Chasing D&D: A History of RPGs

"The history of computer role-playing games (RPGs) starts not with a bang, but a dice roll. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's 1974 pen-and-paper game, gave birth to the modern role-playing genre. D&D introduced the idea of "rolling" characters using statistics to describe strengths and weaknesses. It invented experience points and "leveling up." Even dungeon crawling originated in the pages of D&D."

[via 1up]