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#powered by the apocalypse
valtharr · 13 days
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Pictures that make a "the only TTRPG I know is D&D"-person spontaneously combust:
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This is the entirety of the magic mechanics in the game "Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined"
I'm keeping this post for the next time I hear someone say they don't want to try a new game because it's too hard to learn a new system.
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If you want as a bonus you can tell me about how you started in the tags when you reblog I love hearing peoples’ TTRPG stories :)
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Have you played THIRSTY SWORD LESBIANS ?
By April Kit Walsh
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Thirsty Sword Lesbians battle the Lady of Chains when her enforcers march down from the frosty north. They rocket through the stars to safeguard diplomats ending a generations-old conflict. Even when swords are crossed, they seek peace with their opponent—and sometimes connect more deeply than anyone expects.
A sword duel can end in kissing, a witch can gain her power by helping others find love, and an entire campaign can be built around wandering  matchmakers flying from system to system.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a roleplaying game for telling queer stories with friends. If you love angsty disaster lesbians with swords, you have come to the right place.
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whereserpentswalk · 6 months
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Starting my motw campaign: "Hey, it might be cool to add political intrigue to the magical underworld."
Now, over a year in: "These are the factions that control the former united states."
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probablybadrpgideas · 5 months
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New level up option for all playbooks:
Gets jiggy with it
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We're so excited to have Meg and Vince Baker AND Rae Nedjadi (@temporalhiccup) together to talk Powered by the Apocalpyse for Splat 5!
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tarriecat · 30 days
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So I'm reading Apocalypse World for the first time because I spent my early twenties being bored and stressed in grad school instead of learning cool games and I'm still catching up on the classics, and I was worried I would find it dated or uninteresting in the way that Pioneering Pieces of Media often are, I've played a lot of the kind of first generation of PbtA games but not AW itself, what if this is a Seinfeld Is Unfunny situation, etc
I should not have worried, this game is fucking charming. It's so, like--quirky? I mean that as a high point. It has that personality that you get in a game that really commits to its genre. Like your characters don't have like, "assets" or "inventory," they have "crap." That's great. I love that.
Also, THE PLAYBOOKS AREN'T IN LANDSCAPE?! What?! Are they only like that in the book and the printouts made them landscape? Or did a DIFFERENT PbtA game introduce the now-inescapable landscape format? I need to know! If you know, please tell me!
(Edit: I should specify that I'm reading 1st Ed, as far as I know)
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theresattrpgforthat · 20 days
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SYSTEM OVERVIEW: Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA).
This week I’m taking a break from my regular recommendation posts to talk about some indie ttrpg systems that have gained some well-deserved attention over the years. I’m going to introduce you to how they work, why I like them, and what kinds of games are out there!
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Powered by the Apocalypse is often described by its progenitor as a game philosophy more than a game system. If you want to learn about the ins and outs of Vincent Baker’s thoughts on this game philosophy, I recommend looking at his series of blog posts about the system, starting here.
There are a lot of things that can be housed within the family of PbtA games, but a game that advertises itself as Powered by the Apocalypse is probably going to have the following elements.
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Moves
To do anything, PbtA games have a list of moves available to the whole party, and then certain moves specific to any given players. When you do something that fits the description of the move, you follow the move’s instructions.
Generally, this involves rolling 2d6 and adding a relevant modifier, somewhere between -1 and +3. The most common source of these modifiers comes from player stats, 3-5 player traits assigned to you during character creation that represent your strengths and weaknesses. These traits might be Cool, Sharp, and Hot, like in Apocalypse World, or Spirit, Wit and Heart, like in Thirsty Sword Lesbians, etc.
Other games use different sources of modifiers. In Apocalypse Keys, you’ll spend Tokens gained by roleplaying according to certain prompts, such as feeling lonely or forgotten. In Patchwork World, your modifiers depend on the moves your character takes. Can you become cats? When you burst into 1d6 cats, roll -CATS. Do you have Bee Resonance? You’ll roll +Stress marked.
Some moves might not even require you to roll dice - maybe you just have to use up a resource, or answer a question before that action happens.
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Staggered Successes
PbtA games are not the only games to use this kind of metric, but they’re certainly the most well-known. When you roll dice in these kinds of games, there are generally three different kinds of results you can get: 7-9, 10 and higher, or 6 and below. Usually a 10 or higher allows something spectacular to happen, with a greater amount of narrative control given to the player. A 7-9 is partially successful: the player and GM will likely share narrative control. On a 6 or less, a significant amount of narrative control is given to the GM. 6 or less is usually seen as a turn for the worse, but what that turn looks like is dependant on the game and the genre.
What I like about these results is that regardless of the outcome, the results are meant to be narratively engaging, and push the story forward. Failing to sway the bartender doesn’t stop your plan in its tracks - it leads to the bartender calling forward security, or maybe calling you out on your shit. In a game like Last Fleet, these outcomes push the characters closer and closer to a meltdown. In Urban Shadows 1e, they encourage the characters to deal more intimately with favours and debt. Each outcome should propel you into another fraught situation.
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Social Currency.
Having some kind of personal connection to other characters becomes a useful resource in many PbtA games. At the beginning of the game, you’ll answer leading questions that tie you to other characters, in both positive and negative ways. What exactly that personal connection is depends on the game.
In MASKS, your teenage superheroes have Influence over each-other. This Influence is either present, or it isn’t, but when it’s present, it can be spent to encourage other characters to follow your lead or your orders. In Blood Feud, you can look up to or down upon your fellow players, which will change the nature of how you interact with each-other. In Interstitial, you can spend Heart Links to improve your chances of success, adding modifiers to your roll.
I love these mechanics because they encourage the players to engage with each-other - and their interactions don’t have to always be positive either! Monster-Hearts expects your players to be at each-other’s necks just as often as they might be making out, for example.
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Character Playbooks
Most, though not all, PbtA games have character playbooks - which may not feel like a novel thing, but it’s a big change for folks who are used to putting their character together from a list of options provided in a rulebook. Character playbooks usually provide all of the options for your specific character type on one page. You don’t choose from a big list: you choose a concept, and then select options from that concept.
Often concepts fill out tropes, such as the Git in Pigsmoke, or the Monstrous in Monster of the Week. These may come with pre-assigned stats, or ask you to assign certain stat values as you like. You’ll also choose playbook-specific moves, describe your character, and take note of special advances or forms of harm that may be incurred as you play. This harm might be physical, but it could just as easily be an emotional state, such as in Voidheart Symphony, where your character could become Angry, Callous or Scared.
What I like about this is that it can streamline character creation. If you’re a first-timer to PbtA you might need some guidance, but you can probably still knock out a character in under an hour. If you’re a veteran, you might be able to put a character together in a few minutes.
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Collaborative World-building.
Any given PbtA game is usually inspired by a short list of media or some kind of genre. Brindlewood Bay is inspired by elderly lady detective fiction and eldritch horror. Sunset Kills is inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and similar supernatural-teenager media. However, the specifics of what your group is doing still has to be determined by the group. This means that you’ll have to decide how you met, how you got here, and what the world around you is like.
For some games, like Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, the character choices you’ve made will determine facts about the end-of-the-world you live in. Did you pick titan-slayers? That means there’s titans walking around. Similarly in Comrades, if you pick the Propagandist, you have a newspaper or radio station as part of your rebellion.
I like about this because it affirms one of the core claims of PbtA: the game is a conversation. You begin your Session 0 sharing ideas as a group, with players having just as much say in the creation of the world as the GM. If you want to speed up the game, the GM may propose a setting to make things more specific. I’ve done this in the past with Wolf Hounds, which I wanted to make fit into my Monster Squad campaign last year.
However, even if the GM makes some decisions about the world, the choices the individual players will affect what parts of that world we’ll focus on. I feel like this experience gives a lot more agency to the players, so if you want to run a game but you don’t want to be responsible for everything that lands on the table, you might want to consider something Powered by the Apocalypse.
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There are some elements of PbtA that can provide quite a bit of whiplash for new players. The game is very reactive, which means that it can be difficult for a traditional GM to figure out what to plan. Some games, like The Between, come with modules or adventures that can make it easier to ease into a GM-ing role. I’d also recommend checking out PbtA games that play in genres that both the GM and the group are very familiar with. If you like teenage superheroes, MASKS will probably be fairly easy to pick up. If you're familiar with found-footage horror, you might be more interested in Public Access.
I’ve talked about a number of PbtA games in the past. Let’s take a look at a few that I haven’t mentioned much.
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City of Mist is a game by Son of Oak about ordinary people caught up in supernatural investigations as they grow to embody myths and legends.
Trespassers, by BoughandWave is a game about monsters in a wood - but you are not the scariest things in this forest.
Fight Item Run, by Whimsy Machine, is a game meant to replicate beloved video games about dungeons and magic.
A Monster's Tail, by Five Points Games, is an homage to monster catcher media, such as Pokemon, Digimon, and Jade Cocoon.
If you’re interested in PbtA games, you might also want to check out the collection of PbtA games that I’ve put together on Itch!
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christiansorrell · 4 months
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TTRPG Read-Through: Patchwork World
Here is a read-through I did last year (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the most unique PbtA games I've ever read: Patchwork World by Aaron King! - Christian
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Credits up first. I know a lot of these folks and they are really cool! Excited to dig into this. I've heard good things, and it's been a while since I've read or played any Powered by the Apocalypse.
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This is a cool, strong set up for me. I really like settings that ask characters to face a changing world and either take up change themselves or work to restore the old way of things. It's a headspace I find myself in a lot IRL these days so it's fun to explore.
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I'm interested to see how the no stats, no playbooks angle of this game works, considering playbooks are typically such a staple of PbtA games.
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Standard three-tired success, mixed success, fail forward resolution for rolls here and questions on the moves determine your bonus to the roll. Easy peasy. +2 is the max bonus.
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Other types of rolls are described here. Interested to see how they come into play. I also love clocks and use them in pretty much every game I run so it's nice to see those laid out here too.
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We just love a lil guy, don't we folks?
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A good chunk of the opening here is spent on laying out a lot of solid foundations of roleplaying generally. It feels like a book (so far) that would work for entirely new players. It doesn't feel essential for me, but I never mind a game that supports varied experience levels.
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Character creation is wide open, especially since there aren't playbooks and the text stresses that character creation is very much worldbuilding because of this. Fate-like concepts and tags are in here too which are things I generally enjoy. I like the Drawback mechanic.
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Moves are in the playback I set in the other room so I'm gonna go grab those. You get two chosen moves and everyone has access to a number of default moves. You've got three other life/XP things to keep track of too. I'm especially interested in Hex.
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There are a lot of moves! They seem quite varied and often very weird, fitting well with the titular patchwork world. You can have a duck's slick soul to dodge more easily or a magical space suit or speak to birds or be good at cartography. Overwhelming, but in an exciting way.
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You also choose a community as a party. While PCs all have their original homelands (before the end of the old worlds), you know have a community that gets its own little sheet. This is a cool reshaping of the Gangs from Blades. I also like how the community can change over time.
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Coming back to a PbtA game after months of more OSR-minded stuff, I think a lot of what these games contain are things that experienced players would say you could just do in any game at any time that it makes sense in the story, but I do find value in stating what's possible.
Esp since many players come to games with artificial limits on their options (whether that's from video games, more traditional RPGs, etc.). I just think good GMing here requires making sure that the players don't limit themselves just to the bevy of explicit options either.
GM moves (mostly to guide the response to failed rolls). I really think the community aspect of this set up is one of the biggest appeals to me so far. That and the wild list of moves, which I'm sure makes for amazing parties of characters.
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I always feel like it's never something I should be in my own writing (for some probably unnecessary reason), but I enjoy the first-person, casual writing style throughout the book. Makes for a very chill read.
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Good to see this game employs the Branson Reese style of NPC naming.
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Stress acts as a single catch-all health and challenge rating for NPCs. Ideally, I'd hope this would help lead to the PCs approaching encounters with more than just violence.
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Sections like this are what I'm referring to when I say this book feels very friendly to new players. It's got little anecdotes and thoughts like this throughout.
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Look, it's been a while since I've seen A Christmas Story but... it didn't have ghosts in it right?
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There's a sample adventure in the back (which I'll skip for this read-through) plus loads of random tables. Some wonderfully bizarre stuff in the characters and faction tables. Really gives you a good idea for how gonzo you can go with the setting.
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Love these two in particular
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Optional rules include hard mode (which I just think is kind of funny to see in PbtA, but could be cool if you lean heavy into the post-apoc setting) and some optional moves. I like that some moves focus on romance, something I enjoy IRL but never think to focus on in games.
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I was wondering why this was the sixth edition!
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That's all for the book itself. Going back to the packet to dig into the things I missed. Some expected bits in here but always one or two unique options I really enjoy. Leaking hex is cool (and could have some troubling cascade effects in certain situations).
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I definitely wish, at least in sitting down to read like this, that the contents of the player packet was also in the book itself. I think PbtA has this tendency of leading to loads of pages on the table, but it can make them very easy to pick up and play or to learn as you play.
That element is definitely here, but I think the vast number of wide-ranging moves and the excitement that would drum up in my player group would more than makeup for that initial overwhelming feel of "whoa, that's a lot of papers out on the table".
Overall, it's the most I've wanted to play a game in this style in a while. I like that the base setup for the world is very much up to the players to determine via the characters they make. I like that PCs here will probably feel unlike any other folks have played before.
The community aspect feels like where I'd want to center my story around, as a player. Seeing that shift and change over time feels like it would be very rewarding and would help lean into the "the old world is dead, what do we want the new world to look like?" theme I enjoy.
Because Aaron King is cool and recently hit a lot of Twitter followers, Patchwork Worlds is now Pay-what-you-want over on Itch.
I'm not sure if physical copies are readily available. For full disclosure (guess I should have said this up front), I got this copy for free from Aaron! Not for the purposes of this thread or anything, just for fun a while back.
Thanks for reading more ramblings from me! If you like to do that sort of thing, check out my newsletter - Missives from the MeatCastle. It's got writings on my work, cool stuff I've run across the web in the last month, and exclusive rpg stuff! https://meatcastle.substack.com
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theenpcbracket · 8 months
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Round 1: Hellen Highwater vs Chronos Goodman, Time Attorney at Law
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Image ID included, click to see the full image please!
More about each NPC below the cut!
Character 1
Name: Hellen Highwater Party: Team Kill Relationship to party: A party member's girlfriend, a party member
What makes them the best NPC: She's very silly and makes so many puns, she's a dragonblood sorcerer whose dad is a copper dragon. For most of her life she could spit acid and thought it was just because of the specific ancestry she had and had no clue it could have been related to her copper-y scales. She was the first person to really get to know the party's resident edgy man. Originally she was supposed to be a minor part of the plot, sending the party letters from her home, but the party and the DM liked her so much she managed to stay in the party.
Any extra propaganda under the tag Hellen Highwater, to be found here
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Character 2
Name: Chronos Goodman, Time Attorney At Law Party: Pandeia Boys Nite Relationship to party: The party's legal aid after our psychic was caught breaking the time-space continuum
What makes them the best NPC: He is an unfathomably powerful time walker with unknown power who opted to help 3 gay men beat the temporal anomaly allegations. He also wears a white dragon scale suit and generally fucks severely. Yes he is corrupt but he is corrupt for us <3
Any extra propaganda under the tag Chronos Goodman, to be found here
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explorerrowan · 1 year
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Alternative systems to publish your TTRPG content under now that WotC is promising to steal your stuff if you make it with D&D:
Cypher System by Monte Cook Games:
Apocalypse World/Powered by the Apocalypse:
Blades in the Dark:
Modiphius (2d20 system):
I know there are many more, but those are the big systems that pop in my head at the moment. (Technically, GURPS also lives in my head, but that's more of a curse, really.)
Go make your cool stuff and don't let anyone tell you it isn't yours just because you used their game rules.
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charaznablunt · 7 months
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Discover who you were. Decide who you are. DETECT OR DIE
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Do you like mysteries? Do you want to experience a mystery tabletop game unlike any other you've ever encountered? Did you play Disco Elysium and think "But what if ... my friends and I could be that guy, together?" I have a game for you!
In DETECT OR DIE, each player takes on the role of a part of an amnesiac detective's fragmented mind. Together, you investigate the all-important Case and the Detective's own past. Discover who you were. Decide who you are. DETECT OR DIE on sale now!
Don't forget it's itch.io creator's day, so don't wait, TODAY is the day!
A game by the incomparable Ben Klug, edited by me, cover design by Boocanan
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dungeonofthedragon · 4 months
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Best Queer TTRPGS
Blue Rose is a long-time love of mine. From its understanding of gender to how it views relationships, this world is queer through and through. Blue Rose uses the AGE system and is well equipped for epic fantasy tales.
Girl By Moonlight: a relative newcomer on the scene, Girl By Moonlight was published earlier this year by Evil Hat Productions. The game actively encourages queer themes, such as the exploration of gender identity and triumph of love over an uncaring world (while not essentially queer, the latter theme is very relatable to many of us!)
Girl By Moonlight uses the Forged in the Dark system, which originated with the popular Blades in the Dark.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a by now famous ttrpg Powered by the Apocalypse. Thirsty is a celebration of queer culture, sometimes joyful, sometimes angsty, always engrossing. Its robust social mechanics make it an excellent alternative to dungeon crawlers for those looking for a roleplay heavy gaming experience.
Lichcraft is a rules-lite game about becoming an immortal lich to live long enough to receive gender-affirming healthcare from an increasingly long waitlist. The art is gorgeous and the game cathartic. Also, who doesn't love liches?
Queering Your Favourite Games
Queercoded for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons.
Queerfinder for Pathfinder 2nd edition.,
Queerz for City of Mist.
Queer Actual Plays
High Rollers: a popular British Dungeons and Dragons actual play with a genderfluid DM, and multiple queer players. Their most recently completed campaign, Aerois, contained multiple queer characters and relationships.
Transplanar: an all trans, bipoc-led production. You may like to start with Godkiller: at sixteen episodes, it's the perfect length to get a feeling for this tale's vibe and storytelling style.
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Have you played MASKS : A New Generation ?
By Brendan Conway
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Young superheroes grow into their powers and the paragons they will one day become, while grappling with villains, adult pro heroes, and the tribulations of young adult life.
A Powered by the Apocalypse game
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whereserpentswalk · 4 months
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Hey, I need a ptba (or ptba like) system to run for like two to six weeks between the end of one long campaign and the start of another. Please reblog with your favorite ptba game.
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jollycryptid · 10 months
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SPIDER-VERSE INSPIRED COLOUR STUDIES USING MY HERO OCS
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