History of role-playing games

The history of role-playing games begins with an earlier tradition of role-playing, which combined with the rulesets of fantasy wargames in the 1970 to give rise to the modern role-playing game. Since then, they have been the subject of various controversies.

This category is for the history of traditional and live-action role-playing games. For their digital counterparts, see History of computer role-playing games.