Most people are aware of the old adage "birds of a feather flock together," and so it was with role-players and the computer. In other words, the same type of person who enjoyed RPGs was often an early adopter of computing, and naturally they tried to combine the two experiences. Unfortunately, until very recently, computers couldn't begin to match the creativity and flexibility that the traditional medium of pen and paper allowed -- they just didn't have the power. A 386 just doesn't have the juice to run a holodeck, after all. Because of this, games that were more limited in scope became the norm out of necessity. Adventures with basic text such as Zork evolved into the early graphics of King's Quest and Ultima. The first real attempts at AD&D on the computer screen were SSI's "gold box" games. Pool of Radiance, set in the popular Forgotten Realms setting, was a big hit, and SSI had significant success with the series until Deathkeep.
Until just the past few years, it seemed that game designers were locked into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since they believed that you couldn't adequately achieve a true RPG on the computer, no true RPGs were attempted. Hybrids emerged from the adventure genre with RPG "elements," but nothing that could call itself an RPG. Out of this, the lackluster compromise term CRPG (computer role-playing game) evolved -- and the existence of the term admitted defeat.
Fast forward to the present, and you'll find a lot of frustrated gamers with expectations that weren't being met. Go to a popular online game vendor, and look under their RPG section: you'll find games like Clans, Drakan, Dungeon Keeper, Gabriel Knight, Magic the Gathering Encyclopedia, Silver and even Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War listed there, next to honest RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Ultima Online. What's an RPG fan to do?
Well, define what an RPG is, first of all. The practice of letting adventure games slip onto the RPG shelf has significantly muddied the waters. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good adventure as much as the next gamer, but letting all of these boxes associate with each other has caused a lot of confusion.
Some would argue that a computer game doesn't have to meet the standards of the traditional pen and paper game. I would submit that their expectations have been lowered over time because of technological limitations. Progress is an expected benefit of technology. A calculator is certainly superior to an abacus, but it is legitimate to expect that the calculator will be able to perform tasks at least as well as the abacus, if not better. And yet, most games classified as RPGs barely resemble their pen and paper forerunners. They typically include one or two elements of their heritage at best, and then try to pass that off as sufficient to claim the full title of RPG.
If we go back to the roots we've established in the previous sections of this article, we can easily establish the criteria a true RPG must meet.
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