There have been some fantastic games based on the license, too- Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Planescape Torment instantly come to mind.
At its core, D&D has a couple things going for it: A rich lore and rich history and six or seven different worlds.
The secret to D&D is that really the rules are just guidelines.”
The grand daddy of all role playing games, and really, of so many video game staples, is Dungeons and Dragons, the pioneering tabletop role playing game that ended up founding an entire industry, and had an indelible impact on the course of video games that would follow it as well.