Hey Professor who signed the petition to defend the sack of dog shit, can you come to Alabama to defend my rights to talk about diverse gender roles in the archaeological record or are you too preoccupied with wondering whether you can secretly use the calipers on your black colleagues for funsies

OK fine, I can be peer pressured.

Still enraged that no university consortium launched a free open sources browser/office suite/lms "Our core competency is agreeing to exploitative contracts with outside vendors"

Reminder this is happening tomorrow!

Aaron Lim 林家丰@ehronlime.bsky.social · 4d ago

Get on the bus, it's Playtest Zero time again next week! For our SEA-friendly session, join us next Tuesday, 25 August at 8 pm (GMT+8) over at the Session Zero Discord server to do some 1-hour playtests of TTRPGs/game bits and chat with other designers! (Image unrelated)

Someone uploaded their RPG design thesis to RPG Trader and honestly… I love this. Telegraphed Dangers - because sometimes you want to read a thesis about why RPGs do the things they do. 🎲

HiskiH@hiskih.fi · 14h ago

My OSR themed Master's Thesis is now available both digital and in print on @rpgtrader.bsky.social. If you need to know which OSR monsters convert to which games easily I might have the answers for you right here. rpg-trader.com/products/713... #ttrpg #osr

✂️🎲 Designers! Please share your area’s #FLGS - let me know where the storefront is located and tag ‘em / drop their website. Tell me why I should go visit them if I’m in the area. Bonus points if they support local design efforts with a prototype night or featured shelf, etc.

Trying an adaptation of @zugenia.bsky.social's "Where Do You Know From" exercise for my 1st year writing class. Original assignment here: www.maifeminism.com/where-do-you... (full text of my assignment in ALT text if you want to steal it!)

During first-year orientation at UChicago I remember everyone saying "Oh my God it SO nice to be with SO MANY smart people" while having the "oh shit they're ALL as smart as me" look in their eyes (yes me too). We all got over it, but, yeah, recognizing you're no longer "the smart one" is a thing

Ben Bolker@bbolker.bsky.social · 9h ago

One of my important roles as a senior academic: telling/reminding super-smart junior people that (1) they may soon have the novel experience of not being the smartest one in the room; (2) when they *are* the smartest one in the room, they should still try not to be jerks

It’s important to be clear that the truth value of a subject does not become debatable just because somebody wants to debate. Ether. Wandering wombs. Devils in red heads, the cursed left handed. Flat earth. Phrenology. Humors. Race science. “Debate me bro!” It’s fine for the answer to be: no.

Wobbu this is perfectly timed — @folger.edu LOOKIT.

WobbuPalooza@wobbupalooza.bsky.social · 14h ago

You know, I'd heard Queen Elizabeth was sort of a LARPer. But Sir Thomas More published poems in a parlor game text? Shakespeare used a gameplay narrative as a source for Measure for Measure? What??? Here's a 🧵 ...

You know, I'd heard Queen Elizabeth was sort of a LARPer. But Sir Thomas More published poems in a parlor game text? Shakespeare used a gameplay narrative as a source for Measure for Measure? What??? Here's a 🧵 ...

I already have to get up at 4am during term on a regular basis just to catch up, and reviewing or debating ideas not based on evidence or reality is not something I am adding to the pile.

Yesterday was full of good games, but I want to focus on @timhutchings.bsky.social's "A Sargasso Sea of Space" - a quick and light game of finding junk in space, trying to describe it as best as you can, matching it with prototypes in your hand, assembling an escape pod and running to safety (?).

yelling “wake up sheeple!! they’re coming for the race/IQ guys!” to a room vacated months since by academics fired for teaching about gender or quoting Charlie Kirk’s less flattering lines

Me, a US-based academic: I don’t care what any scholar believes, we all need to stand up publicly whenever someone’s academic freedom is threatened Me, continuing: also, the first time this has happened, motivating me to sign my first ever open letter, is in late 2026, to a race scientist, in Ghent

Deeply person/context-specific, or so I found, especially now there’s a version of me walking around outside me.

🍒🍓🌸 yve 🌸🍓🍒@letsgoyvie.bsky.social · 2y ago

quote this with how intimidating YOU think you are on a scale of 1 - 10 and let other ppl reply to it with how intimidating THEY think you are >:)

If you're looking for a copy of Play Unsafe after reading @itsquinns.bsky.social yesterday, it's available from @leisuregames.bsky.social in the UK. leisuregames.com/products/pla...

Play Unsafe

Often, we treat roleplaying games like work. We buy shelves of thick books. We plan detailed adventures. We memorise rules. In Play Unsafe, award-winning author Graham Walmsley explores what happens w...

leisuregames.com

love this approach: a coordinated, intentional effort by faculty to return to the fundamentals of teaching.

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 13h ago

cognitive sabotage, you can ban it extra credit to U Chicago for bans on professional AND undergrad programs; smart SLACs are going to market AI free campuses soon chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...

YES PLEASE (and if there could be a formal write up of the Single Man hack I would be over the moon, as it’s my favorite Austen-inspired TTRPG)

RPG Roots@rpgroots.bsky.social · 14h ago

We feel incredibly fortunate to have spoken with Danielle, who was generous with her time and truly delightful to chat with. While there is no current public page for Danielle’s work and Kagematsu is out of print, we sincerely hope someone brings it back! 4/

Another guest for Season 1 of RPG Roots is Danielle Lewon, the award-winning co-designer of "Kagematsu" - another TTRPG that came up very frequently in our conversations with various authors! 1/

I think about this a lot, eps as I bridge from the AP book (some folks make AP to play the way they want with like-minded folks) to DIE (a game in its meta & making is about game groups) Many play games with people we love. But some of us then love the things themselves, in increasingly-niche ways.

Cole Wehrle@colewehrle.bsky.social · 13h ago

Another key thing: you have to find players who want to go on the journey with you. I think it's fine and good to widen our circles and invite folks, but you can't come into an established group and try to turn it into your 18xx group. Talk about what you want to play and plan a bit.

The conversation about the hobby and its financial cost fully misses the more important cost. Games are outrageously expensive in our most precious resource: time. Oh, you want to get into chess? See you in 10 years, kid. Want to learn Dota or SC? 200-300 hours of practice are the entry fee.

Academic freedom has never meant claim/teach whatever you want, especially in the classroom. Eugenics, for ex., isn’t taught because it’s censored. Eugenics isn’t taught because it’s been thoroughly and irrevocably proven to be utterly false and harmful.

Jason Lee Byas@jasonleebyas.bsky.social · 23h ago

Yes, I support academic freedom for racism, eugenics, Maoism, a belief in violence for its own sake, Murder Jason Lee Byas Thought, support for ISIS, support for total human extinction, and whatever else you have in mind. "Academic freedom but just for good people" is not a practicable principle.

I have been so, so lucky in the mentorship I received in my graduate education, & peer mentorship thereafter. I haven’t been *uniformly* lucky — sometimes horrifyingly so — but I could navigate the incompetent/cruel/bad because I had so many around me who reminded me “this is not OK, not normal.”

right like, there is a useful way to say "this argument isn't fully thought out" or even just "i disagree with your conclusions" without saying "you are stupid." and if you want to create a community of any kind, it is crucial to learn how to do that.

Dr. Emily Friedman@ecfriedman.com · 13h ago

Ripping the WORK to shreds is different from ripping PEOPLE to shreds and it’s infuriating how many folks mistake the two, or think the two are inevitably combined.

being screamed at did not make me a better journalist, or improve communication at my job. it only made things WORSE. being told i am a bad writer in a crit did not improve my writing. it was completely inappropriate in a space of incredible vulnerability.

if we want to create better, more equitable systems, then we can't just say "oh this was what it was like for me, grow a thicker skin." yes some conflict is inevitable, but i got locked in a tiny room by my boss where he yelled at me until i cried and i do not want that to happen to anyone else.

when people justify their cruelty to me with variations on "this is what it used to be like in journalism" or "you'd never survive an art crit" or similar, what i want to say is: who do you think succeeds in such an environment, and who gets marginalized?

1) I absolutely agree with Sonja 2) I agree with this policy 3) We're going to see more "humans for rich people, machines for the poors" divide in education. *yes not all U of C students are rich, I know. But U of C is rich.

Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 14h ago

This is what I’m talking about! Our institutions should be doing the work for us and not leaving us to jury rig together the collapsing infrastructure around us. More of this. chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...

If you're looking for an incredible list of solo (journaling) TTRPGs, take a look at this developing thread! An send along your own recommendations. ✍️

Jonaya Kemper@violetriotgames.bsky.social · yesterday

This Winter I'll be teaching an Experimental TTRPG course and I'll be focusing on solo journaling games. If you have a game you think I should read, or you have a game you really love, please plug it and tell me about it. ✨ Also please share widely. I want some non US perspectives.