History of fantasy role playing games

From Wiki Essays

Fantasy role playing games can trace their origins to ancient mythology. Epic sagas and poems followed, introducing heroic warriors and long journeys to the fireside tales told by bards and other storytellers. Fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm and others soon entered the scene, which were finally being written down. Bavarian kings and barons were inspired by these stories, erecting romantic castles in their honor. No doubt they were engaged in role playing in some form. When Germany was facing nationhood in the late 1800s, these romantic tales were invoked in the name of Teutonic nationalism and unity.

In the 20th Century, J.R.R. Tolkien provided the world with his well-known novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Other fantasy stories were also being written. Robert Howard wrote tales of Conan the Barbarian, Jack Vance developed a magic system in his novels, and Eddison wrote The Worm Ouroboros. E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson called upon the sum of these stories: mythology, fairy tales, and epic fantasy in their creation of Chainmail, which eventually became Dungeons and Dragons. D&D as it has affectionately become known as has gone through four major rules overhauls, and these stories have inspired computer games from text adventures such as Zork, on up through Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) and finally World of Warcraft, which has in turn inspired the tactics-based 4th Ed Dungeons and Dragons rules.

Now I need to do more research and fill in these chapters in more detail.