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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Alien Rope Burn posted:

It is for American in the modern era and the Iraq / Afghanistan conflicts, where I think at most it peaked around 1% (and is probably around 0.5-0.75% now). But during World War, it was 12% and Vietnam was nearly 10%. (Mind, accurate enlistment rates are hard to dig up and these could be wrong.) The thing is, the Coalition doesn't have an ongoing war (yet) so it probably doesn't need those numbers, particularly with its high degree of mechanization. Of course, there's the question of how much the military handles and how that might impact rates as well. But it doesn't seem to be out of the question.
It would make sense if the Coalition military handled a lot of things that would otherwise be given to civilian forces, kind of like how the Red Army often got called in for things like helping with the harvest due to being the guys with the most trucks and so on. In general it would make sense if much of the Coalition military strength was more like trained reservists with the day to day active duty folks being more the guys with 5 levels, dog boys, etc.

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Loxbourne
Apr 6, 2011

Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.
That would actually be an interesting take on the whole post-Apocalyptic setting, if what kept the Coalition army in power (and popular) was their willingness to do heavy lifting alongside their own people.

Alas it seems we've got the usual "Nazi enough to satisfy my Wehraboo urge, and evil enough to do lots of tasty atrocities, but just different enough that I can keep telling myself I'm not an actual Nazi sympathiser" bullshit.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Loxbourne posted:

That would actually be an interesting take on the whole post-Apocalyptic setting, if what kept the Coalition army in power (and popular) was their willingness to do heavy lifting alongside their own people.

It's still one of the biggest things the American military does, in terms of effort, time, and resources. No one on the planet is as good at moving enormous amounts of poo poo across the world to where it's needed as the US military - there's a reason the military is usually called in in response to refugee crises and natural disasters, and it's not to shoot people.

In theory, that sort of organized efficiency should be one of the big draws of fascist governments and dictatorships in fiction, not just xenophobia or paranoia. It's much easier to understand how in a post-apocalyptic world the fascist military dictatorship stays in power and supported by its own people if they actually are competent, efficient, and well-organized. Everyone has a place, the government responds to your needs, and when poo poo happens you know the government and military will respond and take care of it. It's easy to understand how appealing that would be, and how tempting it would be to support it in exchange for accepting certain restrictions on who counts as a member of "everyone" and what needs are considered valid.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Cythereal posted:

In theory, that sort of organized efficiency should be one of the big draws of fascist governments and dictatorships in fiction,

The issue is that it's largely a myth that fascist governments have any of those traits. Once you've got a government like that, it's going to be staffed based on cronyism, nepotism and ideological purity rather than merit, and it's going to be pure luck if those people also actually know how to do their goddamn jobs. There's a reason that most autocracies and their like are embattled and full of starving, miserable people as well as major crises at every level.

The only thing fascists are ever competent at is catchy propaganda.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

PurpleXVI posted:

The only thing fascists are ever competent at is catchy propaganda.

Which, unfortunately, is enough to make people forget they're bad at everything else and keeps attracting people back to them.

JackMann
Aug 11, 2010

Secure. Contain. Protect.
Fallen Rib
But putting any of that into a game would require Siembada to work out how a government actually functions rather than just pull random statistics out of his rear end.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

PurpleXVI posted:

The issue is that it's largely a myth that fascist governments have any of those traits. Once you've got a government like that, it's going to be staffed based on cronyism, nepotism and ideological purity rather than merit, and it's going to be pure luck if those people also actually know how to do their goddamn jobs. There's a reason that most autocracies and their like are embattled and full of starving, miserable people as well as major crises at every level.

The only thing fascists are ever competent at is catchy propaganda.

Yes, and my point is that making a fascist government actually efficient and well-organized would go a long way towards explaining how one can stay in power with popular support in a fictional setting, especially one of the post-apocalyptic variety. There's a reason almost every fascist government in real life has fallen apart, and most of them rather quickly.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

PurpleXVI posted:

The issue is that it's largely a myth that fascist governments have any of those traits. Once you've got a government like that, it's going to be staffed based on cronyism, nepotism and ideological purity rather than merit, and it's going to be pure luck if those people also actually know how to do their goddamn jobs. There's a reason that most autocracies and their like are embattled and full of starving, miserable people as well as major crises at every level.

The only thing fascists are ever competent at is catchy propaganda.

Yep. There's a saying where that national governments have the choice in its employees being either competent or loyal, and autocracies will go for loyalty every time. The Middle East is filled with the relics of collapsed governments like Libya and Syria that have done this.

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually
Another big problem with autocracies and totalitarian governments is that the leader often structures them with multiple competing power groups (to prevent any underling from amassing a large enough power base to challenge him). People fight with each other for the resources and power and the leader's attention, which leads to enormous duplication and wastes of resources and internal sabotage. The nazis were really good for this, as it had several whole competing armies (not just the Regular Army and the SS, but even things like the Lufwaffe having 800,000 of its own ground troops) each with its own doctrine and procurement and organizational structure and equipment and chains of command. That was a lot of things, but efficient like a well-oiled machine wasn't one of them.

A fun modern example is Saudi Arabia, which has long had two separate air forces (the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Saudi National Air Force), pretty much to make it harder to launch a coup (you need to take control of both institutions, otherwise the planes from one will shoot down the planes from the other on coup day).

e: One of the things 40K does get right is pointing out that the Imperium is really badly run and inefficient and pointlessly wasteful and riven with petty political intrigue as befits a decrepit sprawling totalitarian megastate.

FMguru fucked around with this message at 18:47 on May 7, 2017

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!


Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign Part Five: "At least 75-85% of all Coalition troops are anti-human and pro-Coalition fanatics. "

Palladium editing!


"The Emperor said my mustache needs more of a trim on the sides. I wonder why he said that?"

Game Master Tips

The Coalition
Good or Evil?
By Kevin Siembieda


A lot of this is reprinted from Rifts Sourcebook, so you can look at my review of that for the most part. That being said, the fact that this travesty is reprinted and expanded here is worth another quick look.

The main initial change is that he points out is that the Coalition leadership are "fundamentally self-serving villains" who are willing to manipulate and use people to see their Empire built. However, he tries to argue that-

Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign posted:

They genuinely fear nonhumans and believe these creatures will subvert their civilization and destroy humankind. Many humans have experienced or witnessed attacks by supernatural monsters and evil human or D-bee sorcerers, which only substantiates their worst fears and supports the government's propaganda. Consequently, the citizens are not evil when they notify the ISS or NTSET to capture or gun-down a D-bee. Nor are they necessarily evil when an angry or terrified mob traps and kills an invading wizard or mutant who has snuck into the city. After all, by their perception, these characters are not feeling people like them, but monsters that threaten their lives. At best, the fiend is an enemy spy or scavenger who probably has the blood of countless humans on his hands (no doubt killed in their sleep).

Pretty sure racism is not a "get out of morality free" card.

Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign posted:

Stop and think for a minute. Does it matter if the enemy soldier is a bloodthirsty maniac or a person of principled good alignment, a wonderful family man, merciful, and hates war, if he is trying to blow your brains out because he sees you as the enemy? That is the tragedy of war. It's kill or be killed.

Like all good soldiers, theirs is not to question why, theirs is just to do or die! In a life and death conflict one tends to try his hardest to defeat the other. There is little time for thoughts of
morality when one is wrestling with an opponent who is trying to kill him.

Pretty sure war is not a "get out of morality free" card.

Ultimately, Siembieda wants to eat his cake and have it afterwards; he wants an evil faction with skulls run by Neo-Hitler (now with less mustache) complete with toyetic skull walkers buuuut he also doesn't want to demonize an entire group of people so he tries to add nuance on the ground and it doesn't loving work. If you want to have nuance in a game it has to be all the way through. There's all sorts of ways you could humanize the leadership and still have it be awful, have conflict between extremists and moderates, and have the troops on the ground being like "well I follow the example of Senator Not-So-Bad". It's like shouting in the middle of Return of the Jedi "Those ewoks are monsters, those stormtroopers have families!" That may be so, but as long as they're working for the wrinkly guy who is so evil he can fire pain from his fingers, nobody gives a poo poo. Finn in The Force Awakens is a good example of somebody who's working for a similar regime, and when he has an attack of conscience, he betrays and leaves the First Order at the first possible opportunity. Coalition soldiers on the ground might do good things, noble things, but they could also be good and noble and not work for genocidal fascists. Yes, the Coalition keeps your family safe... and so could Lazlo... or Kingsdale... or the Colorado Baronies...

Man, I'm gonna need all the italics for this book, I swear.

But hey, as the book reminds use, you can have a delightful time playing a racist dope that might learn to be less racist and less dopey! They may never actually overcome that racism, but maybe they're not that bad a guy after all- ugh. Just... ngh. Nnnnnngh.


A haircut you could land a skycycle on.

Role-Playing Officers

Let's run the odds of being allowed to play an officer!

Officers need to have an I.Q. of 10 and a 14 in one other attribute. That's about... a 42% chance. But that's only if you're "from a wealthy, powerful or influential family". If you're not, you need a 10 in another attribute, that drops it to about 27%. But why would you care about qualifying for an officer? Well, firstly you get paid more. Secondly, you're just better. You get small bonuses to Horror Factor, Mental Endurance, and communications skills, and then get extra skills as you level up. Not a big deal, but there's no downside, so qualifying only makes you better. We then get over a page of agonizing detail of if you're a leader you better roleplay that poo poo right, prole. We also get long sections about what makes you a bad leader (i.e. being Snidely Whiplash) and what makes you a good leader (i.e. being Dudley Do-Right).


Female grunt and officer. male grunt and officer.

Coalition Military Chain of Command
By Julius Rosenstein & Kevin Siembieda


This is a long, long list of ranks, insignia, and pay grades, which is useful for those wanting to play their not-Nazis but about exciting as sugarfree gum. Unlike what it said above, some classes just start as officers, which seems to contradict the requirements to become an officer above... or is it combined with the requirements above? Well, we're back to Siembieda and he doesn't know or give a poo poo, so we don't either. For some reason the Coalition rank list for various Coalition classes includes "Crazy" as a class, which is incorrect (they're noncoms, for the record). There's bonus pay for combat and hazards, details on rank ceilings (notably, dog boys can only advance to noncoms, and never command humans), "Brevet" ranks used to fill temporary gaps in command structure, mercenaries and service specialists hired outside of the normal command structures, notes on uniforms and insignia (unironic Death Head's usage, hope you don't get sick of that)-

Rifts World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign posted:

Because of their number of various ranks (four), Generals are sometimes unofficially referred to by the number of their bars, i.e. "2-Bar General," etc.; just as their pre-Rifts counterparts were referred to by their number of stars. Due to this informal practice (and with soldiers being how they are), a number of jokes have arisen dealing with some Generals' decisions being based on a lack of sobriety. Although these comments are neither automatically meant as (or serve as grounds for) insubordination, how they are received is often up to the General in question. For example, Field Marshal Prosek has generally taken these comments in good humor while the staff of General Underhill has quickly learned to avoid such jokes while in earshot of their irascible commander.

Coalition humor, everyone. :geno:

We next get a run-down of qualification badges, medals, and awards; the highest one is the Imperial Medal of Honor, other notables are the Minnesota Cross to be given upon completion of the Tolkeen offensive (which I guess you can earn years from now when they publish the seven-book series for that...), and the Cybernetic Heart for being wounded (but strangely doesn't seem to involve actually gaining cybernetics). The book warns us not to award medals or promotions too freely, but encourages GMs to come up with their own battle and service ribbons: "This is your chance to be creative, so knock yourselves out; we're fairly sure that Prosek won't object." We're given minimum levels for given ranks depending if you're an officer or a private (grunts level faster but it doesn't matter because they're still ranks behind to begin with), as if rank somehow directly correlates with competence. In addition, PCs aren't allowed to rank above Corporal. Can't have PCs becoming important or impacting the setting, after all! :v:

Shell-Shock Rules (optional)
Horror Factor on the Battlefield
By Pat Nowak and Kevin Siembieda


So, now we have rules for post-traumatic stress disorder - and yeah, that term had been out for nearly two decades when this was written, so "shell shock" is more than a bit antiquated. Shell shock is, at heart, treated as a form of insanity to be assigned to PCs at a whim. There's no system as to how or when it should be assigned, but GMs are told to be "fair and reasonable" about it and that it's "less common than one might think".

When somebody suffers from shell shock, they have to make a roll against a horror factor determined by the source of trauma. If the roll is successful, the character gets minor combat penalties (the worst of which is losing an attack) no matter what. If the roll fails, the character loses an entire round, then has to roll again - and even if you succeed there, your combat bonuses and attacks are halved.

And, once again, I'd mention there are no rules for either assigning, avoiding, or overcoming shell shock, so all you can do is hope your GM is nice enough to avoid inflicting it on you. Great rules, guys.

Next: This is the enemy.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 21:47 on May 7, 2017

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Young Freud posted:

Yep. There's a saying where that national governments have the choice in its employees being either competent or loyal, and autocracies will go for loyalty every time. The Middle East is filled with the relics of collapsed governments like Libya and Syria that have done this.

Another way of looking at it is that most government employees will be skilled in one of two things: doing their job, or getting their job. Autocratic systems heavily favor the latter.

FMguru posted:

e: One of the things 40K does get right is pointing out that the Imperium is really badly run and inefficient and pointlessly wasteful and riven with petty political intrigue as befits a decrepit sprawling totalitarian megastate.

It's very generous to call the Imperium a megastate. That might apply to Ultramar, but that place is literally run by eternally loyal and competent superhuman warrior-politicians. It's literal space feudalism, where journeys between fiefdoms are long and dangerous and even delivering messages is difficult.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Young Freud posted:

Yep. There's a saying where that national governments have the choice in its employees being either competent or loyal, and autocracies will go for loyalty every time. The Middle East is filled with the relics of collapsed governments like Libya and Syria that have done this.

You can also add in the fact that the Coalition keeps the majority of its population deliberately uneducated, meaning the majority of recruits are going to be functionally incompetent at many things that matter, or at least woefully ignorant... against a supernatural set of foes that require not only sophisticated tactics, but a strong knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. You really, really don't want soldiers relying solely on information to be filtered down to them regarding how to, say, kill vampires.

Daeren
Aug 18, 2009

YER MUSTACHE IS CROOKED

Alien Rope Burn posted:

You can also add in the fact that the Coalition keeps the majority of its population deliberately uneducated, meaning the majority of recruits are going to be functionally incompetent at many things that matter, or at least woefully ignorant... against a supernatural set of foes that require not only sophisticated tactics, but a strong knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. You really, really don't want soldiers relying solely on information to be filtered down to them regarding how to, say, kill vampires.

The Cheiron Group in Hunter: the Vigil does this half on accident, half on purpose, and it's incredibly funny. Their corporate guidebooks about monster hunting and weaknesses are often full of absolute bullshit...but editing and defacing company property is against regulations and will earn censure, so the few people who have the balls to write in corrections and try to distribute them tend to get a less than pleasant response.

And that's assuming the corrections are even right. What worked for one Dracula may not work for another.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

FMguru posted:

Another big problem with autocracies and totalitarian governments is that the leader often structures them with multiple competing power groups (to prevent any underling from amassing a large enough power base to challenge him).
Kim il Sung was a loving genius at this.

quote:

The nazis were really good for this, as it had several whole competing armies (not just the Regular Army and the SS, but even things like the Lufwaffe having 800,000 of its own ground troops) each with its own doctrine and procurement and organizational structure and equipment and chains of command. That was a lot of things, but efficient like a well-oiled machine wasn't one of them.
Either FDR or Truman once said, paraphrased, "The Marine Corps has a PR machine that is only matched by Stalin."

quote:

A fun modern example is Saudi Arabia, which has long had two separate air forces (the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Saudi National Air Force), pretty much to make it harder to launch a coup (you need to take control of both institutions, otherwise the planes from one will shoot down the planes from the other on coup day).
Not to mention two separate police forces, but AFAIK the mutaween and the technically actual police are hand-in-glove.

wiegieman posted:

It's very generous to call the Imperium a megastate. That might apply to Ultramar, but that place is literally run by eternally loyal and competent superhuman warrior-politicians. It's literal space feudalism, where journeys between fiefdoms are long and dangerous and even delivering messages is difficult.
It's sort of like an ancient Chinese dynasty, insofar as the area over which they claim dominion is far larger than the area over which the central government can actually exercise control, or even know what the gently caress is going on.

When this sort of thing shows up in movies, people who think they're smart call it stupid and a "plot hole."

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Kavak posted:

If that's true, then I'm even more convinced they got the idea for Temporis from Dio. Time manipulation and vampires is such a weird combination that it's hard to see them coming up with it in a vacuum.
Bear in mind that "they" are, as far as I know, Steven C. Brown. He was the primary author on the first versions of the Player's Guide and Storyteller's Handbook to the Sabbat, as well as Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. When he left White Wolf he went on to create The Everlasting series.

He has some, uh, peculiar ideas about how to do the Dark Modern Urban Fantasy genre, and time-manipulating vampires is one of his not-so-over-the-top ideas. I have a couple essays worth of analysis on his style already written when I get around to the Sabbat books.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Alien Rope Burn posted:

You can also add in the fact that the Coalition keeps the majority of its population deliberately uneducated, meaning the majority of recruits are going to be functionally incompetent at many things that matter, or at least woefully ignorant... against a supernatural set of foes that require not only sophisticated tactics, but a strong knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. You really, really don't want soldiers relying solely on information to be filtered down to them regarding how to, say, kill vampires.

The alternative is just throw bodies at it, which you need huge populations to do. And, of course, that means you need lots and lots of women popping out kids.

You know, gently caress it, next time I run Rifts, the Coalition's going to be a horrible place: full-on Republic of Gilead with fertile women pumping out kids until their vaginas fall out; infertile or genetically-undesirable women (which, being the post-apocalypse, would be a lot) forced to fight on the front lines, Imperator Furiosa style; indentured servitude and slavery; penal battalions; collective punishment against families and communities; Coalition using their second-class or non citizens in the 'burbs as buffer zones filled with human shields, like the folks living near outer walls in "Attack On Titan"; child labor (tiny hands are needed to scrub the insides of those laser barrels); etc. Meanwhile, everyone's in the Coalition is justifying it as "it has to be done for humans to still live" while things looks like some sort of DPRK on the Illinois.

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin
Just want to mention that Aethera hits all the ideal and actual fascist notes with the human government. And personally I'd rather play Pathfinder than Rifts.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

Dareon posted:

Just want to mention that Aethera hits all the ideal and actual fascist notes with the human government. And personally I'd rather play Pathfinder than Rifts.

Every part of this is true.

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

In my mind, Siembieda is juuust on the right side of the line seperating "you're simply ignorant about why what you are writing is offensive" from "you are a horrible person for having these views". It's something that struck me when reading the NGR book and the Gypsy OCC: as much as I wanted to get my hate boner on, it was all too stupid for me to think that it was actually malicious.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Dareon posted:

Just want to mention that Aethera hits all the ideal and actual fascist notes with the human government. And personally I'd rather play Pathfinder than Rifts.

To be fair, I think "nuanced politics in setting design" is pretty low on the list of reasons people might turn to play Rifts.

Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Dareon posted:

And personally I'd rather play Pathfinder than Rifts.

my dude you are extremely in luck, i Have Plans for the next one after this



13th Age part 20: +1 List Burst Chapter, and The End of Our Tale

Magic items in 13th Age come in two varieties: True Magic Items, and consumables. True magic items all have permanent magical abilities, a generic numeric boost based on their tier (adventurer/champion/epic, as with levels) and "chakra" (item slot), and personalities. Consumables, on the other hand, are what PCs spend their money on: one-shot effects that they get out for the really hard fights.

Magic swords and armor enjoy being enhanced with magic oil

Consumables come in four sorts: healing potions, resistance potions, oils, and runes. By consuming a healing potion instead of simply rallying, you heal an extra d8 damage per tier. Resistance potions give you resist 16+ to attacks of the corresponding type. Oils, when applied to an item, give you the equivalent of a true magic item's numeric bonus to that item for the rest of that fight. For example, a champion sword would give you +2 to hit and damage on top of unique magical effect, but you could apply a champion oil to a mundane sword to get that same +2 bonus. Runes have the same effect as oils when applied to an item, but also add a random additional enhancement.

Consumables, like the inexplicably bloated equipment chapter, are a vestigial remnant of TSR D&D/AD&D's obsession with logistics and preparedness. They don't add very much to 13A, and could probably safely be ignored, especially in games where players have magical gear or have inherent bonuses to offset their lack of magical gear. D&D 4e couldn't figure out what to do with healing potions, and 13A doesn't have any good ideas either.

When you acquire a magic item, it’s yours in a personal way. You probably dream about it.

True magic items are magic swords and boots and hats and such. True magic items aren't for sale. There's no 4e-style magic item shops, and no wish lists. Players aren't expected to pick what they want, but have much less need to do so, since magic items don't enable full character builds in the way that they do in 4e. Similarly, the difference between having on-level magical gear and not having it is much smaller in 13A - and to some degree oils and runes or inherent bonus houserules can cover the gap.

Magic items have personalities, which is the justification for basically all of the rules on how they work. You can't wear two magic hats because one will get jealous and won't work. Magic items aren't for sale because they choose their owners. Some magic items level up with you and some don't because it only happens if a magic items really likes you. Some of these in-universe justifications for out-of-universe balance decisions are The Explanation and some of them are A Possible Explanation. Heinsoo and Tweet really like their idea that magic items are alive, and come back to it often.

These personalities manifest chiefly as quirks. Magic items push their wearers to do things or act in a certain way. It's strictly optional, and there's no mechanical incentive to play along. If you want to act out your magic gear's quirks, you can, if not, whatever. Quirks do have mechanical teeth if you try to use too many magic items simultaneously, however: anyone who is wearing more than their level in magic items starts to be overwhelmed by the personality quirks, and has to live out the quirks. This is not a great idea, although it is presented in a light-hearted way, suggesting that this should only be allowed if "you’re some type of seriously trustworthy semi-masochistic method actor".

A sidebar with Rob Heinsoo's goofy little rune thing that I have to look up every single goddamned time posted:

Don’t be surprised if one player turns out to love playing with too many items a little too much. Getting everyone else to put your character on center stage and then kick you is a form of attention. Parties with that type of player-dynamic should feel no obligation to keep their over-quirked ally alive.

I don't understand why they suggest this fishmalk trap rule, then immediately and correctly suggest you not use it. It's doubly baffling because the next section, on "chakras", says that you just can't wear two different sets of magic boots because they won't get along, and that's that.

Most magic items grant the wearer a flat numeric bonus, based on their tier and the sort of item they are. Adventurer items are +1, champion +2, and epic +3. The enhanced stat corresponds to the slot: weapons and magic implements increase to-hit and damage, clothes or armor increase AC, shields increase HP (with the boost applying per level), etc. There's no such thing as a vanilla +1 sword, however: instead, magic items all have an ability. Magic item abilities are mostly continuous or conditional, and thematically linked to the item's quirk. A necklace of protection applies a penalty to hit to any enemy in melee with you that tries to target one of your allies, and its wearer tends to be overly familiar with people. A sword of abandon applies its damage bonus to the first hit, every single fight, and its wielder tends to blurt out obscenities. When an ability is a single-use power, it's almost always a recharge power, similar to recharge powers from class abilities.

Annoyingly, recharge magic item powers don't work like recharge class abilities. You roll to recharge all of your expended recharge class abilities after every single fight, regardless of whether you used that ability last fight. On the other hand, magic items only get a recharge check after the fight in which they were used. This appears to be an editing error: the magic item style of recharge is explicitly discussed and rejected in a sidebar on recharge class abilities. This section is filled with editing errors that appear to be leftovers from earlier iterations of the rules. For example, it's suggested that sorcerers and wizards would prefer "magic shirts", even though they can wear the same light armor as most classes.

13th Age only has magic items because it's D&D and it's supposed to. Tracking all of the various little powers that magic items give you is the exact sort of annoying recordkeeping that every other system in 13A stripped away. Tier-based bonuses are boring +1 sword paperwork hassle that screws up the math curve, and could easily have been disposed of. Magic item powers are all focused on specifically game-mechanical effects rather than broader magical tools - there isn't anything as interesting and weird as the Immovable Rod, or even rules for a sword that lights on fire. Bad rules, bad ideas, boring items - this entire chapter feels like some second-rate 3PP magic item collection PDF that is perpetually 80% off its $2.50 list price on DriveThruRPG.

Introductory Adventure At Introduction Tower

There's a brief one-shot introductory adventure that I'd rather not spoil for anyone who does want to try it. It has some neat ideas, like adapting the adventure to emphasize different icons, but it's mostly a series of combat encounters set up to show off both combat rules and encounter building rules. It doesn't offer very much advice for the GM if the players get an idea of the plot and try to shortcut it, or if the players just wander off. The latter is a significant problem, because the PCs are most likely to figure out what's actually going on at the point where they can most easily just skip town. I suppose that's to be expected of an adventure nine pages long including stat blocks plus a couple pages of art, but it's disappointing that it's just a series of fights.

After that is the index and game term glossary, a series of appendices with common tables, the Open Game License legal block, and a reminder of who each icon is and what it is they do.

The End

13th Age occupies an odd niche. It incorporates lots of storygame swine ideas into a stripped down tactical wargame mechanical chassis based on WOTC D&D. It's the perfect game for people who like WOTC D&D editions in spite of their rules, rather than because of them. Heinsoo and Tweet have successfully broken out of the D20 trap of strict mechanic-focused design, where each new ability restricts the design space as much as it expands it. In large part, this is because they go ahead and tell the reader, in their own voice, how and why they arrived at these rules. They go far beyond having a "rule zero" and expose their thinking and design process, and invite the reader to continue that process in adapting 13th Age for their own campaigns.

That said, 13th Age is reactionary, and doesn't have much to offer people who are not already interested in a variation on WOTC D&D. Character creation is too involved to allow for the easy-die-easy-reroll playstyle of TSR D&D (or successful imitators like many OSR games and WHFRP 2e). Combat is simplified, but still so complex that all characters must be able and willing to fight or else find themselves left out of the most complex, time-consuming conflict resolution system. 13th Age has plenty of WOTC D&D sacred cows it could easily do away with - ability scores, feats - but doesn't, and they can't be easily stripped from the game with houserules. It permanently lives in the shadow of the games it responds to. 13A can never have as much crap in it as D&D 3e, Pathfinder, 4e, and 5e do. If you want more monsters, more items, more feats, more classes, more character options - if you like WOTC D&D for what it is rather than simply because it's all you know - then 13th Age has relatively little to offer you. Its combat is stripped down to the bare bones, and its other conflict resolution systems are heavily reliant on a negotiation between the player and GM rather than clearly defined game mechanical effects.

13th Age also lives in the shadow of Strike and Dungeon World, both of which live in its exact same niche of WOTC D&D-inspired games for the would-be storygamer set. Strike is much more flexible, isn't tied down to heroic swords-and-sorcery fantasy, and focuses more on what made 4e unique than what defines WOTC D&D in general. Dungeon World overlays an abstraction of D&D combat onto Apocalypse World's playbook/move structure. Like 13th Age, those games are also somewhat creaky hybrids, but they both have a clearer vision of what they are and what they want to do than 13th Age does.

A large part of what makes Heinsoo's and Tweet's vision so unclear is how jumbled and poorly edited this book is. 13th Age does a good job of explaining not only how to fail forward at skill rolls and why you want to do that, but this key idea is introduced once and not incorporated into later discussions of either skill rolls or mitigated failure in the context of other systems. Icon relationships, a flagship feature, have incredibly muddled rules that don't interact with the rest of the game in a clear way. 13th Age is a looser D&D that allows players to more directly control the narrative beyond specifically-articulated abilities from skill lists and class powers, but it's difficult to figure out how and why without carefully rereading and cross-referencing.

13th Age is a heartbreaker. It's a fascinating response to criticism of D&D 3e (and its successors, Pathfinder and 5e) and D&D 4e. It takes those lessons and uses them as a guide to strip down the WOTC D&D framework to its bare skeleton, using ideas from games that cede more narrative control to the players to flesh out the body afterward. As a result, it's a lot more inspired and interesting than most D&D-but-different games, but the quality of writing and editing drop precipitously when they leave familiar D&D territory. I hope this review helps people extract those ideas, either to emphasize the strengths of 13th Age relative to its contemporaries, or to incorporate them in their own games or campaigns.

Next: Horrible Adventures

Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 8, 2017

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Magic Items in 13th Age suck. The whole 'Item influences' thing is the worst; one of the problems in D&D was often feeling like you were playing a carrier for a ton of magic baubles that did the real work. Having them directly influence you with fishmalk quirks is just irritatingly stupid.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso


Godlike, Chapter IX: TOG Commando Squads

Chapter 9 covers the organization and training of the TOG (“Talent Operations Group”) commando squads. The focus is on American Talents, but all Allied TOG training is organized under British administration anyway.

The TOC

When the first American Talents appeared, they were under the command of whatever branch of the armed forces claimed them first. In March 1942, President Roosevelt created the Talent Operations Command, an organization which reported only to the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After a Talent is evaluated by Section Two, voting committees with representatives from each branch of service would negotiate where they will be assigned. It could take months for a powerful Talent to be evaluated, assigned, trained, and finally deployed.

The TOG

In February 1942, General Eisenhower had commissioned a study to determine the best way to employ Talents in warfare. The thesis of the “Eisenhower Plan” was that Talents should be spread thinly across the front line of the war, going before regular troops to counter enemy Talents and demoralize their troops. It was quickly decided that Talents in the Army would have a special purpose. Those with appropriate powers would be service troops, handling transportation and logistics. The rest would form a special unit and be trained in hit-and-run tactics and behind-the-lines attacks.

This unit, the Talent Operations Group, would be split into many 9-man squads and trained in commando tactics. Because the U.S. Army had no school for unconventional warfare, and because Eisenhower was a proponent of Allied cooperation, they decided that all Allied TOG groups would be trained at the Commando Basic Training Center at Achnacarry Castle, Scotland.

The modern commando was born in WWII. There’s no point in me teaching you what you could learn better from Wikipedia, so to sum up: The word “commando” comes from the Afrikaans kommando. The British learned guerilla warfare tactics from being on the receiving end of them in the Boer War and the Arab Revolt in Palestine. Early British commando operations suffered setbacks, failures, and a great deal of resistance within the military, but by 1942 they were a potent weapon in the British arsenal.



Training at Achnacarry

Achnacarry Castle was in fact a training center for British Commandos and U.S. Army Rangers. In the world of Godlike, it’s a brutally difficult commando training school, designed to push even the strongest men to their breaking point. Talents are given special consideration when applying, but there’s no guaranteed that they’ll be accepted, or that they’ll graduate. Nothing is guaranteed at Achnacarry--not even survival. Live-fire exercises are the rule, and by the end of 1942, ten men had already died in accidents.

Training at Achnacarry lasts 12 weeks. Drill instructors with stopwatches goad their trainees through grueling obstacle courses full of mud pits, barbed wire, ladders, and smoke-filled rooms. Trainees can be pulled out of bed for impromptu drills at any hour, and the courses are randomly made more difficult to force trainees to think on their feet. Those who can’t handle these “Achnacarry Surprises” wash out early.

Weapons training begins with hand-to-hand combat the first week, and trainees work their way up from knives to rifles to machine guns to mortars. Talents are subject to surprise lessons in Talent-on-Talent combat. You never know when an obstacle course will become a lesson in how to avoid being teleported, or fight off an invisible man with a knife.

Survival training is a vital component of the course, teaching trainees how to hunt, set fires, and camouflage themselves. This training builds up to a final “week of hell” in which they live off the land, alone, with nothing but a knife. Training in cross-country movement includes long forced marches, climbing, fording rivers, and building rope ladders and bridges. These exercises are often punctuated with a mock assault for good measure. The “final exam” is a mock assault on the beach of a nearby lake, complete with live fire, hidden explosive charges, and random Talent attacks.

Those who graduate from Achnacarry are awarded a green beret, a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger, and the TOG shoulder patch bearing the logo “We Go First.” In game terms, they can also be assumed to have a particular set of skills measuring the depth and breadth of their training.



TOG Deployment

TOG squads are attached to U.S. Infantry Divisions and placed under the command of that unit. Sometimes they’re detached to act as shock troops, but by default they act as commando units. They go ahead of the front line to scout enemy positions and attack enemy Talents. Failing that, they cause as much havoc as possible behind enemy lines.


TOG 141: “Miller’s Hellions”

TOG 141 is attached to the 29th U.S. Infantry under the command of Cpt. Paul Richards. Richards is mainly concerned with his battalion of riflemen and is not very concerned with the Talents. But as the only TOG attached to the battalion, "Miller’s Hellions" are likely to see a lot of action, and Richards will use them as distractions and even assassins if possible. As a group, the Hellions behave according to military protocol in public and for the brass. But within the group, relations are very informal, and everyone is encouraged to speak up if they have any concerns about the mission.

Miller’s Hellions are an example of a “typical” nine-man TOG squad. They can be used piecemeal as supporting characters in a campaign, particularly as temporary backups when a PC dies. They're all built like starting characters with the commando template, with 25 Will points of Talent powers, so some of them have potent but unusual and quirky powers.

1st Lieutenant Alan Miller is a former logger from Tacoma, Washington. He has two children, and a mother who has raised them since their mother died in childbirth. Miller acts confident, but fears that he will lose his nerve and his men’s respect when he faces real combat.

Miller has a unique Talent: he can “inhale” objects he touches, making them vanish for a time. The larger the object, the shorter a time he can hold it. People he “inhales” have no memory of their time within the no-space of his Talent.

1st Sergeant Harvey Braden volunteered after discovering his power, and was recommended for officer training after graduating Achnacarry. He sees Miller as a father figure, and shares the same secret fear of breaking down in combat. He wants to make it home to his family having served with distinction.

Braden discovered his Talent while playing catch with his little brother. He can run up walls, and even across ceilings, as long as he doesn’t slow down.

Pvt. Anthony “The Stripper” Colombadas is a good kid from Long Island. He spent his formative years as a thug and a petty criminal, but only to support his mother and siblings. He volunteered out of patriotism, and discovered his power during training while being bullied by visiting colonel. He’s proved himself an effective commando trainee with or without his power, and is well-liked by everyone for his sense of humour. He’d like to see his family’s ancestral home in Portaferrio, Italy before returning home.

Anthony’s nickname comes from his power to teleport clothes--and only clothes. His power can’t steal weapons or ammo, but it does steal lightweight effects like wallets and maps. (Rendering someone stark naked on a battlefield also tends to have a psychological effect.)

Pvt. Lucas Devers is a Texan farm boy whose early life was marked by the Great Depression. After marrying, he settled down and started a successful corn and cattle farm in Illinois. He volunteered after discovering his power in a farming accident; his Talent saved him from being crushed by a tractor he was working on when the jack gave way. Devers carries a photo of his wife and two sons, and his ambition is to buy the farm his family lost in Texas. Before he does that, he really really wants to kill Hitler.

Devers’ Talent is Hyperbody--but only for the purposes of throwing. He can’t lift and hold heavy objects, but he can grab them and sling them. He can throw hand grenades incredible distances.

Pvt. Erich Kilchess is a natural athlete and star basketball player from Chicago. Kilchess comes from a devout Jewish family, but he pretends to be Catholic, having transferred to a Catholic high school to play for their team. Like Colombadas, he discovered his power in basic training and was fast-tracked to commando school. Kilchess is a know-it-all with a lousy attitude who openly disrespects the lieutenant, and his teammates consider him a bully. He spends his free time looking for ways to make easy money, which he grudgingly sends to his family.

Kilchess has the power to detonate any explosive by flipping it the bird. (He discovered his power in training when his grenade turned out to be a dud.) He can detonate individual bullets, grenades, shells, anything, but he needs to have a clear line of sight and brandish his middle finger at it.

Pvt. Vincent Manahan is the son of Irish immigrants. He spent his childhood working odd jobs before joining the Army, which made his parents proud. He discovered his power in basic training when he used it to save a man from being crushed by a falling half-ton bale of telephone wire. He completed officer training but was denied a commission. This doesn’t bother him much, and he’s charge of communications for the squad. Manahan is good-natured and so affable that even Kilchess doesn’t hate him.

Manahan’s Talent allows him to “freeze” objects so that they are temporarily unaffected by momentum and gravity. But this power only works on objects that are not currently touching the ground.

Pvt. John Miceweski was orphaned at age two when a house fire killed his family. He was raised in a Catholic orphanage and was the world’s biggest Der Flieger fan--until the day he burned it all. As an adult, he was a foundry worker until he was drafted into the Army. Like Kilchess, he discovered his power during a basic training exercise. Miceweski is a happy, friendly person who thinks of his teammates as family. His attitude and work ethic make him a favourite of Lt. Miller.

Miceweski’s has the power to fly, but cannot rise about 40 feet due to an acute fear of heights.

Pvt. Peter “The Professor” Moss is a bookworm from Westchester, New York, who preferred to spend his childhood lost in books rather than being taunted for being unusually tall and thin. He was attending Queens College when he was drafted. Moss is deathly afraid of firearms, which has caused him numerous disciplinary problems and is the source of his Talent. At Achnacarry, he reluctantly trained as a sniper. His teammates call him “Professor” because of his intelligence and education; he’s teaching himself French and German. He is quiet but profound, and well-liked by everyone but Kilchess.

Moss’ Talent is to “see” guns, glowing a ghostly green, even through earth, walls, and other obstacles. Unfortunately, his Talent makes him a beacon to other Talents when active.

Pvt. Daniel “Crystal Ball” Newman grew up in New York City and has spent most of his life betting on horses. When his Talent manifested, he accidentally used it to win the streak of a lifetime, but he didn’t actually discover it until “Knuckles” Derisito, a Talent aligned with the Genovese family, spotted him using his Talent and had him beaten half to death. Newman joined the Army for protection. Newman is quiet and thoughtful, and his whispered advice to the lieutenant is usually heeded.

Newman is a potent precognitive. The only flaw in his Talent is that he cannot read letters, only numbers, during his precognitive visions.


Next time on Godlike: Optional Rules and stats for some of the most famous Talents.

gourdcaptain
Nov 16, 2012

Night10194 posted:

Magic Items in 13th Age suck. The whole 'Item influences' thing is the worst; one of the problems in D&D was often feeling like you were playing a carrier for a ton of magic baubles that did the real work. Having them directly influence you with fishmalk quirks is just irritatingly stupid.

It's like someone heard the "magic items aren't interesting" complaint about 4e and decided to fix it in the dumbest possible way.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




Night10194 posted:

Magic Items in 13th Age suck. The whole 'Item influences' thing is the worst; one of the problems in D&D was often feeling like you were playing a carrier for a ton of magic baubles that did the real work. Having them directly influence you with fishmalk quirks is just irritatingly stupid.

Yeah. I don't think any of the players (including me) in the 13A campaign I played a while ago ever really bothered with their quirks as we got magical items.
It's not all that great of an idea.

Strange Matter
Oct 6, 2009

Ask me about Genocide

Halloween Jack posted:


Pvt. Anthony “The Stripper” Colombadas is a good kid from Long Island. He spent his formative years as a thug and a petty criminal, but only to support his mother and siblings. He volunteered out of patriotism, and discovered his power during training while being bullied by visiting colonel. He’s proved himself an effective commando trainee with or without his power, and is well-liked by everyone for his sense of humour. He’d like to see his family’s ancestral home in Portaferrio, Italy before returning home.

Anthony’s nickname comes from his power to teleport clothes--and only clothes. His power can’t steal weapons or ammo, but it does steal lightweight effects like wallets and maps. (Rendering someone stark naked on a battlefield also tends to have a psychological effect.)
All of these guys are amazing, but this guy has my mind spinning. Does it work at range? Can he affect multiple people at once? How far away can he teleport the clothing?

So many questions.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 7 hours!
Obviously the thing to do is get him to a Nazi rally.
Hitler had some body issues, undress him and call him fat.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Strange Matter posted:

All of these guys are amazing, but this guy has my mind spinning. Does it work at range? Can he affect multiple people at once? How far away can he teleport the clothing?

So many questions.

Also, defining 'clothing' when it comes to a soldier's gear and uniform is...not as easy as it sounds.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Strange Matter posted:

All of these guys are amazing, but this guy has my mind spinning. Does it work at range? Can he affect multiple people at once? How far away can he teleport the clothing?

So many questions.

Mors Rattus posted:

Also, defining 'clothing' when it comes to a soldier's gear and uniform is...not as easy as it sounds.
His power teleports the clothes to his location, so it's a lot like the Fetch power (which teleports objects at range, but only into your grasp). He can teleport any clothes that he can see, so he could use it to steal clothes from a clothesline or a shop window. It doesn't take weapons, ammo, other equipment, or the belts that hold them, so his power would leave a soldier stark naked except for his bandoliers and holsters and such. You can radio your Obersturmbannfuhrer to let him know your schwanzstucker is lieben.

The default Teleportation power has a chart that gives maximum weight and distance based on your pool, and you can increase distance by lowering mass. (Someone with Teleportation 6D could teleport 500 lbs. a thousand miles, or they could teleport a 2-ton truck a hundred miles!) Teleportation requires touch while Anthony's Teleport Clothes power does not. He has Teleport Clothes 5D, but because of the nature of his power, mass and distance aren't really a concern.

This does raise a question about range in Godlike. Unless I missed something, there are no default rules for the range of a power like Harm or Instant Death--the effective range is the range of your perception, or line-of-sight. Imagine what a sniper could do with those powers while spotting his target through a scope. I'd probably have to house rule that.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 14:32 on May 8, 2017

Poland Spring
Sep 11, 2005
Imagine what havok the dude could unleash once live television broadcasts became a thing

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
That power seems like it'd be really useful in a slightly higher tech setting. Imagine that dude in some kind of space setting: just vanish the spacesuits right off the boarding party and go back to work.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

In WW2 it's still deadly...in the Eastern Front in winter.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

A commando who can teleport maps and documents to himself also sounds really goddamn useful.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 7 hours!

Mors Rattus posted:

In WW2 it's still deadly...in the Eastern Front in winter.

Send him to post encirclement Stalingrad and see how long it takes the stupid trapped army to surrender.

Strange Matter
Oct 6, 2009

Ask me about Genocide

Night10194 posted:

A commando who can teleport maps and documents to himself also sounds really goddamn useful.
I wonder if it's discerning enough for that. Like can you just teleport some guy's left boot, or is full frontal or nothing?

Then again if you know the guy has a map your CO probably won't care if you also snatched the pants he was keeping it in too (unless you don't want them knowing you took it).

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

wdarkk posted:

That power seems like it'd be really useful in a slightly higher tech setting. Imagine that dude in some kind of space setting: just vanish the spacesuits right off the boarding party and go back to work.
Godlike doesn't address using your power on someone you perceive via television, because it's not an issue. (Sure, someone could set up an experiment with an iconoscope, but who cares?) But Wild Talents has a universal range chart, based on your die pool, and range maxes out at about 5,000 yards. And by default, powers require actual line of sight.

Otherwise, the Godlike/WT universe ends the moment a crazed supervillain starts flipping through TV channels, using whatever power to assassinate Eisenhower, Krushchev, Mao, Attlee, Walter Cronkite, Jack Benny, and Captain Video.

Strange Matter posted:

I wonder if it's discerning enough for that. Like can you just teleport some guy's left boot, or is full frontal or nothing?
It teleports clothes and the stuff inside them, but it doesn't say it must teleport their entire outfit, so sure. So you can just take someone's pants but not their underwear. Or just their shoes. I figure Feuerzauber's biggest concern for most of the war was running around on a battlefield buck naked after his own power had blasted his shoes off.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:39 on May 8, 2017

JackMann
Aug 11, 2010

Secure. Contain. Protect.
Fallen Rib

Night10194 posted:

Magic Items in 13th Age suck. The whole 'Item influences' thing is the worst; one of the problems in D&D was often feeling like you were playing a carrier for a ton of magic baubles that did the real work. Having them directly influence you with fishmalk quirks is just irritatingly stupid.

When I converted a setting from 13th Age to Savage Worlds, one of my biggest frustrations was that a lot of the adventures and setting stuff assumed magic items were a default, while Savage Worlds doesn't really have a good set of magic item rules. I've been working on something to replace the current rules, mostly stripping out the stuff that gives static bonuses and Edges and giving GMs a guide on about how many magic items a character should have at a given rank.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

Halloween Jack posted:

Godlike doesn't address using your power on someone you perceive via television, because it's not an issue. (Sure, someone could set up an experiment with an iconoscope, but who cares?) But Wild Talents has a universal range chart, based on your die pool, and range maxes out at about 5,000 yards. And by default, powers require actual line of sight.

Otherwise, the Godlike/WT universe ends the moment a crazed supervillain starts flipping through TV channels, using whatever power to assassinate Eisenhower, Krushchev, Mao, Attlee, Walter Cronkite, Jack Benny, and Captain Video.

I think you quoted the wrong post there.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The more important part of what sucks about 13th Age Magic Items is there isn't much guidance on when to hand them out and how. They play up how they're a super rare and important thing that players should only get through adventure, but give no real guidance on how they fit into the system math or general encounter building. Are you supposed to assume players have a full suite of magic gear for their level as part of the normal calculation for challenging encounters? Are they supposed to be upgrading everything to the next tier as they get there? If that stuff's in there I've never been able to find it.

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Cease to Hope
Dec 12, 2011

Night10194 posted:

The more important part of what sucks about 13th Age Magic Items is there isn't much guidance on when to hand them out and how. They play up how they're a super rare and important thing that players should only get through adventure, but give no real guidance on how they fit into the system math or general encounter building. Are you supposed to assume players have a full suite of magic gear for their level as part of the normal calculation for challenging encounters? Are they supposed to be upgrading everything to the next tier as they get there? If that stuff's in there I've never been able to find it.

there is, but it's scattered. the magic item section is the only time it's suggested that they're rare. everywhere else, PCs are expected to have the full suite of bonuses, either from items or oils/runes, and that you should just go ahead and give them magic items all over the place from icon rolls or successful adventures. it's also mentioned in a couple places that you should just give them tier-1 to everything as inherent bonuses if you're not using magic items.

the greater problem is that having +1 swords at all is pointless. it could be easily incorporated into the basic leveling/monster stat math, with magic items producing ONLY their fantastic effects.

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