A History of Role-Playing

The folks at Places to Go, People to See have written a huge nine-part “History of Role-Playing” article, following the genre from its wargaming roots in the mid-1950’s to the present. The article contains some great information about the beginnings of tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire: The Masquerade, and GURPS, as well as CRPG titles like Ultima, The Bard’s Tale, King’s Quest, and the Gold Box series. A little something to get you started:

For it has very often been the RPG-inspired adventure games that have been standard bearers for the new technology – and even sometimes the inspiration for it, as designers have constantly sought ways to better model the free-form freedom of roleplaying. For example, the adventure genre was popularised by D&D-esque games such as the Zork series, The Bard’s Tale series, and the Kings Quest series, which made Sierra a household name. Later, Sierra even tried it’s hand at roleplaying with their “So You Want To Be A Hero” games.

One of the most popular computer RPGs, and one whose long history has traced almost the entire history of computer games, is the awesome Ultima series. Ultima 1 was released in black and white in 1980, and was followed by seven sequels, each game making use of the cutting edge technology at its time. That count doesn’t include the two Ultima Underworld games, which replaced the standard top-down view with the then-revolutionary 3D-perspective view. Recently, Ultima has crossed over into the world of online gaming, which we’ll look at further below.

But in 1988, a game came along that blew Ultima out of the water, that changed the face of gaming, and made its maker a legend. The company was Strategic Simulations Incorporated (SSI), and the game was Heroes of the Lance.