Jumpin said:
While Dragon Quest is often considered the first RPG, there were games before it that used to used alternative means to simulate mechanics. The early Wizardry games used written commands instead of menu selection and such, and they also used out-of game manuals to describe the story - some people get confused thinking Dragon Quest lifted the mechanics off of Wizardry because they played the Japanese remakes/remasters of Wizardry that replaced the original mechanics with those from Dragon Quest; menus, HP, and such. For example, if you played a gaming console version of Wizardry, it wasn’t the original, but a Japanese remake. Also, it’s worth noting that Wizardry is WAY bigger in Japan than anywhere else. Anyway, the point being that Wizardry falls in the early phase of RPGs, while Dragon Quest 1 was probably the first feature complete RPG. If you know punk music, Wizardry is Velvet Underground, Ultima is the Stooges, Dragon Quest is like the Ramones, and Dragon Quest 3 is the Sex Pistols - the console remakes of Wizardry are like if the Ramones covered Velvet Underground songs. If that makes sense—to explain a little, The Stooges and Velvet Underground came about earlier, and are often considered punk or proto-punk because of the similarities, but The Ramones were really the first to put the full package together, and The Sex Pistols are the ones that gave it the coat of paint.
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First time I hear anyone considers DQ as the first RPG, given that there was nothing proto about Ultima 1-4 (all released before DQ), which had overworld, random encounters, NPC interaction and dungeons - all characteristic of D&D, which Ultima copied. If anything, Proto VRPGs were long before on mainframes in universities, trying in various way to emulate TTRPGs of the time. Not that we actually called RPGs "RPGs" in 80s, most folks I knew referred to them as FRP (Fantasy Role Playing) games.
As for punk, I'd say proto punk goes long before Stooges, at least to Kinks, and probably earlier. Personally I would never consider Velvet Underground as anything near punk, Stooges, yeah, they were almost there, as well as MC5. For me, the first song that had that classic punk sound is New York Dolls - Trash
