Well, here's a treat! (h/t to @craigoxbrow.bsky.social)

Hilarity in the office as I show colleagues my copy of The Price of Freedom, a key part of my [checks notes] research collection.

Come work with us! We are hiring 3 postdoctoral researchers working in cultural game studies from the beginning of 2026 until the end of 2027. Read more and apply by 31.10.2025 (at 23.59.00 EET / UTC+2):

By coincidence, I proudly have a framed print of this on my wall!

Wonderful that the PDF of Cold City 2nd edition is now out with backers (and will be available to the general public in the near future).

This is a great feature & gets at one* of our key beliefs and reasons for doing the mag, simply… GAMES ARE PART OF OUR CULTURE & SOCIAL HISTORY It seems so simple & obvious but has to be said because apparently it isn’t. Games can tell us as much about ourselves, our fears, our desires, what is…

A banner week for @handiworkgames.bsky.social! First the physical copies of @fromthemorgue.bsky.social's brilliant FiveEvil going out, and now the completed pdf of Cold City 2nd Ed. heading to backers!

Lunchtime reading: issue 7 of @wyrdscience.bsky.social, which just arrived. Might be the best yet. Features on Rick Priestley, Undaunted and Cold War RPGs, an excellent column from @jameswallis.bsky.social and much more. If you like tabletop games and you haven’t subscribed, you’re missing out.

And here we are! The latest, greatest issue of @wyrdscience.bsky.social, incorporating an article on the Cold War and RPGs by...me! @ljmuimpact.bsky.social @ljmuhistory.bsky.social

@sacha72.bsky.social is - as always - far too kind.

Another semester of teaching my favourite module: An International History of the Cold War Era. And one of my favourite exercise with students: what do we mean when we say 'the cold war'?

All time, 100%, solid gold classic

Within a 50 mile radius of my office, there are many, many institutions offering history degrees: LJMU, UoLiv, Hope, Manchester, ManMet, Lancaster, Huddersfield, Bradford, Keele, Bangor, and so on. How's that going to work, then?

Kea are brilliant and hilarious when it's not your tent/car/rucksack. Most hilarious when carefully and methodically taking apart the huge, gas guzzling, ridiculous expensive SUV that never goes off road. Ask me how I know.

Oh - and I mean this most sincerely - FFS.

I can't emphasise this enough, but the people who stay in this place for a minimum of £1400 per night can - if they don't mind - fire themselves into the sun. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Buy every damn grouse moor in Scotland, set up programmes for re-forestation and re-wilding, and hand them back to the people. I'd probably do the same with private golf courses. Apart from Turnberry, where I'd just buy the land around it and set up billboards saying "TRUMP'S A BAWBAG".

This is a sound point about historical British gaming cultures. The Virgin Megastore chain went all-in with RPGs in the 80s/90s. Unlike many independent game stores w/ opaque opening hours (Dragon & George in Glasgow, I'm looking at you) & limited stock, they were reliable & well stocked.

Working away on annotating some period-correct maps for the @handiworkgames.bsky.social 2nd edition of Hot War. The graphic design wizardry of Paul and Jon will, of course, make this actually look good, rather than the scrawlings of a fool.

I was likewise delighted with the way this turned out - and it doesn't shy away from showing where the game's loyalties lie.

1) One day I need to find the time (hah!) to add Wiki pages for all the British indie RPGs from 2000-2010 missing from this page. Stuff that was genuinely important & innovative, yet frequently forgotten in a discourse that prioritises what came out of North America. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...

People who aren’t paying attention don’t think anti-trans stuff matters, as they don’t know any, & think of caricatures of trans ppl on sitcoms etc. To the far right yobs it does matter. This happened in Dublin, which doesn’t have the anti-trans culture of Britain. You should care:

I would back this like a shot, but I wrote both games so I don't need to.

One of the things about my extensive oral history project on Cold War TTRPGs is deciding what not to include. There are so many rich stories/reminiscences/memories that it seems a little overwhelming. Although, "driving around & blowing shit up" from one of my 1st interviews is now a chapter title!

And as @rozkaveney.bsky.social points out, incitement to violence not only against trans women (which is appalling enough on its own), but all women who don't conform to a narrow definition of 'femininity'. Linehan is just such a wee bawbag, as we would say back home.

Take the role of the Wee Folk as they defend the Burn from miseries, tossers, litter and filth. The new standalone edition is out now, with everything you need to play. handiwork.games/product/the-... The PDF version is here: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/4...

Online ticket booking for my truly excellent, ground-breaking, and totally not made up as I go along talks at @tabletopscot.bsky.social closes at midnight tomorrow. Although, there will be space for those who turn up on the day. But, booking in advance makes me feel wanted.

Hey! Have you attended one of my talks on the Cold War and RPGs at either @conpulsion.bsky.social or @ukge.bsky.social this year? If you did, could I ask for 5 mins of your time to complete this quick survey? In future I'll actually have leaflets with links to hand out! forms.gle/8bDSV2vW3PS5...

Just a few weeks to go until @tabletopscot.bsky.social! I'll be there on the @handiworkgames.bsky.social booth, and doing talks on my games history research at 2.30 on Fri and 12.00 on Sat. More details on the talks here: tabletopscotland.co.uk/events/sem-s...

since we don't have kickstarter to kind of provide some kind of exciting goal/target/sense of urgency I'm thinking maybe we do something really depressing like this instead

Very excited that issue 7 of @wyrdscience.bsky.social magazine is imminent! And not just because there's a piece by me in it!

This is very exciting to see. The Burn is an evocation of hazy memories of my childhood, allied to tales of little folk who protect the titular burn from litter, pollution, and other threats.

It's very exciting that a standalone version of The Burn (previously an add-on for the Silver Road rules) will be available at @tabletopscot.bsky.social in early September!

One like = one completely dull, boring, commonplace RPG opinion of no consequence to anyone. That's life as a farmer in Attention World.

If you have access to the BBC iPlayer, Peter Watkins' astounding 1965 faux-documentary The War Game us up for the next 28 days. A piece of film making that retains immense power 60 years after it was made. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Milo the cat, struck down in his prime. Gone, but not forgotten.

1) This 'D&D university' thing has had me thinking over the last few days. It's the opposite of what various formal and informal communities have being doing since forever in the RPG. To my mind it's a cynical grift by the organisers. Back in the 2000s here in the UK we had Collective Endeavour.

Imagine trying to use your position as an elected representative to [checks notes] protect endangered, irreplaceable natural habitats. Clearly this kind of radicalism must be stamped out!

I think this is probably my greatest achievement in RPG design.

And how exactly is an LLM going to get a readers card for the National Archives at Kew, hmmm?

I would genuinely love to know whast I'm doing wrong with my academic grant funding applications. Because every single one gets rejected. No matter how hard I work on them, no matter how much I nuance them, the result is the same. Every. Single. Time.

My RPG-related research task today has focused on tracing the genealogy of the phrase "the price of freedom" from the 1980s back into the past (and boy, did Reagan use it a lot!). I'm currently in the 1870s! All of this for a short paragraph that will likely be edited out of the book!

Spot on from Jon.

No. That's all. No.

Moviedrome. Moviedrome was - in huge part - my education in films. That and my dad saying things like "You should stay up late and watch Lost Horizon!" to an 11 year old me.

Oooh! It's me! At @tabletopscot.bsky.social! Talking! About things!

Is it just me or could 'The Voice of Beyond' actually be a Lucio Fulci film from the 1980s (badly dubbed and straight to video!) brand.warwick.ac.uk/en/brand-gui...

1) If you're heading to @tabletopscot.bsky.social from 5-7 September, I'll be giving a couple of talks on my research! Details and links in the next two posts! Tickets are limited, but free to attendees! tabletopscotland.co.uk

ICYMI - we have 3 new backdrop books on the way. The first two - Planets and Deserts will be available to pre-order directly from us this week, as they head off to print. The third, World War Ruins will be exclusive to @badsquiddogames.bsky.social Women of WW2: Resistance kickstarter. #JHBackdrops

Knobends have been harassing Annie at @badsquiddogames.bsky.social because she heinously and with malice aforethought [checks notes] designs, manufactures, and sells female wargaming and RPG miniatures. Annie's good people and makes great stuff - you should check her work out!