James "Grim" Desborough is a British game designer, author, and blogger who has worked primarily on role-playing games, as well as card games, board games, and social computer games.

James Desborough wrote The Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming in 2000/2001,^[2] winning an Origins Award for that work along with his co-authors Steve Mortimer and Phil Masters.^[3] Desborough was a co-author of CS1: Cannibal Sector One he also briefly worked as the line editor for SLA Industries.^[4] Desborough is also the owner of Postmortem Studios.^[4] Postmortem Studios was one of Cubicle 7's first company partnerships due to Desborough's connections with Angus Abranson.^[4] He later became creative director at Chronicle City, Abranson's new venture^[5] but this partnership ended in July 2021.^[6]

In 2017 he released a licensed role-playing game based on John Norman's fantasy series Gor, which also included art by Michael Manning.^[7]

Desborough's work was included in Red Phone Box,^[8] and in The Mammoth Book of Erotic Romance and Domination.^[9] He also self-publishes.

His D&D design work includes Monster Manual V (2007) and City of Stormreach (2008).

Desborough's career has often been characterised by humour and adult content, leading to his role as Games Master for the adult stream 'Tabletopless'.^[10] While the stream primarily plays Dungeons and Dragons they have also played Cyberpunk, The Witcher and others.

Desborough is the author of a self-published August 2017 book which claimed that Gamergate was "a genuinely important battle in the ongoing culture war"^{[11]: ¶79.3} and portrayed it as a necessary "social revolt" against a new Satanic Panic, rather than as a harassment campaign. In the book's introduction, Desborough writes that his distress regarding opposition and harassment related to Gamergate, as well as a sense of betrayal led him to attempt suicide in October 2014.^{[11]: ¶3.9}

Desborough has appeared as a commentator on men's issues on The Stream on Al Jazeera.^[12]