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A review by thecastlebuilder
The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity by Jon Peterson
3.0
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!
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!