Super Adventures in Rat-Infested RPG Cellars

Anyone who's played a few RPGs knows that one of the first things a level 1 newbie hero has to do is go sort out someone's rodent problem. There are rats in the cellar, rats in the basement, rats in the storeroom and rats in the larder, and clearing them out is a job for the least experienced of adventurers.

At least, that's the cliché, and it's as infamous as having to go see the village elder, or collect 10 wolf pelts. But how common is this trope in reality? When did games start treating it like a joke? Where did it even come from?

Today I'm going through RPGs I've played from the newest to the oldest on a quest to see how deep this rat cellar goes. It's not going to be an exhaustive list, I haven't played that many RPGs, but if rat quests are really as ubiquitous as advertised then by the end I'm going to be exhausted.

This will include SPOILERS for any games that do something interesting enough with their rat quest for it to be worth spoiling.