Full title: "I padroni della menzogna - Il gioco delle identità e dei mondi virtuali" ("The masters of the lie - The game of virtual identities and worlds").
From the back cover (translation from Italian by A. Angiolino):
"A whole generation of youths is fascinated by the virtual communities of Internet. Why? Role-playing game anticipate mutantions. Which ones? And which identities do they offer? Is it the prelude of an apocalypse in which the illusion will finally dominate reality?
Without giving anything to fashions, nor to prophets of the transition to immateriality, this book investigates the eternal, human need to be somebody else, in another time, somewhere else. An investigation on the art of lie, practised for game's sake, an art that is as ancient as the presence of man in a community.
Since nobody can avoid what Ofelia says in Shakespeare's Hamlet: 'We know what we are, but know not what we may be', the author gives to readers eager to explore a real RPG that can be directly experienced."
User note:
The full RPG included is actually a complete murder party: "L'ultimo scherzo di Lesto Fanti" ("The last joke of Swin Dler"). The game system of this is "Agatha", a murder party scheme that was used by the C.UnS.A. group of authors for other cases published on magazines (as "Delitto nella base antartica" on the monthly magazine "E Giochi") and on the "Agatha" TV show, whose "Number 0" episode was broadcasted on the Italian state channel Rai Tre in 1993.