Shane’s Take — The Elusive Shift

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.