This is exciting, and I'll almost certainly get this, but at the same time: Just how many histories of D&D do we need? I think I have seven or eight on my shelf at the moment and I know I'm missing several.

After Russia was booted from the Eurovision for invading Ukraine, they decided to revive the Soviet era equivalent, Intervision. The first new Intervision was held last weekend in Moscow, and it turns out you can check it out on Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQEo...

Tarvitseeko Suomi pelikulttuuristrategiaa peliharrastustoiminnan, pelinkehitystoiminnan ja pelikulttuurin kestävämpään kehittämiseen? Tule kuulemaan lisää Pelikulttuuristrategiapäivään! Mukana myös PEGASUS-hankkeemme. Ke 5.11. @ Paidia, Tampere. Ilmoittaudu mukaan: pelikasvatus.fi/pelikulttuur...

New Games and Culture! I especially want to highlight Leland Masek's piece on identifying playfulness. His work on playfulness is foundational! (I'm his supervisor, so I may be slightly biased.)

Sign up closes in ten days.

Tbf, nothing will ever beat the GW website front page at that time. "The Queen is dead: PREPARE FOR SKIRMISH COMBAT!"

everything went downhill when they took porn off tumblr

Rosebudin vuokrasopimus päättyy edelleen, yliopistokiinteistöiltä ei tietenkään löytynyt muita tiloja, ja muutenkaan mikään ei ole muuttunut. Yliopisto ei tee mitään konkreettista, vain veistelee tyhjää puhetta "yhteistyöstä". Eli Helsingin yliopisto spinnaa parhaansa mukaan.

Sometimes it's nice to remember that even Marcus Aurelius was like "you don't have to comment on everything bro"

I remember when my RPG scene realized this. It took a few years to bury all the hatchets, but it was not only less toxic afterwards, but actually awesome as people started lifting each other up.

Maria Petterssonin elämäkerta Anna Kontulasta on vetävä ja monipuolinen, hauska ja älykäs, koskettava ja raivostuttava. Paljon voi yksi ihminen ehtiä. "Shokeeraavan" kirjan luettuaan on kyllä lopulta shokeeraantunut vain maailman tilasta. Vahva suositus!

I'm running a panel on larp with some absolute superstars of the field at next month's Immersive Experience Network summit! @mikepohjola.bsky.social of Turku Manifesto fame! Laura Kröger of the epic sci-fi blockbuster Odysseus! @rebelrehbinder.bsky.social of UK larp makes Omen Star!

Yesterday I was musing that maybe we are entering a new era of role-playing game manifestos, and turns out I had missed this wonderful one from January: Make Faggot Games! www.eclipse.gay/blog/faggot-...

@jaakkostenros.bsky.social and I launched this support group for our doctoral researchers writing their integrative chapter. Figuring out, together, what _is_ an integrative chapter, what does it contain, for whom is it written, what kind of motivations and emotions are involved in the process...

Are we entering a new ear of manifestos in role-playing games? I sure hope so! I love a good manifesto, and this response to Jay Dragon's piece is a fun one. www.patreon.com/posts/relati...

Tällä on kiire.

Suomen sijoitus akateemisen vapauden vertailussa on laskenut viime vuosina. Suomalainen tiedemaailma on nyt 47. vapainta, kun aiemmin sijoitus on ollut kymmenen parhaan tuntumassa. www.helsinki.fi/fi/uutiset/t...

I love long days of uninterrupted writing and thinking. However, that is an extremely rare luxury in academia. Instead, one looks for snippets of times to steal from admin for writing. Pomodoro sessions are great at that. A student introduced me to Skyrim Pomodoro. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgyA...

Highest praise for a book! 🎊🥰🎉

Its happening right in front of us. Nazification. No one is safe here:

Oooh, some competition for Mäyrä, Egenfedt-Nielsen, Heide Smith, and Pajares Tosca! Also, the description of this book mentions games that are not digital in the first line.

Poliisi sumutti Elokapinan mielenosoittajia OC-sumutteella lokakuussa 2020 Helsingissä. Tapauksen käsittely Helsingin hovioikeudessa alkoi viime viikolla. Syyttäjä vaatii hovissa loputkin poliisit vastuuseen mielenosoittajien pahoinpitelystä ja siihen yllyttämisestä. 1/2

One of my favourite larps from the past few years is being rerun! The Future is Straight is coming back next summer. This is a pitch black comedy about gay and trans conversion camps, the first queer community for many of the people sent there. straightfuturelarp.com

I am talking at Warhammer Conference 2025 about polycrisis and Age of Sigmar! Really looking forward to this, but if you want to have a deep dive into accessible academic writing about Warhammer, check out Psychgeist of Pop Culture: Warhammer in my pinned post! But I also have a second point...

Tässähän se on, tyhjentävästi: m.youtube.com/watch?v=y_dJ...

Today is a good day to join a union.

People sometimes argue that Israel is not committing genocide, because it is not using the most efficient methods to kill all Palestinians right now. That is a bad argument — famine is the best way to kill a large amount of Gazans. Other than using nukes, what more could Netanyahu do? /1

Katsoin vähän kauhuissani kun huomasin Turun Immersion larp festivalilla kosmologin suuntaavaan tanssilliseen larppiin jossa perehdyttiin suprajohtavien elektronien sielunelämään, mutta ilmeisesti fysiikan taiteellistaminen tuotti ihan hyvän kokemuksen.

The book Challenging Contemporary Thinking on Play came out yesterday. Edited by Victoria de Rijke and Rebecca Sinker the book explores play through a series of interviews/conversations. I'm one of the people who participated. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

This FT piece on Curtis Yarvin is a particularly rich text in the growing "larp as political metaphor" corpus. For several years, Yarvin has claimed that almost all political action – by politicians and citizens alike – is "larp". www.ft.com/content/0e24...

Party Studies special issue coming up! CFP is out, deadline in two weeks.

This is the first page I turn to when I’m showing people @molcher.bsky.social’s book about Judge Dredd and modern policing: shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/XB...

The final statement by Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, written months ago in anticipation of his likely death, posted on Twitter/X by a friend. Israel assassinated him tonight along with his reporting team in an airstrike in Gaza.

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

Back from the Immersion larp festival, held for the second time in Turku Finland on Friday and Saturday. I played three pieces there.

DIE is back! The teasers have been out for a few days, but I did not dare to hope that this is what they meant. This is my fave RPG-related comic. Also the new comic book most likely to build on academic role-play studies!

You remember the last game.⁠ This one’s different.

🫠 A thread from @rainforestsb.bsky.social and my recent presentation at #ludo2025 (ludomusicology conference) which examines how nu metal and early 2000s gaming culture contributed to the reinforcement of white male anger (1/20).

Did I already mention that the popular book on Warhammer 40,000 research came out this summer? And that it is a free download? And that I have a piece there with Mikko Meriläinen and Kati Heljakka on the pile of shame? If not, here it is: playstorypress.org/books/the-ps...

i wrote an article about that stupid little question i asked a couple weeks ago, why i asked it, and how the answer to the question can be tremendously beneficial for ttrpg designers possumcreek.medium.com/does-super-m...

RE: the recent targeting of LGBTQ+ content on Steam and itch.io (see following tweet), our #OA article "Platform Produced Heteronormativity" outlines the restrictive self-regulation of platform-based gender and sexuality of adult videogames on #Patreon journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Practical convention design tip! Ropecon door are about to open in an hour, and there will be a long queue in the scorching heat. To help the people in the queue, there are four containers of ice water. Well done, Ropecon!

The greatest resentment I feel these days is seeing that some genAI slop engine started overusing a word *I* overuse. These little shits want to try to take "delve" from me? "Luminous"? "Compelling"? First the em dash, now this?? I don't care that I'm disabled, I'll fistfight any LLM to first blood

Suomen 7 rikkaimmalla ihmisellä on yhtä paljon omaisuutta kuin 1 miljoonalla köyhällä perheellä. Rikkaat maksavat tuloveroja alle 8 miljoonaa, köyhimmät 5 miljardia. Sellaista taakanjakoa. Tämä tieto on vuodelta 2013. Sen jälkeen rikkaiden verotusta on kevennetty. seura.fi/asiat/tutkiv...

We're all in good company! The Psychgeist of Pop Culture – Warhammer, should be an accessible read for anyone looking to dip their toes in miniaturing academia. Katriina Heljakka, @jaakkostenros.bsky.social and myself contributed a chapter on the "pile of shame" phenomenon. Why does it happen?