> Skip to content
  • Published: 3 May 2022
  • ISBN: 9780262544900
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 328
  • RRP: $75.00

The Elusive Shift

How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity



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.

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.

  • Published: 3 May 2022
  • ISBN: 9780262544900
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 328
  • RRP: $75.00

Also by Jon Peterson

See all

Praise for The Elusive Shift

"Jon Peterson, author of Playing at the World, [one] of the most well-regarded books on the early history of D&D."--https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/22/18001762/dungeons-and-dragons-art-arcana-visual-history-book-review-excerpt