sheath wrote:In that case I do think a brand new player with no prior experience might appreciate the genre as a whole better if they started with the original (console) turn based RPGs.
It's an understandable mentality for someone who is already a fan, but it's not necessarily one that works for a new player.
For the fan, going back to the beginning lets you see the core features, developments, etc. You can appreciate what a game brought to the table at the time.
However...
An established fan also understands that an older game might be missing newer design conventions, conveniences, and so on. Things that might serve to help grab someone approaching the genre fresh.
What a new player should find is a game they just plain like, regardless of where it falls in gaming history, subgenre, and so on. Everyone has their own particular likes/dislikes, and in turn the game(s) that just "clicked" and turned them on to a particular genre. Chances are, if someone isn't already into RPGs, then what will grab them will likely be something that benefited from a few rounds of improvements (and even then there's no guarantee).
When you're talking about "making" a fan, it's less about what they "should" play, and more about what they'd want to.
For example, if someone said they'd never played a fighting game before, I'd probably not recommend they go back and dig up a copy of Fighting Street just so they can fully appreciate how far things have come. The point would be to find what'd be easiest to jump into and have fun.
In cases of Western RPGs and more exploration based role playing games I'd still say that starting out with something like King's Quest and early Detective style games would be best, but only if the player was willing to go back first.
In terms of genres, those games would more typically be considered Adventure games, not RPGs.
