How this map works

What the map is for

I have built this as a source-aware research and teaching environment for exploring documented relationships among solo role-playing games and related works. Timeline and Browse retain the wider catalogue. Compare plots only works with recorded placements; unassessed works remain in the other views. Network shows only works that participate in at least one documented relationship assertion.

The map is curated, selective and revisable. It is not a complete history of solo role-playing, a popularity table, or a settled canon. It makes a bounded set of claims visible so that a reader can inspect them, test them against their sources and identify what remains unresolved.

What belongs on the map

A work may be included when it helps make a documented relationship, format, procedure, publishing route or historical question visible. Adjacent forms, such as gamebooks, role-playing systems and oracle tools, appear only where their relation to a mapped work can be recorded or where they are needed to frame a clearly labelled research question.

Inclusion does not establish importance, priority, quality or influence. It establishes that a work is useful to this bounded enquiry and can be described responsibly at the present stage of research.

What an arrow means

An arrow runs from the acknowledged precursor to the later work. It represents a specific relationship assertion, usually an acknowledgement by a designer or publisher. Open the selected relationship, or use Browse data, to read the wording and inspect its source record.

Each assertion has a stable identifier, two named works, a concise claim, a relationship type, an evidence status, review information and one or more source references. The type describes what kind of connection is claimed. The status describes the present state of its evidence. Keeping those fields separate prevents a well-documented thematic credit from being confused with a rules credit, or a research lead from being presented as a settled fact.

Evidence statuses

The map uses named statuses rather than an unexplained numerical confidence score. Line pattern repeats the status, so meaning does not depend on colour.

A partial bibliographic record is not the same thing as a reported relationship. Source completeness and assertion status are recorded separately. Where available, an assertion can also retain a page, section, short quotation or explanatory note.

Sources and dates

The Sources table is a reusable catalogue of materials cited by relationship assertions. Missing information is left unrecorded or marked as partial rather than reconstructed from assumption. A source may support more than one assertion, but it establishes only the claims for which it is cited.

Years usually refer to the first published edition of the work shown, excluding announcements, crowdfunding launches and playtests. A series uses its first volume. A named edition uses the year of that edition. The date basis is recorded with the work, and an unresolved basis remains visibly unresolved.

A work that is still in development may be dated by its crowdfunding campaign and marked with that date basis, so the year is not mistaken for a public release date.

Timeline sources are separate. A cited contextual marker can establish a date or limited piece of context. It does not establish a causal connection between an event and a nearby work.

How to read the views

Network

Network is an assertion graph rather than a complete catalogue. A work appears there only when it is the source or target of at least one documented relationship. Works without a current assertion remain available in Browse and Timeline under Connection research, rather than appearing as unexplained singletons or receiving speculative links. They enter Compare only after a placement has been recorded.

Node positions, spacing, label adjustments, colours, regions and link curves help navigation. They are not evidence of influence, similarity, causation or historical distance. Optional lineage regions include only recorded memberships. They are not Venn diagrams or exhaustive taxonomies, and a region does not create an undocumented arrow.

Timeline

The Timeline orders works using their recorded date basis. Optional interactive-fiction and digital-history layers are curatorial context. They generate questions for research, but do not claim direct influence unless a separate relationship assertion and source record say so.

Compare

The Compare view places assessed works along two broad prompts: rules detail and narrative guidance. Existing placements are provisional curatorial judgements with record-level rationales. Newly admitted works without reviewed rules remain unassessed and are not plotted. Placements are not objective ratings, measurements or relationship evidence.

The optional Student workspace lets a reader draft alternative placements and rationales in local browser storage. These drafts remain on that device. They are not published, added to the canonical dataset or included in a share link.

Records and sources

Records and sources is an equal route into the project, not a fallback. Its Works, Connection research, Relationships and Sources tables make the map usable without interpreting colour, size or spatial position. A separate Interpretive annotations table exposes proposed lens assignments without presenting them as evidence. Connection research identifies catalogue records that need a work-specific source before entering Network. The downloadable files are generated from the same canonical dataset.

Limits and absences

Documented credits are easier to locate for some designers, publishers, languages and periods than for others. Public web sources disappear. Marketplace pages change. Informal exchange, play cultures and unrecorded conversations often leave little trace. The map therefore reflects an archive of available statements, not a neutral measure of who mattered.

A missing arrow may reflect the present evidence boundary: no included documented credit has yet been found. It may also reflect the limits of the research so far. Absence is not proof that no influence existed.

The interpretive framework is a separate authored layer. The current pilot lens asks how solo-play procedures distribute authority between rules, chance and the player. Its work assignments are proposed discussion cases, not hidden data categories, lineage memberships or additional evidence arrows.

The corpus deliberately emphasises the UK context as a particularly important part of its wider context.

How to read and challenge the map

1. Choose one arrow and state exactly what it claims.
2. Check its evidence status, source record and any locator or note.
3. Separate what the source says from what you infer from it.
4. Ask what the arrow does not establish, even if the broader connection seems plausible.
5. Turn an absence or disagreement into a research question, then identify the evidence that could resolve it.

The Student toolkit develops this into five seminar and research activities. The aim is not to teach students to trust a polished visualisation. It is to make the visualisation answerable to its records.

Corrections, suggestions and versioning

Corrections are welcome, especially where a source has been misread, a date basis is wrong, a claim is too strong, or a documented connection is missing. A useful suggestion identifies the works involved, states a narrow proposed relationship or correction, and supplies a source that can be checked.

Use the suggestion form to propose a change. Suggestions are not added to the public dataset automatically. Review checks the scope, wording, source, status, date basis and any provisional Compare placement before publication.

The project records a schema version, a data version and a verification date. Each published correction receives a new data version and a dated entry in the version history. Structural changes to the record model also update the schema version. Exports retain these identifiers so that a citation can state which release it used.

• Works CSV
• Relationships CSV
• Sources CSV
• GEXF network
• JSON-LD dataset

Citation and rights

Suggested map citation: Graham, Rosie, Solo RPG Influence Map (2026) <URL of the map> [accessed day month year], data version 2.3.6.

CC BY 4.0 is proposed for the original dataset and annotations, pending confirmation of institutional rights. This page does not grant that licence, and it grants no licence over third-party game titles, trademarks, artwork or quoted material.

The map makes a bounded set of claims inspectable. Its value depends on following an arrow back to its source, noticing what has not been established, and proposing better evidence where the record can be improved. What different history becomes visible when we attend as carefully to the gaps as to the lines?