Walsingham

When doing PnP ages ago one of the players acted up all the time, annoying the GM. Just kibbitzing, nothing major. Anyway, one day the GM yelled "A mountain drops on you!", and the guy simply yelled "I parry!", and thanks to some excessively good dice rolling, and us misunderstanding the rules, he took no damage. The mental image was funny enough that all bad feeling evaporated, and everything was fine after that.

I agree about the conspiracy threads. Provided no-one gets too steamed they can be a lot of fun. Firstly I should say that i don't believe in conspiracies, or I should say that I don't believe in succesful conspiracies involving more than three people. In my experience if you involve more than three people in anything it leaks. Four can go on not leaking for a while, but it will eventually leak. So, do I believe that some conspiracy that had to involve hundreds of people can have not leaked to a credible deegree after more than ten years, I say no. However, chatting about maybe conspiracies is fun. Personally I am tempted to disbelieve the moon landings more than any other conspiracy. 1. I have met Michael Collins, and he seemed like a great guy. But he did not seem to have any emotional connection to his trip to the Moon. This struck me as odd. 2. The American moon landing occurred without much build-up. But it did occur just a few weeks before the Soviets were due to land on the moon. The Soviets DID have a credible build up. The suggestion is that the Americans had a political necessity to be on the Moon first. 3. Spacecraft en route to the moon have to pass through a belt of deadly radiation called the Van Allen Belt. Apollo 11 did not have sufficient shielding to protect its passengers from this radiation, because when Apollo 11 happened no-one knew the belt was there. Yet the crew sufferred no apparent ill-effects. 4. An unusually high number of persons associated with the project have died since its completion. 5. Contact was lost with the module for a substantial portion of its flight. 6. Although thousands of people would have to be involved in lofting the module into space one does not need thousands to know that it did not actually land. It could have just gone up, and come back down. the signals 'from the moon' did not necessarily have to come from there. ~ But like I say, just a bit of fun. ~ What i find completely unbelievable are things like the Princess Di conspiracy theory.

You are quite correct. It was a belt. A mistake I made once when replaying the game, when I deliberately inflicted the cursed ring of stupidity on Xzar thinking it would change his mangy form into something more shapely and pleasing to the eye. I forced myself to play out the result as a punishment and it was indeed quite challenging.

I had several years worth of the comics, in fact from issue eleven onwards. But in a fit of ill-considered altruism I gave the lot to the local children's hospital. I am sure they were shredded or something, but it was, on reflection, the best thing to do with them. My 2000ADs on the other hand, I will protect to the death... I remember she-ra as being curiously more masculine than he-man. I always suspected him of being a bit ...limp... inside those huge furry pants.

There was a man-hating female barbarian in BG1. There was also a cursed ring that could change gender. You do the maths.

You have a good point, there, mate. But I know that genocide is very common in ancient history, but it simply isn't practical in this day and age. You can't just snap your fingers and slaughter 3 or four million people. And if you did, you'd face redoubled our even tripled resistance from the enemy. At the very least they should lose all war weariness or something. More importantly the mechanics were all screwy. I could invade a city, and have my major support operation based there, ten or twenty units, and the stupid fethwits would be fine when I took over, but BLAMMO! suddenly out of nowhere the city and all the units would switch sides? It's just ridiculous! I know that cities do revolt against conquerors, viz Warsaw against the Nazis and Herat against the Soviets, but there's a limit to what civilians can do... Anyway, not my favourite in the series. IMO Alpha Centauri was better, not least because you could custom build your civilisation traits. masters of Orion was similar in thsi respect, except you could custom build your entire species. Lots of fun. There's a thought. Perhaps in the next Obsidian game they could use random race generation? To add some campaign specific bad guys? That is, while you are rolling up your own character, the computer rolls up some custom bad guys to drop in at certain points in the campaign. To add further variations...

Can't agree with you there. That's what they'd like you to think. But in reality the majority of people mixed up in it are utterly disinterested in the collective and are solely out for themselves. they ignore all the rules, and concentrate on getting ahead. Hey... Waitaminute... And I can't speak for everyone, but for me patriotism is the recognition that one is part of a wider set of interests than are encompassed by your body. That by serving them you can serve your values, personal safety, and also the safety of your friends and family. It is also partly linked to the old fashioned notion of honour. That one has a duty to be patriotic towards your country just because it's there. But mostly because I don't get along well with people who are proud of not being patriotic. Why patriotism exists at all is easier. Nations that insist on patriotism survive better than ones that don't. Which, now that I think of it, is a strong case for advancing it as a virtue. Because the collapse of a nation is never a good thing for those who live in it. But that's just me, and I could be wrong.

See, now I'm starting to feel compelled to hunt those books down and read them just to see how bad they really are. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You fool! Don't do it! I lost my ability to write even conversational letters home for months. People didn't believe me about 'American Cyborg: Steel warrior', and they were sorry. Oh yes. They were sorry. Can you say 'Papier mache foetus ending'? See, I knew you could. And I usually have good luck with books I find randomly. I also read Chickenhawk just prior to that. Fantastic.

i should have perhaps made it clearer that Fish's view is right. The police in the original version were not being lazy. As he says, there's not any point in devoting instant reaction to a break-in, when resources are are tight as they are. Not least because the courts won't do anything with the people when they are caught. So yeah. I wasn't having a bash at the police. I was just saying it was amusing.

A lot of you have mentioned civ 3. But i find it teaches bad lessons. For example, it is virtually impossible to take over enemy nations. teh only way to expand territory that I have foudn is to burn everything as you go and carry a trail of sttelrs. This is nothing short of genocide, and possibly a worse thing to be showing kids than the odd prostitute, yet it does not carry an 18 rating. I also feel the espionage system in civ 3 stinks like a ripe donkey.

Th gist of it is that a man wakes up to discover thieves are raiding his shed. He rings the police and reports this, to be told there are no available units. So he hangs up, only to call a minute later and tell them "You don't need to hurry any more, I've shot them." Within minutes six cars, a helicopter and an armed response unit arrived on the scene, catching the burglars red handed. One of the arresting officers asked him "I thought you said you'd shot them?" To which he replied "And I thought you said there was no-one available."

Hmmm. I hate to think what that would do to somone's brain, but then te principle has already been used in a milder form in heart surgery, so you never know.

My favourite moment has to be the point when a young university graduate on Countdown tried to use the word 'sodomy' to score points, and they had to let him have it, because it is in the dictionary. Absolute gold. I bet they don't show it though. And yes, he was a very English idiot. I dare say he will be genuinely missed, in a weird way.

I can't believe you got that to work! I tried for ages to do such a combo, with decreased magic resistance and so on. That sounds hilarious. Gaming wise it would have to be the time I stayed up for two and a half days solid, completing quake II, which resulted in some hefty 'Fear and Loathing' style hallucinations, and paranoia. I was in fps mode for days afterwards, calculating the angles for bouncing grenades off walls and so on. Otherwise I'm a sucker for comedy in games, and hence my affection for Black Isle work. I think just about every single one of Jan Jansen's gnomish irrelevancies was funny, except the ones in the final bit of BG2, where he was trying to bait Boo off Minsc. The dialogue at the end of the series if Jan is in your party is likewise perfect.* I won't quote them here in case some of you haven't played it yet. I don't think I'm giving away anything when I say that I loved the trick answer you could give the gatekeeper in Fallout 2 to pass the anti-pirating code verification. Absolute respect to the company for putting that in. Just for having the balls to do something that was funny at the expense of security. *Yet his cousin Jansen in NWN is completely tedious. What gives?

That sounds about right to me, Metadigital.

Wait, does this mean that circles were brought to this planet by six fingered aliens?

Sorry about that. If you can see the link, I can only suggest you go straight to that. It's weird because when I bring up this page I can see the image just fine. I checked before I posted.

Don't talk to em about bad sci-fi until you have read both 'Night of the Giant Crabs' and 'Revenge of the Giant Crabs'. I was obliged to read both of these while convalescing in a Southeast Asian guesthouse from stomach problems. I completely forgot my stomach problems in the face of what I believe to be the most terrifyingly bad fiction ever written. Suppurating eyesockets would have been a godsend. And, yeah, maybe I have read too much Clancy. I liked George R.R. Martin, and think he made a good editor of the 'Wildcard' series. So linking to my above statement you can see I'm not so fussy about what I read. And, on the subject of good authors, I'd recommend the 'Budayeen' series (by George Alec effinger) for anyone thinking of running a mid-east cyberpunk campaign, or anyone who likes private eye novels. I'm just in the process now of re-reading 'Exile Kiss', having given up on the Tolkein I was reading earlier.

We have been discussing what to do if you get robbed, and also the mechanics of lying. I found this image, recently: Thought it might be pertinent.

I agree with you, but then, coming from a guy with a Thundercats avatar, that's pretty rich.

I'd have to plump for BG as number 1. For the characters, the subplots, and sheer damn weight of material. Number two would be Deus Ex, for the storyline, and the detail. Number three would be the GTA 3. For the gameplay and the radio stations. Thinks: well that shows how old I am!

I'm with you on the close combat series, alanschu. but for me it was the elemnt of morale and control that got me interested. Because you couldn't depend on everyone fighting as hard as you'd like. Most of the men under your command weren't heroes. They wanted to stay alive. Nor did they always understand your orders clearly. it was a very crude representation, but it made things so much better. If you played on the the Russian Front you will remember the sound of the wind howling through the trees... fantastic. My one biggest concern was that the enemy tanks made no damn noise, so you could quite literally be snuck up on by a T34, which is rather unlikely. As for the poll, I really dislike what i think are the hallmars of Bioware in products. Cheap and Cheerful fantasy, happy elves, smiling hobbits, wise fething wizards. Yechh.

Sorry. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Pronounced 'Wuhfrrrup'. Or Like this

Maths is rock-climbing for the brain. It looks impressive, gives you an excellent workout, and just occasionally you plummet hundreds of feet to your death. And about the pronounciation: YOU are the colonials, dear boy. THIS is English. WE are English. Enough has been said.

You're all bonkers. The Chinese tank wins because it carries active countermeasures against guided weapons. Without active countermeasures you are toast for any halfwit in cover who decides to take a pop at you with a missile. So your fancy multi-million dollar western MBTs will be shot to pieces long before they get a sniff of the opposition. With countermeasures, you go back to being quite scary, because then you are only vulnerable to another big gun. Like what goes on a tank. Bloody clever, the Chinese. Incidentally, this same point has come up regarding big gun battleships. Guided weapons are great, but can be shot down. An old fashioned bruiser battleship, like the Missouri can sit patiently still while her escorts shoot down incomings, then stroll into range and wipe out the opposition in a handful of minutes. ~~ Talking about that girl, you boys are showing your age. In this day of aerobics and advanced hair care it is only a foolish man who judges a chick from behind. For all you know, she has a face like two slices of processed turkey stuck in a vice.