Quote Originally Posted by NeoCracker View Post
I'd think first and formost you'd have to discuss their origins in tabletop RPG's.

Also there is discussing the various types of RPG's that exist, and the originals.

You had their original start (Or at least when they started gaining some steam) whith Richard Gariott's Ultima series, and how that insipred Hylude (I might have spelled that wrong), a game that kicked off the popularity of RPG's in Japan, who became massively influential in the Genre.

That would be a good area to start I guess.
NeoCracker, I am shocked at you.

First, the game you meant was Hydlide.

Second, as long as we're talking about the history of RPGs, we need to discuss the difference in conception between western RPGs and JRPGs. They are very different, and that's because they had different origins. Western RPGs did indeed develop from the pen and paper adventures of games like Dungeons and Dragons. However, most JRPGs actually developed from visual novels (look into it, even Square had a huge history of these before Final Fantasy). Hence, the incredibly different approach to the games. Western RPGs tended to focus on more open-ended, explorative adventures, while JRPGs were more scripted, story based affairs.