If I had to pick a favorite video game genre it would probably be the role-playing game (RPG). Other genres like platformers, shooters, puzzle games and fighting games usually involve a lot of action and quick reflexes. RPGs were usually more about preparation, strategy and thinking before you act, which appealed to my mind a lot more. I was always the best at RPGs as a kid and much more likely to finish them, but aside from that I also just like how the characters in those games actually grow and evolve while slowly gaining more skills because it feels a lot more satisfying to defeat the final boss when all the endless grinding and leveling up you went through for hours pays off (plus who doesn’t love an epic fantasy story?) I’m obviously not the only one who feels this way because RPGs have always been a popular video game genre for almost as long as Pong has been around. Of course the games I grew up playing would not be as good as they are if the programmers of the past did not tweak and perfect this genre in the 1970s and 1980s, so why not learn about the groundbreaking games of those decades and the origin of the RPG genre?

The game that is often considered the father of this genre is the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, because that game established many of the rules and traditions that future RPGs would borrow. After the introduction of D&D in 1974 and the massive popularity that followed, computer programmers in the mid and late 1970s began translating that game’s mechanics to video games and using many of its elements, not just the high fantasy setting but also the inclusion of multiple character classes like “rogue” and “wizard, multiple races like “human” and “elf,” and ability scores for things like strength and wisdom as well as the idea of a health meter measured by hit points, gaining experience after defeating enemies and growing your stats and gaining extra power as you advance from level to level. Of course the difference between tabletop RPGs and computer RPGs (commonly referred to as CRPGs back then) is that games like D&D require Dungeon Masters to tell a story, control the non-playable characters (NPCs) and set the stage for your adventure. CRPGs on the other hand require only you and a keyboard. Thanks to computers, finally antisocial loners could enjoy RPGs too.

Most of the earliest CRPGs of the mid-1970s were text-based adventure games on mainframe computers, some of which marked significant moments in video game history, such as Don Daglow’s text-based RPG Dungeon, Rusty Rutherford’s 1975 dungeon crawler pedit5, which was a D&D-inspired RPG and the first dungeon crawler in RPG history, and Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood’s dnd (1975) (also obviously inspired by D&D as you can tell by the name) which was the first video game to introduce the concept of bosses. But CRPGs slowly became more and more advanced both graphically and mechanically as they came along.

Here are some of the most significant CRPGs from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, along with their release dates and the systems they were initially released on.

Temple of Apshai (1979, TRS-80/Commodore PET)

Designed by Jon Freeman and Jeff Johnson, this game was the originator of what would come to be known later as the Dunjonquest series. It consists of four different dungeons to explore, and like most RPGs it requires you to fight monsters and hunt treasure. Inspired by D&D, it was the first CRPG to feature room descriptions, which in those days was pretty impressive for a role-playing game without a Dungeon Master.

Akalabeth: World of Doom (1979, Apple II)

Richard Garriott was not only a J.R.R. Tolkien fan who played D&D regularly with his high school friends, but he was also a computer programmer who designed this game as a hobby in an attempt to bring the mechanics of the tabletop RPG to the computer during his free time (I’d like to see a jock or a cheerleader try that!) This game takes place primarily in an underground dungeon where you had to defeat a succession of monsters, while you could also visit shops to buy health-replenishing food, weapons and magic. It was the first CRPG to use a first-person perspective, implementing wire-frame graphics in the underground dungeon areas, bringing immersive gameplay to another level.

Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure (1980, Apple II)

No that’s not a typo. The intentionally misspelled Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure was written and directed by Robert Clardy and developed by Synergistic Software for the Apple II computer. It told a unique multi-part story that put you in the role of a leader of warriors on a quest to defeat an evil wizard. I say “multi-part” because the game literally required you to insert multiple floppy discs to access the entire thing. Clardy had previously worked on a 1978 Apple II adventure game called Dungeon Campaign and a 1979 Apple II RPG called Wilderness Campaign (which was one of the very first microcomputer RPGs) and this game combined elements from both. Odyssey was cutting-edge and well-received at the time.

Wizardy (1981, Apple II)

Designed by Andrew C. Greenberg and Robert Woodhead and developed by Sir-Tech, the beta version of the game was actually released a year earlier as the first party-based role-playing video game. Wizardy: Proving Ground of the Mad Overlords became such a commercial hit that it was the most successful Apple II computer game of the year, and even critics were calling it the best D&D-style computer game on the market.

Ultima (1981, Apple II)

Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness was another classic RPG by Akalabeth creator Richard Garriott, who would expand on his previous work significantly while designing this game. Ultima centered on a quest to find the Gem of Immortality, which was being used to enslave the citizens of Sosaria by an evil wizard named Mondain. You, “the Stranger,” have been summoned from another world to defeat Mondain and save Sosaria. A major turning point in the evolution of role-playing video games and the first open-world computer game ever made, as well as the first to feature conservations with NPCs. Needless to say it became a hugely influential and highly successful RPG classic.

Role-playing games also had a few subgenres, including the maze-exploring roguelikes, which often had procedurally generated levels to explore. Roguelikes were popularized by and named after the 1980 video game Rogue, which was originally designed by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman for Unix-based computer systems before being ported for Atari, Microsoft, Apple, the Commodore 64 and others.

Other RPG subgenres of the time include dungeon crawlers and open-world RPGs. Wizardry is the game often credited for popularizing the dungeon crawler while Ultima, which was released the same year, is often credited for popularizing open-world RPGs.

The traditional RPG genre made a few significant advancements in the early and mid-1980s as well, and even in the earliest part of the decade the genre featured a variety of combat systems across multiple games from menu-driven to tactical combat to real-time combat. Starpath’s Dragonstomper, released in the early 1980s for the Atari 2600, was the first original RPG for a game console and it is considered one of the best games for that system. The 1983 Apple II game Ultima III: Exodus, which featured graphics, animation, music and a level of variety that surpassed previous entries in the Ultima series, was one of the biggest milestones in the evolution of modern console-based RPGs, influencing the development of the NES games Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, two games from Japan that went on to become the most popular ongoing RPG franchises in the video game industry. And speaking of Japan, Kōji Sumii’s 1983 PC game Bokusaka Wars was a pioneer in the tactical RPG genre when it came out in that country, where it became a huge success and was later ported to the MSX and Famicom. Other influential Japanese RPGs include Sega’s Phantasy Star (1987) and Nintendo’s Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987).

American developers were also making strides. The 1985 RPG Phantasie developed by Strategic Simulations popularized both automapping and in-game hints. That same year the Apple II RPG The Bard’s Tale came out, and while it did not differ much from other RPGs in terms of story and style, it was so well-made and expertly executed that it was still beloved by many and went on to become a classic. Meanwhile the Might and Magic series, introduced on the Apple II in 1986 by developers New World Computing, had more depth than typical RPGs as well as a much lauded scope and freedom of exploration, and the 1988 Apple II computer game Wasteland popularized post-apocalyptic sci-fi RPGs (which continue to be just as popular as high fantasy RPGs to this day).

As I alluded to before, the huge popularity of Chunsoft’s Dragon Quest in both Japan and America (where it was known as Dragon Warrior when it was localized for the NES) as well as Square’s Final Fantasy probably did more to open the door to RPGs for a wider audience than any other video games, especially for Nintendo and PlayStation owners. But role-playing PC games continued their popularity into the 1990s and beyond, including Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls (1994), Interplay’s Fallout (1997), Blizzard North’s Diablo (1997), BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate (1998), Black Isle Studios’ Planescape: Torment (1999) and Icewind Dale (2000) and Ion Storm’s Deus Ex (2000). Meanwhile the genre also expanded on the internet with the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) genre, which was popularized by games like EverQuest (1999) and World of Warcraft (2004).

But even as the RPG makes significant technological advancements, the core of their gameplay can still be traced back to that group of computer programming high school nerds from the 1970s who turned their passion for things like Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings into a timeless and continuously popular form of interactive entertainment for the ages.