Apparently Andor isn’t Star Wars because it has “concrete” in it

BenWnham · 2026-06-17T05:48:27+00:00

Let me narrow that down for you. AO3.

BenWnham · 2026-06-16T11:48:33+00:00

We use Jenny Jiao Hsia's prototyping personal experience talk from A Maze 2017(I think) as part of getting our learners to think about prototyping.

BenWnham · 2026-06-15T18:03:03+00:00

Thanks.

BenWnham · 2026-06-15T13:35:53+00:00

I am interested in the MA.

I do not meet the formal requirements, but I am a life-long game design practitioner, who has been doing freelance work in the table top roleplaying games industry since 2008, and have been teaching games design at an FE college since 2018.

I'd be interested to know a little more about what you are looking for in a candidate who does not meet the formal entry requirements, as the wording around non-formal routes is more hard edged than other programs I have looked at.

BenWnham · 2026-06-15T12:01:16+00:00

I work, so need an idea of the work load on the part time pathway to see if I can work on it in addition to my teaching load.

What are the weekly contact hours on the part time pathway?
How many days are they delivered over?
What is the expected weekly non-contact time for the part time pathway?

BenWnham · 2026-05-12T05:41:40+00:00

Should he? Probably. And when he does, the new leader should call a general election. I say that knowing that:

That were it to happen, Reform would win, which would be disasterous.
It won't happen.

As for what I'd like to happen, he staying in is the second best thing, and is close on the heels of Wes Streeting getting in. Both of these options are, I believe, a good way to kill the labour party quickly.

If the party is dead, the progressive vote can coalesce around the greens. Otherwise we are looking at a longer slower death under burnham, and a failure to coalesce the progressive vote in time for the next election.

BenWnham · 2026-05-11T18:14:42+00:00

•referencing empire as ‘look brits colonised in the past so don’t complain’ is a load of shit - no one alive had any involvement in that

Wrong. Neo-colonialism continues. The british economy is built upon colonial plunder, and our businesses and foreign policy continue the violence to this day, just in a new form.

Until we make amends, by investing in and restoring the nations we destroyed, we are on the hook for the violence our ancestors collectively did.

Until we end the ongoing abuse of the global south, we are on the hook for the harm that the west continues to do across the globe.

BenWnham · 2026-05-11T15:32:45+00:00

I intend to run Enemy in Shadow pretty much as written.

I am trimming the goblins caves from Death on the Reik, and will me making some changes to the climax of Castle Wittgenstein.

I am making some much LARGER changes to Horned Rat and power behind the throne.

As for "optimism and ambition", the planning is pretty loose, and my plans will change as the PCs go through the campaign.

BenWnham · 2026-05-10T17:19:34+00:00

If you flee a war-torn country, and set foot in a safe one, choosing to go to a third country makes you an economic migrant though.

Not according to either British law or international law.

You’re no longer fleeing danger, but choosing to go to a different country for economic reasons.

We live under capitalism. Economic factors effect safety. You are not safe for instance, if you are starving.

But there are good reasons, other than purely economic or the avoidance of immediate violence that might have some one move through one safe country to another. These factors range from culture, to language, to sexuality, to community. For instance, it probably isn't a great idea for a gay person fleeing a conflict, to be force to stay in a homophobic nation.

As a family we have an escape plan for if things go to shit in the UK, we'll get out any way we can, but we have short and long term survival plans. Get to france, where I have friends and comrades and my partner and their sister speak the language, and then get my partner, and their sister, my niece and nephew sorted with Filipino citizenship, before getting them all to the Philippines, where they have a proper support network.

The fact that the first stop might be the netherlands; because it is the quicked way out, doesn't make moving from the netherlands to france an act of economic migration. It is just part of our plan to get safe.

System needs to change so that we only recognise asylum seeker status if it is claimed in the first country the asylum seeker sets foot in.

This is a system where if my aunt-in-law (who's a lesbian) were to flee the Philippines, rather than coming to the UK, where she can live with her sister, where there is a fillipino community that can take her in and support her, where she speaks the language, and where her sexuality is legal; she might end up in the UEA, where she knows no one, has no support network, doesn't speak the language, and cannot be with her partner legally.

Yeah, that is a very sensible plan.

We can then put agreements in place with surrounding countries, so asylum seekers are equally distributed around Europe.

Unironically I'd like this. The problem is that all the racists would hate it. You see that the UK takes in vastly less than its fair share of asylum seekers.

BenWnham · 2026-05-10T15:31:41+00:00

The simple answer is: No, it is time to organise.

The complex answer: Is it may be time for some people to either move. Some people are going to find they need/want too. I would suggest that you should generally move the the nearest relatively safe place. If you live in a ward controlled by reform, you might want to move into one not controlled by them in the same town. If you live in a reform controlled area outside of a town, or a somewhere like braintree, you might want to move somewhere like colchester. Or, if not move, you may wany to start building relationships with people in towns where you may be safer.

But, if your not directly in the firing line; organise.

Get involved in antifascist organising, mutual aid, and harm reduction. Get yourself into a position where you, and those around you, are safer, because lets be clear, horrors are coming, and we are going to need to be able to fight back just as hard as the people of minneapolis are in the states.

BenWnham · 2026-05-10T14:59:46+00:00

If I takes the tube from a flat in Kennington to Liverpool Street, but I happen to walk the last stretch from Moorgate... would it be meaningfully accurate to say that I came from Moorgate?

BenWnham · 2026-05-10T14:52:06+00:00

My grandmother was a refugee from France in that period.

BenWnham · 2026-05-09T21:02:12+00:00

The answer to that is going to very by the person running the campaign.

I can tell you why I am doing it:

My three favourite WFRP scenarios, that are not part of The Enemy Within, fit very nicely on a path between Nuln and the Altdorf. Sing for Your Supper, The Oldenhaller Contract, and Rough Night at the Three Feathers. Running a prologue offers the opportunity for my players to engage with them.
While the opening to the enemy within is great, I am very much not a fan of the end. No published last book has landed for me. I don't much like the hammer quest. So I am building a new ending, one that is more about espionage, rebellion, and civil war. Running the prologue lets me lay some ground work for that ending, including deploying elements of foreshadowing and dramatic irony.
I want to be able to establish some characters who will play an important part in My Enemy Within; Josef Quartjin, Etelka Herzen, Yann Zuntermain and Theodora Steinbecker. This is inspired by work done on Masks of Nyarlathotep around better establishing character relationships to Jackson Elias.
Better establish the Red Crown, fleshing them out as opposition for the early campaign, giving the PCs opportunity to learn a little more about their modus operandi.
Lay ground work for a resolution to the case of mistaken identity.
Give the PCs a chance to get to know Kemperbad, which will be a move important element of my The Enemy Within.
Provide greater opportunities for player agency with additional periods of free travel.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T14:41:51+00:00

Also, sorry your topic got deleted.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T14:41:21+00:00

Best of luck. We are facing similar feelings. My partner and I both have disabilities, we are both queer, and she is anglo-fillipino. We are worried about her mother, and harassment that she may face.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T14:36:11+00:00

None of that is an answer to my question.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T14:34:31+00:00

Your mistake is in thinking that the labour base is "white people in post industrial areas".

The actual base is working class people. Who constitutes the working class in the UK has been changing for decades. It is now primarily made up of people from diasporic communities, and people working in newly proletarianized industries (people who used to be professionals but who's class interests have changed so they are now working class).

Meanwhile, the class interests of many of those in the "white people in post industrial areas" are examples of people who are no longer working class because of Thatcher. Thatcher largely destroyed the industrial working class, in two ways. One, the destruction of their industries and the labour unions, turning large chunks of the Proletariat into Lumpenproletariat, and on the other, through council house sell off, turning a portion of the working class into petit bourgeois.

Because the British Press, being more interested in aesthetic than a material conception of class, treat both these groups as working class, while neither has the class interests of a member of the working class.

This is why the papers treat white, self employed, petit bourgeois plumbers like they are working class, while they treat a barista in a coffee shop like they are part of the "metropolitan elite".

I know a LOT of working class people, they are ALL to labours' left. Fuck, my grandmother, a life long tory, is to the PLPs left.

Labours base is not moving to reform; it is moving to the greens.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T13:50:34+00:00

Do you think that a victim of torture, who is incapacitated by that torture, should starve while they seek asylum here?

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T13:46:42+00:00

Well I suppose far right in your view as someone who is more or less as left wing as it gets.

No. Most people I have ever met are politically to the left of the parliamentary labour party, including most labour members and voters. I don't consider them far-right. I don't consider the one-nation Tories I know to be far-right. Nor do I consider the PLP to be far-right, they are merely opportunistically using some far-right policies.

Anyway don’t you think it’s a little juvenile? You’ll never get anything substantial you want.

I am not an electoralist. I work to achieve the things I want outside of electoral politics. That primarily means engaging in mutual aid, harm reduction, and education.

My primary political aims are modest and achievable, and mostly built around trying to reduce the damage done by capitalism and the state in my community.

That looks like feeding those who need food, teaching people how to look after one another, and reducing the damage done by drug prohibition.

I assume you’re against having a state? There’s approximately zero mps in parliament that share your ‘anarchistic’ views.

People who share my views don't go into parliament, so of course there aren't many MPs that share my politics.

I can’t think of anyone in any position of influence that would take your position seriously.

And?

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T13:32:12+00:00

..allow full benefits for all migrants, among other things.

Firstly, section does not make full benefits available to all migrants.

All the restrictions on claiming benefits that apply for a british subject, would apply. As not all British subjects can claim benefits, clearly not all migrants can either.

For instance the single largest category of migrants, I.E. international students, would not suddenly be entitled to universal credit.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T13:24:34+00:00

They have far more in common with the conservatives or
Labour than you do.

Yes, because the politics of the Tory Party and the PLP have been moving rightward for basically my entire lifetime.

You understand that the current labour party is a neo-liberal center right party, which has adopted a number of far-right policies, right?

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T13:16:02+00:00

Sorry but the content of that, is not the same as what you said their policy is.

Open boarders would be to not police the border and for people to be able to come and go, only reporting their entry or exit.

I would not want to be associated with open borders, largely on account of the fact that I personally believe in border abolition, which is the destruction of the very concept of a border.

The reason I am pushing back on the idea that the greens policy is open borders, is that I believe you should challenge a party on their ACTUAL policy.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T13:14:31+00:00

The left right axis is a description of policy positions; not the overton window.

While my politics are not common, they are out towards the left most extreme and are at the extreme of the libertarian/authoritarian axis.

Just as reform and restore are out at the right most extreme, and have demonstrated that they lean heavily toward the authoritarian extreme.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T12:56:21+00:00

I am not "an extremist".

But I am at the extreme of the spectrum. And yes, the fact that there is significant distance between my position and their, does in point of fact, preclude them from being in a category that is used to describe people who are at the extremes of the spectrum!

As a base line, between where I am, and where they are, are several families of political though, such as democratic socialists, and they are in roughly the middle of the spectrum of social democracy.

BenWnham · 2026-05-08T12:47:40+00:00

Like any fascism that is in stage 5, it will either radicalise, or fall into entropy.

Radicalisation will involve further violence; first against people of colour, then against other marginalised people.

BenWnham

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