Hobgoblin is a 1981 horror novel by American writer John Coyne about Scott Gardiner, a teenaged boy who becomes obsessed with Hobgoblin, a fantasy roleplaying game based on Irish mythology, as his life in the game and in reality slowly blend.

Like the contemporaneously-published Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe, this is a species of problem novel (although not aimed at young adult readers) by an established writer, which treats the playing of roleplaying games as indicative of deep neurotic needs.

[1][2] Like the Jaffe book, Hobgoblin was published at the height of Dungeons & Dragons' popularity and soon after the intense media coverage of the Egbert steam tunnel incident (urban myths wherein roleplaying gamers enacting live action role-playing games perish, often in the utility tunnels below their university campuses).

Coyne said that he had become intrigued by Dungeons & Dragons after a nephew had become an avid player, and he became interested.

That idea intrigued me and to understand this whole world, I began to play the game so I could write Hobgoblin.