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Role-Playing Games (RPG’s) are fun and enthralling. The immersing affect they have on the people participating is a product of the high level of interaction involved in playing an RPG. As the name suggests, role-playing is central to the experience. To role-play, all one has to do is take on a particular character’s role and act it out. In a basic sense, it’s like putting on a play without a script. There is a setting and a loose plot. Environmental elements or props are provided, but it’s up to the players to create their own stories. Role-playing typically requires a bit of imagination and creativity too. The only thing that separates an RPG from the act of role-playing is that an RPG occurs within the confines of a game structure with general rules put in place to produce a specific and expected experience. RPG’s are a package comprised of role-playing and other elements that enhance the experience. Unlike a general role-play setting for uncompetitive acting, the game of role-playing is an experience that usually has winners, losers, rankings, and a motive for playing and competing.

History of Role Playing Games

The history of roleplaying, and eventually the more popular roleplaying game, is one that is not easy to trace. One could safely claim that roleplaying is an art that goes back to the roots of civilization. Role-playing in its finest form is a theatrical production. To that extent, the birth of roleplaying is one that likely leads back to the children of past generations. Childhood is where many of us discovered the art of imagination, fantasy, and the ability to be anyone or anything we wanted to be. It’s as broad as any art or science and mysterious as human psychology or quantum physics.

Luckily, however, the history of the role-playing game is not so elusive. The concrete truth about the popular RPG’s we know today is that they stem from the evolution of war games, which have been around roughly as long as role-playing, itself. Games like chess have been an inspiration of sorts for more contemporary war games. War games have little or nothing to do with RPG’s, but the game boards and miniature pieces later became a foundation for the games we see today. It is for this reason that some may refer to H.G. Wells, the brilliant science-fiction writer, as the great grandfather of role-playing games. (Astinus)

The link that war games have with RPG’s is the group of people who played war games during the 20th century. The war games never really hit mainstream, but in the 1960s and 1970s war games became a well-defined industry with a stable fan base. It was during the late 1960s that The Lord of the Rings was released in the United States. Met with such enthusiasm and interest, it was the spark that would lead to a blaze of success for the eventual role-playing games that would later evolve. Because the war games lacked a certain amount of freedom for creativity, a new type of game was needed. This leads us to a couple of gentlemen that would make history with their pioneering ideas.

Gary Gygax and David Arneson are the men responsible for ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, but their legendary creation didn’t come about so quickly or easily. The birth of the role-playing game stemmed from a hunger that the previous war games couldn’t satiate. Through their many attempts to liven up the war games they were playing, they created a number of early versions of RPGs, the most well known being a game called ‘Chainmail’. This laid the groundwork for a medieval war game that supplied the rules for giants, trolls, dragons, and spells. This is thought of as the immediate predecessor to ‘Dungeons and Dragons’.

The birth of Dungeons and Dragons created a new genre of gaming that has garnered much wealth and popularity. This is truer in the videogame industry than anywhere else. The popularity of role-playing games is evident by series such as Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Everquest. The elements that have come about as a result of RPG’s have found themselves in other types of games. Hit points, character classes, unique items, and the concept of leveling up are popular elements in games that are likely a product of the evolution of role-playing games. Other aspects include computer characters that interact with the player (NPC’s) and non-linear storylines.

Courtesy of http://www.roleplay.org/articles/rpg-intro/

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