There was in fact a great split between roleplaying games at a table and those on a computer, but it happened years ago. The first digital version of D&D came about in 1975, merely a year after the game was released; it was called Dungeon and was originally developed for the PDP-10 mainframe. Although Dungeon was an unlicensed emulation of the D&D ruleset, the primary thing that prevented it from taking off in university computer labs was its exceptionally steep memory requirement…36 kilobytes. Needless to say, the reality of the RPG video game has changed.

Dungeon, and its successors like DND (Dungeons of the Necromancer’s Domain, but we all know the intent of the acronym) helped to kick off the RPG video game in the mid 1970s, but by the 1990s it was a completely different world. While TSR was failing and getting acquired by Wizards of the Coast, games like Baldur’s Gate and The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall were both imminently successful and also almost nothing like their tabletop forbears. Video games were already doing things that no tabletop GM could have dreamed of, while also casting aside the elements of RPGs that computers weren’t really capable of doing at the time. Baldur’s Gate has faster and flashier combat than any game table you can imagine, but no matter how many times you play it, the basic story will be the same each time.

Let’s gather back here in 2024. Video games, aided by unimaginable computing hardware and multi-million dollar budgets, have become something that the average nerd in the 1990s (let alone the 1970s) could only have dreamed of. At the same time, though, tabletop games have continued to capture imaginations and, over the last ten years have also exploded in popularity. The RPG has also headed back to the digital realm, just like it did in 1975. This time, though, there’s recognition. The massive, high fidelity world of video games exists, and it’s big business. Tabletop RPGs, though, are wandering back to the digital realm with virtual tabletops, digital assistants, and soon, AI game masters. With the continued re-integration of software into the hobby, it seems like a prudent time to ask: Where is the line? And, perhaps more importantly, how is this time different than it was in 1975?