When did the "C" drop from CRPGs and when did "TT"RPG spring up?

[Von Ether]

I’m really moving into OPMRPGs these days. Oil painted miniatures role playing games.

I don't like the fumes so I do APMRPGS. I am even lazy, so I switched to CPMRPGS lately. Though there are times I just do TotM.

Funny story, I was the only person using dry brushing as my main technique and then a bit of inking for all of my painting. I even left the undersides less painted. Now contrast paints have created the slop chop method and zenithal is a thing, so now I don't feel alone anymore.

Well, partly with JRPGs we're getting more Japanese tabletop RPGs translated into English - so it makes for a good mark of differentiation (as well as an indicator of whether a tabletop game is using game mechanics influenced by Japanese tabletop games.)

So TTJRPGs or JRPGSTTs?

 

[Count_Zero]

So TTJRPGs or JRPGSTTs?

TTJRPGs (since in Japan they also used the term TTRPG - though there the TT is short for "Table Talk")

 

[aramis erak]

RPGs played on a computer used to be called CRPGs and D&D was an RPG.

I don't recall ANY media putting the C in other than [TT] RPG and Boardgame specific magazines.

And P&P was dominant in the online communities I was in until somewhere in the late 00's, when TT started to supplant it.

A quick hard drive search hit on some saved HTML... 2 Sept 2001 Car Wars Information Network post. Definitely in the BG/RPG side of things.

Also no hits on either «Computer RPG» nor CRPG in dragon 1-200.

 

[aramis erak]

"computer RPG" at least as far back as 1981. (TSG issue 43)

 

[Alzrius]

It happened on August 29th, 1997, at 2:14 AM EDT. Since Skynet was programmed by a bunch of nerds, it turned out to be less interested in nuking humanity than in making its preferred form of RPGs the norm.

 

[timbannock]

I think most of what others are saying tracks. I've been active on RPG Net and ENWorld since something like 2004-2006ish, and had been involved in blogging before even that, and I didn't really notice a heavy use of the "TT" in RPG until quite a bit into the 2010s. I think the absolute explosion of Critical Role followed quickly by 5E more generally had an effect that crossed industries much more, and so the context of "video game or tabletop game?" became a lot more of thing that needed clarity only around 2016-2018 and on.

I don't have any input on this myself, but I wonder, too, how much that need for context has been increased by the fact that there are more and more video games based on TTRPGs and vice versa since around 2018+. Since COVID you have the explosion of BG3, you have Dark Souls TTRPG and Assassins Creed to name just a few, and you have so many companies putting out little known or big splashy crossovers for Tomb Raider, etc. Unrelated, you have things like a Wendy's TTRPG. I mean, it's just a weirder, more confusing world, is all I'm saying

 

[MGibster]

At some point computer game journalism dropped the "C" and called CRPGs simply RPGs. I guess this was in the 90s or so? Yet when the tabletop rpg industry started getting traction again, instead of adding using CRPG again, the writers added TTRPG, which doesn't seem as practical or efficient. It's more letters and there was already a term in place.

I only saw the distinction made in places where there might be some doubt as to whether computer or table top games were being discussed. In the context of video game media, you don't need the C because we all know we're talking about the immersive role playing with advanced graphics that only Coleco Vision can bring.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Reminds me of a bit from story about Twin Peaks' influence on Link's Awakening...

“They were talking to me about a Twin Peaks game, and they mentioned Zelda at the time,” says Frost. “They said, ‘One of the things we love about your show is how there’s all sorts of sideways associations that can drive the story forward.’ They asked me about that as they were thinking about expanding the Zelda universe.”
Though he’d never played a Zelda game, Frost had enough experience with fantasy storytelling that he had some suggestions. “I’d played lots of Dungeons & Dragons when I was young, so I was familiar with the kind of story they were thinking about,” he says. “I think I said, ‘Don’t be afraid to use dreamlike, Jungian symbolism. Things can connect thematically without having to connect concretely.’ It was things like that that I was urging them [to consider].”

I had no idea about these connections but that's really cool! Thanks for sharing it.

 

[GMMichael]

TTJRPGs (since in Japan they also used the term TTRPG - though there the TT is short for "Table Talk")

That would make more sense. Unless, of course, there's a cult of gamers out there playing on Table Legs.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I think the initial premise is shaky. Both TTRPGs and CRPGs were called simply RPGs approximately half the time for most of the time we've been talking about them. When not done so, they have been called CRPGs and TTRPGs (or 'pen and paper RPGS,' or similar) both at the same time. Mostly just calling them RPGs worked because which one someone was talking about was obvious from context.

What I think has changed is the general movement of the discussion away from subject-specific websites and forums, and towards social media sites and general (or general-nerd-culture) online journalism. When it is 2003 and you are talking about RPGs on wizards.com, whitewolf.com, rpg.net, and enworld.org it is pretty clear what is being discussed (and if you mean a computer RPG, you specify, likely in a sub-forum dedicated to such). Same for discussing RPGs on Blizzard.com or Finalfantasyforever.net (or whatever the computer game webforums would have been called at that time). Move forward to Myspace and Facebook and Youtube and Tiktok (and Gizmodo and mainstream coverage of Comicon and so on) and suddenly the discussion of both branches of 'RPGs' are happening in the same place, necessitating distinction.