Video Games Encyclopedia

Role-playing video games draw their gameplay from some traditional tabletop role-playing games. Most of these games cast the player in the role of a character that grows in strength and experience over the course of the game. By overcoming difficult challenges and/or defeating monsters, the player gains experience points which represent the character’s progress in a chosen profession or class (such as melee combat or ranged magic spells) and allow the player to gain new abilities once a set amount are obtained. Many RPGs contain an open world known as an overworld, which is usually populated with monsters, that allows access to more important game locations, such as towns, dungeons, and castles. Since the emergence of affordable home computers coincided with the popularity of paper and pencil role-playing games, this genre was one of the first in video games and continues to be popular today. Gameplay elements strongly associated with RPG, such as statistical character development through the acquisition of experience points, have been widely adapted to other genres such as action-adventure games. Though nearly all of the early entries in the genre were turn-based games, many modern role-playing games progress in real-time. Thus, the genre has followed the strategy game’s trend of moving from turn-based to real-time combat.