Thanks for the props. You're right about the difficulties of the history game. I've been chewing on them for a while. My main answers are: wildly unsubtle changes (Civil War fought with mecha), and changes close to the PCs (if Phil Johnson is one of the PCs, his vampirism is considerably more obvious). But I still have been puzzling about the history lesson problem. Judging by alt-history stories, wandering history lecturers are (like zeppelins) a universal side effect of any monkeying with the timestream.

"As you know, Fred, a change in the wind in 1688 interfered with the Dutch fleet bringing William of Orange to England, with the following results..."

"Why on earth are you telling me this?"