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Cabbit posted:Why are you people even reading any sections of M20 that aren't concerned with the Scions of Ether, Virtual Adepts, or the Technocracy? I just don't get it!
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 05:15 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 02:00 |
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tatankatonk posted:Tricky Gypsy Vampires with uncontrollable stealing fits and illusion magic Okay yeah nevermind. It's like anything related to the Romani was written by members of the BNP- I've never seen that kind of viciousness against them outside of Europe.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 05:19 |
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Cabbit posted:Why are you people even reading any sections of M20 that aren't concerned with the Scions of Ether, Virtual Adepts, or the Technocracy? I just don't get it! Because we can't all loving Love Science
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 06:44 |
Science magic is pretty cool because you can do poo poo like e-mail people a bullet or other crazy bullshit, but so is that kind of magic where you make big spell circles with runes and poo poo that summon an angry demon or a lightning storm or Ronald Reagan's ghost (well, maybe that last one ain't that great). All magics are equal is what I'm saying.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 08:51 |
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Summoning Ronald Reagan's ghost is pretty cool if you want to destroy it and thus rid America of a great evil forever and unto eternity
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 08:55 |
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The best kind of magic is really obviously steampunk-based magic.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 09:02 |
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Mexcillent posted:Because we can't all loving Love Science Anyone who likes that loving page doesn't loving Love Science, they loving Love Stupid poo poo. Brought to you by a guy who actually does love science! Also, at least the oWoD was -vaguely- decent towards the red man. Its treatment of the australian aboriginals was cringe-inducing in so many, many horrible ways.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 09:57 |
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Mexcillent posted:That's pretty rich considering that you don't even think Mexico is in North America. Speaking as someone with no humanities education who lives on a different continent, I have only ever heard Mexico referred to as being in "Central America". As far as I knew until right now, North America is the US and Canada.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 17:04 |
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Doodmons posted:Speaking as someone with no humanities education who lives on a different continent, I have only ever heard Mexico referred to as being in "Central America". As far as I knew until right now, North America is the US and Canada. Yeah, this is usually how it's perceived here in Australia too. Well, that or as half-and-half, which is truer to the geography and history of the place.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 17:52 |
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Doodmons posted:Speaking as someone with no humanities education who lives on a different continent, I have only ever heard Mexico referred to as being in "Central America". As far as I knew until right now, North America is the US and Canada. Its a common mistake, but Mexico is firmly in North America. Is your country an English speaking country or commonwealth country? I think that the idea of North America being exclusively the anglophone nations in North America is pretty common in those countries. The thing is, Central America is also in North America (as a subcontinent not including Mexico) along with the Caribbean islands and Greenland. So the pure stupidity that there's a North American single native experience is pretty funny. Especially if you include Central America where Mayan people were being outright militarily genocided (vs. institutional democide and genocide enacted by other governments in North and South America) in the 1980s. Like, if all Indians stopped being "authentic" Indians at some mysterious point after 1890 well... Loomer posted:Also, at least the oWoD was -vaguely- decent towards the red man. Its treatment of the australian aboriginals was cringe-inducing in so many, many horrible ways. I'd argue they're pretty much equal. There's an ok chapter (I think, its out of my wheelhouse) in Dead Magic: Secrets and Survivors on indigenous people in Australia, but earlier work like the bunyip and Rage Across Australia and probably that chapter carry problematic assumptions. Either way, I do think that erasure and the "tragic loss" of people who are still extant is a problem that any text US/Australian/Etc. culture produces and its really bad for it to show up in Mage, a game which is theoretically about the survival and resistance of those people. Mexcillent fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 3, 2014 |
# ? Jul 3, 2014 19:56 |
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Basic Chunnel posted:12 hours or so til the Wyrm Kickstarter ends. Did they put up previews yet? At what point do they distribute the rough drafts (ala Demon, turn to pg. XX, etc)? I'm late on this one and the Kickstarter is over, but they had the full rough draft of the book up right from the start. It's linked under the sample layout page pictures, or here's the link for convenience. There are Gordon Gekko were-apes.
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 21:16 |
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I Am Just a Box posted:I'm late on this one and the Kickstarter is over, but they had the full rough draft of the book up right from the start. It's linked under the sample layout page pictures, or here's the link for convenience. There are Gordon Gekko were-apes. Surely they'd be mokole
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# ? Jul 3, 2014 21:50 |
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Mexcillent posted:I'd argue they're pretty much equal. There's an ok chapter (I think, its out of my wheelhouse) in Dead Magic: Secrets and Survivors on indigenous people in Australia, but earlier work like the bunyip and Rage Across Australia and probably that chapter carry problematic assumptions. Either way, I do think that erasure and the "tragic loss" of people who are still extant is a problem that any text US/Australian/Etc. culture produces and its really bad for it to show up in Mage, a game which is theoretically about the survival and resistance of those people. Trust me: they aren't.
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# ? Jul 4, 2014 03:11 |
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One of the things about writing accurately on myth and Aboriginal legend is that you can't do it. You can talk about their living conditions and so on, what life is like for the Aboriginal people of Australia in the past and today. But their myths and legends are sacred and hidden, and cannot be revealed without the myth's owner's approval. Every story has a bloodline that owns it and keeps it, see. It's really very interesting but it does make being respectful and portraying Aboriginal myth at the same time basically impossible.
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# ? Jul 4, 2014 03:17 |
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Mors Rattus posted:One of the things about writing accurately on myth and Aboriginal legend is that you can't do it. Bingo. I know a little more than most whitefellas but there are a lot of secret stories the local aboriginal peoples won't tell anyone they don't consider one of their own - including, unfortunately, many of their young people because they have too many problems. One thing I hope they will do is accept a few sympathetic locals not as members of their families but as entrusted keepers, so that their myths and beliefs will never have to die out like so many already have. Kept safe and secret until there are no more of them, or until there are so many the idea of that being necessary is laughable. And, unlike say, Freemasonry - a sacred, hidden myth etcetera - theirs is an oral tradition rather than a written one so we can't just go find their stories in a book somewhere - and even if we did, chances re elements would be left out or lack the right meaning unless imparted properly. EDIT: Further complicating it is that the aboriginal peoples of Australia were not one monolithic entity any more than the natives of America, Africa or Europe were historically or are today. There were some seven hundred or so languages when whitefellas rocked up to the place, belonging to 27 families. Most of these languages are now completely dead or about to be. Sign language was also involved. And, as you'd expect from a continent making up 6% of the earth's landmass - much of which is difficult to travel freely through - there are a lot of distinctions even in common stories between the peoples inhabitating that continent. The myths of the west coast are very different to those of the East Coast, for instance - even in shared myths like the Rainbow Serpent. If you asked a fella from central Australia or from the families near Sydney about Dirawong, he wouldn't know what the gently caress you're talking about. If you ask one of our Bjundalung fellas, he'll know. Loomer fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jul 4, 2014 |
# ? Jul 4, 2014 05:20 |
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Kavak posted:Yeah, there's less malice in White Wolf's racism and such and more just lots of "positive" stereotyping and astounding ignorance, which I guess they decided is part of the '90s charm of the game or something. Bleh. Yeah, the racism in most cases seems to be a general lack of tact when dealing with other cultures rather than an actual conscious effort. I'm not apologizing for White Wolf, and I'm sure in the history of the company there have been at least one or two outspoken racists, but I do think it is interesting to look at why we have things like World of Darkness: Gypsie and how Kindred of the East got things wrong since I'm a dork for production and am working on a game which deals with other cultures and specifically am on constant watch to avoid the same mistakes. I ignore anything terrible in the books and make the setting what I want or need it to be, I love parts of oWoD but think that holding onto the bad parts is a bad choice to make. It sucks to pull out a textbook when deciding as an ST to have an African Vampire start using Blood Magic but worth it because the game feels more rich since players see Ọdinani for the first time and pulling out Things Fall Apart reminds me how much I love that book. It is hard work to have themes and influences of other cultures done well, and arguably impossible to do perfectly, but I always enjoy doing so because other spiritual/religious beliefs are fascinating. Daeren posted:I have a special place in my shrivelly black heart for Pentex, despite having beef with most of the rest of Werewolf on a conceptual and mechanical level. Same. Love because of how nice it puts a nice foil of mundane horror by normal people next to evil supernaturals. tatankatonk posted:Summoning Ronald Reagan's ghost is pretty cool if you want to destroy it and thus rid America of a great evil forever and unto eternity Playing in a game once I had decided to cheat at life with magic and summoned the spirits of dead legends to help me write a song so I could add on my list of selfish things done with magic that I formed a super group using John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and other people that I forget. Will never forget that my ST had John Lennon refuse to help me write a song and lectured me (slowly and calmly) about how he has moved on from that and how I need to respect the dead. Getting shut down by a ghost really puts a player in their place, ghosts do not like to be dicked around with like they owe you attention/help just because you're alive.
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# ? Jul 4, 2014 10:42 |
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I could picture an entire Cult of Ecstasy game where you have to stop a Technocracy-backed music label from exploiting the ghosts of Lennon, Morrison, Joplin and Hendrix, inadvertently summoned and trapped inside Tupac-at-Coachella style holographic devices.
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# ? Jul 4, 2014 23:58 |
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Cabbit posted:I could picture an entire Cult of Ecstasy game where you have to stop a Technocracy-backed music label from exploiting the ghosts of Lennon, Morrison, Joplin and Hendrix, inadvertently summoned and trapped inside Tupac-at-Coachella style holographic devices. This is why I can't, and don't want to, categorically write off oWoD. It lets poo poo like this not only be possible, but encouraged by system and setting. It's like a weird, time-locked counterpart to Unknown Armies when it's at its best.
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# ? Jul 5, 2014 00:11 |
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Cabbit posted:I could picture an entire Cult of Ecstasy game where you have to stop a Technocracy-backed music label from exploiting the ghosts of Lennon, Morrison, Joplin and Hendrix, inadvertently summoned and trapped inside Tupac-at-Coachella style holographic devices. And now we know what the Syndicate's Special Projects Division was really up to.
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# ? Jul 5, 2014 00:26 |
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Attorney at Funk posted:The best kind of magic is really obviously steampunk-based magic. The best kind of magic is ORDER OF HERMES.
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# ? Jul 5, 2014 05:00 |
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Played the first session of our Geist game tonight. Good god this game is half-assed and broken.
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# ? Jul 6, 2014 05:05 |
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Did anything ever come of that new "subversive" game? Or was that Demon?
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# ? Jul 6, 2014 17:40 |
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moths posted:Did anything ever come of that new "subversive" game? Or was that Demon? Different one, to be revealed at GenCon, I think. So nothing yet.
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# ? Jul 6, 2014 17:42 |
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Gilok posted:Played the first session of our Geist game tonight. Good god this game is half-assed and broken.
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# ? Jul 6, 2014 18:15 |
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Yawgmoth posted:You know you're playing Geist when three people whose only experience with the game is a quick skim of the book so they could make a character each say "oops, accidentally made a guy who can do/have/make infinite [thing]!" within the first session. You can literally make Ghost Rider straight out of chargen, murderous emotion-based eye lasers and body flames included.
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# ? Jul 6, 2014 20:21 |
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Rand Brittain posted:I'd be interested in hearing more about First Nations cultures and their survival into the modern day from people who know things about them or can point me to good sources. Look up the American Indian Movement and the Trail Of Broken Treaties. That'll usually set you on the path towards native culture that's being produced now. Nixon ordered the use of white phosphorous against them after a 71 day standoff. Many of the infiltrators set against them were the same WASPs used to bust unions and academic groups. Big Hubris fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Jul 6, 2014 |
# ? Jul 6, 2014 23:33 |
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Affecting spirits with Mind - possible, or do you need Spirit to do it as well? I know you need death + an arcanum to transform, say, a vampire's body, but something like Psychic Assault explicitly works on vamps - would this be the same for Spirits? What about other spirit powers? Assume the gauntlet etc isn't a consideration here.
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# ? Jul 6, 2014 23:50 |
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WINNERSH TRIANGLE posted:Affecting spirits with Mind - possible, or do you need Spirit to do it as well? I know you need death + an arcanum to transform, say, a vampire's body, but something like Psychic Assault explicitly works on vamps - would this be the same for Spirits? What about other spirit powers? Assume the gauntlet etc isn't a consideration here. My opinion on this is that because Spirit Arcanum cannot affect mental projections while still being able to detect them in Twilight, the same would hold for spirits being targeted with mental spells other than Sense Consciousness. On the whole, as combined-Arcanum situations are ad hoc to the spell in question, so I'd make the call as to what is the most fair and fun for your game in particular.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 00:10 |
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I'm pretty sure that Mind magic works on spirits as-written. It targets anything that can conceive of itself as distinct from its environment, all the way down to, like, ants. Spirits definitely qualify unless you run into a particular spirit that's metaphysically "mindless" the same way the basest kind of zombie is. On the other hand, I don't think you can use Spirit to mind control a Spirit. You can use Spirit to control a spirit outright, like, just straight up force it to serve you by grasping and twisting its very essence, but it's not going to be happy about it. A subtle enough Mind spell might leave a spirit thinking that helping you was its own idea.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 00:15 |
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You only need Mind.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 11:17 |
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Dave Brookshaw posted:You only need Mind. I hope this is spelled out very clearly in the Fallen World Chronicle because my group will argue about poo poo like this for hours.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 13:01 |
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While we're on this topic, a thing that is bandied about my gaming group is that you need splat-appropriate conjunctionals to affect any major supernatural template. Ie, anything you do to vampires you need conjunctional Death, anything you do to werewolves needs conjunctional Spirit, Fate for Changelings, etc. This sounds like bullshit to me.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 15:28 |
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Doodmons posted:While we're on this topic, a thing that is bandied about my gaming group is that you need splat-appropriate conjunctionals to affect any major supernatural template. Ie, anything you do to vampires you need conjunctional Death, anything you do to werewolves needs conjunctional Spirit, Fate for Changelings, etc. This sounds like bullshit to me. It does, but as someone who once played a Werewolf in a Mage-dominated chat game, it's my kind of bullshit.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 15:38 |
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Doodmons posted:While we're on this topic, a thing that is bandied about my gaming group is that you need splat-appropriate conjunctionals to affect any major supernatural template. Ie, anything you do to vampires you need conjunctional Death, anything you do to werewolves needs conjunctional Spirit, Fate for Changelings, etc. This sounds like bullshit to me. Also I don't think it's like anything you do to them. Just if you're interacting with their magic or (in the case of Vampires at least) trying to affect them with Life. Fate and Mind ect work just fine IIRC.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 15:57 |
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Doodmons posted:While we're on this topic, a thing that is bandied about my gaming group is that you need splat-appropriate conjunctionals to affect any major supernatural template. Ie, anything you do to vampires you need conjunctional Death, anything you do to werewolves needs conjunctional Spirit, Fate for Changelings, etc. This sounds like bullshit to me. It is. I think canonically speaking you need conjunctional Death to affect a vampire with Life and maybe conjunctional Spirit to affect a werewolf with Life and that's it. If you ask me, healing either kind of creature should just take Life alone, because they're both basically alive. Also, wherever possible, the number of different Arcana required to perform some feat should be minimized so that more mages can do more stuff. "Well feat X requires seven different Arcana to do" doesn't really tone down mages as a whole, it just penalizes weak mages - there's already plenty of drive within the system to get your Arcana as high as you can.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 16:15 |
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Ferrinus posted:there's already plenty of drive within the system to get your Arcana as high as you can. To say nothing of the insane lust for power within all our hearts!
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 19:00 |
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In oWoD, when a vampire is staked, it's in torpor right? Can it hear/see stuff going on around it? When the stake is removed is it just instantly back to acting or does it take some time to recover and rouse? Does the vampire lose blood points while staked for an extended period of time?
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 19:11 |
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Ferrinus posted:It is. I think canonically speaking you need conjunctional Death to affect a vampire with Life and maybe conjunctional Spirit to affect a werewolf with Life and that's it. To me, its less about attempting to scale back a mage- because trying to do that in the system of "sufficiently prepared means do anything you want" is asinine. Rather, its about aligning each Arcana with one another rather than having one being more or less applicable in all situations.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 21:21 |
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Finally reading God-Machien Chronicles/Demon: the Descent. This is some seriously great stuff, I feel like the first time I read Promethean, it's that good. I don't know if I'll be able to get group going soon (lots of games already in progress), but i certainly want to try. Is there anything more about how Qashmallim and Demons interact in one of the other books? There's almost nothing in the core, and the Qashmal are seriously some of my favourite nWoD things.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 21:24 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 02:00 |
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MonsieurChoc posted:Finally reading God-Machien Chronicles/Demon: the Descent. This is some seriously great stuff, I feel like the first time I read Promethean, it's that good. I don't know if I'll be able to get group going soon (lots of games already in progress), but i certainly want to try. Beyond the vague hints/suggestions in Demon and GMC, no, it's deliberately left in the air for the ST to decide, or exploit the vagueness.
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# ? Jul 7, 2014 21:33 |