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Finished Yakuza: Like A Dragon during the weekend. A fantastic fresh start for the series, Ichiban is probably the best protagonist these games ever had, the addition of a party really helps in putting some color in the narrative, and the change to Turn-Based Combat actually made the game feel faster.

Started Core Keeper, and I greatly appreciate a survival/crafting game that holds your hands just enough while also throwing you into a hostile world. The 2D pixel art is a delightful, and I can feel the progression system working its dark magic in my brain. Also played a little bit of Darktide, though so far I ain't feeling it much. The last two online co-op games of the type I played were Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Deep Rock Galactic, which I felt did more to stand out from the genre's expectations, but I'll give a few more missions before laying a final judgement.

They're all on GamePass, though Like A Dragon is leaving in a few days.

"Don't split the party" never felt like an axiom to me, the more appropriate guideline is knowing when and for how long to shine a spotlight in player's affairs, but also to maintain a singular objective across the party in your particular narrative. A lot of my time playing (outside of combat) has been with a split party, and with my current Lancer campaign that I've been running for a few months the players are also comfortable trying things at their own pace.

It helps to have a Common Objective that all PCs share and want to fulfill, so the "main" missions of the narrative will involve all of them together, but any kind of bonding scenes, Downtime, narrative hangouts and such, don't necessarily need to have everyone together. You still should prod other characters about their thoughts on [X]'s PC idea/action/feelings, and give them a chance to intercede. Also when [X] talks about doing something, ask if they don't want to take someone together - or ask someone if they don't want to join.

Relationships between PCs will grow organically, so over time they'll have more interests and goals in common, giving you ammo for any time they want to do something. If two players have a shared specialty and one of them wants to act on that, ask the other what they think. If two players share a hobby, and one of them want to make a show of it, ask the other player for their opinion.

don't sell yourself short, your soul is as valid as a sacrifice as any other

The easiest way is to meet with a girl that's wearing it and then take it off

It was an interesting game. Came out at a time we were going through a bit of a fast paced FPS drought and was one of the - relatively - big name reboots, but curiously one that didn't have a lasting impact. I had fun at the time, even with the comically awful fall damage (dashing and dying from going down the stairs was equal parts frustrating and hilarious), and hold no nostalgia for the old games. There were fun guns and cool enemies to kill, as well as a story that landed with one of my favorite bittersweet endings.

At the end of the day, I think "enjoyable" would be my final mark; save for the big, busy arenas during the final levels, the game didn't feel as high octane or thrilling as future releases like DOOM and Titanfall 2, and from the little that I played of the first sequel they really lost their way.

You're welcome!

Hit up your nearest gym and ask to fight the toughest woman there, nothing can possibly go wrong

No worries, its a good thing to do.

You can share there if you want.

Its the laziest way to reboot a franchise, making a sequel with all the old actors reprising their roles and basically the same plot but with a different general cast for the subplots. You can tell that Trump isn't even bothering to learn his lines in this iteration.

techno-necro-mouse sounds rad as heck

Meanwhile the roaches managed to kill one of the heroes though! With the overlord gone, they accepted a truce and the remaining mice got to carry their dead comrade out. With a ceremonial push-into-the-well that was the end of that character.

I found it rather hilarious that the GM actually tried to give us opportunities to revive the dead hero. However, we failed all dice rolls and were too skeptical after previous necro-shenanigans. Also, the player was fine with losing his character.

Sounds like OSR to be fair, you never know when someone will bite the dust (and who will get their goodies)

After some discussion, we decided to try a new meta-rule: If your character dies, you become the GM next session. Let’s see how that will play out. The campaign will take a break over christmas.

That's an interesting meta rule, I've GM'd "gaiden" episodes in a previous Lancer campaign I was in - they were like simulation combats and the GM also got to play