The Elusive ShiftHow Role Playing Games Forged Their Identity Series: Game Histories 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