Game Design Critic Josh Bycer is back with another entry in the Game Design Deep Dive series to discuss the Role-Playing Game genre. Arguably one of the most recognizable in the industry today, what is and what isn’t an RPG has changed over the years. From the origins in the tabletop market, to now having its design featured all over, it is one of the most popular genres to draw inspiration from and build games around. This is a genre that looks easy from the outside to make, but requires understanding a variety of topics to do right. With RPGs, we now turn to a genre that is even bigger, arguably has had a larger impact, and thanks to game engines that I’ll talk about later, it is even easier to try and start building a game with. However, with so many examples out there, just like platformers, there is a huge difference between good and bad takes – requiring even more work to stand out. For this Deep Dive, we’re going to examine the history of RPG design – from tabletops to consoles and PCs, to now being on literally every platform out there. Both RPG and action are genres that have fundamental elements to them that make up the basics of their core gameplay loop, and I’m going to discuss what abstracted design means to RPGs.