Discussion areas come in three basic types: Usenet newsgroups, electronic mailing lists, and web forums. With Usenet newsgroups, you just click on the link and there you are. With web forums, you must visit the web page of the forums to take part in the discussion (although some forward-thinking forums will have RSS feeds for postings.
With mailing lists, you have to join first; in net parlance, you “subscribe” to the mailing list. Generally, this is some variation on sending the message “subscribe firstname lastname” to a “control” address for that mailing list.
More Information
- Aardy’s RPG Page
- Looks like it’s disappearing, but still includes a few funny lists and some useful lists, such as Angelic Orders.
- Alarums and Excursions
- “A&E is a photocopied monthly roleplaying game APA (amateur press association) with contributors from across the US, UK, and Canada. It won Origins Awards in 1985, 2000, 2001, and 2002.”
- The Forge
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“This site is dedicated to the promotion, creation, and review of independent role-playing games. What is an independent role-playing game? Our main criterion is that the game is owned by its author, or creator-owned.” Don’t miss the article links arrayed across the top of the forums.
- FUDGE Mailing List
- The FAQ for the FUDGE mailing list, includes instructions on how to join.
- Herkimer’s Lair
- For Shadowrun, Includes the NERPS, ShadowRN and ShadowTK mailing lists and an interesting looking spell design software package.
- Kingdom Maker medieval role-playing
- Looks like a discussion board/email variant of a play-by-mail campaign. “A rich and interesting medieval setting, a living story which you are a part of, be you commoner, princess, court jester, knight, whatever you wish to be. A setting that always is at the very least semi historical, with a believable outcome to events.”
- Rec.Games.FRP.Advocacy
- A Usenet newsgroup for arguing about which role-playing game is best. Someone must have won because it’s mostly spam now.
- Rec.Games.FRP.Announce
- For announcements, press releases, and general hype about role-playing games and related materials. Appears to be mostly an announcements war between Pyramid and Polymancer.
- Rec.Games.FRP.Cyber
- A Usenet newsgroup for any and all cyberpunk style games. There are some very good discussions in among the chatter in this group.
- Rec.Games.FRP.DnD
- For discussion of the entire D&D line of games.
- Rec.Games.FRP.DND FAQ
- The Dungeons and Dragons discussion group Frequently Asked Questions file: the first place to go for questions about D&D or related products.
- Rec.Games.FRP.GURPS
- GURPS newsgroup. Some pretty technical discussions in there, such as how do you model a cricket bat as a weapon?
- Rec.Games.FRP.Marketplace
- For buying and selling and trading role-playing games and accessories. Mostly announcements of gaming-related items being auctioned on eBay.
- Rec.Games.FRP.Misc
- The granddaddy of all RPG newsgroups, like most newsgroups nowadays it has a lot of spam but it continues to host interesting discussions and useful information.
- Rec.Games.FRP.Storyteller
- The World of Darkness. That’s “Vampire”, “Werewolf”, “Mage” and others. Very little traffic here, but some interesting discussions make it look like people are still paying attention.
- Rec.Games.FRP.Super-Heroes
- Discuss any and all super-hero RPGs.
- Story Games Community
- An interesting forum for players of the “graphic novels” of the RPG biz, “story games”. Interesting place to hang out.
- UK.Games.Roleplay FAQ
- A newsgroup for the discussion and dissemination of information about “table-top” (and possibly some “freeform” or “live action”) role-playing activity in the UK and Ireland, or matters concerning gaming in those places.
