Project:WikiProject Role-playing games

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to tabletop role-playing games. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page or look at the goals section on this page to see what the focus is at the moment.

For more information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProjects and Wikipedia:WikiProject best practices.

For page view statistics, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games/Popular pages.

This project aims to improve the coverage and quality of articles on role-playing games (RPGs). The main areas of interest are Games, Terms, Systems, Designers and Publishers.

The project covers traditional, live action and computer-assisted RPGs. A more specific project, WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons, exists for articles related only to Dungeons & Dragons.

Role-playing video games are outside the scope of this project; they belong at WikiProject VG. An exception to this would be video games based on specific role-playing games, such as those found in :Category:Video games based on tabletop role-playing games; such articles fall under the scope of both WikiProject Video Games, and WikiProject Role-playing games.

Roleplay simulations (and similar "gamed simulations") are also outside the scope of this project.

For projects with a more general scope, see WikiProject Board and table games or WikiProject Games.

The following are long-term goals for what the project can work towards. All goals should be clearly defined and ultimately achievable. An archive of previous goals - both reached and unreached - can be found on the old Goals subpage.

1. Add an infobox with an appropriate image to all role-playing game articles.
2. Collaborate with other interested users on role-playing game topics.
3. Find as many reliable secondary sources as possible to improve existing articles and help demonstrate the notability of topics.
4. Flesh out the stubs at :Category:Role-playing game stubs to build full articles.
5. Improve more role-playing game articles to Good article and Featured article status.
6. Create new articles and restore deleted articles for notable role-playing game topics.
7. Play some role-playing games!

Discussions on style and structure of role-playing game and RPG-related articles were previously held on the old Style subpage, but if desired can now be held on the WikiProject's talk page.

Articles should follow, as closely as is possible, the guidance at the Manual of Style.

References should be added using <ref> tags throughout the body of the article, next to the facts that they are included to support. Where possible, they should use the available standard reference templates.

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See the "Statistics" section below for articles that are of a high enough standard to be used as good examples of their category.

{{see also|Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources|Wikipedia:WikiProject Board and table games/Sources|Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/References}}

Articles related to role-playing games need reliable sources like any other Wikipedia article—content must be verifiable. Due to the nature of gaming journalism, however, editors writing articles within the scope of this project may encounter problems finding or citing sources. Other releated projects maintain lists of discussed sources and additional guidance which may be useful when reviewing a source.

Because the fields of games journalism, research, criticism, and commentary are relatively new compared to similar coverage of traditional media, traditional sources can be somewhat rare. In addition, the simultaneous development and expansion of Internet-based sources alongside the modern gaming scene has led to a much higher degree of exclusive online coverage than is the case with other media. These factors make the determination of reliable game sources a complex issue.

In June 2024, the tabletop gaming outlet Rascal News [https://www.rascal.news/tabletop-journalism-deserves-better-than-this-and-so-do-you/ commented] on the shrinking coverage of this topic. They also highlighted specific reporters who provide coverage on role-playing games:

• "Polygon, a video game and entertainment website under the Vox umbrella, has been one of the bastions of tabletop RPG news reaching a wide audience beyond the hobby for several years, thanks in large part to the efforts of Charlie Hall".{{ref|Polygon|a}}
• "The other professional website that fostered amateur talent, Dicebreaker, seems to be poised on the edge of collapse" following the sale of the Gamer Network to IGN.
• "That's not to say there aren't people still out there doing good and necessary reporting in the tabletop space—Christian Hoffer{{ref|Hoffer|b}} at ComicBook.com, Rob Wieland at Forbes and Dan Arndt at the Fandomentals hold down single-person beats, while Wargamer{{'}}s team tackles miniatures, card games, and pop culture at the same time. EnWorld, Bell of Lost Souls and countless other websites serve a dedicated demographic of players and fans instead of a more general audience. All of these are part of a news ecology that benefits the rest, including Rascal—while we choose not to cover every piece of breaking news, we can (and do) link back to these websites when discussing trends or laying out our own opinions".

::{{note|Polygon|a|In May 2025, [https://kotaku.com/polygon-sold-vox-media-valnet-layoffs-digital-gaming-1851778655 Polygon was sold] to Valnet, resulting in the layoff of most staff [https://bsky.app/profile/charliehall.bsky.social/post/3lo52pjyz5k2h including Hall].}}

::{{note|Hoffer|b|In September 2024, [https://bleedingcool.com/comics/is-screenrants-ben-kendrick-now-running-comicbook-com/ Bleeding Cool] reported that Hoffer was laid off from ComicBook.com and is now a freelance journalist.}}

You can see a full list of participants here.

• [https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Role-playing_games.html Cleanup listing]

See our Hot articles list for our currently most-edited articles to get an idea of what people are working on right now!

{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games/Article alerts}}

Bot-generated statistics (for articles having the project banner on their talk pages).

{{User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Role-playing game}}

For more information see:

::Category:Role-playing game articles by quality

::Category:Role-playing game articles by importance

:Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Role-playing game articles by quality (links to detailed assessment lists)

:Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Role-playing game articles by quality log (bot's assessment statistics logs)

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