Hi, Spike!
Your OP sounds like something dug out of an archive from the early nineties on some LAN server or something.
How about dug out the "archive" of my Jr High MERP playing days, circa 1988-89? I wasn't speaking hypothetically in my example. That really is a way that I played with my friends. And while it does veer close to the two-decade mark, compared to the late 70s experiences that Geezer, Calithena, and others have been talking about lately, it doesn't feel all
that "old-skool" to me. Christ, am I really that old?
Anyway, I picked that example because it was particularly
stark and easily described, but I think that general phenomenon continues forward to my present play. The details are different, sure; it's certainly not always about merely "killing", but the fact remains that i haven't seen a lot of games that support a diversity of play goals through their reward mechanics
the way that i'd like them to. Doesn't mean they suck, or that they don't work for someone else, but they don't work for me. Things havew been improved, sure--my poor little MERP Scout would thrive much better as a 3.5 Rogue with Bluff and Diplomacy--but it still doesn't quite get there for a number of reasons, like for instance, the focus on "encounters" for rewards.
Also, you seem to be hanging up on the "kills on a per character basis" bit, which ain't the point. That's mainly an artifact of the example and the system used (we marked down our own kills and crits for the GM, by the way). But I think I've clearly explained why lump goals dont' do it for me--it's not really a reward for what *I* want to do with
my character, it's just a reward for hangin' around chipping in. The flexibility of something like TSoY means that I can get rewards for specific things that I work into the game through my contributions, so if I can hit my vengeance issues, or protective feelings, or lust for fame, into the goblin fight, I'll get lots o' bonus points and everyone's had a more entertaining time than if the fight was "y'know, just a fight." And that flexibility means I don't even have to stick with the "party moves everywhere in one big lump, has mostly the same experiences and faces the same challenges" model at
all if I don't want to.
Does that clarify what I'm getting at?
Peace,
-Joel