TTTTRPG - Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games

A timeline linking over 1000 tabletop role-playing games with over 800 game design innovations from 1974 to 2020. Coded in dot language and compiled with GraphViz, it is curated manually and it is part of a « On the Shoulders of Cloud Giants » set of projects aiming to record, analyze and understand the cultural transmission and citation practices in the TTRPG publishing industry.

• UPDATE 2025 : The ontology of game designs and their associated games is currently coded in RDF-OWL with WebProtégé.

• UPDATE 2024 : The project is now on ObservableHQ (in javascript). The data is extracted from Wikidata, processed, filtered, coded in dot and rendered online in svg. https://observablehq.com/@pascaliensis/ttttrpg

• Download the PDF poster (4 Mo) (or the condensed version without the innovations)

Long term goal

This timeline is a part of the « On the Shoulders of Cloud Giants » (en français) set of projects. See also a Timeline Tree of Games and Board Games.

Another quantitative project of this set is « On the Shoulders of Cloud Giants: citation practices in the tabletop role-playing game publishing industry ».

I would like to work on the taxonomy of relations between published TTRPGs and this project is a first draft and essay. My ambition is to design a whole phylomemetic system to track evolution of cultural ideas. I will use the TTRPG published products as subject because it is offering a clear, defined and accessible set of items.

How to...

... Do it myself

• Download the latest source code. It should be easy to understand, but you can read more explanations of the structure of the source code.
• Option 1 (easy) :
  • Copy-paste the source code in the Graph Generator (by Obormot). It generates a SVG file without the icons (right-clic on the picture on the right panel to save it).
• Option 2 (hard) :
  • Download the zip package of icon pictures. Unpack the pictures in a folder C:/gv/ on your computer.
  • Install and set up Graphviz and Textpad++.
  • Compile the code. The details are in the header of the source code ("Parameters"). It will produce a ps file.
  • With Adobe Distiller, turn the ps file into a PDF file. If you successfully used a free and open-source software to do that job, please let me know.

... Contribute

• Send me corrections or suggestions at pascal.umontreal [at] gmail.com

  • It can take time before I answer you.
  • If you don't want to be cited as contributor, add "no citation" in your email.

• Help me to compile the dot source code graph to produce a more dense graph.

• Improve Wikidata items related to tabletop RPG.

  • I documented some guidelines here https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProjectBoardGames (contact me at Pmartinolli if you need help). I already made 7000 edits on TTRPGs so I have a little understanding of what is what there.
  • Why Wikidata ? I try to mirror as much of the informations as I can on Wikidata to benefit from the database tools and from the community of contributors. Click here to produce a graph of the citation practices in TTRPG.

• Export the data into GEPHY. Why ? 1) I want to try it ; 2) I think the database structure of GEPHY can help managing all the informations ; 3) It's open source.

... Start my own project

• Have a look on this simple template of the graph, and on the rendering.
• Gather your friends (or your students) and decide some teamwork methods. Each of you create an account on GitHub.
• Deposit your files on GitHub.
• Go!
• Don't forget to be a gentleman/gentlelady of the open access : cite me and Todd Lehman.

... Thank me

• Tweet it @pascaliensis.
• Comment it on your social media.
• Cite me in your academic work : > Martinolli, Pascal. 2019. « TTTTRPG: Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games, celebrating more than 40 years of game design innovations. » Zenodo. Dataset and dot language code. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3492119
• Print it and display it in your school, library, exhibition, etc.
• Send me an email : pascal.umontreal [at] gmail.com

Short term improvements

• Produce a more dense graph.
• Insert a key legend to explicit the colors and links displayed.
• Draw different kind of lines for better understanding of links.
• Use sans-serif font for better readability.
• Change the font/color/background of the name of items with a cover picture for better readability.
• Currently (may 2022) : updating the information on Wikidata, then generating different graphs through queries and stuff (work in progress).

Acknowledgements

The source code is an adaptation of the code created by Todd Lehman for his “TeX Family Tree”.

The data sources of this work are numerous. You can have a look of the references used to select, check and analyze the TTRPGs.

This content is CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0

Informations in the source code are pure facts, therefore they cannot be copyrighted. The curation of these informations, the links between them and the structure of their display are a work of edition. I will be glad you acknowledge my name if you want to reuse them.

Metadata / Métadonnées

• Author / Auteur : Pascal Martinolli

• Created / Créé le : 2016

• Most recent version / Dernière version : 2020-12-31

• Original format / format de fichier : DOT language for Graphviz (Open source)

• License / Licence : CC-BY-NC-SA

• Presented at, promoted through / Présenté à, diffusé via : Donjons & Données probantes 2018, Blogue Jeu de rôle sur table, ZoTrpg blog, ResearchGate, Academia, Twitter, Facebook: groupe Initiatives, Facebook: Role-play Theory Study Group, reddit/RPGdesign, Casus NO, Zenodo, reddit/rpg, WT:Social:TTRPG.

• Contributors (so far) : People and works cited in the references, Éric Nieudan, Druuples, Steve Dempsey, James Wallis, Batronoban, Mark Sullivan, Veso_M, catnipandfish, PhasmaFelis, VonAether, DMMJaco, elijahbear8.

• Comments and collaborations are welcomed at / Commentaires et collaborations : pascal.umontreal [at] gmail.com

\ \ https://github.com/pmartinolli/TTTTRPG