Amentep

gfted's going to the Adventurer's Hall (Haul?) and his party is going to be Hoover, Dyson, Bissel, Eureka, Dirt Devil and Filter Queen.

I vote Noober/Neeber as well. Wait Neeshka was more serious? The character who was always cracking wise? Don't get me wrong, you don't like a character you don't like a character. But Neeshka never struck me as terribly serious ("Questions, questions...go ahead, I'm all horns", "I feel this strange, rosy glow all of a sudden. We don't have to hug, do we?", "And I may have accidentally back-stabbed some people in the past, but if they couldn't see me coming, well, that's their loss")

huh, wish I'd known that when I played it. It was fun, but not as repeatable (IMO) as other Snowblind games. And its a bit short.

The clock never stops*; the officials keep track of time for injuries and add it on to the end. Anything else is done on the clock. If the guy was just some jerk who grabbed the ball, I'm not entirely sure why Hazard was red carded, to be honest. Particularly since the intent would seem to be to do what happened - force a tie which Swansea would advance from due to tiebreaking/advancement rules. *I believe there are some US affiliations that allow time-outs; my memory though this isn't really the norm.

I never played Star Ocean 1, so I can't vouch for it - did play 2 though. I just remembered actually enjoying searching through town to find where everyone went so I could see if I was going to get any extra dialogue.

They could make it like the Route 66 TV show; you travel along a specific highway where at each stop you have the possibility of being embroiled in some storyline or another...

Sorry the only report I've read on the incident reported the dude was a "ball boy". They didn't have ball boys when I played HS football/soccer/whateveryouwanttocallit but you know I went with what the report said.

And yet...that's what we seem to keep going around and around on...

It doesn't. But giving XP to stealth or quests doesn't mean killing is devalued either, which seems to be what we keep going on about. "I should be rewarded for killing 5 orcs out of a 10 orc band even though I retreated tail between my legs and quest/objective XP won't allow that" "But rewarding it that was won't allow a stealth path to be viable" "But if the stealth path is viable, I won't be able to kill anything because I'll always stealth" etc...

A bit off topic but...what was the Ball Boy trying to do that he'd fall on the ball?

The River had some issues (like them seeing obviously supernatural things happening only to be later surprised when more supernatural things happened) but I did enjoy it and unlike some other horror series (say Harper's Island) I didn't feel the end was a let down.

YMMV; I usually watch stuff for entertainment. Greatness will always be few and far between. To be fair to Hokuto No Ken, though, my memory is that it was intended as an action series for teenagers. So lot of violence, not necessarily a lot of drama each episode.

Why does it matter? What if the game is similar to the Elder Scrolls and you can't level up unless you can rest in a town anyhow? Or visit a "trainer" who then allows you to level up? Realistically, it actually kind of doesn't make sense to level up in the middle of battle, but its all an abstraction so I'm a bit stuck on why it matters whether you level up after completing a quest or objective in the quest or level up after whacking 5 of 10 orcs. It keeps coming up because one of the issues with Quest XP that I keep hearing is people want to get XP for killing things.

I'm reminded a bit of Star Ocean 2 (ooo, Japanese RPG - burn the heretic!) where, upon entering a city your party broke up and did things that they wanted to do (this furthered the character relationship aspects as the Player could then find the NPCs and have dialogue scenes with them, finding out things they were interested in or wanted to do). I think part of the reason why shops are uninteresting is that there isn't really an incentive to shop, most of the time. So they exist as a system element as opposed to a world element. Ditto taverns. While I liked the idea of buying a beer and getting hints in a tavern, most of the time the implementation has left something to be desired, thus creating no incentive for the player to participate. These things could be changed if the party "split up". Some of it could be fixed by making areas more reactive (and thus the player more inclined to experience). Maybe buying a round from the bartender gets something, maybe it doesn't. Maybe buying a round for the house gets you something maybe it doesn't. Maybe sitting in on a game in the corner gets you some information, or coming in with a specific NPC or class. But I imagine each of these ideas increase the difficulty a good bit for testing/reactivity. EDIT: Typo - "buying a bear" at a bar would be pretty exciting, though

But aren't you saying then, that Character Development comes from adventuring and "adventuring" is actually killing every creature you come across (for Kill XP)? Or am I misinterpreting you? To my mind character development is the choices you make as your character (and thus what choices your character can make based on race, class, skills and experience) as you move through stories and quests. Not how many orcs I killed.

Only if I get to wear a black slouch hat, crimson scarf, black cloak with crimson lining and wield twin .45s automatics... "The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit..."

I saw the movie when it was released in the US in 1991. It was so over the top that it stood out. I've wanted to see the TV series since it gives more background than the movie can (the movie really is "Ken's biggest hits" (in multiple senses). But yeah its hard to take seriously because it is so over the top. But that's its appeal and fun factor.

hahahah, yeah pretty much.

I never liked sneaking about in VTMB, so yeah, I also murdered everyone. No XP. Not a problem with it. As long as it's fun. And if people do want to sneak they can. I am not so petty as to suggest that they should be punished just because I like combat more... Oh I sneaked if my character was sneaky. Its just that for me, if I'm building a character to do certain things I tend to play them doing those certain things whether the game is going to give me XP for it or not. I may be atypical in this regard though.

I need to get back to watching the Fist of the North Star tv series. And the first season of Lupin III. And finish re-watching Imagawa's Giant Robo...

Saw Mama. Weird scary-movie / dark fairy tale hybrid. Good and it has its scary moments (although mostly jump scares); refreshing to see the movie embrace its weird supernatural mythology so early in the film.

I've had two DMs, one who was like yours mostly any adjustments made on the fly were to get the game back to on his chosen course. The other would just build ideas on the fly and deal with it if we went off the rails. Both were good; both gave us experience so we weren't feeling cheated. But it was never when we killed an orc each time (at best we might get encounter XP) Well, I don't know if its a shame or just different.

I never felt discouraged from combat in VtM:B. But then if I build a character for combat, I'm generally expecting combat to be my primary means of conflict resolution - whether the game is giving me XP for every kill or not.

nvm

Actually it doesn't work "just fine". Face it - objective-based XP is simpler to implement, more fair to everyone and easier to balance To be fair, when I started playing D&D back in the early 80s, we never got XP for killing a monster (*rolls hit* "I hit the monster" "Okay, add 100 xp to your character sheet and tell me if you level up"). We waited for the battle to be over or for the night to be over before the DM calculated XP for the combat, the quest or the night. So part of why I'm not terribly beholden to kill XP is that my P&P background was never hinged on it. People who've only played computer games might have a different experience. But then the first computer games I played - like SSI's Phantasie were "all or nothing" propositions. Get into a fight and kill a couple of monsters but have to run away? Too bad - no XP for you. So the idea that the only way to do a game is to dole out XP every time the player opens a lock, kills a monster, lances a bunion or whatever just isn't there for me. Not that I hate it either; different systems bring their own pluses and minuses and can be equally fun to play.