Re: The first RPG - summary

[ekman@lysator.liu.se (Fredrik Ekman)]

In article <4fdg7c$h9j@acme.freenet.columbus.oh.us> mcarmack@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Michael Carmack) writes:
   : Were RPGs (as defined in this document) inspired by (or a reaction against) 
   : text adventures or were both types independent developments of traditional 
   : paper-and-dice RPGs?

   I don't think there's any hard-core facts that can establish this one way
   or the other.  But I would say that they grew up independently.  The
   original text adventure makers spent the majority of their programming
   time creating better conversation engines;  character stats commonly found
   in pen-n-paper RPGs were largely ignored or were hidden from the player. 
   But in the graphical RPGs, there was practically NO conversation engine at
   all (there still isn't in many cases) and character stat management was an
   integral part of the game.

I basically agree. However, in my copy of the Rogue manual, there is
a clear reference to Adventure. Of course, it is quite possible that
this was not in the first version of the manual. It is also possible
that Rogue was inspired by some other game but that its authors knew
about Adventure anyway. An alternative interpretation is that Mr Toy
played Adventure, thought that role-playing games on computer should
be implemented in a better way and then invented one.

  /F