Dungeons & Dragons is the most popular tabletop roleplaying game in the world. While it is likely the most influential, there are thousands of other tabletop games as well, each with their own rules, settings, and themes. These systems, while designed for tabletop play, can sometimes be quite useful to video game designers to create compelling RPGs that will familiar to tabletop fans.
Several video games have adapted a version of the D&D system over the years. Most have altered the idea to a certain degree, but the core idea remains similar. Translating a tabletop system into a digital one means that these games can do things that their pen-and-paper counterparts cannot, adding in graphics and making it easier to play solo.
Updated June 2, 2022 by Declan Lowthian: While D&D is undoubtedly the biggest name in tabletop gaming, plenty of other TTRPG systems have been adapted for video games or have inspired games with their storytelling styles or game mechanics. More and more games today are looking to the broader world of TTRPGs for inspiration, even as D&D continues to inspire a new generation of CRPGs as well.
15 Star Wars: Knights Of The Republic Incorporates D&D Elements
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords both adopt a version of the D&D d20 system, including randomized attacks, secondary effects, saving throws, and a turn-based combat system.
One of the main differences between D&D and KOTOR is the fact that KOTOR doesn't allow the player to fully customize their character. The protagonist must be a human being, which is strange considering the ample amount of alien species in the Star Wars franchise.
14 Pathfinder: Kingmaker Transfers The TTRPG Concept To A Digital Setting
Pathfinder is another popular fantasy TTRPG, created expressly to give players a D&D-like experience in a brand new system. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a sprawling RPG using a modified version of the Pathfinder tabletop rules. Like its tabletop predecessor, it cites D&D games like Baldur's Gate as an influence, along with the early Fallout games. A sequel, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, was released in late 2021, further expanding the digital options for fantasy RPG fans.
13 Disco Elysium Draws From More Narrative Tabletop Games
With the boom in popularity of tabletop games in the last 10 years has come a corresponding expansion in how CRPGs use their mechanics. The award-winning Disco Elysium is based on a tabletop game setting that the writer created, a grim future filled with political tensions.
In addition to using a 2d6 dice system for resolving actions, Disco Elysium implements a "fail-forward" maxim common to many modern TTRPGs. The skills in Disco Elysium each have their own dialogue trees, an innovative use of a classic TTRPG feature that really wouldn't be possible outside of a video game.
12 Pillars Of Eternity Aims To Be A Spiritual Successor To Baldur's Gate
Pillars of Eternity I and II are a pair of videogames by Obsidian Entertainment that aim to be successors to Baldur's Gate, the most famous official Dungeons & Dragons video game franchise. Pillars of Eternity has players explore a varied and deep fantasy world with plenty of different classes and gameplay options as they uncover the mysteries of its fantasy world.
In addition to classic fantasy classes like paladins, rogues, and wizards, Pillars of Eternity includes ciphers, psionically-powered warriors capable of manipulating spiritual energy.
11 Divinity: Original Sin II Allows Players To Explore The World With A Party Of Their Friends
Larian Studios' Divinity: Original Sin II is one of the few computer roleplaying games to offer a key part of the TTRPG experience: multiplayer. While the player can explore the world on their own, they also have the option of having a party of up to four as they explore the wonders of Rivellon.
Divinity: Original Sin II also features the unique Game Master mode, which allows one player to create campaigns for other players to experience. This robust feature covers everything from level design to enemy behavior, simulating the experience of running a D&D game in a fully rendered digital space.
10 Torment: Tides of Numenera Adopts The TTRPG Of The Same Name
Former D&D designer Monte Cook is behind another popular game in Numenera, a science-fantasy game set in a far future. This game makes use of the Cypher system, an RPG framework first developed for Numenera and now used by several other games.
Torment: Tides of Numenera follows in the footsteps of previous isometric RPGs like Planescape: Torment, but uses the Cypher system instead of the D&D framework. Players explore Earth one billion years in the future, uncovering technological artifacts and magic from long-lost civilizations.
9 Wasteland 3 Takes The D&D TTRPG Concept To The Post-Apocalypse
Wasteland 3 is a post-apocalyptic RPG that has players struggling to survive in the remains of Colorado. The original Wasteland came out in 1988 from Interplay Games, but the series laid dormant until it was resurrected through Kickstarter with inXile's Wasteland 2.
Wasteland 2 and 3 maintain the spirit of the original Fallout games, which were far more reminiscent of a TTRPG before being totally redesigned with Fallout 3. The post-apocalyptic setting lends itself to a ton of environmental interactions, with players shooting explosive barrels and hurling grenades to take down enemies near and far.
8 Shadowrun Has Been A Video Game Nearly As Long As A Tabletop Game
The Shadowrun franchise began sharing between its tabletop and digital iterations very early, with the first Shadowrun video game coming out just three years after the TTRPG was first published. Since then, Shadowrun video games have continued to use the unique setting and mechanics of the urban fantasty/cyberpunk tabletop game to great effect and become widely praised RPGs in their own right. Shadowrun has something of a reputation for involving a lot of bookkeeping when playing on paper, so the video games provide a nice alternative for those who want to get straight to the action.
7 Fallout 1 And 2 Were Very Different Games From The Later Installments
The original Fallout games aimed to be much more akin to a TTRPG. They allowed the player to approach the world without a strict combat focus, a feature largely missing from future titles. While the Fallout games still have RPG elements and even a character sheet to an extent, Fallout 1 & 2 featured these elements much more prominently. Not having FPS combat meant that attacks were determined by dice rolls, as were skill checks for navigating the wasteland's many perils.
6 Vampire: The Masquerade Brings Gothic Horror
Vampire: The Masquerade was first released in 1991 as part of the World of Darkness setting by White Wolf Publishing. It saw its first video game adaptation in 2000 with Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, and several other titles have been released since.
The actual mechanics of the Vampire: The Masquerade games don't always fully reflect those in the tabletop games, but they share the goal of giving players difficult moral choices and allowing them to explore and interact with the world however they choose.
5 Tyranny Is Another Celebrated Obsidian Entertainment Hardcore RPG
Tyranny is another title from Obsidian Entertainment that prides itself on player choice. While also relying heavily on traditional RPG randomization, Tyranny gives the player plenty of options to explore and change the world around them
Tyranny takes the player to a world ruled by the authoritarian Overlord Kyros as technology is in the process of being upgraded from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The player character, the Fatebinder, can ultimately choose the fate of the world.
4 The Ultima Franchise Helped Shape CRPG's And Was Inspired By D&D
The Ultima series of games covers nine mainline games and countless spinoffs. The main series is made up of CRPGs that follow the player as they shape the future of Sosaria. Ultima was a very foundational series in the evolution of CRPGs both singleplayer and multiplayer. While it is no longer as strong a presence in the world of RPGs, the older Ultima games are worth checking out for a look at early attempts to bring tabletop-style rules to the digital world.
3 Elder Scrolls: Arena And Daggerfall Took More TTRPG Inspiration Than Their Successors
The wildly popular Elder Scrolls series started off far more like dungeon-crawling TTRPGs than the sprawling open-world experiences found in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. The worlds were procedurally generated and, in the case of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, theoretically infinite. While the setting is clearly drawing from a similar well as D&D, the actual RPG mechanics in the early Elder Scrolls games are actually more inspired by the game GURPS, or Generic Universal RolePlaying System, which offers a high degree of customization.
2 Citizen Sleeper Remixes Tabletop Mechanics To Create A Unique Experience
In a fascinating hybrid of visual novel, RPG, and survival game, the cyberpunk game Citizen Sleeper has the player desperately trying to survive aboard a space station after feeling their corporate masters. Each day, the player is allocated a number of dice which allow them to accomplish various tasks and advance different storylines.
While Citizen Sleeper doesn't wholly resemble a TTRPG, many of its mechanics are clearly drawn from them. The way the dice are used resembles the resolution mechanics in games like Blades in the Dark, and it tracks all story progress in the form of segmented "clocks," another fixture of many modern TTRPGs.
1 Might And Magic Is Another Foundational CRPG With D&D Inspiration
Might and Magic is one of the oldest videogame RPGs, and it also took heavy influence from Dungeons & Dragons in terms of its design. The original game allowed the player to choose and create an entire adventuring party and then roll for their stats.
Might and Magic also allows players free exploration and a lot of leeway on how they interact with the world around them. This series had 10 main entries and several spinoffs, including Heroes of Might and Magic, which resembled more of a turn-based strategy game.