The Dungeons & Dragons Effect

With the help of Wizardry designer Brenda Brathwaite, CD Projekt RED producer Tomasz Gop, and BioWare designer Tony Evans, GameSpy has wrangled up an interesting article that looks at the influence Dungeons & Dragons had on early CRPGs and why the tabletop franchise doesn’t adapt quite as well to modern role-playing games.

“Back when CRPGs were just getting started, I don’t know a developer who didn’t play D&D,” says Brenda Brathwaite, a lead designer for the Wizardry series. “Its influence is obvious.”

But as the genre grew into one of the most popular varieties of PC games, D&D’s influence in the industry shifted. “Ten years in, though, we were influencing each other and were likewise influenced tremendously by the potential that technology afforded us,” Brathwaite says.

It’s interesting that Brathwaite’s Wizardry was the spark that ignited Japan’s development of RPGs. “Wizardry provided the direct influence for the JRPGs, and that is something we are still proud of,” Brathwaite says. That influence is still seen today in many games, from Final Fantasy to Etrian Odyssey.

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Evans points out that today’s video game RPGs are moving away from D&D because of changing tastes and structural differences. “Back when gaming was more of a closet hobby, developers made games primarily based on what they loved to play. So RPGs of that time were turn-based and tactical, just like D&D,” Evans says. “Fast forward 20 years… D&D is still turn-based and tactical, but almost all modern RPGs are moving farther away from these roots.”

Evans says the changes are happening because of two reasons: “It’s what the majority of gamers want,” noting that RPG players make up a small fraction of the market for video games — World of Warcraft not withstanding. “And while some players (myself included) see ‘RPG’ as a badge of honor, many other gamers seem to think RPG is a dirty word. This is, of course, contradictory, since more and more games have been subtly including RPG elements, such as how you upgrade your weapons in Ratchet & Clank and God of War. However, these games take care to not brand themselves as RPGs, in order to avoid alienating non-RPG gamers. In order for the RPG market to survive and prosper, this perception needs to shift.” He notes this as the reason for such things as the disappearance of the inventory system in Mass Effect 2 and Alpha Protocol’s Dialogue Stance System.

And developers are always right, right? Thanks, LadyVox.