The Elusive Shift

How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity

Paperback
$32.00 US
On sale Mar 29, 2022 | 328 Pages | 9780262544900

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How the early Dungeons & Dragons community grappled with the nature of role-playing games, theorizing a new game genre.

When Dungeon & Dragons made its debut in the mid-1970s, followed shortly thereafter by other, similar tabletop games, it sparked a renaissance in game design and critical thinking about games. D&D is now popularly considered to be the first role-playing game. But in the original rules, the term "role-playing" is nowhere to be found; D&D was marketed as a war game. In The Elusive Shift, Jon Peterson describes how players and scholars in the D&D community began to apply the term to D&D and similar games--and by doing so, established a new genre of games.
1 The Two Cultures
2 Best Intentions
3 Designing for Role Playing
4 The Role of the Referee
Intermezzo: Transcending Design
5 Toward a Philosophy
6 Maturity
Jon Peterson, a leading scholar of Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games, is the author of Playing at the World and Dungeons & Dragons & Arcana: A Visual History.

About

How the early Dungeons & Dragons community grappled with the nature of role-playing games, theorizing a new game genre.

When Dungeon & Dragons made its debut in the mid-1970s, followed shortly thereafter by other, similar tabletop games, it sparked a renaissance in game design and critical thinking about games. D&D is now popularly considered to be the first role-playing game. But in the original rules, the term "role-playing" is nowhere to be found; D&D was marketed as a war game. In The Elusive Shift, Jon Peterson describes how players and scholars in the D&D community began to apply the term to D&D and similar games--and by doing so, established a new genre of games.

Table of Contents

1 The Two Cultures
2 Best Intentions
3 Designing for Role Playing
4 The Role of the Referee
Intermezzo: Transcending Design
5 Toward a Philosophy
6 Maturity

Author

Jon Peterson, a leading scholar of Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games, is the author of Playing at the World and Dungeons & Dragons & Arcana: A Visual History.

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