Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy and in looking for a topic to talk about for this week's video I summoned the murderous carrion birds of Twitter to help me come up with an idea And I got a lot of insightful options, but one idea stuck out to me in particular So today we're gonna be tackling one of the three main pillars of D&D combat I'm gonna talk about how to set up meaningful encounters as a DM how to roleplay those encounters effectively What to do to avoid pitfalls and fights that make them drag on for hours And I'll even be throwing in a few examples from my own games So that you can get a good picture of what it's like to be in the workshop of DMing for yourself As always keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion So if you feel like throwing exactly 28 half-naked grease goblins at your party is somehow not a proper combat encounter Feel free to play your games however you want, but with that out of the way, let's begin So the story of your encounter should start with this Why? Why are you building this grid-mapped murder ball for your players to survive and slaughter their way through outside of the simple satisfaction of hurting the ones you love? This is a question asked on two levels the first layer being out of game Why are you setting this up for your players and also in-game what series of events has brought your party to blows with an Opposing force luckily for you these answers are usually solved around the same time as combat encounters generally spawn from a need to punch Stuff both in-game and out on the inside your goal is to write up a reason for the beating be it a group of bandits hunting the party a Flight of cobalt guarding a cavern entrance or maybe diplomacy has fallen through and now you have to resort to aggressive Negotiations as in negotiations with the Sunsword whatever the case may be in-game that explanation only serves to provide a narrative Throughline which don't get me wrong is important But generally less important than keeping with the flow of the game Which is where your out-of-game conundrum comes in out of game combat encounters arrive when the flow of the game dictates it often after a Decent stretch of following the other two pillars exploration and role-playing usually you don't want to throw a fight into the story Immediately after a previous fight and oftentimes it's better to let the party try to avoid the battle all together Perceiving combat to be a negative thing that is to be avoided unless the game is heavily implying It's unavoidable, but even when you've decided to plug a combat encounter into your next scene You can actually go in a bunch of different directions tonally with your encounter The most obvious is a serious fight to the death But there are also heroic battles between honorable knights wizard duels with an emphasis on smarts completely ridiculous fights where every other Action is a comedy of errors the tone of a fight is set up by the role-playing moments that often lead up to it So don't feel like battling has to be the same somber moment that undercuts the levity of the game Sometimes pixies pack a punch too for example My players were riding up a mountain pass one day when they found a boulder blocking the road ahead of them They immediately expected this to be a trap so everybody got out pulled their weapons and moved forward prepared for a scrap They had just reached level five after being stuck at level four for a long time And if you played D&D then you know that the difference between level four and five is a wide gap Martial characters get an extra attack spellcasters get their third level spells So the party was very excited to get a taste of their new toys luckily for them As soon as they stepped up to the rocks out of the shadows jumped a dozen bandits holding sharp objects and demanding the party's gold Initiative was rolled the wizard was up first and he casted fireball on some of the bandits And after the dust cleared and what was left of those bandits blew away in the wind It was then that the thugs realized they messed up What followed was a hilarious curbstump with the party cleared out the bad guys with very little effort the leader of the pack pleading Hey, hey, hey look clearly. We've had a misunderstanding. Here's my sword. Here's my coins. Here's my shot You have a very good day now So it was a hilarious moment that served to show off the party's new powers while also bringing a very light hearted air to The beginning of the next chapter of their adventure it obviously wasn't meant to be a realistic segment or Conversely, it was portrayed as a very realistic example of what happens when your everyday highway men encounter heroes with superpowers And most of all it made sure that the party had fun Which as we all know is the only thing that really matters now that encounter was simple because I just had to copy paste some low-level Bandits and beyond my way no thought required But if you want to get something memorable out of your fights without relying on role play go play warhammer I mean you have to take note of what your party's composition is made of like what their weaknesses are and what types of battles They've already fought so that you don't make things stale if you're DMing a party of level fives Then you can drop in some basic enemies with the CR that measures up to their power level if you're just populating a basic dungeon Or you can look more closely at what their main mode of combat is are they more melee or ranged are they more magical or Marshall do they have healers a big question is who their most valuable member in a fight is and how do you challenge that if you're Finding that fights are constantly won and lost because the barbarian is a broken tank that never dies Then you should add something with a special effect that uniquely challenges the barbarians so that a the players Don't become reliant on that one thick boy to solve all their problems and B So that the barbarians brain doesn't go stale from boredom if your party is almost Exclusively melee then you should create an encounter that caters to that fighting style and you can throw in a flying or a Long-ranged enemy into the bunch so that they have to find a way around the challenge that they've made for themselves What you should not do is decide hey my party's all melee So I'm gonna punish them for being so stupid by creating an encounter of all sharpshooter air cockras get wrecked nerd Because then you're being the worst person in the world and people should rightfully stay away from your DM table if they have any value For their own self-worth you aren't trying to make your players lose You're trying to make your players think if your goal is to prove that you're smarter than your friends by crushing them in One-sided conflicts that specifically target the weaknesses of the party with no way out for them And this isn't one of the very hard to do the party needs to fail for cutscene reasons scenarios Then fold up your DM screen and be a player again because you've forgotten what it's like if your party doesn't have a healer Understand that the normal cr might be a little too challenging for them run a combat encounter with weaker enemies and then adjust accordingly based on your Experience you should also recommend the players buy healers kits and or health potions because even if the almighty god of magic doesn't want to Help you that doesn't mean you shouldn't still go to ride aid for bandages Remember it's better that a combat encounter be too easy than too difficult because an easy fight will be disappointing and unfulfilling But an impossible fight will leave your party feeling hopeless and cheated when somebody dies or loses their gear to unfair odds And they will certainly remember that feeling more which is why when it comes to balancing my own encounters I have a secret ingredient Cheating now nobody likes to talk about it But everybody knows that DMs cheat not all DMs but more than enough DMs do it and their right to do it because at the end Of the day you're telling a story and while the idea of variables and rolling dice is a nice idea in practice bad roles ruin games So every once in a while the DM peaks behind their screen notices their boss monster just rolled a natural 20 and they say it missed So that the unlucky player who's been rolling awful the entire game doesn't let lady luck Continue to default dance on them. It's not something that you should make a bad habit of you shouldn't wipe away all the challenge from your Play as experience otherwise they'll start to catch on and once the table realizes that you are in fact the dice god That's it the experience is over for them as far as stakes go because they now can just eat themselves into Tiamat's maw And close her mouth for her and the plot armor will still somehow get them out of it now Obviously if a player goes that far they'll probably die But I did have an experience playing Call of Cthulhu where for roleplay reasons I tried to make a last stand and have my character suicide by cop Unfortunately for me before the cops could gun me down so that my teammates could escape the FBI rolled up in black vans And forced the police to stand down it was then that I realized there was no chasing there were no cops Everything was a lie and we were always just going to get away no matter what I spent the rest of the game Flandrizing my character and doing more weird and outrageous things not to test the GM's patience But because the stakes were off and I wanted to play Gravity Falls the RPG This will happen to you if you let your players grow wise your game will turn into it's always sunny in the forgotten Realms and the only way to bring it back to reality is to start murdering characters But that is what creates the vindictive vengeful DMs that end up on RPG horror stories and get narrated by crit-crab And I cannot stress hard enough that this is the wrong way to kill characters Which brings me to my next talking point the right way to kill characters at this point I hope I've convinced you of the idea that combat encounters aren't about winner-lose scenarios But are more about the story that can be told around them with the actual victory being an almost certainty in the grand scheme of things But that's not to say that failure is impossible And it should always be hanging above your players heads as they battle for their lives because as I've stated before the believability of Danger is the entire concept that the stakes are contingent upon in my experience the failure of the party members to Accomplish their goals at moments where the story can handle it are what make the heroes unique It's what makes the game unique because there's always the possibility that things go wrong The party gets captured and now a fate worse than death hangs upon their heads instead that fear makes the victories all the more worth it So having a plan to make those fears come to life is paramount to a good flowing narrative If your party can't handle the odds and fall in battle then unless your party has been very vocal about their dislike of character death The onus falls upon you to carry those deaths out and luckily for you 5e has an answer for how to do it built in as a DM I drop my players down to zero all the time But unless one of my players has done something to anger a particular NPC I simply have them decide that bleeding out is enough and then they move on to the next player because the system for bleeding out Puts all the question of will they die into the hands of the dice and if they do die They can't completely blame me because their party has three turns at minimum to save them And even then there's a 55% chance that they'll just survive anyway If it comes down to a total party kill the power of Yahtzee decides who lives and who dies And those survivors are dragged back to the enemy's version of a jail cell so that the story can continue If only one person falls and the party leaves them to die and runs away It's a brutal character moment and even more excruciating if the player survives and is captured alone Prompting a possible rescue operation By letting fate be the deciding factor I can punish what I perceive as quote-unquote bad plays With damage enough to knock the player out and the very real possibility of character death after that Is all that is needed to remind my players that yes, this is real The chase is real Any punishment worse than that is just excessive And creating a situation where it is practically impossible for the players to prevent themselves from bleeding out No matter what they've done is just as bad as saying rocks fall everyone dies And if a player looks like they're running headfirst into one of those scenarios on their own Then you can always ask them the patented DM question Are you sure you want to do that? Finally the last thing I want to talk about are some small tricks that I can use to spice up my game So that even within the basic mechanics of a combat that they've done a million times Your players can still count on some curveball to make things memorable The obvious thing is to add special hazards around the environment for your players to interact with That'll give them special one-turn bonuses Is there a chandelier on the ceiling? Then let them make acrobatics checks to grab onto one and gain movement without attacks of opportunity as a reward But if they fail then they'll fall and go prone Maybe it's a bar fight Then you should let a player grab a mug and try their sleight of hand to toss the drink in a bad guy's face But if they fail then they waste their action You can also throw some craziness into the mix by switching up the goal from kill everybody To something else like surviving for an X amount of turns Or getting from one side of the map to the other Or rescuing someone, finishing by a certain time limit The list is endless and it helps break out of the basic vibe of how fights are usually meant to go down By using these tricks and following the guidelines I laid out throughout the rest of this video You'll be able to keep your games memorable so that you can tell more stories in the future Buuuut that'll about do it! I hope you enjoyed this video Be sure to leave a like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell Check out my social media in the description below And maybe support me on Patreon so that I can pay the legal fees for combat encountering my landlord But yeah, Davi out


Deep Coal has been synonymous with premium quality components with not so premium cost. And we can say the same for their newest products. Their first foray into the mechanical keyboard market, the KB500 and KG722 keyboard. In this video, we're going to find out just how deeply cool these mechanical keyboards really are. What's up internet? Mahirap pa rin maa-ahuha ng PC parts ngayon, but that doesn't mean you can't get this shirt to remind you of what you still need. Jokes aside na dito naman, we made our very first merch to not only reflect our passion for PC building, but to help you teach your friends what you know through the hardware sugar PC Anatomy shirt. To order, go to our site or click on the link in the video description. Hover over products and select t-shirts. We have three designs and they come in sizes ranged from small to XL. Press add to cart, select your delivery option and your payment terms. We deliver anywhere in the Philippines, but you can save one livery fee by paying and picking up in our store in Makali. And if you wear it long enough, baka maswertehan ka and you'll finally get the go signal from your significant other or your parents to finally get that AIO or RTX 3080 that you've been dying for. So even though we've covered quite a number of MKBs already, we're still not claiming to be MKB content YouTubers and we have no plans to be at all. Hardware sugar is and will always be a pinoy, no friendly tech channel and it's with that mindset that we are reviewing these products. Standard disclaimer, the keyboards were sent to us by Deepcool but they have no say in our review whatsoever. For the review, I used this for more or less one month. I coded with it, wrote scripts and played games. Starting with the KB500, quite honestly this might be the best basic MKB I've tried at this price point and I've tried quite a lot. For specs, it's a TKL keyboard with Otemu Red switches, aluminum plate and ABS plastic case, and ABS keycaps. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the RGB. Man, for some reason, the RGB in this keyboard seems to be extra bright and clear. The colors really pop and they're such a treat especially for RGB lovers. They're easily customizable with or without software and they look premium. The quality is also something else. The aluminum plate really does wander to this keyboard especially in the overalls feel and weight a bit. While it's not as heavy as its counterparts, it still feels solid and again premium.  Aesthetically, it looks great with the aluminum outlining the perimeter of the keyboard and having minimal branding. The switches feel really good for what they are. We're under no illusion as to which market this keyboard is for. But for the record, the Otemu Reds that are in this keyboard are smooth, sound passable out of the box, and most importantly, they're consistent. They deliver a superbly comfortable typing experience for work and for play. And I did play a lot with this. Kudo so the quality assurance department of Deepcool as I think they really made sure that all the keys feel and type the same across the board. If you remember our last keyboard review, one of my criticisms was that the keys on that keyboard are all over the place in terms of actuation and smoothness. So for the not so great things about this keyboard, the cable is not detachable. Why do this, Deepcool? In fairness, it's braided and it feels reinforced in the places that matter. But still it's 2022. We have no more place for fixed cables especially with MKBs. Another is the fact that the keycaps are ABS. I've used it quite a lot for the past month but it hasn't shown anywhere in terms of legends getting erased or the keycaps themselves getting glossy. But ABS is still ABS. It will fade over time. Luckily, it's an easy fix as there are a ton of PBT keycaps that you can easily replace this with. And honestly, that's it. Those are very minor gripes and for the market that this keyboard is for, all the good things about it outweigh the bad. It's a solid keyboard that's going to dramatically improve your quality of life especially for those of us stuck working and playing from home. At around 3,000 pesos, it is a bit pricey but it's also a lot of solid workhorse keyboard you're getting. I wholeheartedly recommend this as a first mechanical keyboard. Now for the KG722, here's Jay. Dita naman tayo sa KG722. It's a medyo enthusiast level na keyboard. The KG722 is a 65% RGB keyboard. It has a detachable USB C braided cable, side printed ABS keycaps, uses linear gateron red switches and nicely tuned factory loopstabs. It has a sturdy build, deck flexes, minimal tonon and mabigat sa as expected from an MKB. It has this minimalist look from the top view because the keycaps are side printed and they're ABS so it looks very premium. Syempre, di mo awala ang RGB. Dinamit ko siya for almost a month to do my daily task. And here's what I like about this keyboard. Before I did this review, I preferred heavy switches because of my way of typing. Pero this keyboard changed my mind. Maganda din pa lang light switches for heavy typists. The gateron red linear switches feel so great to type on. If you're a light typist, this keyboard is definitely for you. Sobrang gaanya and the stabs are loop and tuned. Parang aftermarket yung feel. It's also compact so I can fit it in my backpack no problem. And RGB's are controlled through macros or software. I also use it for gaming and the switches are very responsive as there's not much resistance happening unlike from the case we reviewed here. What I don't like naman with this KBR, it is not hots walkable. Though the switch feels really good, if you're enthusiast, you'll be thinking of changing switches from time to time. You can change the switches naman but you'll have to desolder and solder them. It also doesn't have wireless mode. Many 60% and 65% keyboards now have wireless mode for portability. And I think it would have been nice if it was featured. Though ABS keycap looks really good, I would not suggest it for daily use as they become glossy and leave a slick feel over time. KG722 is priced around 4000 pesos compared to the other well-known 60% keyboard's life. Like GMMK compact or dropout. This is a lot cheaper while still retaining the premium feel. It lacks some features but given na ganito kababa'in price niya, I think it's worth the price. So there you go, dalawang keyboards na bago and they're from Deepcool. And for some reason, laging ganito yung nagiging reviews namin for Deepcool. We're gonna say na their premium products but also they're not premium sa cost. And if Deepcool can do it, bakit pa tayo nagtangtyaga sa NZXT, sa Orser na sasobong mahal? Yun parang challenge na rin yun sa mga ibang manufacturers na maybe step up because Deepcool is indeed stepping up. And that's evidence dun sa quality na tong dalawang keyboards na ito. Highly recommended. And thank you to our top fans na afford na namin to kupuwa na to. Ande Joklap. Thank you to Lia Magnaya, Ian Meru, ITX Addict, John Ruben Ocha, Christian Espinoza, and Rafael James. Thank you for supporting the channel.


Thank you so much for making this happen. Is that better? Another day on the 29, what a pain it is full again. College kids and working moms struggling with limited funds. The J will move me forward to the cleaner part of town until I hit Dolores Park and I lose my frown. Am I in a dream? Is this not a most beautiful scene? Feet run on the grass while the four-legged animals pass. I see lovers and meet-upers, friends and networkers, families and druggies, all with their luggage. We are all there, or maybe not, fighting with ourselves, claiming our sweet spot. Be still, notice, take part, play. This is my motto for the day.


Hello everybody, welcome to SOTaric Atlanta. Of course, my name is Bryce. This is just a very quick channel update Thank you so much to all the support that I have gotten. I know a lot of you guys have been very concerned for my well-being And I have been given permission to say that this is a military operation and I am fine Okay, and I also have permission to tell you guys that if there comes a point in time where I go silent on my channel for a few days, it's because This is a military operation And that is all I can say on that Okay, so I am also gonna be posting more on rumble as well I've been given the heads up to go ahead and start posting more on rumble So make sure you are subscribed to my rumble channel. Most of you are I will be putting a link to that down in the description box below in case you are not subscribed to it If you don't follow the link, it's it's under SOTaric Atlanta the same as YouTube But I just want to make sure you guys are aware of that that there I do have a channel over on rumble I'm not as active on that channel as I am on YouTube But I have been given strict instructions this morning to also start putting up posting things everything on rumble as well So I wanted you guys just to be aware of that. All right for this upcoming week to our excuse me Monday Monday, which is Labor Day, right? It's Labor Day. It's a Labor Day. Yes Labor Day for the Americans So most of you guys are gonna be off on Monday. I will be I believe I'm back on with Aquarius Rising Africa with Shanti and Mornay at 10 a.m. We're gonna be going over the E in the bite model I don't believe I'm back with Zooplick this week, but I will let you know if that changes and there will not be a Magdalen manuscript or a Sophia reading this week as well just because last week I was super super super super busy and did not get a chance to record those There will also not be a Monday mystery I'm gonna be trying this week to get organized for the next week But again, if you see it see me go dark, it's because this is a military Operation that is in the middle of working itself out right now. So anyway, tomorrow We'll be back on the channel very very soon She asked me to place a place in the community tab on YouTube for questions that you guys had she wants to answer your questions So if you haven't done that go look over at my community tab and ask tomorrow a question I don't know when we're gonna be filming that right now So kind of up in the air because she's traveling so we're still kind of trying to work that out But it is coming also my friend your friend Stephanie chap from spiritual perspectives of our great awakening is running a course If we want to learn how to retarrow and I will be putting a link to that course also down in the description box below If you have not signed up for that and it's something you're interested in Stephanie is absolutely the best She has a real gift. She really she's one of the best I've been going to readings for such a long time and Stephanie chap is one of the most accurate readers I have ever seen in my life. She also has a lot of integrity, okay? So she's gonna teach you the moral compasses of what you can and cannot read which rule number one You can't read on someone unless you have consent from them If you read on someone and you don't have their consent then how spirit works is that usually you don't get an accurate reading Or you're reading on yourself. So that's rule number one is you have to have consent from someone You know these these divination tools are really just tools to help you get in touch with your own Intubation and so that's what she's gonna be teaching you guys. I know it's gonna be a very vigorous course She's gonna force you to exercise to help you to channel the energy You're gonna be talking about all that kind of stuff too so that you are taking care of yourself When you're also trying to take care of others because that's the most important thing That's what we talked about a lot on this channel My yoga course online yoga course is moving forward. We are gonna change the dates though We are pushing the dates back just a little bit I'm gonna talk to Emmy about it and see what we can do and I will let you guys know What's that course is available for you to sign up online? My Twitter and my Facebook are down right now and that is because I received some threats against my family So that is why my Twitter and my Facebook are down just for my family's safety So once that is taken care of then I will reactivate both my Twitter and Facebook account But I want to make sure my my family is safe as well. Once again guys I think you so much for your support you guys are amazing again Just know all I can tell you right now is that this is very much a white hats military Operation and again if I go dark for a couple of days, please don't be concerned. I'm fine. I know what's going on It's fine. This is a white hat military operation. The military has what they need and they are in control Thank you so much. Mr. T Trump for all that you've done for me specifically.  We're all just walking each other home There's not one person in this this this whole situation. That's more important than the other We're all doing this together Together we move forward together. We correct the past together. We move into a world where it's just Normal humans just trying to live their lives and so I'm so I'm so excited about that keep working on yourselves guys Keep working on your own sovereignty your own Relationship with God because that's what this is about, right? This is this is about God This is about us as a as a human species being back enlightenment with the true God not with Lucifer But with the true God and so keep working on yourself because you are you are that Christ consciousness You are that spark of life.  We all are and together We're gonna we're gonna bring this home And so we all have different parts to play in this but we all have different Assignments given to us as far as our birth and what we're doing But we're all a part of this and so keep loving on yourself keep loving on your family when the world gets mean and cruel Just get extra kind and just love people because that's who you are You are a loving child of God and so anyway guys Yes, so keep your eyes posted this week videos might be a little bit more scattered this week But hopefully the week after we will go back to our regularly scheduled videos again in case I have to go dark for a couple days Which I'll be fine So I will talk to each of you guys all soon most So much love for me. Happy Labor Day, and we'll see you soon. Bye


Good morning, and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2017 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. Our only agenda item today is an evidence session with the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland on his annual report. Joining us today are Bill Thomson, the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland, and Ian Bruce, Public Appointments Manager, Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland. I would like to welcome both of you to the meeting and invite the commissioner to make a short opening statement. Thanks, convener. First of all, I am grateful for the opportunity to be here to discuss with you any issues that interest you in the annual report. I think that I have set out what I need to say about 16-17 in the report. Obviously, we will be able to update you on what has happened since then, if the committee is interested. I am happy to deal with questions. Thank you. I will start off with some questions about the report. The report was published in October 2016. There was a number of key risks for the organisation that was identified, one of which was the database. I believe that there was a business case put together with the Scottish Government to look at putting in a case management system. Can you bring the committee up to speed where we are at with that? Has that been funded? Is that in place? Yes, I can, convener. We put together a detailed business case that was submitted to the corporate body. We received approval from the corporate body to proceed along with funding up to a certain limit earlier in this financial year. We are about to go out to tender. We have, as you will appreciate, quite a small office. We have no specialist IT experience, which is why we are very grateful for the support that we got from the Scottish Government's digital wing, if you like, in putting together the business case. We are receiving support on a sort of pay-as-you-go basis from the Government's procurement office with the actual tender exercise. The specification is almost finalised, and we intend to go out in January. In an ideal world, we will appoint a tenderer before the end of March. It is slightly tight, I have to say, but we are hoping to achieve that. What contingency plans have you in place, should the current system fail before you have a new case management system in place? My answer may appear flippant, but the only contingency I have is to cross my fingers. This was identified two years ago as a serious risk, and we have been working very hard since then to replace the system. We could do things manually. It would be very clunky and very slow. We would not be able to obtain management information except with a huge amount of effort. I think that it would slow up the process of dealing with complaints to a degree that would be unacceptable. The system is robust enough. It was not designed to cope with the volume that it has had to deal with since it was developed about 13 years ago, and we do not have any backup for the IT basis for it. The person who originally developed it is still in the office, which is helpful, but the risk is there. That is why we have it as a high priority. Was the risk that it was identified two years ago, but there is still no solution in place? That is true. Developing a business case properly is not a straightforward exercise, particularly when you do not have the IT specialism in the office. It was not agreed instantly by the corporate body. The whole process of developing and seeking approval for the business case took over a year. Welcome. There has obviously been a lot of discussion. I understand that you are giving evidence to the Equalities Committee recently on the gender representation bill. On the higher number of women board members, we are also seeing under-representation of visible minority ethnic board members, which is at its lowest level in the period covered by the annual report, and an under-representation of disabled people and people under the age of 50, increased in 2016. I have a bit of a cheeky question, which is, has focus on gender meant that we have taken our eye off the ball on ensuring that there is proper diversity of other protected characteristics? I think that that is a stateable position. I am not sure that things are quite as straightforward as that. For a number of reasons, in the first place, the other protected characteristics that you have listed and I agree the rate of appointment of people with those characteristics is going in the wrong direction, but they are shared by men and women. I am sorry, it is a straightforward point, but given that women make up more than 50 per cent of the population, appointing women could and should also bring with it appointments of people who share other protected characteristics. The other thing that we should not lose sight of is that the focus on gender equality has raised the profile of the whole issue of diversity in a positive way. I think that it is a bit of a mixed picture. Perhaps I have asked the question other way, why is there an increase in underrepresentation of these other groups? To give a simple answer as possible, it is simply that not enough quality applicants have come forward from these groups and to develop that further before I hand over to Ian Bruce, I may be able to give you more detail on it. Attracting people to put themselves forward involves effort on the part of those who are seeking to recruit, and best practice also involves the bodies involved, as well as the minister who is making the appointment in outreach and trying to attract people to put themselves forward for the board. Now, there is some work going on on that, and it is going on in relation to younger people, in relation to visible BME and also in relation to disabled people, but it has not yet borne fruit. I think that Ian would be able to give you a little bit more information on that. I am happy to. As Bill says, outreach is very important, as is making the process accessible. You will have seen the recommendations in the annual report that we made for the Government. In relation to gender diversity, we have a very positive story to tell there. When it comes to other groups, the picture is more complicated, and that is why the recommendations were about getting underneath those top-line figures. Lumping disabled people together into that 20 per cent figure does not really give you a proper understanding of the particular barriers that are faced by people with disabilities. One of the things that I did say to the committee last year was that it is quite important that we get boards involved in this activity, as well. If you have a particular disability, you have a look at a board, you are not thinking just about the application process, as that barrier is free. You are not just thinking about whether or not the advert is attractive to you, the role is attractive to you. You are also thinking about what support will I have once I am in post, and that does not apply just to particular disabilities. Equally, if you are under 50 and you are a woman, you may have childcare responsibilities that you need to take into account, and you need to know that those are going to be accommodated by the board as well. Those are the sorts of discussions that we are having with the Government and with boards to ensure that they are more accessible to people. It really is not just about the appointments process, it is a much wider thing. The recommendations are about doing more in-depth research to identify specific barriers and how we can take those away. There are a whole range of things in train at the moment. Not just the research that the Government has tasked the analytical services wing, I think, is the term that Bill used to do that research in terms of the appointments process, and that is very helpful. Equally, we have some research with boards themselves under way at the moment, so it was really just starting when the last annual report was published. That has been fascinating. About two-thirds of boards have joined up to participate in the research, and it asks some questions about what particular barriers they believe they have to harnessing diversity and what particular activities they engage in to address those barriers. It is all being done on a confidential basis, but ultimately, what we are going to do is roll out the recommendations that arise from that, because it is clear that boards are doing things to make participation much more accessible for people. That is being done in tandem with outreach. If I can give you an example, last Monday evening, the Scottish Government ran a Come On Board event, and that was done in association with women on boards. There were about 70 people in attendance. Two board chairs were there, two board members were there. Questions asked from the floor—there was someone who was a wheelchair user asked about whether or not support would be available in the event they were appointed. Someone else with childcare responsibilities asked a similar question. One of the board members from the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration spoke very openly. He is currently a lecturer, works full-time, and he spoke about the fact that he is able to join board activities via video conference. He is the chair of the audit committee. All the other members of that audit committee are retired, so they completely rearranged everything that they do in order to come to him for the audit committee to be run. Are those small, specific things that individual boards do that make it more accessible? I do not know if that helps. Just moving on to the issue of complaints and the volume of workload on that has reduced again. Last year, we recognised that it had increased the number of complaints from the low 20s to 30s, and it has come back down again. Last year, when we had this discussion, you were not convinced that there was any connection to the electoral cycle, to the idea that because there was a run-up to the election, that might have been generating complaints that were politically motivated. Has the reduction since then, since the last year, changed your view on that? Do you have any reason or suggestion as to why the complaint level has reduced again? There were, convener, in 2016-17. After the election to the Parliament, we received a handful of complaints about newly appointed members from those who had been involved in the political process during the election, but that does not fully explain the difference in numbers. Interestingly, in the current financial year—I am not sure that this is the right adjective, but we are slightly ahead of where we were at the same time last year. You mean a slightly higher volume? Yes. The numbers fluctuate. I do not think that there are specific reasons related or readily linked to the electoral cycle. As I said last year, there have been elections or a referendum or something major every year since I have been in posts. It is difficult to tell. Making no predictions there. If the volume of complaints is not predictable in that way and does not follow any pattern, it fluctuates. What does that mean in terms of your workload, your capacity and your planning for being able to handle complaints on an appropriate timescale? It has an impact on budgeting, obviously. Your concern on this committee is specifically complaints about members of this Parliament. The total numbers involved are small. Even at their highest, we are talking about 30 complaints, the majority of which do not require full investigation because they are not admissible or excluded from my jurisdiction. That particular part of it does not have a major impact, but it is also true in relation to complaints about councillors and members of public bodies where their numbers are much higher. That does create a problem. The solution that was adopted until this year was that we had an agreed level of investigating hours, if I can put it that way, which was budgeted for plus a contingency figure—a reasonably significant contingency figure. The level of investigating hours was unduly low, so we have, up until now, always had to call on the contingency. We have agreed with the corporate body to submit a budget on a more, in my view, realistic basis for the financial year to come. I suppose that the risk transfers to me to try to manage it within the budget. The process of reaching the view that a particular complaint is admissible is that relatively quite campaign-less, or does it involve a certain amount of investigation? That varies a lot, convener. Some of them are patently outside the scope of the code. If I can give you an example without any names, there was an individual who had a particular view on energy policy and approached two MSPs looking for support for the person's view, and they did not agree. The complaint was about the failure of the leader of the party to discipline the two MSPs who had failed to agree with the individual's view on energy policy. That is patently outside the code. That was easily dismissed. Others raise issues that are purely legal or are legal in terms of interpretation of the code, because the code is not 100 per cent specific. It would be endlessly long if it was. Those can be quite difficult. On occasions, we have to get a certain amount of evidence as well to make the stage 1 assessment as to whether the complaint is admissible. Up to now, we have managed that within the two months that are allowed in the legislation. I intend to continue that, if possible. Thank you, convener. Possibly you have answered part of it, but I was reflecting on at the beginning, in response to questions from the convener, you talked about the budget, and you referred again about there being challenges in managing the budget. I suppose that goes back to the question about IT as well. I was a bit concerned that you said that there is a lack of IT specialism within the commissioner's office. I was thinking that, at this day and age, that can be expected. You would think that there should be resources available to bring in IT specialism when it is quite a big project. I would not expect a smaller organisation to have that capacity given ITs. That is not a question that you might want to address around why that has not been taken forward. The line of question that Patrick Harvie was pursuing was that there were not many complaints—30 complaints—that there are only 120 MSPs, so some of it is quite a high proportion of the number of MSPs. I was not sure that, given that there were many complaints but only six were admissible, it is possible to do a bit more so that it is clear to people what your role is and where cases might be admissible. You have explained that some of them are quite easily dismissed. Other ones are taking up resources of the office and taking up investigative time to come to the conclusion that it is not admissible, given that there are only six out of the overall number. I do not know if more could be done in that area. I think that it is a fair point. I am in the process of revamping the leaflet in which we have—it is available in paper form, but it is on our website as well—about MSP complaints. The difficulty is that some people are patently incensed by something that has happened, and in some cases it may be something that has been said or done in the media, or it may be something that an elected member has said when they are clearly involved in party political activities, for example, during an election. They wish to complain because of the title of my office, which is awful, by the way. Because I am the commissioner for ethical standards, anything that they perceive to be unethical has to be addressed here, which is in one sense fair. I do not think that it is reasonable for me or even for this committee or the Parliament to expect that those who are minded to complain should be fully familiar with the MSP code and the ins and outs of it. It is difficult to have material that is sufficiently clear and readily understood, but also sufficiently specific to discourage people who might be minded to put in a complaint that is simply irrelevant. It is quite difficult to get that balance right. You also have to take account of whether people are comfortable reading materials, either on paper or on the web. The code itself is—even in its newly simplified form—relatively impenetrable, unless you understand the organisation and its processes. I have a sort of apology if I have missed this in the report. Could you say the amount of complaints do they generally then come from members of the public, rather than within the Parliament or from political parties? It is not in the report—it is a fair question—that the vast majority of them come from members of the public who may or may not be politically active. I do not follow that, because motivation is not really an issue, as far as I am concerned. Every year, we have a couple of complaints—I am sorry, not to be more specific—that come from one member about another member. That is a minority of the public. It is a minority, yes. It is a minority, yes. A brief question. Your report mentions that disrespect as a reason for complaint is growing as a percentage of the total. I should caveat that by saying that I am not sure whether that refers to councils, because that is perhaps what the report was suggesting. Disrespect is growing. However, some conduct that might be considered disrespectful in another context is nevertheless permitted in a political context. Why is that number rising? I cannot answer that, convener. I am pleased to say that, in the current financial year, the percentage of complaints relating to disrespect in terms of what people have said about other people has gone down. I described it at a previous committee as having reached the, I did not use this word, but the zenith of its blossoming. I hope that it is now fading. I do not know. You would think, perhaps, that, given the preponderance of unpleasant things being said on social media, many of them, I appreciate about elected members, that there might be more complaints. Thankfully, that has not grown to a huge proportion either. Most of it is about what has been said. The bulk of them are about council meetings, what has been said in or around council meetings or, occasionally, in less formal meetings involving councillors. I cannot recall any involving MSPs of that nature. I may be wrong, but I cannot recall any other moment. With the commencement of the lobbying act, what impact do you see that having on loading your work practices? I have had to put some information in the financial memorandum or submit the information for the financial memorandum. At that point, the advice that I had was that it was unlikely that there would be a large number of complaints, and I have not received any other advice. I do not think that it will have much impact in the year ahead. I appreciate that the lobbying regime does not actually come in until March 2018, so I cannot imagine having any real impact in this financial year other than preparation that we are involved in. However, in the following year, the risks from my point of view are that there are complaints about failure to register lobbying. Given that people have six months in which to update their register, that would push it to halfway through the year at the earliest, or that there are complaints about the registrations that people have made as lobbyists. Given that the system is now open on a trial basis, I would hope that the number of complaints of that category would be fairly small, but I have no hard information on which to base the assessment. However, you have some kind of contingency there to try and anticipate what may happen. Indeed, convener, I have allowed a certain sum in my budget bid for one or two complaints having to be investigated fully and also for some of the preparatory work, which, as I said, we have already started. Thankfully, we have been involved in quite a lot of the discussions that are going on behind the scenes, so I am reasonably up to speed with how it is developing. I did not want to include this when we were talking about wider diversity, but I am a Highlands Islands MSP and I just wanted to find out what regional geographical diversity there was in appointments and what the barriers might be to that and what can be done to ensure that all Scotland is represented on some of these boards. I think that Ian is probably in a better position to answer that than I am. It is one of the things that we gather in terms of monitoring information. I am afraid that I do not have the figures with me today, but I am sure that I will be very happy to provide those to you and to the committee in due course. You are absolutely right. It is something that is considered. Territorial health boards are probably a good example. Generally, what they do is look for people with a live interest and a stake in provision in that given area for national bodies, not so much. Generally speaking, there is possibly a preponderance of people from the central belt, but we will get the figures for you and provide them to you in due course. There are other agencies, so Highlands and Islands Enterprise would be an example where generally we will look for people with live knowledge of the issues that affect people in those given areas, but we will get the figures for you. That would be very helpful. I just want to know if there are things that we could do to ensure that the meetings are more accessible and therefore people can put themselves forward for these boards, whether it is video conferencing or when meetings are scheduled, where they are scheduled and that kind of thing. Yes, absolutely. It is something that we recommend in our discussions with the boards of public bodies. One of the things that we hope to do as a result of the research is to roll out recommendations about all the accessible practices that are already under way. I know already that we have had a lot of returns. There are lots of instances of good practice, but there is not necessarily a forum for those to be rolled out. A lot of the good practice activity that I mentioned earlier has become embedded in one of those regular networking events between chairs. There, they discuss how they harness diversity on an informal basis. That is great. Bill and I attend those two or three times a year. It has been set up by the Scottish Government. There is also a governance hub, which is new and has been established by the public bodies unit. It includes advice on things like how boards go about succession planning, but you are absolutely right that there is more that could be done to bring everyone in. I mentioned to the commissioner prior to our meeting today, so I met with Equate Scotland last week. Their particular focus is younger women in science, engineering and technology. We have already agreed with them to run a couple of sessions next year. That will be in March. We will encourage applications from people that we want applications from. Equate is very clear that this time we are going to head up to Aberdeen. I have been in touch with Food Standards Scotland, which is one of the few public bodies based outside the central belt, other than the territorial ones. I have already got in principle agreement from them that they would love to host this event, so that is something that we are going to be doing in March. It is not as though it is off a radar, but it certainly is. That is very helpful. Thank you. You will be aware that, as well as the lobbying act that is coming down the line, there is a lot of discussion in Parliament around sexual harassment issues, and the committee, the corporate body, the Prime Minister has taken an interest in that. There are a number of different approaches. There are quite a few different streams if a complaint comes forward on how it is dealt with, whether it comes from a political party within the Parliament. Do you, as a body, anticipate any additional workload, or are you preparing for the need for additional capacity or knowledge around this particular area of concern? Convener, unless the code is changed, my remit in this area will stay as it is. If there were to be any increase in complaints, that would be down to, I think—well, it could be an indication of poorer behaviour, and I think that that is unlikely in the current climate. It would be more likely down to people feeling more inclined to make a complaint. I was about to interrupt, but carry on. No, on you go. I was going to—I do not know if it is appropriate to answer the question, but do you feel that the code is clear enough around the type of issues? Is there any—it is not very specific to say—have you had any complaints around this area coming in through the code? I do not know if you are able to— I also would not be able to talk about anything that was current. I have not had any complaints under this issue. If there were to occur in terms of my remit, I think that there would be in relation to lack of respect, which was discussed at another committee last week. Respect can mean a lot of different things, but if somebody were minded to make a complaint about sexual harassment, which fell within my remit, I think that that would be the basis for it. In terms of what we are doing, I am not proposing to increase our staffing in any way in order to deal with complaints that come in. They would be dealt with as part of our business. The one thing that I am setting out to do is to make sure that we have links in place and information that would allow us, if we needed to—we thought that it was helpful to point anybody involved in it in the right direction if they needed support. Because my office—my role—is investigatory, I cannot provide support to one side or another in an investigation that would be seen as taking sides or could be seen that way, which could undermine the independence of the investigation, so all that we can do, if we think that it would be helpful as advice people that they could make contact with here or there with, as appropriate. The code of—where you think it might be relating to code of practice around the description of lack of respect? For me, that would suggest that the code does need some clarity. That is quite a broad definition of where sexual harassment might fall within. I imagine—it is all conjecture here at the moment—as you say that you have not had cases brought forward that have already been dealt with. I would imagine doing an investigation around the wording lack of respect would be challenging. It is quite a responsibility to put on—to think that this is the definition that we are working with. It is a sexual harassment case, but it falls under lack of respect. To do an investigation around that, I would imagine that it would be quite challenging to make that judgment, or what is it? I agree, convener. Potentially, it is quite challenging. I think that it would be inappropriate for me—both as an investigator rather than the person in charge of the policy—to say much more about the code and its potential effectiveness, but I am happy to contribute at an appropriate point. If you see that, it would be appropriate. Thank you. It has been helpful to have clarity from the commissioner that lack of respect is currently where it would fall within. That is my understanding, convener. I am sure that the committee will be very keen to hear from you during the course of our inquiry. I have not had an indication that there are any both, sorry, clear. Yes, there was one other question just around the length of time it has taken between dates of interviews and people being involved with the outcome. I think that the report said that that has increased recently. What are the reasons behind that? Convener, I do not have information on the reasons. This information is based on statistics that are supplied to my office by the Government. On the positive side, even as extended there within the outer limit that was agreed some time back, obviously it would be better if the periods could be shortened. For what it is worth, in the current year, the number of appointment rounds in progress has gone up significantly from the previous year, and that will obviously put pressure on those who are involved in the system. I do not know whether they are able to make progress on that front or not. It is not something that I can influence. I do not have any guidance on that other than just reporting on the statistics that are given to us by the Government. I have not had any indication that any other committee members have questions, so I thank Bill Thomson and Ian Bruce for their evidence today and formally close the meeting.