The Elusive Shift cover art

The Elusive Shift

How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity (Game Histories)

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Elusive Shift

By: Jon Peterson
Narrated by: Chris Ciulla
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £22.49

Buy Now for £22.49

How the early Dungeons & Dragons community grappled with the nature of role-playing games—and established a new 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.

©2020 Jon Peterson (P)2026 G&D Media
Anthropology Social Sciences
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet