Traditional roguelike

Traditional roguelikes refer to a sub-category of RPGs in which primary gameplay mechanics feature navigation through procedurally generated areas, grid-based movement and permanent player death, tied to a turn-based gameplay. The consequences of the permanent death mechanic usually differ between games. For some games, the death of the character obliges the player to create a new one before restarting the game, while in other games the player's character is "reborn", while losing most or all of its previous equipment and inventory. The turn-based gameplay refers to either combat, movement and general progression, where the passage of turns is defined by a determined execution of actions, according to the game's own rules.

Traditional roguelikes keep the core elements of Rogue with single character, procedurally generated levels, turn-based grid movements, permadeaths and little to no meta-progression. As you start completely over after each death, skill and knowledge is required to succeed. Early games such as Nethack were with ASCII graphics but graphics are added in more modern games like Tales of Maj'Eyal.