Malcolm Craig

Try explaining that to government and the managerial class. The system is screwed.

This is a bloody disgrace amongst a whole series of other bloody disgraces within UK higher education.

As well as giving talks at @conpulsion.bsky.social, I'll also be on the @handiworkgames.bsky.social stand, where you'll be able to browse* and purchase some of the finest RPG products on the market.

*I promise to stop using my "First browse is free, 50p a browse thereafter" line

For those interested in the academic research of role-playing games, we have just released our latest issue of the International Journal of Role-Playing (17!).

221 pages of work, all for advancing knowledge about this medium.

journals.uu.se/IJRP/issue/v...

Ah! I was going to drop you a line about meeting up for a coffee, but I will now refrain. Hope you, Margaret, and Rebecca are all doing well.

Have you read Gravity's Rainbow?

You shouldn’t be! But we should organise a game of RT sometime. I’m only 90 mins drive away, and I could easily swing over to your neck of the woods.

Gregor and I played Remember Tomorrow together just about a year ago, which was the first time in an age. Immense fun, and a game that still really stands up.

It will be delightful to see these in print. Glasshouse was my first go at writing an RPG 'scenario' in decades, and I was delighted with the way it turned out. So if you fancy a double bill of dark goings on in space and equally dark (and fungal) goings on under 1990s London, then this is for you!

That's very kind! I suspect your money is safe for the next little while though!

Book proposal for Gaming the Apocalypse: Roleplaying in the nuclear age Malcolm M. Craig Liverpool John Moores University Liverpool, UK

Well, that's my first attempt to find a publisher for my book on TTRPGs, the Cold War, and nuclear fear sent off! I really hope that my first choice publisher takes it on, but it's a tough market and there's a lot of competition for space and attention.

The FiveEvil cover showing a fly on a die

Some spreads from FiveEvil

Some spreads from FiveEvil

FiveEvil takes the underlying basics of fifth edition, skins them, guts them, turns them inside out and sews it all back together on a really solid skeleton of solid iron. FiveEvil delivers horror roleplaying to your table, using the system you know so well against you.

FYI @ljmuimpact.bsky.social @ljmu-ris.bsky.social @ljmuhistory.bsky.social

World War III: The twentieth century's most important war? From 1945 onwards, it was a war that never broke out that occupied the minds of millions of people around the world. During the Cold War era, World War Three remained an apocalyptic fantasy, but it was a fantasy with enormous impact, relevance, and resonance. Facing this ‘spectre of ever greater annihilation’ politicians, officials, military leaders, and 'boffins' all pored over its implications, planned for its outcomes, and wrestled with the morality of it all. The global public consumed ideas about a third major twentieth century conflagration through an untold number of novels, comics, films, plays, artworks, news media articles, and games. This talk will cover the imaginary of World War III more generally, and then focus on how analogue games approached this topic and what this can add to our understanding of the twentieth century.

Better Dead Than Red: RPGs and the invasion of America Since the founding of the United States 250 years ago, fears of subversion and invasion by foreign powers have waxed and waned, but have never gone away. The 1980s saw the emergence of RPGs and board games that explicitly dealt with this threat, either literally or metaphorically. What do we make of these games as historical objects and how do we analyse them within their historical context. This talk by Malcolm Craig will invite you to consider games like Freedom Fighters, Year of the Phoenix, and the infamous Price of Freedom, and think about what they tell us about the United States in the era of Ronald Reagan.

They're not up on the site yet, but I'll be giving 2 talks at @conpulsion.bsky.social in Edinburgh on April 11/12:

11th: 11.30-12.30: World War III: The 20th century's most important war?

12th: 15.30-16.30: Better Dead Than Red: RPGs & the invasion of America

More on the talks in the images below

Available for pre-order now: Cold City and Hot War
handiwork.games/cold-city-ho... #ttrpg

Opinion | Trump says Iranians should rise up. Regime change isn't that simple. Kelly J. Shannon: The administration's message for regime change was undercut by its own actions.

I know this was posted a few days ago, but here’s my op ed on Iran. In all of the noise from overnight Iran “experts,” as a historian of US-Iran relations, I’m trying to center the Iranian people. Hopefully this is helpful for readers.

www.ms.now/opinion/iran...

We're bringing the two FiveEvil scenarios to print! FiveEvil Double Feature collects THESEUS PROTOCOL by @mytholder.bsky.social and Glasshouse by @malcolmcraig.bsky.social in a glorious full colour softcover. With a cool beetle with a razor blade on the cover.

handiwork.games/fiveevil

Vice-chancellor calls for review into student loans for those without A-levels Adam Tickell, of University of Birmingham, says money is loaned to people who ‘are not really capable of graduating’

Which universities are offering places on degrees without a foundation year first to students without A Levels? And is this intended to target foundation students, who usually come from marginalised backgrounds and frequently excel.

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

You can imagine my shock and surprise when I found out that the Daily Mail was the news outlet in question.

Vice-chancellor calls for review into student loans for those without A-levels Adam Tickell, of University of Birmingham, says money is loaned to people who ‘are not really capable of graduating’

With due respect to Prof. Tickell, this is a bunch of arse. Who cares what qualifications students enter uni with? School & uni are completely different things. The answer is not qualifications, the answer is burning the current system to the ground

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

If it's accepted, it will be publicly and freely available!

Oh, I'm quite familiar with Twilight 2000....
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

PoF very much draws upon and satirises contemporary popular culture - Red Dawn, Invasion USA, etc. - as well as much longer standing US fears about invasion and subversion.

PoF is absolutely a satire of US Cold War invasion and subversion paranoia (it and Delta Force came out in the same year, so PoF is not a parody of DF). While straight-faced, a reading of PoF's text reveals the satirical intent all too clearly.

Doubtless there are some who will be delighted that I have continued down my 'TTRPGs and Cold War masculinity' rabbit hole in the short article I'll be submitting for the @historygamesnet.bsky.social 'Analogue' theme.

I am conflicted about what to submit. Do I go with my "I am a very serious scholar" Cold War-as-retrofuture-in RPGs thing, or do I write about Manly Men With Uzis As An RPG Phenomenon? Decisions, decisions!

I feel a submission on twenty-first century RPGs and the use of the Cold War as a setting might be in order (So, Twilight 2000 4th ed et al).

"What's next, General?"
"Well, we've got Operation Blissful Marcel and then the following year it's Operation Cheery Eduardo."

Operation Lucky Alphonse has to be the strangest, though.

"Operation Epic Fury"? You are fucking kidding me. What next? "Operation I Have an Enormous Wang"? "Operation Toddler's Temper Tantrum"?

Dear god, these are such deeply unserious, childish morons with access t almost limitless destructive power.