After talking to a young writer last night, I want to remind you all that it's okay to write without an assignment or goal. Write to explore a new technique, get an idea out of your head, or as emotional exhalation. Write for the raw joy of it. For you alone. It doesn't need to go into a portfolio

Check this out! One of our Co-Directors, Dr. Jonathan Truitt, consulted on Imperium: Horizons by @ospreygames.bsky.social by playtesting the Maya deck for historical accuracy. Read more here: boardgamegeek.com/blog/17242/b...

You might read this and think it doesn't seem simple, but the difference is just experience. Read more ttrpgs, and more varied rpgs, and run your games. Time will teach you how to read a game and understand what the important parts are to you and, crucially, your players. AI robs you of this craft.

🌱Elaine Lithgow - Back The Children Of Time RPG! 🕷️@elainelithgow.bsky.social · yesterday

One of the best DnD campaigns I ever ran used one A4 sheet of paper for notes, the default GM screen, and a whiteboard plus some generic tokens for complex combat. It for three years and my group still say it's one of the best campaigns they've been a part of. It's really not that complicated!

Foundational to anthropology is the fact that everyone's notions of "culture" ought to take a backseat to at least observe what humans what actually *do* to create culture.

CSketch@csketch.bsky.social · 22h ago

Oh my god I think I found the video.

To be clear: If “TTRPGs” in your scholarship, teaching, & outreach start & end with D&D — or even GMed games — that’s a skill issue you need to reconsider. You’re gonna get left behind.

Free demo game if you aren't sure what we're up to here. Give it a try and see if you can not wreck the universe.

Bully Pulpit Games@bullypulpithq.bsky.social · 19h ago

AND @jmstar.bsky.social said, "The Cortège hinges on epochal issues of order and rebellion and peace and freedom, all mutually exclusive, all disastrous in their own ways. Since I adore underdogs, Herin Nindahar is my favorite character." Demo for one of the #NineSpaceGames: bpglink.com/9SG-demo

This is a pretty good summary of why this stuff has zero appeal to anyone who actually enjoys making anything, and there will never be anything Ai companies can do about that. (Green absolutely torching his own credibility is just an astonishing unforced error. Write your own words!)

Mike Bithell@mikebithell.bsky.social · 10h ago

The specific focus in this video on the way these tools get under your skin and train you to depend on them is an aspect I personally find existentially terrifying. youtu.be/TtvICev9sBE?...

Another night of Russian terror against Ukraine:17 killed&44 injured in Kyiv&Kyiv region.A Nova Poshta branch was destroyed,along with two key Epicentr logistics complexes&a Rozetka logistics hub.People were killed on a railway platform near the attacked Ukrzaliznytsia logistics centers 📹Kyiv region

I fear we might see a new alignment between a radical right death cult and a rural revivalist "simplicity" drive, which views collapse and a return to "organic" communities as a solution to decadent urbanism. A century ago this convergence led to a very bad place. www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/t...

The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death

monbiot.com

Science & unions must continue to join forces against the renewed horrors of deregulation, because both know otherwise *exactly* where they'll lead. Unaccountable employers are friends to no one, save the rich.

NPR@npr.org · 9h ago

Rates are now as bad as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sick and dying. Mining experts blame toxic silica dust, now more common in mines. n.pr/4yZJVPo

Cuba's national electric grid collapses, plunging island into darkness reut.rs/4fKWwgK

Cuba's national electric grid collapses, plunging island into darkness

Cuba's national electricity ​grid collapsed late on ‌Sunday, the state-owned national electric utility ​said, plunging the ​island of about 10 ⁠million people into ​darkness as blackouts are ​becoming ever more frequent.

reut.rs

OTR kids are getting paid to learn how to DJ. www.citybeat.com/arts/local-d...

BOOM. The AAUP is suing Texas A&M University System over their censorship policy that prohibits faculty from discussing topics & viewpoints related to race, sexual orientation, & gender. www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/... 1

My childhood is in a museum 🥹 I got emotional visiting the Chinese Single-Player Games Exhibition, seeing classics like Sword & Fairy and Xuan Yuan Sword. From a childhood fan to helping bring these games to the world, what a journey ❤️ #中国单机游戏展 #集合啦游戏博物馆

Erklär mir nichts. Ich seh den Salamander

Nine Space Games is now available! Get it here: bpglink.com/9spacegames or here: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5... as you prefer, but definitely get it.

Nine Space Games

Nine Space Games is a collection of freeform games that share a universe and a set of rules. They are designed to be played however you like, and they play fast—each lasts no more than an hour. And th...

bpglink.com

I've got a new story up on Rascal. It's one of those stories that is a real gift. It's just so charming and fun. Don't worry about what it is about. Just read it! You will not regret it! www.rascal.news/larping-cthu...

Larping Cthulhu-style

How the HP Lovecraft Historical Society dressed up, solved mysteries, and lost their minds having fun

rascal.news

It requires expertise to be able to say, “I do not know the answer to that question, and that is becauae thus far scholarly consensus is that we do not have the knowledge needed at this time to answer that question.” Sometimes “I don’t know” is a far more rigorous answer than people might think.

The far right accurately perceives that truth and inquiry have a heavily left-leaning bias, so they wanna put their thumbs on the scales so hard that they bend or break US higher ed, both desirable outcomes for them.

Roopika Risam@roopikarisam.bsky.social · 2d ago

Fascists and authoritarian regimes try to control universities and turn them into purveyors of state propaganda through extortion…... www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Fascists and authoritarian regimes try to control universities and turn them into purveyors of state propaganda through extortion…... www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Trump administration asks colleges to commit to education overhaul

Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter contains some similarities to a compact offered to and rejected by a small group of schools last year.

politico.com

Minha apresentação no @rolesimposio.bsky.social é amanhã!

This tracks. Most of the faculty I know, even with degrees from the top programs in the humanities, can all kinda aspire to comparable career outlines. And that's thanks to both union faculty cultures of solidarity (and Jante) as well as the previous funding environment lying in ruins.

Rebecca Colesworthy@rcolesworthy.bsky.social · 2d ago

actually no I wouldn’t. we generally agree that if there was a star system it’s now gone for structural reasons—for better (solidarity! unions! collectives!) and worse (no material support). I balked when a UP editor was described as a starmaker in the NYer b/c I don’t think that’s how it works.

A new bit of history out today, a complete index and history of Dagon magazine, the very first, legendary Call of Cthulhu fanzine published by Carl T. Ford in the '80s. zinedex.designers-and-dragons.com/chaosium/dag...

This will be the US if the SCREEN Act passes. Call your Senators before August 5 and tell them that you oppose the SCREEN Act, KOSA, and the KIDS Act. Use the official lookup tool at www.senate.gov/senators/sen... to find yours by state.

Without downloading new pics what it is like dating you?

Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 3d ago

Without downloading new pics what it is like dating you?

I’ve seen in two culture /higher ed magazines recently the claim that the printing press engendered a crisis of authority at universities bc anyone could publish what they wanted and people could learn things without universities. This is not true.

Without downloading new pics what it is like dating you?

dr. hazel 🕯️@hazelmonforton.com · 3d ago

Without downloading new pics what it is like dating you?

What made so many cultural centers of the past - interwar Paris, 70s NYC East Side, 90s Seattle - was that young artists could live and feed themselves on a pittance, leaving them time and energy to work on their art.

Monsterhearts got that treatment for so many years. Very popular, held back only by my lack of business acumen, constantly described as a niche title or an undiscovered gem. I think there's a knee-jerk assumption that girl-coded or queer-coded titles only appeal to a small and bounded audience.

This might be a bit of a hot take (and very much isn’t targeted at anyone to be super clear, just my general experiences over the last 8 months seeing people talk about my game) but I don’t think Girl Frame is niche or has a small audience, speaking as the person who has the sales numbers