The Elusive Shift

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

Author: Jon Peterson

Narrated by: Chris Ciulla

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At a Glance

Format
Digital Audiobook

Duration
11:14.51

Published: 3rd July 2026

Digital Audiobook

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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.