AJ (He/Him)

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• Commented on Announcement time!
  My wife had a related strange educational experience. Her job was as part of a team running an online engineering library project. All the other team members had library qualifications, but she was the sole qualified engineer on the project....
• Commented on Announcement time!
  I was just discussing casting Angleton with a friend yesterday. We thought Richard E. Grant....
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  I stopped playing D&D pre 2nd ed. IIRC it wasn't "official" - just easier than using the tables....
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  We were using THAC0 back in 1980/81ish so it's not implausibly modern, we were within 50Km or so of Camp Sunshine at the time....
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  Well of course not, but there was a social expectation and to some extent this would have reduced the problem. If they are expected not to open the envelope, anticipation of consequences will offset the temptation to open it and...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  It's a lot easier to have such elements in a CRPG than a regular RPG, where the admin tends to take longer and result in "not fun" outcomes. Given that it's also something which is much more about the player...
• Commented on Worldcon in the news
  Though I totally get the points about SMOF behaviour, and I'm not trying to say they were right in what they did, but one mitigation I would like to point out from my experience of running things for societies etc....
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  @138 Well, yes. I thgink they took the view that Logistics is boring and best just handwaved. While there were Iron Rations as equipment to buy there weren't any rules about what happened if you didn't have any food in...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  Likewise for my groups even back then - but from what I have read about those early Lake Geneva games and the way GG ran his games, their approach was not so collaborative. I didn't know what they were doing...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  @117 Sure, it's possible to explicitly require those things in a game, it's just not as much fun. Generally those kinds of things are narrative rather than mechanical aspects. Basically, it's assumed that the characters are doing what they need...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  The early games were much closer to their skirmish wargame origins than the more storytelling style that later emerged, with the rules focussed on conflict and overcoming challenges. While they included the concept of supplies, it wasn't what they were...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  @84 More recent RPGs tend to be well focussed on the elements that are key to the types of stories they are designed for with irrelevant detail elided. In particular, the need for admin and bookkeeping tends to be minimised....
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  On the paid in the pub thing, back when working men were paid in cash on a Friday it was the norm that a good working class husband was expected to hand his wife the unopened packet from which she...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  1014 - I'm afraid you're wrong there. I looked it up and even the lightest model of M16,unloaded, is twice the weight of a longsword. Longswords come in between 1 and 1.5 Kg. Only the largest greatswords get close to...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  Could be analagous to UK law on offensive weapons which defines them as objects designed or modified so as to inflict harm. Improvised weapons are not considered bearable arms? Note this means my re-enactment swords are not legally weapons because...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  T'other advantage of the pattern welding/folded steel method of blade construstion is that having multiple layers reduces the risk of a crack in one layer propagating across the blade. But I have lost count of how many times I have...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  @637 Not sure what your source for that is. Mine is that there isn't a government exemption for "if we feel like it" anywhere, and our civil service training which expressly states we can only use data for the stated...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  @ 628 the Information Commisioner would like to disagree, the UK government is subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act and data usage is taken very seriously. As always, it depends on being caught, but it's one of...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  I was thinking of tactical co-ordination being easier as I believe each infantrybod has an individual comms system, so it no longer requires earshot/line of sight to co-ordinate action. I have no knowledge of how the current systems operate or...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  There are significant differences between the people who join and are successful in a peacetime military and those who join to fight a specific war, especially one with popular support and where they believe they are the good guys. Many...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  @ 849 I was reviewing procedures at the local court services a few years back and they mentioned that the vast majority of the people they dealt with regarding the criminal courts were repeat customers from the same small pool...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  The idea that levied troops at any point pre standing armies were armed with improvised weapons is a common misconception. There were requirements for huoseholds to maintain enough military equipment to properly fit out a warrior (or multiple, for large...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  @1834 So this is saying to me that the best thing FEMA could promote is carrying a small blank firing pistol to make some bangs with but not risk hitting the wrong target....
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  @ 1339 Exactly my feelings on most video presentations. I think the popularity of video is the lack of preparation - the impression I get is that most are unstructured waffle. If they had actually scripted it ahead of time...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  Exactly - you can't just leave plantation woodland as a reserve, was what I meant. They are also planted with very specific spacing so as to force the trees to grow straight up with as few side branches as possible,...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  I don't think the Napoleonic era governments were up to that kind of long term planning. However the Forestry Commission was set up after WWI to create a strategic reserve of timber as the trenches used so much of it...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  Generally, such procurements are such a miserable experience for the staff doing them that they will actively avoid doing it again. The policy staff rotating every few years doesn't help either. It's much harder to progress as a qualified professional...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  I would be very surprised if there wasn't, it is a standard thing in modern RPGs and I'm pretty sure it was in the first edition....
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  It does make a change from US authors getting UK customs and word usage wildly wrong, which ios not uncommon....
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  I think the change in the bureaucracy is reflective of the POV characters' position in it - as a lower level civil servant it is the enemy, but once risen in the ranks it is how thelower ranks are controlled....