Dan & Paul get to chat with Jon Peterson, eminent historian of D&D and other TTRPGs. We've loved his earlier work, Playing at the World, to death -- and now we get to chat up his newest book, The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity! We explore his key observation that RPGs combined threads from two sometimes-combative camps of wargames vs. fantasy storytelling. (A lot like we have on the Wandering DMs channel itself!) What was the first game to model story dynamics instead of real-world physics? (We were shocked at how early that was!) And how have shifts in the culture transformed our games, and vice-versa?

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Wandering DMs Paul Siegel and Dan “Delta” Collins host thoughtful discussions on D&D and other TTRPGs every week. Comparing the pros and cons of every edition from the 1974 Original D&D little brown books to cutting-edge releases for 5E D&D today, we broadcast live on YouTube and Twitch so we can take viewer questions and comments on the topic of the day. Live every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern time.

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