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Entry tags:

politics

Matt Hancock tells the Covid Inquiry that only campaign groups . . . care about his lies

The former Conservative MP Matt Hancock was the UK's Secretary of State for Health and Social Care 2019-21 and thus responsible for much of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As one would expect, he has been called to give evidence to the enquiry into the handling of the pandemic. Two issues have been quite controversial:

One was awarding many valuable contracts for vitally needed supplies and equipment to Conservative Party members with no obvious capability to fulfil them, without and transparency. That piece of corruption will be held against the Conservative Party for a very long time. He wasn't responsible for all of that: the entire Cabinet were involved.
The other was the decision to discharge many hospital patients into care homes for the elderly without testing them for COVID-19. That was his decision, and it resulted in the residents of those care homes being placed at very high risk of infection. And being elderly and frail enough to require care home residence, a great many of them died.

This week at the enquiry, he was questioned by lawyers for a bereaved families group. It rapidly became clear that his claim of protective measures for the care home residents was pure fiction. He claimed that nobody cared, apart from campaign groups.

That's a degree of selfishness fully consistent with his decision to use social distancing to undertake an extra-marital affair with one of his senior staff. That forced him to resign as Health Secretary, and he left parliament voluntarily at the last election. However, he's not yet been held to account for his terrible, heartless decisions while in charge of the nations' health.

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Entry tags:

fantasy,
rpg

Another Repeat Bundle - The Dark Eye

This is a repeat of a 2023 bundle offering material for one of the oldest fantasy RPGs - The Dark Eye, a German system from from Ulisses Spiele, which has been in print since 1984 and has a ton of support material. This offer covers the 2016 English translation of the system, and is aimed at newcomers to the system. Some of it has been in previous bundles:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025DarkEye

In 2023 (and on at least one previous occasion) I said "I'm not hugely into fantasy RPGs, I played way too many in the eighties and sort of lost the plot, but this looks pretty good, the art is excellent, and you get a huge amount for your money. And some things look like some actual thought has gone into them - for example, most of the depictions of women show them wearing sensible clothes for adventuring, with the balance of the sexes roughly even. The rules look comprehensible, though a little more complicated than I like, and (I repeat) you get a hell of a lot for your money. Recommended!

I wonder if there has ever been a German version of this offer - it might be interesting for linguists etc. or (of course) for German gamers, but since these bundles are organised by Americans I won't hold my breath waiting...

I don't see any reason to change any of this - it's not a system I particularly want to use, but it's very good value, and well worth a look if you're into fantasy RPGs. My main caveat considering that it has been in bundles several times is that it may be worth checking how much of it you already own, and whether it would be cheaper just to buy the bits you don't have and will actually use. Incidentally, the current offer explicitly states that no German versions are included.

Rebuilding journal search again

We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

Entry tags:

fantasy,
rpg

Another Fantasy Bundle - Broken Tales

This is the Broken Tales Bundle featuring the "FRPG of grim upside-down fairy tales where villains seek redemption" and unfortunately the good guys aren't necessarily good...

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/BrokenTales

I'll be honest, I think that this is one of those ideas that only works well as a one-off scenario or an occasional break from a more normal style of play. Expecting every evil stepmother to be misunderstood and every downtrodden orphan to be a psychopathic killer gets old fast. But it's cheap and should give a few hours of fun if you want to give it a try.

Entry tags:

fantasy,
rpg

Another Fantasy Bundle - His Majesty The Worm

The His Majesty the Worm Bundle presents His Majesty the Worm, a megadungeon-crawling fantasy roleplaying game from Josh McCrowell at Rise Up Comus, plus other material including a "cozy halfling-village game" Under Hill, By Water and its travel expansion Walking Holiday, which might possibly draw some inspiration from a well-known fantasy author.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/HisMajesty

Unfortunately I've received this on a day when I'm feeling seriously tired. I've taken a look and it seems to be well-presented and reasonably coherent, but the rule book alone is more than 400 pages and I am not going to be able to give it more than a cursory look any time soon, and a game that starts out by wanting me to buy some tarot cards to play it does not automatically get my seal of approval - I suppose the cards aren't much more expensive than a few dice at current prices, but if I bought this, intended to run it immediately, then discovered I needed cards I didn't have I'd be a little peeved.

The halfling book is mostly about trying NOT to have adventures and firmly avoiding the sort of stress that comes with strange parties of dwarves and wizards on your doorstep, and looks to be a lot of fun. The supplement is about halflings that commit the serious mistake of going out to explore beyond their village, and how to create the surrounding area and have horrible things happen there, like running short of food. Seriously, go home and smoke some pipeweed instead, at least that stuff takes a few years to kill you...

Overall this looks to be reasonable value - I suspect that if I ever wanted to run a fantasy RPG I'd be more likely to go with the halflings than the Worm, but if either appeals it's probably worth a look.

Entry tags:

doctor who

Odd Doctor Who Thought

If there was a Time Lord called "The Lawyer" would they be good or evil? What would their TARDIS look like? And what would their reaction be to The Doctor, and vice versa?

Given some of the portrayals of the Time Lord idea of justice in e.g. Trial of a Time Lord I'm not convinced that their legal system is better than e.g. the wizarding world in the Harry Potter books, which is a frighteningly low bar to fail at. Any thoughts on this?

Entry tags:

Another Fantasy Bundle - Cawood Monsters

This is a bundle of bestiaries and sourcebooks from Cawood Publishing containing hundreds of monsters for D&D 5E with conversion advice for Old-School Essentials, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Pathfinder.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/CawoodMonsters

This isn't something I would want to use - I don't run this type of game any more, and I'm not convinced that it makes sense for characters to keep encountering monsters that nobody has ever heard of before, and have to figure out how to defeat them by trial and error. Having said that, the price isn't too bad and you're getting a lot of weird stuff to throw at players. Whether they will thank you for it may be another matter...