World of Warcraft, Half-Life, and Grand Theft Auto may all be able to trace their roots back to 1972 and Atari's Pong, but video games wouldn't be what they are today if Dungeons and Dragons, the first RPG (role-playing game) hadn't also come along two years later. From there, the stories meet and mingle, and even the best Dungeon Masters would have a hard time traversing their complicated histories.
Graphic artist and web designer Trish Ladd has done exactly that using the principles of information design. Information Design is the practice of gathering, filtering, and presenting information in accordance with effective design principles in order to understand and communicate the essence or the meaning of that information. It's a field that mixes artistic talent with mathematics and scholarly research, the results of which can be quite impressive.
Ladd's interest is in web and interactive media storytelling, and she's taken information design to task by charting the thirty-five year history of role-playing games (above). It looks like a map, and in a way, it is. But its also an intricate web of relationships and of the evolution of a very different kind of technology.
We admit that it's difficult to see the details of Ladd's The History of Role-Playing Games from the image we've got to offer. She does provide anyone who's interested in a better look at her 'map' to actually download the file, which measures 3000 x 2000 px. It's definitely worth closer inspection, and even if the intricacies of her work aren't your cup of tea, we think Ladd's History would make a great wall-hanging for your next Magic The Gathering get-together.
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