[1] RPGnet was founded in 1996 by Emma and Sandy Antunes, Shawn Althouse (aka etrigan) and Brian David Phillips, as a way to unify a number of transient game sites.

[3] Originally based on Matt's WWWBoard script, the 1997 RPGnet forums were formatted in earlier message boards' threaded style, being mostly dedicated to game design and industry news.

With the change to vBulletin on 2002, new sections catering to the growing player and enthusiast user bases were added.

Over time, the RPGnet forums have grown to encompass a broad range of subjects related to gaming and modern media.

Like most large forums, RPGnet has developed numerous in-jokes, taglines, and recurring flame wars.

Smaller niche and indie role-playing games are particularly well represented and the latest releases often generate a great deal of discussion.

Threads on Dungeons & Dragons, World of Darkness, GURPS and other popular systems are fairly common.

This site has become noted as a source for player theory on role-playing games, and these are often written by authors with an academic background.

Noteworthy columnists have included game industry veterans such as Ross Winn, Chad Underkoffler and Matt Drake.

The forums include threads describing actual play of role-playing games in concrete terms.

These threads include descriptions of how players have overcome specific challenges, and they allow observers to view how a role-playing game is performed without having to actually participate.