RPG.NET
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
RPGnet is one of the oldest and largest role-playing game websites on the Internet. It was founded in 1996 by Emma and Sandy Antunes, Shawn Althouse (etrigan) and Brian David Phillips, as a way to unify a number of transient game sites. In 2001 it was purchased by Skotos Tech, but maintains creative and editorial autonomy. Currently it is being run by: Shannon Appelcline of Skotos (site oversight, programming, columns); Allan Sugarbaker (editorial oversight, operations); and a variety of forum moderators and administrators.
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[edit] RPGnet services
[edit] Forums
The site's most popular feature is its very active message forums, which have over 30,000 unique users each week; the second largest RPG forum after Wizards of the Coast.
The forums have grown over time. Tangency, the sub-forum created to house off-topic discussions (i.e. not directly concerning roleplaying), is usually the most active in terms of posts per day. In addition, there is now a computer and board game forum spun off of the main RPGnet forum; an "other media" forum that covers television, comic books, movies and books spun off of Tangency. A few forums exist for photography, parenting, and other specific interests.
Like most large forums, the site has spawned numerous in-jokes, taglines, and recurring flame wars. Moderation was at one time very loose, but now follows fairly strict guidelines (see link below). Many game writers, artists, and designers post, either regularly or just as occasional contributors. A few have run afoul of RPG.net moderation and been permanently banned.
A wide range of tastes are present on the forums. Smaller "fringe" or indie role-playing game are particularly well-represented and and the latest releases often generate a great deal of discussion. Partially as a result of this, the forums have a reputation of being inhospitable to more traditional gamers, though threads on Dungeons & Dragons, World of Darkness, GURPS and other popular systems remain fairly common. It's notable that discussion of Rifts and other Palladium games is rare considering those games' popularity. Exalted, on the other hand, is known for generating a particularly large number of discussion threads.
[edit] Reviews
Reviews have been an important part of the site since its inception. Today, RPGnet has an active archive of approximately 7,500 reviews. Most reviews are of roleplaying games or supplements. In the last few years, users have contributed numerous reviews of board and card games. RPGnet also publishes reviews of movies, books, music albums and comics, though less frequently.
The entire review system was overhauled in early 2003 and since then reviews have appeared with numerous cross-references in an effort to try and improve navigation of the large review archive.
Currently, reviews appear at RPGnet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with Monday and Friday being RPG review days and Wednesdays being everything else.
[edit] Columns and articles
RPGnet currently has approximately 20 regular columns. Columns are posted on a four-week, Monday-Friday schedule (with 3 to 4 columns posted during a typical week, as per columnist cooperation), with any "extra weeks" in the schedule filled in with additional columns, as they become available. Most columns cover gamemasters offering advice on running roleplaying games to other gamemasters, but there is some variety.
Notable columns have included: 52 Pickup which promised to offer a new game every week for a year (it got to about a dozen before the initial author gave up, then another dozen before the second one did); Behind the Counter which continues to detail the runnings of a gaming retail store; and Freelancing is Not Free which describes how to freelance in the gaming industry. Noteworthy columnists have included game industry veterans such as Ross Winn, Gareth-Michael Skarka, Chad Underkoffler and Matt Drake.
The columns software was upgraded in 2006, and it now includes full RSS feeds as well as a variety of database-oriented lookups and full integration into the RPGnet forums.
Prior to 2006, Columns Editing was handled by Michael Fiegel (2001-2005) and Sandy Antunes (inception - 2001). As of January 2006, it is handled by Shannon Appelcline.
[edit] Wiki
The RPGnet wiki was added in early 2005. Other gaming Wikis on the Internet have failed due to lack of interest, but this has the possibility of leveraging the large membership of RPGnet.
The original purpose of the RPGnet Wiki was to offer a place for people to jointly design roleplaying supplements and game systems; there has been some work on this, but others have begun to use it as a place to assemble an encyclopedia of roleplaying terms.
The RPGnet Wiki is built on MediaWiki, the same software used by Wikipedia.
[edit] News
2005 also saw a substantial facelift of the News & Press section of RPGnet. It currently acts as an aggregator of useful RSS feeds, with over two dozen feeds in six different gaming categories available.
[edit] Gaming Index
In 2006, RPGnet added a Gaming Index, a catalog of RPGs added by users. This new system is intended to hold every English RPG product, and is searchable through a variety of means, notable hyperlinks to other products by the publisher, authors or game line and links to RPGnet's reviews of the product. Users can also rank the products and comment on them. As of [September 11]], 2006 the site has 3480 books, 3831 editions, 273 game systems, and 3236 authors (which is "guessed" to be just over 25% of all English game books[1]).
[edit] Other features
RPGnet maintains a RPG store, though it's actually a clone of RPGShop.
The site has a wide spectrum of registered users and also offers a membership program which gives subscribers early access to reviews, a few forum privileges, and online access to some Days of Wonder games.
