Role-playing video games

Role-playing video games (RPGs) are a genre of gaming that generally puts you in direct control of a character, or party of characters, abilities, items, skills, and other attributes. The RPG is notorious for stories of epic proportions and long length.

The genre has origins in tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs), which in turn has origins in ancient wargames such as the Indian/Persian Chess and Chinese/Japanese Go.

As internet connections proved more popular in the home, and the speed of connections grew to a point where playing games over the internet was possible, a new brand of role-playing-games sprung up: the MMORPG, or Massively Multi-player Online RPG. In an MMORPG, each player has a customized avatar that shares the same game world with other characters and work together to accomplish goals and strengthen their characters, much like in a single-player RPG.

Sub-genres

 * Action RPG
 * Alternate reality game
 * Dungeon crawler
 * MMOG
 * MMORPG
 * Roguelike
 * Strategy RPG
 * Tactical RPG

Platforms

 * Console RPG
 * PC RPG

List of RPGs

 * List of Japanese role-playing video games: 1982 to 1987

RPG Wikis

 * RPG Portal

Roots of RPGs
The following diagram shows the roots and influences of various role-playing games: