Content area
Full Text
Tresca, Michael J. 777e Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011. 228 pp. Softcover. ISBN 978-0-7864-5895-0. $35.00.
Michael J. Tresca's The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games is a timely book. Scholarship in the study of fantasy gaming is maturing, with both computer and tabletop role-playing games receiving increasing scholarly attention (e.g., Bowman; Cover; Harrigan and Wardrip-Fruin, Second Person, Third Person; Nardi; Wardrip-Fruin and Harrigan; Williams et al.). There are signs of a small resurgence of wider interest in the forms of fantasy role -playing as well, with the recent publication of mass market memoirs and reflections on fantasy gaming (Barro wcliffe, Gilsdorf) and the appearance of themes from fantasy gaming in recent art and literature. Exhibitions such as Casey J ax Smith's "Doomslangers" and Tony Dowler's "Year of the Dungeon" stand beside the LaViola Gallery recent panel on "Dungeons and Dragons in Contemporary Art" (Allison et al.) as evidence of the trend in the visual arts, while short stories such as Belinda Rule's "The Secret of the Dark Elves" and Sam Lipsyte's "The Dungeon Master," along with novels such as Junot Diaz's Pulitzer-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao demonstrate that the presence of Dungeons & Dragons in a fictional work need not be restricted to schlock genre fantasy and gaming company novel lines. Given all this, Tresca's book arrives at a fitting time for fantasy role-playing as a cultural phenomenon, when artists and writers, as well as scholars, are beginning to take a look at gaming from new perspectives. A history of the evolution of fantasy gaming concepts is a welcome addition to the trend.
Tresca's book is an attempt to provide a sometimes personal, sometimes academic review of the evolution of fantasy gaming concepts, beginning with literary antecedents such as The Lord of the Rings, and continuing through the tabletop game Dungeons 6k Dragons and computer games such as World of Warcraft. Tresca approaches his topic at times through a personal narrative of his own gaming autobiography, at times through a history of the forms and concepts of fantasy role -playing games, and at times through an analysis of these games drawing on theoretical ideas from cultural and media studies. Unfortunately, while Tresca touches on a broad range of topics and...