others, like the World of Darkness Games are not. I believe we should decide on one way. As the WP:RPG plans to make the category smaller, it would make sense to delete those double-entries from the main category -- Genesis 14:31, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that games with subcategories should be removed from the article list. It should be apparent from the articles that they relate to RPGs, and if someone follows the subcategory link at the bottom of an article they'll see that the parent category is RPGs. Jonas Karlsson 15:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, I notice that this entire category is a subcategory of Category:Tabletop games, which is misleading, since this category broadly encompasses not only tabletop role-playing games, but also LARPs and computer role-playing games. It seems that the ideal solution would be to subcategorize the entire category, so that we would have a Category:Tabletop role-playing games (which could be included as a subcat of Category:Tabletop games without causing problems), but this seems to contradict WP:RPG's plans to migrate all TRPG information into the main role-playing game article (which I'm not sure I support, for exactly this kind of reason, but there you go). Thoughts? – Seancdaug 23:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this category should be in Category:Games. Otherwise it gets too hard to find from the Culture portal, considering far less general categories are listed there. --Maggu 13:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

• I think I agree with Maggu. Someone looking for Category: Role-playing games would probably figure out to look under Category: Games. But looking under Category: Tabletop games might not be obvious. GRuban 13:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

• I also agree that it shouldn't be under Category:Tabletop games though I'm strongly against having Category:Tabletop role-playing games - In most RPGs I've played in, the table is used solely to hold the snacks. Percy Snoodle 15:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Spelling: Roleplaying

It appears that most gaming products use the spelling "roleplaying". For example, Wizards of the Coast appears to use "roleplaying" on its D&D products, and "City of Heroes Roleplaying Game" is the official game title of that game. The spelling "role-playing" looks to be an informal variant spelling. Submitted for spelling correction to standardize the spelling. There are some exceptions (eg. ICE on its website spells HARP out as "High Adventure Role Playing" with a space and no hyphen), but most of the companies seem to use no space. Dugwiki 19:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Just a couple of quick follow-ups -

- A discussion on the "roleplaying" versus "role-playing" spellings is currently archived at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_June_12#Category:Role-playing_games_to_Category:Roleplaying_games The consensus of that discussion appears to currently be that there isn't a consensus one way or another, so the categories aren't changing for now.

- As discussed in the archived talk above and elsewhere on Wiki, it looks like the preferred spelling of the word has changed over the years. D&D is a great example; originally in AD&D (aka D&D's "second edition"), according to W.S. the core rulebooks used the hyphenated spelling. But since then the spelling in current official D&D products and on the Wizards of the Coast website has changed to "roleplaying". Per Percy, GURPS likewise used to spell the word "role-playing" in earlier editions, but in the current 4th edition spells the word "roleplaying. A third example is Chaosium, who used the spelling "role-playing" in their first edition but in 2003-2004 was using the spelling "roleplaying" in its latest edition of the Basic "roleplaying" system, and Stormbringer (see Amazon's list of current Chaosium products for reference.)

And according to Asatruer, many other current products also use the spelling "roleplaying", including "Steve Jackson Games, White Wolf, Palladium Books, Chaosium, Pagaon Publishing, Arc Dream and Green Ronin" all use Roleplaying not Role-Playing, as well as the City of Heroes Roleplaying Game.

Although most game companies as described above are currently not hyphenating the word, there are some exceptions, such as the Everquest Role-Playing Game from 2002. And it's possible, though I haven't verified one way or another, that the computer gaming industry is using "role-playing" for computer RPG titles, which if true would indicate the tabletop industry and computer gaming industry aren't agreeing on a "standard" spelling.

- Note that while allowing variant spellings aren't a big deal for the most part one way or another, the spelling of product names, etc, should match the actual, official title. For example, the "City of Heroes Roleplaying Game" doesn't use a hyphen on its cover or official titles, so it would be incorrect to insert a hyphen.

Overall this has been a fun topic, because it's a good demonstration of how words change over time. It's interesting to see the changes in spelling from the 1980's to today, particularly in products like D&D which have been around for 30 years. One thing that hasn't been figured out is why the spelling is changing. One person suggested that it might be that publishers are removing the hyphen to save printing space. Another possibility is it might be part of a broader move away from hyphenization of words. I'd certainly be curious to know a little bit about the dynamic of the change. Dugwiki 17:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Zoos, Aquaria and Avaries as subcategories of role-playing games?!?

I just noticed that somehow Zoos and Aviaries (as in Places where People go to see wild animals, fish and birds) got included as subcategories in this category (via the subcategories Live-action role-playing games -> History reenactment -> Living museums -> Zoos & Aviaries.)

While I think that historical museums (in category living museums) could fit into history reenactment, Zoos, Aquaria and Avaries surely do not belong there. 84.148.118.157 00:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems like History reenactment -> Living museums is the weak link in that chain. Best to raise the issue at Category talk:Living museums. Percy Snoodle 09:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I will. 84.148.119.73 20:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

New Subcategory?

I'm currently working on expanding White Wolf's old World of Darkness game line. While I don't want to do it right now, would it be possible to get a subcategory for either the Storyteller system or for White Wolf? WW could then be further divided, eventually, into old and new World of Darkness games. Urbandale (talk) 12:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

We've got Category:World of Darkness and Category:White Wolf games. There is probably also room for a Category:Storyteller or Category:Storyteller system under Category:Role-playing game systems, since it's not solely limited to the World of Darkness setting (I think Exalted isn't WoD - correct?). --GRuban (talk) 13:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)