Tactical role-playing game (abbreviated TRPG), also known as strategy role-playing game or simulation RPG (both abbreviated SRPG), is a video game genre that combines core elements of role-playing video games with those of tactical (turn-based or real-time) strategy video games. The formats of tactical RPGs are much like traditional tabletop role-playing games and strategy games in appearance, pacing, and rule structure. Likewise, early tabletop role-playing games are descended from skirmish wargames such as Chainmail, which were primarily concerned with combat.

This subgenre of role-playing video games principally refers to games which incorporate elements from strategy video games as an alternative to traditional role-playing game (RPG) systems. Like standard RPGs, the player typically controls a finite party and battles a similar number of enemies. Like other RPGs, death is usually temporary, but this genre incorporates strategic gameplay such as tactical movement on an isometric grid. Unlike traditional RPGs which are traditionally single-player, some tactical RPGs feature multiplayer play, such as Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions.

A distinct difference between tactical RPGs and traditional RPGs is the lack of exploration; for instance, Final Fantasy Tactics does away with the third-person exploration of towns and dungeons that is typical in a Final Fantasy game. Instead of exploration, there is an emphasis on battle strategy. Players are able to build and train characters to use in battle, utilizing different classes, including warriors and magic users, depending on the game. Characters normally gain experience points from battle and grow stronger, and are awarded secondary experience points which can be used to advance in specific character classes. Battles have specific winning conditions, such as defeating all enemies or surviving a certain number of turns, that the player must accomplish before the next map will become available. In between battles, players can access their characters to equip them, change classes, train them, depending on the game.

A number of early role-playing video games used a tactical form of combat, such as Tunnels of Doom (1982) and Ultima III: Exodus (1983), as well as The Dragon and Princess (1982) and Bokosuka Wars (1983), which introduced party-based, tiled combat to America and Japan, respectively. Further, tactical RPGs are descendants of tabletop role-playing games and wargames, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Chainmail, which were mainly tactical in their original form. Nevertheless, much of the development of tactical RPGs has diverged on each side of the Pacific, and the term "tactical RPG" is sometimes reserved only for those titles that were created in Japan.^{[citation needed]}

One of the earliest Japanese RPGs, Koei's The Dragon and Princess, was released on NEC's PC-8001 home computer platform in 1982. This game can also be considered a precursor to the tactical RPG genre. It used a combat system where, following a random encounter, the game transitioned to a separate, graphical, overhead battle screen, and tactical turn-based combat ensued. That same year, Tunnels of Doom used a similar combat system, as did Ultima III: Exodus released in 1983.

During the 8-bit era, Bokosuka Wars, a computer game developed by Koji Sumii for the Sharp X1 in 1983 and ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) by ASCII in 1985, was responsible for laying the foundations for the tactical RPG genre, or "simulation RPG" genre as it is known in Japan, with its blend of role-playing and strategy game elements. The game revolves around a king who must recruit soldiers and lead his army against overwhelming enemy forces, while each unit gains experience and levels up along the way. It is also considered to be an early prototype real-time strategy game.

Another notable early example of the genre was Kure Software Koubou's 1988 PC-8801 strategy RPG, Silver Ghost, which was cited by Camelot Software Planning's Hiroyuki Takahashi as inspiration for the Shining series of tactical RPGs. According to Takahashi, Silver Ghost was a simulation action type of game where the players had to direct, oversee and command multiple characters. Unlike later tactical RPGs, however, Silver Ghost was not turn-based, but instead used real-time strategy and action role-playing game elements. It also featured a point-and-click interface, to control the characters using a cursor. A similar game released by Kure Software Koubo that same year was First Queen, a unique hybrid between a real-time strategy, action RPG, and strategy RPG. Like an RPG, the player can explore the world, purchase items, and level up, and like a strategy video game, it focuses on recruiting soldiers and fighting against large armies rather than small parties. The game's "Gochyakyara" ("Multiple Characters") system let the player control one character at a time while the others are controlled by computer AI that follow the leader, and where battles are large-scale with characters sometimes filling an entire screen. Master of Monsters, developed by SystemSoft and released in 1989 for the MSX2, added fantasy characters and magic attacks to the gameplay of the wartime combat Daisenryaku series, which had instead opted for tanks, planes, and other vehicles of real-world modern combat. Master of Monsters also added experience bars for the character units, a concept which would be adapted and popularized by later console-based series like Fire Emblem. Unlike many other early titles in the genre, Master of Monsters made its way to the west via a port to the Sega Genesis in 1991, albeit only in North America.

However, the genre did not become prolific until Nintendo published the game that set the template for tactical wargame RPGs, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi. Developed by Intelligent Systems and released exclusively in Japan for the Nintendo Famicom in 1990, Fire Emblem would become an archetype for the whole genre, establishing gameplay elements that are still used in tactical RPGs today, though many of these elements were influenced by earlier RPGs and strategy games. Combining the basic concepts from games like Dragon Quest and simple turn-based strategy elements that the development team gained experience with in their 1988 release Famicom Wars, Intelligent Systems created a hit, which spawned many sequels and imitators. It introduced unique features such as how the characters were not interchangeable pawns but each of them were unique, in terms of both class and stats, and how a character who runs out of hit points would usually remain dead forever. The latter mechanic was used to introduce a non-linear storyline to the genre, where different multiple endings are possible depending on which characters are alive or dead, a concept still used in recent games such as Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, and Final Promise Story. It was not until the release of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade for the Game Boy Advance, many years later, that the series was introduced to Western gamers, who until then were more familiar with localized precursors like Nobunaga's Ambition, as well as later tactical RPGs partially influenced by Fire Emblem, including the Shining and Ogre series and Final Fantasy Tactics, and Nippon Ichi games like Disgaea.