Dungeons & Dragons



Tabletop or pen-and-paper RPGs actually began as "wargames", where you would control armies to simulate large-scale battles. They evolved quite fast, and were soon revolutionized thanks to Dungeons & Dragons, which was one of the first, maybe THE first, were instead of an army you would control individual characters, picking up it's race and class then rolling it's status. D&D quickly became a huge hit and also a huge cash cow, and like all cash cows it also got tons of licensed stuff, which obviously included videogames.