Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre. They are the electronic version of tabletop role-playing games. The first titles in the genre date back to 1975.
Subgenres
Massively Multiplayer Online
MMORPGs (Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), are computer games where many players meet online in one large game world, and go on quests together. Some examples of these games are World of Warcraft, Everquest, or Runescape.
Text-Based
Text Based RPGs are not too different from Traditional RPGs, generally based on the Dungeons and Dragons game. However some Text Based RPGs are not for combat, but are for socializing and meeting others. With many Text Based RPGs you need a client, a program to send what you say to the server, which can be located in another country. Many clients are basic and display text in one colour, but there are others that use colours, enhancing the readability of the contents.
Action role-playing
Action RPGs are a hybrid genre of action and role-playing video games.
Roguelike
"Roguelike" is a term for games that use the primary mechanics from the 1980 video game Rogue. The mechanics in question are procedural generation and permadeath.
Role-playing Video Game Media
A party of characters approaching a monster in Legend of Grimrock (2012)
A party of adventurers in Tales of Trolls & Treasures (2002)
Overworld map from The Battle for Wesnoth (2003)
Example of a dungeon map drawn by hand on graph paper. This practice was common among players of early role-playing games, such as early titles in the Wizardry and Might and Magic series. Later on, games of this type started featuring automaps.
Character information and inventory screen in a typical computer role-playing game. Pictured here is the roguelike-like S.C.O.U.R.G.E.: Heroes of Lesser Renown. Note the paper doll in the top left portion of the image.
An example of character creation in an RPG. In this particular game, players can assign points into attributes, select a deity, and choose a portrait and profession for their character.
Ranged magical combat in the party-based graphical roguelike-like Dungeon Monkey Eternal. The fireball being cast by the wizard in the image is an area of effect (AoE) attack, and damages multiple characters at once.
The graphical roguelike-like NEO Scavenger has text on the right indicating what events have transpired, and gives the players options (bottom) based on their character's abilities. At left is the character's current stats.
Starting in the mid-1990s with the advent of 3D graphics accelerators, real-time first- and third-person polygonal graphics also became common in CRPGs. Pictured here is Sintel The Game.
Video showing typical gameplay of an isometric point-and-click action RPG
