Know Your Role-Playing Games! A brief history of RPG’s

Role-playing games-RPG’s for short-is the most fascinating videogame genre I have ever played. RPG’s allow you to craft your own stories and to express your own personality in ways that many other types of video games do not allow. From character creation, to dialogue choices, to the multitude of optional side quests, role-playing games can take players to incredibly fascinating worlds and tell heart-wrenching stories. As with many things, the idea of a role-playing game has humble beginnings, but over the decades, perhaps even centuries, it has transformed into a medium in which the only limit to an RPG is the imagination.
Perhaps unexpectedly, RPG’s are believed to have gotten their start in the form of war-games going back hundreds, even thousands of years! War-games were a way for people not only to entertain themselves, but also for military generals to plan and strategize upcoming battles. They would simulate different possible scenarios and outcomes while coming up with counters and alternatives to possible maneuvers. Through the years many war-gamers would reenact their favorite historical battles on top of maps which were laid out on a table. This continued into the 1970s when a pair of friends, Ernest “Gary” Gygax and David Arneson, developed and self-published their own tabletop game inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in 1974. They called it Dungeons & Dragons (“A History of Role-Playing” http://ptgptb.org/0001/history1.html).
Most role-playing games today following a similar set of rules that were created for Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s. Typically, a player must create a characters class such as warrior, mage, rogue, bard or one of many other potential choices. Players must then choose their characters stats and attributes which then determines the strength and weaknesses of that character. Some of the traditional and most often used stats would be: strength, dexterity, willpower (this usually reflects a character’s ability to use magic), persuasion and constitution (this reflects a characters physical defense as well as their hit points “HP” or health). A character’s abilities are in accordance with their stats. For example, a character with a high strength rating would most likely be a warrior and have the ability to use two-handed swords and be able to wear heavy armor; whereas someone with high dexterity would probably be a ranger or rogue and have the ability to pick locks and fire a bow and arrow. They would also typically have a lower strength stat and therefore would be limited to wearing light and medium armor. Once a character has been created they can go out on adventures or “quests” as they are commonly called in RPGs. They can then earn experience points (EXP) by defeating enemies and completing quests which allow players to increase their characters stats and abilities through a process called “leveling up”. This basic game structure is common across many RPG’s and to most it is this format that classifies a game as an RPG.
With the advent of computer gaming, role-playing games made the jump from sitting around a table with friends to sitting in front of your computer screen playing either alone or eventually, with millions of other players. One of the first and most popular role-playing games for the computer came out in 1981 called Ultima and was created by Richard Garriott. Ultima was one of many that the structure and mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons and translated it into a computer game. In 1997, Ultima Online became one of the first Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) where players could interact with other players online by chatting through text, trading items and equipment with each other and going on quests together. Similar games such as World of Warcraft and League of Legends have become popular online role-playing games as well, but Ultima Online was one of the first and it still runs today (“A History of Console RPG’s”http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/10/25/a-history-of-console-rpgs?page=1).
The first RPG I personally remember seeing was a Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) called final fantasy VII for the original PlayStation in 1997. JRPG’s are known for having turn-based combat, although recently developers seem to be moving toward action based combat systems typically used in Western RPG’s (role-playing games developed in Europe and North America primarily) like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. As you’ve probably guessed, turn-based combat systems are built around each character in a battle performing an action one at a time in a set order; whereas action based combat can be much more free-flowing. Attacks and actions are performed by both enemies and player characters simultaneously. One role-playing game developed in Japan that took a more action oriented approach very early on was the iconic Legend of Zelda series which debuted in 1986. It focused more on action combat and explanation as opposed to its contemporaries like Dragon Quest which focused more on turn-based combat and more direct storytelling when it released in 1986 in Japan and 1989 in North America under the name Dragon Warrior.
Role-playing games continue to be one of the pioneering genres in videogames today. The gaming worlds get bigger, the stories being told are more complex and the choices players are given are ever-expanding. Players have more power and control over their adventures in a role-playing game than nearly any other videogame genre and I believe it is that fact which makes RPGs so special. From the humble beginnings of playing Dungeons & Dragons around a table, to playing with millions of others online like Ultima Online, to the classics of the early consoles like the Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest series’, to the technical marvels of the current generation like Dragon Age and The Witcher, there is an RPG for everyone. So get out there and start your own adventure! And then of course come back and tell me all about it.