The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity

by Jon Peterson

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

Peterson examines key essays by D&D early adopters, rescuing from obscurity many first published in now-defunct fanzines. He traces the evolution of D&D theorizing, as writers attempted to frame problems, define terms, and engage with prior literature. He describes the two cultures of wargames and science fiction fandom that provided D&D's first players; examines the dialogue at the core of the game; explains how game design began to accommodate role-playing; and considers the purpose of the referee or gamesmaster. By 1977, game scholars and critics began to theorize more systematically, and Peterson explores their discussions of the transformative nature of role-playing games, their responsibility to a mass audience, and other topics. Peterson finds that the foundational concepts defined in the 1970s helped theorize role-playing, laying the foundation for the genre's shift into maturity in the 1980s.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Nonfiction, History, Gaming, Games, Game Design, Dungeons and Dragons

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 22, 2020

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating dive into the early history of Dungeons and Dragons, its many (less often discussed) successors and competitors, and the shifts in culture across wargaming, science fiction, and the emerging "role-playing" side of the hobby that now looms the largest.

What Peterson delivers in this book is a guided and interpreted history, pulling together threads from a number of voices in the various hobby magazines that hosted discussions of early Dungeons and Dragons and the further explorations of what, exactly, role-playing really was. What's lacking, however, is much analysis or challenge to any of the views expressed (outside of any criticism or conversation from those others peers and contemporaries).

I found it to be a bit lacking as an overall project; it proposes to interrogate where the shift to role-playing really originated and what its implications really are, but essentially ends in a shrug. That said, so many of the anecdotes and writings discussed are fascinating, unexpected, and positioned well in conversation with one another. Certainly worth the read if that sounds interesting!

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a dry book, but a great read for those interested in the history of RPGs. I think my two main takeaways were:

Gygax did not invent RPGs at all. In fact he even pushed back against both the term and the playstyle. He only embraced it later when he realized it was profitable. But even more importantly there are at least five other games before D&D which could easily be called a roleplaying game, and at least one of those games had direct influence on D&D too. I will eternally be greatful to this book for giving me more support against anyone who thinks Gygax was anything but trash.

I was simultanously frustrated and amused by reading about the kind of disagreements geeks had back in the 70s. But at the end of the book there's some great thoughts on how all that bs ultimately inspired people to create better and more interesting games and I really feel that.

[Malvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5, such a brilliant book, filled with captivating wit and valuable insights into the early days of role playing games

I read this with my partner after watching a Matt Colville video about his reaction to the book, and I had an absolute blast. As someone that got into the hobby 30+ years after the release of original D&D, there were obviously a lot of misconceptions I had about how the game used to be played back then. If you're as late to the party as I am, reading this book will show you that people were having fundamental conversations about running, playing, and designing role playing games back in the 70's that sound eerily similar to the conversations we have today about running, playing, and homebrewing D&D 5th Edition.

No amount of reading early issues of Dungeon/Dragon magazine, or old Forgotten Realms novels, or even the rulebooks for OD&D and AD&D can provide the same insight into the nature of TTRPGs after the release of D&D as The Elusive Shift. Taking advantage of the academic nature of the text, Jon Peterson kept me thoroughly engaged with the kind of snark and humor that only the restraint of a neutral historian can pull off- like framing Gary Gygax quotes such that Gary is criticizing actions that he himself would later take.

[Chris Aylott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed exploration of the early days of roleplaying games, and how players and designers formed their understandings of RPGs from the collisions and collaborations of wargaming and science fiction fan communities. Peterson digs deeply into both officially published material and amateur fanzines, showing how the interplay between these two influenced the development of the RPG hobby.

I was especially surprised by the amount of creative activity going in the years immediately before and after the release of Dungeons and Dragons. A lot of the ideas that were shocking and "new" in the the RPG design scene of the 1990s and 2000s bubbled up independently in the 1970s, only to be forgotten and reinvented later on. It's a bit humbling, and also refreshing to see how many of the "givens" of the RPG hobby were anything but obvious until a bunch of players tried an idea out and liked the results.

Read in an advance edition as part of some related research.

[Sunny :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this- it's a great book for those who enjoy D&D (maybe especially for those who get heated about it on Reddit) and can handle a bit of a denser text. Although Peterson isn't really cracking jokes throughout, he contextualizes and analyzes his sources in such a way that made me laugh out loud a few times. I thoroughly enjoyed this earnest yet not-too-serious history of TTRPGs generally and D&D specifically. I appreciated that Peterson doesn't pick a side in his writing (although I definitely do have a side), and instead mostly let sources speak for and define themselves. Great stuff, loved every minute of reading this

[Nick Klagge]

Interesting discussion of the tension between the cultures of wargaming/simulation and fantasy storytelling in the early years of D&D and roleplaying as a hobby, drawing mostly on zines. If you are going to read one book on the genesis of RPGs, though, I think "Playing at the World" is more interesting (but good luck finding a copy).

[Irgendwaslanges · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend it! Such a great insight into the early days of RPG's and RPG design and play! Its more about gamedesign, playstyles and cultures rather then people or company history.
Its amazing how we still discuss the same topics even today!
But beware the book is written in a very scientific language

[Shannon Appelcline]

A somewhat scattered look at design tropes and communities in the first several years of roleplaying. It presents an interesting chronology of five or so major milestones and also catalogs many, many design battles being fought, some of which are still being fought today, some of which are so settled that people can't even conceive there were battles. Very dense. A long read for a short book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy book.

This is a book about game theory, and the historical development of game theory. Specifically, the author has gone back to the earliest days of role-playing games, and traced their nascent beginnings from war gaming to an entirely new kind of game called "role playing." Not for the faint of heart! This book is published by MIT Press and is remarkably researched: the author read many, many (MANY) 1970s fanzines in order to create a detailed history of how these games were imagined, created, and argued over. I found it all fascinating.

I have been playing these games for 40 years now, and I am at the point where I am as interested in their history as I am in playing them. Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds, Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It, Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons and (a few) other books have begun to tell the story of role playing games and their impact on culture. Great stuff!

The first role playing games came out of war gaming and sci-fi/fantasy fandom. From pieces on a game board to players 'becoming' characters in a make-believe world, the influence of RPG's earliest development can still be felt today. Every kid who logs on to a computer game, or flips on their X-Box or PS5 and plays a character running around in a make-believe world owes their experience to people like Gary Gygax and Greg Stafford. Games--video, TTRPG, etc.--are a multi-billion dollar industry, and were dreamed up by some nerdy dudes in the mid-west 50 or 60 years ago. Gods be praised!

So, yeah...this book is a deep dive into how these games were born. I can't say I enjoyed read it, but I am glad that I did. It helped me to understand some of the different styles of play (using experience points for leveled progression vs. narrative play, for example) that still come up today, five decades later. TTRPGs have never been more popular than they are today, and for this I am glad: they are a wonderful experience in shared story telling, and if there has been one good thing that's come out of the COVID pandemic, it has been my re-connection with these games.

I love them. Always have.

[Jon Allanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this, and I must say, I found it very interesting throughout. I'm very glad to have read it. This book was brought to my attention, I think, when it was mentioned on one of Matt Colville's YouTube videos (that, or a similar video by someone else, I can't quite remember). This is quite a scholarly work, and looks at the history of table-top role-playing games by researching what those involved in designing, producing, and playing those games were saying in fanzines published at the time. The focus of this work is the 70s and 80s, when these games first appeared and began to differentiate themselves from the wargames that had come before. In fact, it chronicles the creation and adoption of even the very terms we use to discuss these games, such as the term role-playing being used to describe them. What I found most fascinating about this quite well-written tome is that many of the heated debates about role-playing games and how they should be played that one can easily become embroiled in when looking in online and social media spaces these days all seem to have played out before in the pages of the fanzines. Since the literal inception of these games, it seems all that is now has indeed come before. And, this is not to be pessimistic about the games. Rather, I left with a greater understanding that the search for why we play these games has been going on since we have played these games, and those whys are rich and varied, and those espousing certain whys as the one true way were as vehement then as they are today. The book is rich with footnotes that add to the well-researched passages. It avoids canonizing the creators of many of the important initial games, and sidesteps its focus on those individuals by evaluating the discourse of the participating gamers as a whole. In this way, while it treads on some history I was familiar with, it uncovered to me many conversations and ideas with which I was unfamiliar. I found it very rewarding. If you are interested in the subject matter, this is well worth the time.

[Rodrigo García Carmona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro que arroja luz sobre una época muy desconocida —pero a la vez muy importante e interesante— en el desarrollo de los juegos de rol: los primeros años tras la publicación de Dungeons & Dragons. Peterson vuelve a demostrar que es (de lo que llevo leído) la única persona que merece el título de historiador de los juegos de rol, al desenterrar e interrelacionar el contenido de los fanzines de los 70-80 y la enorme influencia que tuvieron en el desarrollo de esta afición, empezando por el proceso que llevó a acuñar el propio nombre "juegos de rol".

El libro, aunque árido de leer en ocasiones, está muy bien estructurado, porque consigue tratar temáticas de forma independiente y completa sin dejar en ningún momento de respetar un avance temporal estricto. Esto último es tremendamente importante desde un punto de vista histórico, porque muchos libros "populares" o "divulgativos" que tratan la historia de alguna temática, en aras de hacer la lectura más fácil o interesante, tienden a abordar lo que quieren contar de una forma más conceptual que cronológica, recurriendo en ocasiones a hacer cambios menores en el orden de los acontecimientos. No ocurre así con The Elusive Shift. Además, todas las opiniones o conclusiones extraídas por el autor me parecen bien traídas a la luz de los hechos; nada forzadas.

De todo lo aprendido de este libro, me quedo con varios puntos que me han resultado especialmente relevantes: en primer lugar, me han llamado mucho la atención las discusiones primigenias sobre el control narrativo. Estas están, en mi opinión, mucho mejor enfocadas en lo que es realmente importante que la versión contemporánea de ellas, pues no olvidan la relevancia que tiene para la inmersión que un personaje solo pueda actuar sobre el mundo en base a sus propias capacidades ni el deseo de los jugadores de identificarse con sus personajes.

Relacionado con esto, tengo también que resaltar la sinceridad con la que se abordaba el hecho de que los Directores de Juego hicieran "trampas" o recurrieran a un juego de humo y espejos para crear una experiencia lo más divertida y satisfactoria posible para los jugadores. Hoy en día este es un tema tabú, pues esta forma de comportarse por parte del DJ se considera una praxis pésima, aunque paradójicamente resulte una constante en los muy populares streams. Sin embargo, en la época se discutía en qué circunstancias esto puede ser interesante y se entendía que, hasta cierto punto, los jugadores no dejan de realizar una cierta suspensión de la incredulidad, sobre todo si entienden que el Director de Juego no les está robando su capacidad de acción y decisión. De hecho, se presentan varios juegos que tratan de varias formas de mecanizar esto. Considero que este tipo de estrategias y filosofías de diseño deberían recuperarse y que este es un tema que debería volver a discutirse abiertamente.

Por último, quiero destacar también la forma en la que el libro describe cómo en los juegos de rol se encontraron dos culturas antes separadas (los wargamers y los aficionados a la fantasía y la ciencia-ficción) y cómo ambas influyeron en la forma en la que estos juegos se desarrollaron. Este detalle me hizo entender súbitamente por qué muchas cosas de los juegos de rol son como son, y creo que debería reflexionarse por qué cuando se habla de aquella época y de cómo evolucionaron tiende a hacerse referencia únicamente al primer grupo —los wargamers—.

Y eso cuando, precisamente, el nombre "juego de rol" debe su existencia a los aficionados a la fantasía y la ciencia-ficción, pues era un término que el propio Gary Gygax no aprobada. Es curioso reflexionar sobre esto precisamente ahora, cuando en el mundo anglosajón se está produciendo un "revival" que busca referirse al estilo de juego "old school" como "adventure game" en lugar de "role-playing game".

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across a youtube video about a year ago that was talking about how collaboration and rules-hacking were baked into the culture of TTRPGs from the very start. I'll admit that as someone who picked up D&D in 2014 straight from the source books, this was a bit of a surprise to me. I'd only ever played 5th edition D&D (until a couple years ago), and I'd primarily watched Critical Role, which tends to use the rules fairly as-written. When I commented something to this effect, the poster recommended I read this book to get some historical context on the genre.

Until I picked up this book, I'd always assumed my hacked-together homebrew rules were an abberation, an outlier on the edge while everyone else was playing fairly firmly within the rules. As it turns out, that's not the case. Peterson makes the case that the original D&D rules, and subsequent children, were really a "toolkit" for building your own game, rather than a complete game in themselves. This turns out to be one of the most important aspects of the RPG in the early days. No two groups were playing the same game, and this allowed for a very rapid period of growth and innovation in the RPG space. Peterson does an incredible job of academically reviewing how opinions shifted in fanzines during this period.

Peterson's primary goal seems to be to pin down, or at least understand, the shift between standard board games and wargames, and what would come to be known as TTRPGs. While the rules may not look so different between two systems, there is a fundamental shift in how we think about them and how we play them. Peterson aknowledges that systems existed before D&D that encouraged roleplaying, but tries to figure out what it is about the early D&D era that caused people to change how they approached gaming.

From a "how fun is this book to read" perspective, I will warn you that this is primarily an academic text. I can certainly see this being assigned as required reading for a class on game design or game history. That said, I think it's still engaging enough to be a casual read for those interested in diving deeper into the history of the genre. I felt it often didn't flow well, and ping-ponged around the various eras while trying to make roughly the same point over and over. I think if it had been more structured, and leaned a bit more into telling the story of the development I would have enjoyed it more. I'm giving it a 3/5 with the understanding that this is an extremely valuable piece of historical context in the RPG space, but not all that fun to read on an airplane.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1974 Dungeons & Dragons described itself as a set of “rules for fantastic medieval wargames campaigns.” Nowhere in the text could the term “role-play” or “role-playing game” be found. This book attempts to show how that term came to be applied to D&D and the games it inspired, and how the application of that term shaped the discussion of what exactly D&D (and other role-playing games) was, and how it should be played.

The author does this largely through exploring the fanzines of the era, within which a lot of this debate played out. In the process, showing that many of the questions asked by later gamers as to what was the nature of role-playing were being asked by the earliest players, and many of the same answers were being presented.

An excellent addition to the still rather limited corpus of works covering the history of role-playing games.

[Bryan Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot overstate how deeply I am the target audience for this book, but I was disappointingly less enthralled with it than I was hoping I'd be. The text suffers from its lack of narrative structure (I get that's kind of the point, but like, c'mon man - how can one write a history of Dungeons And Dragons without framing it as a story???). There's also not much by way of a hook, so unless you're already interested in D&D AND academic analysis AND independent media AND the history of wargaming AND the development of metagame in the pre-internet era, you won't find much reason to care about those things here. But for weirdos like me who do care about those things, this book is a treasure trove of impeccable primary sourcing and WeeBay.gif moments of clarity about the origins of D&D's most arcane tropes. Idk I liked it, your mileage will almost certainly vary.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible piece on the history, foundation, and discussion of role-playing games. Peterson expertly delivers long-forgotten history and context to endlessly repeated arguments that have occurred in discussions of role-playing games. So many of the arguments I see today, that I participate in today, were already argued several times over. This is not discouraging, rather, it's a dose of much-needed context to the points we try to express.

I found myself, multiple times across this book, having to stop and say out loud "I remember arguing exactly that," several decades after it had already been published in a fanzine. A surreal experience.

A tremendously interesting read and one I would dare say is necessary for anyone interested in role-playing games beyond simply playing them.

[Andy North · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this one as much as "Playing at the World". Peterson does a great job, as always, investigating and citing primary sources to document the history of the hobby. It's just that the primary sources, in this case, are arguments over terminology by nerds like me in the 70s and 80s.

I guess I thought this book was going to be about the discussions around "what makes a role-playing game, and what can they be?" and how those discussions shaped the development of the hobby over the decades. Instead it's generally much more focused on arguments over the right way to play D&D. Whether those arguments are happening in the pages of Dragon in 1977, or on Reddit in 2023, they're equally tiresome and (in my opinion) don't justify such loving scholarship.

[Will Amorosana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jon Peterson is the only scholar I know of doing this level of research on the history of TTRPG’s, and I guess that makes him the leading expert. The Elusive Shift didn’t blow my mind, it didn’t make me rethink the concept of a TTRPG, but it did give me repeated laughs at how similar the nerds of the 70’s and the nerds of today are in their “discourse”, their tribalism, and their gaming philosophies. Glenn Blacow is a name more people in the gaming world should know. There were also a number of ridiculously profound quotes on the nature of roleplaying in the source zines, which Peterson just kind of dropped in and then ignored. Definitely worth the read, and I’d recommend this book to Alex DeGraff specifically and TTRPG Tylenol homies in general.

[Shane Orr · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Elusive Shift details the early days of the role-playing game industry and its struggles with identity as people who came to the hobby from wargaming and science fiction fandom came to grips with the best systems to give players what they were looking for. As D&D gained popularity in the early 80s, the influx of younger fans led to even more division in the hobby. I've enjoyed Peterson's earlier works, so I was hopeful for this one. While it was interesting to read about early gaming philosophies and how some of these 1st and 2nd generation games handled the balance between rules with crunch and rules-lite, this one was a little too dry for my taste.

[Kars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes a bit to get going, can be dry at first, but once I became familiar with some if the "recurring characters" that Peterson reports on, this came to life for me. Very interesting description of the debates the early tabletop fantasy roleplaying community were having in fanzines. Indeed, this hobby is cursed by a lack of institutional memory, and the same issues get rehashed over and over again. Pretty crazy to see how folks were already coming up with things back in the late seventies and early eighties that regularly get presented as innovative or revolutionary in today's scene.

[Tristan Fishel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed how I think about roleplaying games, how I think about my game prep, and how I think about game design. It's got a nice history of the hobby, but it's more so a fantastic analysis of how the genre of "roleplaying games" developed and how the tensions between styles of play haven't ever really been resolved to this day. Old techniques and practices have been implemented, forgotten, and reinvented again. Highly recommended for anyone who has strong opinions about what a TTRPG "is."

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story was fascinating but there are way too many people in the book. They get introduced early on and then all of a sudden they'd get mentioned in passing 50 pages later and you're asking yourself 'wait who was he again and why are they relevant?'. The same can be said of all the systems it went over.

That being said once you can shake that dissonance from the revolving door of people and systems the story it tells is interesting.

Next time I read a book like this I am going to take notes.

[Brant Vallier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Peterson's other works, it reads a bit mechanical, but that's to be expected, given this is a meticulously researched and sourced record of editorials and correspondence through later 70s/early 80s zines regarding the discourse around early RPGs in the orbit of OD&D, it's early competitors and AD&D.

It's quite illuminating that the wargaming vs roleplaying discourse has never ceased for *over half a century*.

[Aaron Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The turnabout I went through on Glenn Blacow is crazy. Full redemption arc.

In any case, I totally dug this. Who knew that a book about RPG philosophy and fanzine bickering would be so engaging? Feels like a real foundational work; strongly recommend to anyone interested in game design or discussion in the tabletop RPG space.

Shout out to Matt Colville and his community for piquing my interest enough to read this.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent followup to his last book. Instead of looking at the straight history of role-playing games, this looks more at the formative period of the RPG golden age of the 70's, and spends a lot of time on the nature of role-playing games. Very engrossing, and some excellent talking points that will influence how I think of runningRPGs going forward.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

While still very academic and scholarly, I found this volume to be easier reading than Playing At The World. It's a fascinating window into the early days of the hobby, into how people developed and discussed their understanding of RPGs. As with Playing At The World, Peterson's depth of research is unimaginably deep.

[Richard Burley]

A very enlightening read! I enjoyed the history about the split between the wargammers and the sci-fi groups that formed the initial RPG players and how they shaped the hobby. Eisen's vow in particular was fascinating (and so early in the history of RPGs) about immersion which raised questions about rules vs narrative. Very interesting indeed!

[Gene Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give it 5 stars for those interested in the history of TTRPGs. A pretty neat little overview of birth of TTRPGs from the 19th Century until about 1982. I have to give due respect to sheer depth of the research done in digging up all those old fanzines to see how the hobby evolved. Impressive scholarship. Well written and easy to read too.

[Kyle Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything old is new again. Every debate I have ever seen in the TTRPG community, including within myself, including ones still going, has been going since the first proto-RPGs. This book catalogues that fact so well as to destroy any notion of RPG “primitivism”. More of a survey than anything else, which provides its own type of understanding.

[David Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found the earlier chapters about the evolution of wargames into role playing games the most interesting - the endless debates about player agency and awareness of rules, the role of the referee, and the transition from Kriegspiel and similar games to D&D are genuinely fascinating. The later chapters are far more repetitive and less engaging, but I’m glad somebody went to the primary sources.

[Marcos Muñoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendamente interesante recorrido histórico sobre cómo el fandom puso el rol en los juehos de rol, con exploración muy bien documentada de los orígenes pre y post D&D y enfoques variados fundamentados en los fanzines del género de los 70 y 80.