The Role-Playing Games Encyclopedia is an alphabetical-by-title list of all printed tabletop role-playing games. Each entry includes author, publication date, and company for each edition of the game, along with a capsule description. It has entries for over 1101 games, although some are sketchy. There are several categories it does not claim to cover:
The capsule descriptions for the games are often based on either brief viewing or second-hand information. For this and other reasons, I try to avoid making any judgements on quality of the game. Instead, I try to make a few factual statements to describe it. If you would like more information, the best source is most likely the company home page.
My primary sources for this list are various RPG company web pages, browsing my local gaming stores, and my own collection. I also have had numerous contributors who have emailed me information. My thanks especially to Patrice Mermoud for both French & English RPGs. Thanks also to Michele Bonelli di Salci for Italian RPGs, Leena M Romppainen for Finnish RPGs, Max Zomborszki and Terje Nordin for Swedish RPGs, Enrique Caballero for Spanish RPGs, and Paul Mason and Yoko Miyamoto for the still-fledgling Japanese RPGs. Also thanks to Georgios Moralidis for the Greek RPG, and Cristiano Chaves for Portuguese RPGs.
Also, see the links below for more information on non-English RPGs. If you have information to add, please email me. I would especially appreciate more information on non-English RPGs, since my foreign language skills are poor.
There is also the printed book Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick. This has entries for most English-language RPGs prior to 1990, including not only the core rules but also many supplements. It includes a brief opinion of the game, which is not always too informative, but includes author, year, and company which I often rely on.
There are many places that list RPGs. The original source for many of these is the Usenet Complete RPG List (which can be found copied at many places on the web). However, that only gives name, company, and vague genre. Below in rough order of importance are index sites that I have found occaisionally helpful:
For non-English RPGs, there are more sites which are usually specific to a language.
Thanks a lot for the help.