Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games/Notability

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This page gives some rough guidelines intended to be used by Wikipedia editors to decide whether a role-playing game should or should not have an article on Wikipedia. While satisfying these notability guidelines generally indicates a book warrants an article, failing to satisfy them is not a criterion for speedy deletion.

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These guidelines may be considered a specialized version of Wikipedia:Notability, applied to role-playing games, reflecting the following core Wikipedia policies:

Claims of notability must adhere to Wikipedia's policy on attribution; it is not enough to simply assert that a book meets a criterion without substantiating that claim with reliable sources.

"Notability" as used herein is not a reflection of a game's worth. A book may be brilliantly written, fascinating and topical, while still not being notable enough to ensure sufficient verifiable source material exists to create an article in an encyclopedia.

Coverage

Although the term "role-playing game" is broadly used to cover many pursuits,^[1] these guidelines refer only to the games in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters, determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. This includes live-action role-playing games but excludes role-playing video games.

The criteria set forth below also apply to online text-based role-playing games. However, the notability of these games should also be evaluated using the notability criteria for web-specific content.

Although the rules of most role-playing games are published in books, these criteria do not apply to articles dedicated to those books if a separate article exists to describe the game.^[2] Articles solely about books should be evaluated using the notability criteria for books. If a role-playing game's rules are instead published online, then the publication should be evaluated using the notability criteria for web-specific content.

Criteria

A role-playing game or game topic^[3] is generally notable if it verifiably meets through reliable sources, one or more of the following criteria:

The game or topic has been a subject^[4] of multiple, non-trivial^[5] published works whose sources are independent of the game or topic,^[6] with at least some of these works serving a general audience. This includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews. Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a summary of rules or in-universe information.^[7]
- The immediately preceding criterion excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the author, its publisher, agent, or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the game or game topic.^[8]
- Coverage from an online review website can be considered non-trivial for the previous criterion if the coverage includes work by at least one professional reviewer or staff writer. Multiple reviews on a single website do not impart additional notability, so online reviews must come from multiple sources or be supported by additional coverage.
The game or topic has won a major award.
The game or topic represents a significant milestone in the development of role-playing games.
- This criterion includes the first game to use a game mechanic which was later widely adopted; the first game within a given major genre of setting or the first to use a setting which was later widely used; the first to be published in a certain way, for example online or print-on-demand; or which is otherwise described as a significant step by multiple reliable sources. Generic role-playing games do not prevent future setting-specific games from counting under this criterion.
The game's designer or setting is so historically significant that any officially associated works may be considered notable; or it is the focus of an active WikiProject
- This includes licensed games of significant franchises.

Other considerations

Self-publication

Self-publication and/or publication by a vanity press is indicative, but not determinative of non-notability. By the same token, it should always weigh against an article's inclusion if the author or other interested party is the creator of the Wikipedia article. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Autobiography for more information.

However, not all self-published games are non-notable, and some early independently published games are notable precisely because they were among the first to be published independently.

Online stores

A game's listing at online stores such as Barnes & Noble.com or Amazon.com is not by itself an indication of notability as such websites are non-exclusionary, including large numbers of vanity press publications. There is no present agreement on how high a book must fall on Amazon's sales rank listing (in the "product details" section for a book's listing) in order to provide evidence of its notability, vel non.

Not yet published games

Since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball articles about games that are not yet published are generally discouraged unless multiple independent sources provide strong evidence that the game is widely anticipated and unless the title of the game and its approximate date of publication have been made public.

Derivative articles

It is a general consensus on Wikipedia that articles should not be split and split again into ever more minutiae of detail treatment, with each split normally lowering the level of notability. What this means is that while a game may be notable, it is not normally advisable to have a separate article on a character or rulebook from the game, and it is often the case that despite the game being manifestly notable, a derivative article from it is not. Exceptions do, of course, exist—see Wikipedia:Notability (fiction).

In some situations, where the game itself does not fit the established criteria for notability, or if a game is notable but the designer or publisher has an article in Wikipedia, it may be better to feature material about the game in that article, rather than creating a separate article for that game. Conversely, if a rulebook is notable but the game has an article in Wikipedia, it may be better to feature material about the book in the game's article, rather than creating a separate article for the book.

Resources

Pen & Paper RPG Database

Notes

[1]
Andrew Rilstone, "Role-Playing Games: An Overview" 1994, Inter*Action #1 at http://www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/rpgoverview.html
[2]
For example, The article Dungeons & Dragons is dedicated to the game and should be evaluated using these criteria, whereas Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide are dedicated to books and should be evaluated according to WP:BK.
[3]
A game "topic" includes sourcebooks released for a game, mechanics of games, and characters, locations, fantasy races or other elements of a game's setting.
[4]
The "subject" of a work means non-trivial treatment and excludes mere mention of the game, its author or of its publication, price listings and other nonsubstantive detail treatment.
[5]
"Non-trivial" excludes personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, Usenet posts, wikis and other media that are not themselves reliable. An analysis of the manner of treatment is crucial as well; Slashdot.org for example is reliable, but postings to that site by members of the public on a subject do not share the site's imprimatur. Be careful to check that the author, publisher, agent, vendor. etc. of a particular book are in no way interested in any third party source.
[6]
An "independent source" is a source which describes a topic from a disinterested perspective. Independent does not mean independent of the publishing industry, but only refers to those actually involved with the particular game or game topic. Releases by the publisher of a game do not establish notability; for example, reviews in Dragon magazine cannot be used to establish notability of products released by TSR or Wizards of the Coast. Third-party sourcebooks on a topic are in general not independent references for the topic they cover, since their authors have a financial interest in that topic.
[7]
It is not sufficient to show that a game or game topic is notable within a particular fictional setting; sources must establish that the topic is notable from a real-world perspective. Hence, unless a source contains a non-trivial amount of coverage of a game or game topic from a real-world perspective, it does not count towards this criterion. In particular, in-universe and game-mechanical descriptions of a topic do not meet this criterion.
[8]
Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopedia article. The published works must be someone else writing about the book. (See Wikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material). The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its author, publisher, vendor or agent) have actually considered the book notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.