Article The Birth of Role Playing Games

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The Birth of Role Playing Games Role play based
children learning games are essential in a
child's development as it helps in building
confidence, communication skills and develops
problem-solving capabilities. It has come a long
way since it started in the 1970s only owing to
its immense contribution in building skills
amongst young learners and aiding in their
growth. The history of role-playing games is
rather interesting as the intent with which it
began did not involve toddlers or their
developmental growth. Origin Storytelling has
been a part of all traditions across the globe.
Folklores and stories were passed from one
generation to the other, and the same were
depicted in the role play method like through
ramlila which is still quite popular. Similarly,
war games and practical preparation for the war
included the main soldiers to enact their
positions during the preparatory phase. The
formation of the chakravyuh and other strategic
formations, all involved pretend play and
practice. Therein lays the early seeds of role-
playing games. Dungeons Dragons This was the
first fantasy tabletop role-playing game
published in 1974 by designers Gary Gygax and
Dave Ameson. This included players to choose the
characteristics of the roles that they decided to
play in the game. The game including fantasy
settings wherein specific adventures were set and
the players needed to navigate through the
obstacles to complete the game. The role-playing
aspect of this game involved engaging in
battles, solving mysteries and gathering
knowledge and treasure over the course of the
game. The game garnered huge popularity and has
been re-launched in five editions subsequently,
with the last version being launched in the year
2015. Different Role Playing Games The 1980s was
the era which saw the popularity of role-play
based fun activities for kids games growing from
strength to strength. The principle of
role-playing became popular as a method of early
learning, and educational institutions adopted
the "Play-Way" method for learning of early
concepts by students. After that, role plays
translated to various mediums like home computing
games, video games and simulations games. The
90s was the decade where role plays manifested
itself in multiple forms and fields and started
getting used for interview selection processes as
well. Many management institutes inculcated role
plays and situational problems in their student
selection process to check the confidence,
problem-solving ability and swift thinking
ability of the candidates. Benefits define
popularity!
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The growth in popularity of the concept of
role-playing rides on the benefits that it
offers. Apart from building the imagination and
communication abilities of an individual, it also
helps in creating the concept of collaborative
play. Done at an individual level, role-playing
activities would be impersonating a character
like a firefighter, teacher, lawyer, doctor and
so on. At a team level, these activities would
include role play at a supermarket, at a public
domain like an airport, bank etc., theatrical
role play, sports role plays and so on. These
activities encourage learning in a fun manner and
also work towards higher retention of concepts
and memory building.