Ish

I follow politics like most men my age follow sports. A midterm congressional election is like my playoff season, a presidential election is like my Super Bowl.

I’ve been an Anglophile pretty much as far back as I can remember. British books, British films and television, British musicians, et cetera have always seemed to be my favorites since forever... Paddington Bear being the very first book I can recall my mom reading to me, then her reading me the entire unabridged The Hobbit during kindergarten, and my father basically having Pink Floyd or Emerson Lake and Palmer playing on the stereo 24/7 probably planted the seeds. As I grew up, I became fascinated by history (especially medieval history and military history). Then later on I developed a fascination with the Age of Sail and sailing in general. England was a major part of that, of course. Watching the world implode on 24-hour cable news during the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Clinton impeachment were the foundation for my obsession with consuming the news and following politics. I’m also a pedantic a*****e, who loves to read about rules and systems. I also love to argue about things, but in the Socratic “argument as means of figuring things out” sense and not in the “argument to see who yells loudest” sense. I also have a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder and a nearly eidetic memory. Yeah, it’s a weird combo... The result is that I tend to know a little bit of useless information about a lot of things, a lot of useless information about a few things, and am very good at rapidly researching the things I don’t know. Linguistics, grammar, syntax and all that appeals to the part of my brain that craves systems and structure. It’s the same reason I love logic and rhetoric. Memorizing the arcane details of the British peerage system happened as a side-effect of studying medieval history. It’s pretty much all about what this king did to that duke on behalf of this bishop, after all, so learning the system helps keep things straight. Since the modern peerage has really only had a handful of significant changes since the 17th Century, having learned it once it wasn’t too for me to learn the modern system. As a voracious consumer of British news (I find it useful to read foreign newspapers to get an unbiased [or rather differently biased] perspective on American events] I tend to come across the names of prominent British politicians and the scandals of the same. TL;DR: I’m a massive nerd.

https://giphy.com/gifs/movie-the-lost-boys-joel-schumacher-3oEhmKIPQeB2YUH9C0

Bite your tongue, @InfestedKerrigan! I speak the Queen’s English, even if I have to do it hindered by my accursed Michigan accent.

Hey, if we’re going to be passively aggressively sniping at each other, can I just point out that it’s spelt “indices”?

“Live forever or die trying!” that’s my motto.

Noooope. Never, never, never, never, never go to the circus in a D&D game.

That would work pretty well, actually...

It is possible. But I’m not exactly hopeful these days... Far too many Ta-Nehisi Coates types in the industry and not nearly enough Christoper Priests.

I’m just spitballing here, obviously there’d have to be more work done to iron out all the details. Off the top of my head, horde armies could work by rejiggering their unit sizes and/or granting them discounts on adding Troop slots used for specific units (say, two-for-one Termagants?) Knights... Well, I dunno.

I’ve long thought that everyone should start with an identical org chart, a larger pool of CP, and then have to pay some CP to add slots. Make everyone switch back to the two HQ, six Troops, three Heavy/Fast/Elite chart that served us so well for many years. Give everyone a pool of CP based on the game’s size (say 3/6/9 for 1k, 1.5k, 2k...). Then have it cost 3 CP to add an HQ slot, 2 CP to add an Elite/Heavy/Fast slot, 1 CP to a Troops slot. This would open up some design space for differentiation in armies, say by allowing White Scars to add Fast slots that can only be used for bikes for a discount. That sort of thing.

You just know someone on Tumblr would rant and rave about how you were erasing xir identity as a Vampire or Dragon.

My preferred pronouns are Your Grace/His Majesty.

But, hey, we still have a 17% chance of doing an extra hit with a boltgun when shooting at targets in cover. Fear me, puny mortals!!!

SR6 is pretty much brand new, having only been released in June. It’s the only edition I haven’t played personally, but a quick skim of the rulebook doesn’t make it look radically different from SR5.

Bah, since when does a pesky detail like that matter?

Why does the BBC, of all places, insist on calling him "Lord McAlpine"? I'd expect American media to get it wrong, but not the Beeb. He's The Right Honourable The Lord McAlpine of West Green and should be referred to as such... or at least as "Lord McAlpine of West Green." Calling him just "Lord McAlpine" risks the viewers confusing him with Baron McAlpine of Moffat, a completely different person. (They're cousins.) Yes, this is the sort of [big bad swear word] that bugs me. Yes, I am aware it's weird.

The forum seems to be down for weekend maintenance, but over on the official Mutants and Masterminds forum, there's a great thread adapting most of the iconic WH40k units into M&M stats. Compare and contrast with the numerous write-ups of other superheroes, either in official M&M products (they have a licensed DC Universe game) or from the many, many, many active Roll Call threads.

Hoten Souer Order: Order of the Chicken Nuggets Bio: A headstrong young lady who is following in the footsteps of her adventuring parents, Barbie Queue and Hoten Mustarde. Hoten Souer is determined to find out the secrets of the long-lost Order of the Spicy Chicken Nuggets. Strength: 9 +1 Intelligence: 11 +1 Charm: 13 +2 Arcana: 8 +0 Grace: 15 +2 (16 +3) Defense: 13 Hit Points: 15 Skilled With: Light armors, light weapons, and throwing weapons Cannot Use: Heavy or medium armors, shields, or heavy weapons Order Skills: Grab and Go [passive]: When engaged in combat, you do not have to use an action to break out. You can move away freely without risk of attack. You can also use a bonus action to move up to twice your movement and still attack or perform another action. Late-Night Craving [passive]: While attacking at nighttime, you will gain advantage on all attack and strength-saving rolls. WEAPON PRICE DMG TYPE THROW? Pairing Knife 45g 1d12 Graceful 60ft ARMOR PRICE TYPE PROTECTION Apron 15g Light +1 Grace

Dealing with a threat akin to Galactus is a rough weekend for most superhero teams in the Marvel Universe.

Just get a bunch of the Funko Pop figs and 3D print an SD dreadnaught!

I’m looking forward to other fast-food companies entering the hobby games as viral marketing design space... Burger Kings of War, the 28 mm miniatures war game; Chipotle: The Guac’ing, the collectible card game; McDonald’s and McMazes, the LARP...

I love Shadowrun and the only chance I’ve had to play since moving out here has been with the Shadowrun Missions group. Nice guys, but I’d much rather play an ongoing campaign than organized play. I’m in, chummer.

An equivalently sized and detailed “adult action figure” from Bandai is about $50-80 USD for a non-limited production run. So this isn’t too out of line...

That’s what the Shi’ar, Kree, Skrulls, Badoon, Chittauri, Dire Wraiths, Phalanx, and a few hundred others all thought too.