A role playing game is a genre of video game that allows the player to progress through a story in, usually, a less liner way than that presented in an FPS, TPS or ShMUp. The genre arose as the apex between, what had previously been conventional, table-top role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and the advent of the home computer. The formative origins within video games of the RPG genre probably lies in point-and-click adventure games, and old-school dungeon crawlers.

Possibly the most well known series of RPG would be the Final Fantasy series of games, originally directed by Sakaguchi Hironobu and scored by Uematsu Nobuo, however there are many other titles that deserve equal merit, including; Shin Megami Tensei, Jade cocoon, Dragon Age, The Grandstream Saga, The Elder Scrolls etc.

Due to the nature of being based primarily on dice rolls, many RPGs have shyed away from a direct mode of control in futuristic environments where firearms and other advanced tech would make traditional elements, such as random encounters, pointless. However, recently hybrid genres have emerged allowing people to enjoy such settings alongside RPG style elements. These titles include the RPG-FPS Borderlands and RPG-TPS Mass Effect.