ping

I know what I read And I know the only word that would make any amount of sense in that sentence. --- Summer mood, banhammer under my feet Cold beer, cheap wine Yeah, that's all we need. We got Wraith banned! We got Wraith banned! And everybody's like, "OH FUCK YEAH, LET'S BAN HIM AGAIN!" WE GOT WRAITH BANNED! WE GOT WRAITH BANNED! And everybody's like, "Yesterday we banned to much, let's do it again!" WE GOT WRAITH BANNED! WE GOT WRAITH BANNED! So everybody, put your quotes right up! Tonight is the night!

Banned for misspelling "acclaimed".

In general? Absolutely. I still believe that properly signaled ambush spawns are overall superior to end-of-enemy-phase reinforcement because they can't be trivially farmed. In this specific case, I think I prefer a bit more "localised" spawning areas, like a couple of forts, over declaring the entire edge of the map a danger zone. I do appreciate the straightforward info box, though. Allows for fairly precise information without silly in-script dialogues. "Harhar! Me mateys will arrive IN THREE TURNS from THE FORESTED AREA IN THE SOUTHEAST. I can't wait to see the TOTALLY SURPRISED looks on their faces!"

Banned for a lack of appreciation for music (and cookies).

It's kinda weird. In my LP, I was able to edit the first two posts, even though they weren't exactly short, but not the third. And I'm pretty sure that I've gotten that message trying to edit some shorter posts, too.

Cookie, I think you're BAAAAAAAAANNED BAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNED BBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNED BBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNED

Nonnnn, rien de riennnnnnn Nonnnnn, je ne regrette pas le ban Grammar getting in the way of the rhythm... *grumble*

Banni parce que moi non plus.

In an... interesting piece of marketing, the first-person shooter game Daikatana, directed by John Romero, was advertised with the slogan "John Romero's about to make you his bitch." Romero was involved in the development of famous games such as Doom, Quake, and Captain Commander Keen. Daikatana was the first game he worked on after leaving id Software, and unfortunately, it didn't end up particularly well. Until September 2000, it only sold about 40'000 copies, instead of the 2.5 million sales that the developer allegedly was calculating with, and it's sometimes brought up as a "worst game ever" contender, although given what you can find on Steam these days, this surely has to be said with a "compared to expectations" qualifier. Because the game bombed so hard, a Game Boy Color version published by Kemco wasn't even released in the US. However, it was released in Japan and the EU - and actually considered to be quite good. The GBC game was more alike to the Zelda games of that time (top-down action adventure), i.e. quite different from the main title, which was noted to be a very good thing.

Voulez vous ban Wraith avec moi ce soir? (You see, it's funny because it's a sexual proposion in the original song HHAHAHAHAAAAHAHA)

Guy's long-lost brother. Personally, I wouldn't go as far as 'loving' the translator unless he also named Mae 'Girl'.

*ahem* Well, the E in "mess" is short, so if it ever had been "meß", it would've been changed to "mess" in the spelling reform from... the 90s, I think? If it was "meß", the E would be an "ay". Well, not really, but it's how anglophones tend to process it. The French é would be a be closer fit. ẞun?

Ban ban ban the Wraith to a retirement home Merrily merrily merrily ban Rhymes and rhythm are difficult

Oh, that's the angle. Sorry, I didn't catch that right away. I think I agree insofar that all FE protagonists tend to be elevated to a certain position of power by birth or nepotism (in either case not by merit), but then rise above that position through their own actions. This is true for... Marth, who is prince by birth, but eventually ruler of Akaneia by merit Alm, who is made leader of the Deliverance because he's Mycen's grandson and (in Echoes) Clive thinks that he would make a good figurehead, but he gains real authority over the group by merit, although he eventually becomes the ruler of Valentia because inheritance and Ike, who is initially the subject of nepotism, but then becomes the general of the Crimean liberation force because he's considered to be the best man for the job. Roy and Micaiah fit the bill in their respective games, too. And I'm sure there's even more, but those two happened to spring to mind. In all three cases, their special swords aren't a factor, though, including Ike. Yes, he carries it with him, but he even keeps it secret until the chapter with the BK fight, so he's clearly not elevated because he has such a big long sword. But my angle was supposed to be a different one: Does the protagonist have any mythical powers that are tied to their noble heritage? Marth does (Falchion), and so does Elice and a changing cabal of princesses (Aum staff). Alm does. Half of Geneology's cast does. In Tellius, Micaiah does (and that Sanaki doesn't is a plot point). This isn't supposed to lessen any deeds those protagonists accomplish. But I think it still separates Ike from the Kaga-era lords in particular. Specifically Alm, who also grew up without any noble, let alone royal, upbringing, but who turns out to have some innate "specialness": Only he can use the royal sword (because kings ought to have special swords, I guess), and I remember some convo in which one of the Ram villagers says that he "always knew that Alm was special", which because of its vagueness also has a certain "innate noble-ness" vibe to me. In contrast, what makes Ike stand out from his peers is much more mundane: He's good at fighting, and people tend to like his very straightforward and non-bigoted nature.

If banning be the food of love Ban on, ban on, ban on, ban on till I am fill'd, am fill'd with joy. Pie Iesu Domine Dona Eis Banhammer *bonk* Pie Iesu Domine *bonk* Dona Eis Banhammer *bonk* Pie Iesu Domine *bonk* Dona Eis Banhammer *bonk* Pie Iesu Domine *bonk* Dona Eis Banhammer *bonk*

I assume the polite thing is to not mention it. RE: Ashnard - I think his ideology is still consistent, albeit obviously inane. He thinks that the "strong" should rise and the "strongest" should rule, but he doesn't have any reservations about how to become strong. He became stronger by aquiring an impenetrable armour and a big fuck-you dragon. If you can't overcome those things, well, sucks to be you. I can't hear your complaints up here riding my big fuck-you dragon. The other strength-obsessed characters - BK, the Laguz, Ike to a degree - all seem to have some addtional code of honour in place which would prevent them from looking for cheap auto-wins, but Ashnard doesn't seem to give a damn about 'fairness' or other concepts of the sorts. I don't think that this diminishes the point, to be honest. Ike carrying Ragnell is presented as happenstance, or as something that came from the BK's decision to leave it with Greil's body, presumably in the hope that Ike would prove to grow to be his father's equal. But Ike doesn't have any divine spark or noble blood or whatnot that lets only him wield it - he just called dibs, basically. Yes, mechanically it's the same as Falchion being Marth's personal weapon, but the narrative justification is very different.

Fire Emblem's 2RN is probably among the most egregious examples (ffs, 10 displayed hit is only 2% true hit), but it's interesting how many video games lie with their probabilities. Even Darkest Dungeon has a hidden +5% hit chance for every player attack. I think Sid Meier said in his autobiography that when he first put displayed chances of success in his games (must've been back in the 90s), everybody told him that while they liked the game, the odds were clearly rigged against them!!!

Oh hey, I got that shortly after release. Didn't replay it later, so my experience is pretty old and outdated, but I believe it was smooth sailing until it wasn't The disasters can really screw one over if they hit at an unopportune time. ...come to think of it, I don't think I remember which mystery I rolled. Do you already know what you got?

In Ashnard's case, I suspect that he's (more or less) a 1v1 boss in order to make him more challenging. If he'd be dogpile-able, he'd be a complete joke. For Radiant Dawn, they then managed to come up with a way to make a bossfight that's interesting while allowing everybody to contribute... but they also made that bee-yootiful cutscene of Ike dealing the final blow, so obviously that has to be reflected in gameplay. (I should note that I don't particularly like either of those things. Ike doesn't really have any personal motivation to fight Ashnard that goes beyond everybody elses, so there's really no narrative pay-off for the solo fight. And for RD, I always thought it was blatant that the cutscene probably predated and certainly dictated that detail of the boss fight. Anyway - I don't think that Ike being special needs to be a point of contention. He is - he's a more talented fighter than anybody else in Tellius, and he's quite likeable in his Shonen Protagonist ways. I think that comparison has been made some time ago in this forum and I think it's a fairly good abbreviation of Ike's social skills However, nothing suggests that any of Ike's specialness is caused by some "noble bloodline" or anything of the sort. What privileges he has had over your average Boyd have been deliberately given to him by Greil: combat training from a very young age, and a direct path to leadership after Greil's death. That second thing is probably the most undeserved boon Ike receives throughout the two games, since even if Greil saw leadership talent in Ike, at that point in time Ike hasn't done anything to deserve preference over Titania or even over Oscar. But what follows from there does stem from Ike's own merits. He succeeds in his challenges because he is a very talented fighter (and helped by Titania in particular, of course), and his Shonenness (very blunt, not a deceitful bone in his body, free of any prejudice) endears him to powerful people (Mufasa, Elinicia, Sanaki) who presumably have to deal with passive-aggressive, lying, bigoted people on a daily basis. His father's status, or rather previous actions, give him some extra credit in Gallia, but when he's officially elated to a general and noble, it's because he's the best man for the job, and out of political concern, respectively. -- I do think that this contrasts him with many of his predecessors in the series, in particular those written by Kaga. I don't think the GBA games go out of their way to attribute any abilities or personal weapons to their protagonists' bloodlines - it's "just" their social status - but Marth, Alm, and everybody of note in Jugdral explicitly (and not merely as a game mechanic) has access to certain weapons because of their special bloodline or (in Jugral in particular) are innately more powerful than the peasant rabble. Ike's very talented at fighting and fairly charismatic, but that's just him and not a "noble trait" and I feel like I keep repeating myself at this point

I mean, I've heard that Kaga did everything first, so... I wouldn't rule that out.

I'm just realising that I seem to have a precursor of this one installed that's about 50 years old. In that old randomizer, I really didn't like the "randomise growths" options because it seemed to create incredibly lopsided growths (a lot of 0-10% on the one end, and 80+% on the other), but it seems that this one has more options to keep the randomness in check.

Back in the olden days, there was THAC0 - To Hit Armor Class Zero, as in "you have to roll this high to hit AC 0". If you have 15 Thac0, you have to roll 15 vs AC 0, 14 vs. AC 1, 13 vs. AC 2 etc, or [Thac0-AC] in general, which means that both AC and Thac0 follow the rule "the lower the better". In Baldur's Gate, which generally tries to reproduce the PnP rules, a +1 weapon will give a +1 bonus to Thac0 (which means that it will reduce Thac0 by one) and a standard shield will give a +1 bonus to your AC (which means that it will reduce AC by one). The maths isn't actually any more difficult than the "modern" To Hit bonuses, unless you struggle with the concept of subtracting negative numbers, but you get the impression that there's an attempt to make it look much more complicated than it really is. The part where "+x" means "-x" honestly is the worst part. Today's standard, I'm pretty sure, is to roll D20 and add your To Hit bonus, and compare that number with the target's AC. If you match or exceed it, you hit; if your result is below the AC; you miss. I obviously have no idea if there's some exceptions to the rule, I was just assuming that the newer rulebooks try to be consistent about the general "more = better" rule.