Roleplaying

Characters

Characters specific to one System, Genre, or style of roleplaying other than tabletop (Live Action, Gamebooks, Online, or Video Games) should be submitted to the category of that specific system/genre/style.

Resources for character creation should be submitted to Games: Roleplaying: World Building: Characters

Many roleplayers develop extensive backgrounds for their characters, creating elaborate histories, game fiction, and even in-character homepages.

Conventions

Discussed gaming conventions on the topic of Roleplaying.

Developers and Publishers

To be listed you need following:

A Product
A Company
A Finished Game
A Tabletop / Pen and Paper Roleplaying Game (no Board, Computer, or Video Game)

Official homepages of companies producing or publishing Roleplaying Games and support material.

Directories

Directories specific to one Genre or System should go to the appropriate Genre or System category. Also directories about Live Action, Gamebooks, Free Systems, Computer and Video Games Roleplaying, or Online Roleplaying should go to their respective categories.

Sites that exist primarily to provide alphabetical or classified lists of resources about roleplaying games.

FAQs, Help, and Tutorials

Focusing on advice for basic or advanced roleplay. At this level, sites should cover roleplaying in general or multiple genres and systems.

Gamebooks

This category is meant for resources or gamebooks itself for offline usage. Please only submit English language sites here.

Online based Gamebooks should be submitted to Games: Internet: Roleplaying: Browser Based or to Games: Internet: Browser Based: Adventure: Choose Your Own Adventure for non roleplaying gamebooks.

Gamebooks are a form of self-contained interactive fiction; you play the part of the hero and make his/her decisions by turning to different pages and reading different sections of the book. The genre includes Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, and other series.

Gamebooks are not just rule books, hints, cheats or descriptions of game systems; they are the games themselves.

Genres

Online, chat-based, and freeform games should be submitted to Arts: Animation: Anime: Games: Roleplaying.

Sites for a homemade "free" roleplaying games must be submitted to Games: Roleplaying: Genres: Anime: Free Systems.

This section contains sub categories for the various Genres, or areas of subject matter, that Roleplaying games seem to have broken themselves into. Each category contains pages that deal with more than one system in the genre and Systems specific to this genre.

Humor

Like any subculture, roleplayers have their own in-jokes; this category is the place to look for parodies, ridiculous rules, gaming stories, comics, and anything else approaching role-playing in a light-hearted spirit.

Live Action

Please submit sites about Murder Mystery or Laser Games to their respective categories as these are not considered Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) by the definition of the ODP.

Live action roleplaying (a term often shortened into LARP or LRP) is a form of roleplaying where the participants do not merely verbally describe their actions, but actually carry them out (or pretend to do so).
Live action games can be compared to improvisational theatre, where each of the participants is free to act on themselves, guided by their interpretation of the character they are playing. Although costuming and elaborate props are not a necessity, they are often employed to create an authentic atmosphere.
Several different forms of live gaming have developed independently of each other, and the games can range from quite physical 'live combat' experiences to elaborate 'free form' plots, where the games consist of discussions, plotting and emotional immersion.

Magazines and E-zines

This category should hold Magazines and E-zines that are devoted to roleplaying in general, or at least cover more than one Genre and System.

Roleplaying magazines, publications, journals, fanzines, both online and on paper.

Mailing Lists

Online roleplaying is not available in this category (or Games/Roleplaying for that matter). All online roleplaying is located at Games: Online: Roleplaying.

Discussion and collection of messages on tabletop or pen and pencil roleplaying games.

Play Groups

Submit clubs that only meet online to Games: Roleplaying: Online_Communities and Video Game Clans to Games: Video Games: Roleplaying: Clans and Guilds.

Gaming clubs, societies, and associations whose members meet each other in order to play games face to face.

Roleplaying in Society

Roleplayers traditionally view their hobby as one divorced from "the real world", a second life lived in imaginary worlds, with little regard for societal issues outside the game. A few issues, however, have special relevance (and history) within roleplaying, requiring gamers to deal with the issues as gamers.
The interaction of the roleplaying hobby and the society around it is more complicated than advocacy and opposition; in many cases, there are differing views among roleplayers themselves. This category collects resources from all sides of an issue, as well as media references about gamer issues.

Software

This category is about Tools for pen-and-paper roleplaying. Sites about Computer and Video Game roleplaying games or tools for these should should be submitted to Games: Video Games: Roleplaying.

Please including basic information about your software, like what license model it uses (like Commercial, Freeware, Shareware, Open Source) and on what systems it runs (like DOS, Windows, MacOS, Linux/Unix, etc).

Helpful Tools for Game Masters and Players. This includes online Java, JavaScript, and CGI programs, and downloadable software for character generation, mapping, dice rolling, and any other computer program specifically intended to aid roleplayers.

Systems

If you want to submit a site for a game that isn't listed in here, submit it to the appropriate subcategory of Games: Roleplaying: Genres. When a sufficient number of sites dealing with a new game system are submitted (and accepted), the Open Directory editors will create a new category for that game.

This section contains a list roleplaying games that have more than one web page devoted to them. Look in Games: Roleplaying: Genres/(appropriate_genre)/ for sites about less popular games, and for a second listing of these systems, divided by genre.
You can't submit sites at this level or become an editor at this level. Go to the individual Systems or Genres subcategories for that.

Web Rings

A web ring is a group of thematically-similar sites organized into a circle through the use of standardized 'Next' and 'Previous' hyperlinks.

World Building

World Building resources for Video Game engines (like Neverwinter Nights) should be submitted to the specific category of that Game.

Resources and tools for building worlds suitable to be used in roleplaying games. These include resources such as mapping tools, discussion groups, guides to online world-building projects and invented languages.