AgentGray wrote

> Actually, I don't see anything weird at all.  I've found that if I name my
> characters after people I know in real life I tend to be more careful with
> them.  People I dislike make good cannon fodder ;-)

In one game I ran, I decided to name my agents after my work colleagues, of
which there are roughly 50 +/- or so.  After playing for a few days, real
life days that is, I found myself running out of names rapidly.  Now I'm not
particularly bad at my game though I've not gone for the superhuman levels
personally, but I found it somewhat disturbing to see people I could relate
to being reduced to a pair of smouldering boots as I played.  I was quite
uncomfortable with the whole thing and decided to stick with the names of
the agents as they were supplied.

Murphy's Law of X-COM states;

Characters named after yourself meet with quick, untimely and ultimately
irritating deaths. Usually on their first mission.  The same applies to
named characters with any personal or emotional meaning to you, with the
utmost prejudice.

Characters named after people you'd love to see splattered on the inside of
the transport go on to be your achievers, despite attempts to put them
directly in the line of alien fire, who instead opt to take a rather chancy
and somewhat over the top shot at someone three screens away, lurking inside
a building, hiding behind a filing cabinet, or something equally as silly.

Well established, well defended bases will be overlooked by aliens, even if
they are right next to alien bases, in favour of that nice, new, undefended
and unmanned R&D/manufacturing/listen post, which is in the middle of
nowhere.  Which also happens to be your major stockpile of E115/Zrbite.

Lobstermen/Chrysallids show up, just as you research sonic/plasma weapons,
but haven't got the benefits of said research.  Then proceed to wander up to
your agents and stick them with their hand to hand weapons, instead of doing
the decent thing and shooting them from a distance.

Terror missions pop up on the far side of the globe, directly opposite your
first base and therefore _just_ outside the range of your first transport,
though you try and convince yourself that yes, you can make it.  Even after
the third terrorsite pops up

That hotshot, high accuracy sniper you've been grooming for the last x
missions, misses a critical shot by such a large margin, you swear he's been
replaced by a rookie by alien infiltrators.  Usually accompanied by the
death of the highest ranking agent in your team.  Sometimes, somewhat
suspiciously, its as a direct result of the hotshot firing wild...

After several MC/Psi attacks on your squad, and watching helplessly as your
rookies run around in blind panic, the mind attacks settle down again.  Only
to be followed by your best agent being totally controlled, who proceeds to
wax the agent who has the primed sonic grenade in his hand, which detonates
[arf] and kills him/her, which then results in the agent with the HE
autoshot weapon going beserk, leading to direct hits on several other
agents - you get the idea...

The number of alien soldiers in your containment is equal to, and
proportional to, the number of critical alien ranks you require.

Civilians will be attracted to, and find the most inconvenient place to
stand, when embarking on terror missions.

Civilians will be attracted to, or be near the furthest alien away from your
squad upon landing.  So yes, you get to see yet another civilian die, in
total darkness, but have no idea where it is.

You will step on at least one particle disturbance grenade during a critical
mission

Aliens will find a way of getting unnatural shots at your agents, which you
could not manage, due to the 'unable to fire' legend appearing on the
screen.

Your best vet is killed during a routine mission by the lowest alien
possible, usually armed with a pistol or a big stick and silly smirk on
their face.  Either way, the vet is killed and the nerdy alien gets one up
on you.

The game _knows_ how annoyed, dismayed, irritated, frustrated you are and
proportionately increases it's capacity to pick off your agents during
missions, with deftdefying feats unseen by yourself before.

Your first terror mission will result in a large, greasy stain and a severe
lack of transport all of a sudden.  Usually accompanied by a dropping of the
jaw involuntarily.  Then faint whimpering.

-ends-  Anyone care to join in...? <g>

> My oldest and best character just kicked the can the other day by a
sectoid to
> say the least.  I was pretty upset.  Not to long, though.  There's this
> wonderful thing called saved games.

See, Murphy's law!  Now, wouldn't you prefer a no saved game in this
instance...

Det. [A pint of the black shtuff, pleash]