Tabletop Game Folderization

So once Raineh gets a chance to weigh in, what do we do after? I like what we've got going but don't want to jump the gun on policy.

That's a good question. I thought there would be something like Administrivia.Video Games Genres and Administrivia.Music Genres since it's common to sort those mediums by genre, but that doesn't appear to be the case. All I found was Administrivia.Media Categories, which covers mediums. That doesn't mean we can't request the creation of something like Administrivia.Tabletop Game Categories though. Maybe we could also ask about having music genres and video game genres standardized, though I don't think I'd participate in that project myself.

I volunteer to help convert the old style into the new one. We should probably ask the mods if we can go ahead and convert...

I do want to have one more question resolved though: For tropes that are fairly common in both tabletop games and video games, I propose that we split the examples list into something like this sandbox page demonstrates instead of jumbling video game folder and tabletop game folders together.

This does highlight one potential issue: there's a chance that a desired Strategy Games page would collide with a StrategyGames.Trope page for video games. What do we do about that? I suggest that we can name the split-off page "StrategyTabletopGames.Trope" if we ever need anything like that.

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Mar 21st 2023 at 7:27:02 PM

I don't really have a problem with it.

I think the highest priority would be to go through and sort out the folders first, and worry about lack of genre definitions or explicit standardisation after.

I think that makes sense, with the caveat that we get a page ASAP so we have something to point to in case as a quick reference.

Edit: Also, I agree with the soft split idea.

Edited by ANonagon9 on Mar 21st 2023 at 4:19:02 AM

I've started working on a reference page.

^ Added Tsuro as "Strategy — Other". Mexican Train might be strategic enough to go there as well.

Works for me.

So, which category are we putting Spirit Island into? It's a heavily thematic strategy game. It seems a useful edge case for something like this.

Edited by RainehDaze on Mar 21st 2023 at 2:53:29 PM

I'd say Strategy Games — Other. (BGG has it as "Strategy".)

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Mar 22nd 2023 at 11:44:03 AM

Gonna go ahead and holler a mod over here for feedback and/or next steps. Hopefully all goes well and we have a clear blueprint for implementation!

Can I get a summary of what you guys are planning to do here? I don't think I can give feedback otherwise.

Basically, we are proposing a better way of organising Tabletop game examples on trope pages. Especially on out of universe game trope pages.

Edited by Diamondeye218 on Mar 23rd 2023 at 4:52:25 PM

I am aware of that. I was asking for specifics. Sorry if that wasn't clear. If you guys have clear courses of actions, you can compile them into crowner options and then we could see about hooking a crowner.

I want two things done:

• Start converting old pages to this system.
• Make Sandbox.Tabletop Folderization into an official reference for tabletop game folderization.

I don't know about making an Administrivia page for Tabletop Game folderization as I don't believe we have an official system or policy for general folder classification.

We do have Media Categories for top-level divisions.

If it's strictly a consistency issue, I'm happy to make templates for Music and Video Games, based on what we're already doing, though it wouldn't be until Monday at the earliest.

I'm guessing those could use their own threads, considering that there'll probably be some controversial points. I do support the idea though.

Oh, I forgot about Administrivia.Media Categories. As far as video game categorization goes, a decision to re-catergorize RPG games via crowner was recently done in this thread so expanding the page doesn't sound like a bad idea. However, I think the Tabletop game re-classification should still be decided via crowner first.

If we want to discuss expanding Media Categories in further detail, we can move things over to the Outdated Administrivia Pages thread

Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 23rd 2023 at 5:27:40 AM

Nice, I wasn't aware of that. Good points.

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Mar 23rd 2023 at 11:00:18 AM

So what do you think the options for the crowner should be?

Well, I asked you guys to compile the crowner options since you were involved in this discussion.

Sorry, I got caught up in the more recent posts and forgot that you asked us to do that.

I think a multi-proposal crowner is better than a "here's the new system, take it or leave it" crowner. I suggest one that looks something like this:

What should be done about tabletop game folderization?

• Split board games by genre (strategy, thematic, and other possible categories.)
• Lump together board games under "Board Games" (the current system)
• If we split board games by genre, have a "Dexterity Games" category.
• If we split board games by genre, have a "Randomize-and-Move" category for games revolving around the Roll-and-Move mechanic.
• If we split board games by genre, have a "Social Games" category.
• If we split board games by genre, split the "Strategy Games" category into sub-categories like Abstract, Eurogame, Wargames etc.
• If we split board games by genre, split the "Thematic Games" category into sub-categories like Adventure.
• If we split board games by genre, have a "Word Games" category.
• Split off a "Card Games — Collectible" category from "Card Games".
• Split card games that don't fit anywhere else between "Card Games — Dedicated Deck" and "Card Games — Traditional Deck".
• Have a Dice Games folder
• If we have a Dice Games folder, have a specific sub-category for the roll-and-write subgenre
• Split off a Tabletop RPGs category from Tabletop Games
• Split off a Wargames category from Tabletop Games (will be called "Strategy Games — Wargames" if Strategy Games gets sub-categories, and just "Wargames" otherwise)

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Mar 25th 2023 at 6:12:55 PM

Well the thing is that doing an all-or-nothing criwner probably isn't ideal, but I don't know a better way to split it than each proposed folder.

Maybe we could use these options instead?

• Split board games by genre, such as Strategy and Thematic. If this passes, the exact categories will be decided in a future crowner.
• Lump together board games under "Board Games" (the current system)
• Split off a "Card Games — Collectible" category from "Card Games".
• Split card games that don't fit anywhere else between "Card Games — Dedicated Deck" and "Card Games — Traditional Deck".
• Have a Dice Games folder
• If we have a Dice Games folder, have a specific sub-category for the roll-and-write subgenre
• Split off a Tabletop RPGs category from Tabletop Games
• Split off a Wargames category from Tabletop Games (might be renamed "Strategy Games — Wargames" depending on how the rest of the categorization ends up)

Edit: I think this is probably better.

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Mar 25th 2023 at 6:40:18 PM

Honestly, I think that's still too many options.

Keep it simple—on game trope pages, should we:

1. split up tabletop games by genre
2. split tabletop games up into the biggest overarching categories (boardgames, CC Gs, roleplaying games, and wargames)
3. leave it as is (mostly lumped together)

This would hopefully get more people involved to talk about the actual folderisation.

As for #2, I think whether that should be consistently applied to non-game tropes is something that needs investigating in and of itself.