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WFRP Style Fate points in BRP?


AikiGhost

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I've found that in practice games that conflate experience increases with hero point style expenditures tend to produce some potentially serious social dynamics problems.

Translation: Angry players? :confused:

The old Mayfair DC system used Hero Points for both purposes but I was a MArvel fan so I never saw how that worked in practice.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Translation: Angry players? :confused:

The old Mayfair DC system used Hero Points for both purposes but I was a MArvel fan so I never saw how that worked in practice.

It was more complicated than that, but that was the practical long term result. What happened is it tended to breed for two mindsets:

1. Don't use the hero points because you don't want to fall behind. This meant a double-or-nothing philosophy where players who got lucky got ahead where as those who didn't got trashed. Since those with higher abilities tend to need this sort of thing somewhat less, this could turn into a rich-get-richer effect.

2. Don't spend them on experience because you might need them for emergencies. This meant that those players never advanced.

And by the by, DCH was exactly the game that taught me this.

Now, if you get to decide at the point where events happen to use future advancement, this is not as big a problem.

A bigger one is that the value of an advancement roll isn't symmetrical throughout the course of a BRP character's career; at the bottom end, they're hard to come by, and are most likely to get you actual advancement; at the top, they're easy to get, but don't usually actually produce advancement. This means it gets more and more painless to use one this way at exactly the period in one's character life one is least likely to need it.

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About a Defence/Luck skill used to avoid damage...

That depends on how Defense is handled. In most versions of BRP I'm familiar with, it had to be broken up amidst attackers in some way or another, so numbers quickly diluted it badly.

That's why the version of Defence I'm talking about isn't divided. Just roll it, full-value, against any hit and reduce the damage accordingly.

Most GMs I know are not going to worry too much if one PC increases five skills by 6% while I've failed all my experience rolls after the session. Hero points however are potential lifesavers and require close attention.

That said, I realize now I've started a rather esoteric discussion that probably few readers are interested in.

Just the right level of esoteric-ness for me, thanks! I have had to field complaints from players about exactly this point - Hero Points (aka Defence points round my way) are too valuable to submit to the vagaries of increase-rolls. And they were right, too - so now I have to just award them, straight, without the usual mechanic. But, as I give them as rewards for good roleplaying, I think the linearity is fair.

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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About a Defence/Luck skill used to avoid damage...

That's why the version of Defence I'm talking about isn't divided. Just roll it, full-value, against any hit and reduce the damage accordingly.

Even with that I'm leery in a linear die roll game like BRP until you get so good that you're making the roll almost all the time; just the fact you have to roll multiple times makes it mathematically almost certain to screw up soon.

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Even with that I'm leery in a linear die roll game like BRP until you get so good that you're making the roll almost all the time; just the fact you have to roll multiple times makes it mathematically almost certain to screw up soon.

THe thing I don't like is that such a method isn't selective. It is just as likely to work or not when you really need it as at any other time.

Since the idea was to allow for a more cinematic/less lethal game, I don't think it would really help, since it is just a random factor.

Also, since it is an improvable skill, it would mean that the fledgling heroes who need it wouldn't have it at good scores. The master warriors who don't need it, would be the ones with very high scores.

Plus someone with a 95% defense on top of a 95% parry or dodge is going to be sort of boring. There is only a 0.25% chance of hitting the guy.

An RQ2 style (sbutract defense form attack) is a bit better, but you still have the problem of making fights against flunkies not worth playing.

I think any sort of soulition needs to be of the limited number of uses variety to keep things intestesing. A pool that can get used up is more dramatic, espeically since it can be tracked while getting used up, than a dice mechanic that will turn a hit into a statsitical abnormality.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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I think any sort of soulition needs to be of the limited number of uses variety to keep things intestesing. A pool that can get used up is more dramatic, espeically since it can be tracked while getting used up, than a dice mechanic that will turn a hit into a statsitical abnormality.

I tend to think you're right.

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Even with that I'm leery in a linear die roll game like BRP until you get so good that you're making the roll almost all the time; just the fact you have to roll multiple times makes it mathematically almost certain to screw up soon.

Yeah, I agree! But it's better than not having such Defence at all - that way you 'screw up' every time (at least this way, you have to be doubly unlucky for that bad hit to coincide with the failed defence roll). But I know it's not ideal - that's why I'm asking the massed intellect of the forum to help come up with something better... :)

I think any sort of soulition needs to be of the limited number of uses variety to keep things intestesing. A pool that can get used up is more dramatic, espeically since it can be tracked while getting used up, than a dice mechanic that will turn a hit into a statsitical abnormality.

I see what you mean. I wanted a mechanism that wasn't too reliable, though, i.e. predictable as to when it was going to 'run out' (like the D&D abomination of gross numbers of HPs). Not RQ2-style Defence either - that just races away and becomes daft pretty quickly (and difficult to calculate).

Maybe using a POW point per Defence roll (like you suggested before elsewhere - thanks again!) would make it selective, reserving it for use only when significant (a principle I approve of generally). I'm just not sure about the feel of an 'elective' mechanism: would it be too much like "OK, I'm killed - so I'll play my Get-out-of-death-free Card"? Too much like a spell? (Also, I have the problem of not currently using POW. And it'd be more valuable to some characters than others). But I'm coming round to liking the idea more...

I'd say the fledgeling heroes are on their own, though - it's the ones who've made the grade to 100% Defence that deserve saving from unexpected ignominous deaths...

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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What you could do to balance out between those who use POW points and those who son't need them (MAges vs Fighters), you could simply create a pool of "Luck points" equal to POW and use those instead of POW/Magic Points.

Just another option.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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I think there's some virtue to tying them to Power; it gives something for Power to do in settings without a lot of paranormality, and means there's something even in settings with some, but usually specialist, magic or psi for the non-paranormal character to get out of a good Power.

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Thanks for the advice, gents. I shall give it a try, allowing Defence rolls at a cost of 1 POW (MP, I mean). Hopefully it'll be balanced between magic-specialists and combat-specialists by the fact that the combat-guys will need it more often, and the magic-guys put themselves more at risk the more they cast...

One further thing I'm not sure of - should they be able to do more rolls if the first fails, and so on until POW runs out?

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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One further thing I'm not sure of - should they be able to do more rolls if the first fails, and so on until POW runs out?

Up to you. It would seem to balance out. If someone blows all their points early in the night they are vulnerable later on.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Maybe using a POW point per Defence roll (like you suggested before elsewhere - thanks again!) would make it selective, reserving it for use only when significant (a principle I approve of generally).

How would you determine when something was 'significant'?

I'm just not sure about the feel of an 'elective' mechanism: would it be too much like "OK, I'm killed - so I'll play my Get-out-of-death-free Card"? Too much like a spell? (Also, I have the problem of not currently using POW. And it'd be more valuable to some characters than others).

That's one reason I've been resistant towards the idea of fate/hero points... specifically when they involved revisionist re-rolls. It's too 'meta game' feeling for my taste... to have something happen and then reverse it.

I'm much more favorably inclined towards some sort of proactive 'luck pool' that can be used (and used up) prior to an important roll... 'I'm about to jump my sailboard off this cliff into the raging sea to escape the villainous hoodlums... I'll dump three luck points into that to help me pull it off'

Kind of knowing a head of time what moves are bombastic and likely to fail, as well as which ones are of dramatic import and will look really dumb if you miss and trip over your sword.

Tying it to Power somehow makes intuitive sense to me... I'd think that James Bond and Captain Blood were characters with high Power stats.

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How would you determine when something was 'significant'?

I'd think that would be the player's call. A classic exmaple would be.

Spend a point to get a better result when selling your airspeeder? No.

Spend a Point to make sure your proton torpedoes blow up the Death Star. YES!!

If the player wastes the points to improve every die roll then it's thier own fault if they run out.

That's one reason I've been resistant towards the idea of fate/hero points... specifically when they involved revisionist re-rolls. It's too 'meta game' feeling for my taste... to have something happen and then reverse it.

Boy, you must hate BRP then.;) That's it's entire combat system. A guy get's attacked and then he rolls to parry and reverse the hit. Since most people don't run "statement of intent phase" and most versions of BRP allow for multiple parries, it is essentially the same thing.

I'm much more favorably inclined towards some sort of proactive 'luck pool' that can be used (and used up) prior to an important roll... 'I'm about to jump my sailboard off this cliff into the raging sea to escape the villainous hoodlums... I'll dump three luck points into that to help me pull it off'

Kind of knowing a head of time what moves are bombastic and likely to fail, as well as which ones are of dramatic import and will look really dumb if you miss and trip over your sword.

Yes but the problem with that is that it sort of negates the major reason for the luck pool. That is saving your bacon. "Oh, I should have spent the Luck point before the sniper ambushed me and shot me dead? How was I supposed to know there was a sniper?" Ditto you example about looking really dumb. Generally speaking it isn't the hard moves that make you look dumb. It is when you are doing something easy when you trip over your sword and embarrass yourself. Also, since you don't know when you are likely to trip over your sword, spending in advance basically means not spending the points and being caught with egg on your face.

There are a few of options other than a "reroll."

First is to spend the points when you would parry or dodge. For instance, rather than using a point to reroll or make a Luck save, you could just use a point to improve the result of your next dodge or parry roll. Either the point would give you a bump up in success level, or just a flat bonus to your success chance. For instance 1 point could up a success chance by 10 or 20%. Personally I like the bump up, since that way the player will always get some benefit from spending a point (you could have a critical count as a refund of the luck point). That way, an unskilled but heroic PC could defend himself a few turns by spending luck.

Another option would be to spend the points after the hit to adjust the damage roll before it is made. For instance maybe a point turns a hit into minimum damage, or downgrades a special or critical down a grade. So that way a guy who take a critical hit from a spear and "knows" the other guy will be getting max impale damage could spend a point to downgrade the effect to only an impale, giving him a chance to survive the roll. Two could could turn the hit into a normal damage, and three would just result in minimum damage.

Again the key thing is to apply the effects before the roll. Make sure you give the player the chance to spend the points, but if they pass they don't get to go back. That way you are never going back and reversing anything.

Tying it to Power somehow makes intuitive sense to me... I'd think that James Bond and Captain Blood were characters with high Power stats.

Well, if it is Luck then POW is the right stat. In the Bond RPG, he did have a high number of Hero Points, 13, in a game where the average PC has about half that. But he gets away with a lot.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Boy, you must hate BRP then.;) That's it's entire combat system. A guy get's attacked and then he rolls to parry and reverse the hit. Since most people don't run "statement of intent phase" and most versions of BRP allow for multiple parries, it is essentially the same thing.

Parry comes first! (doesn't it? :confused:)

SGL.

Ef plest master, this mighty fine grub!
b1.gif 116/420. High Priest.

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Boy, you must hate BRP then.;) That's it's entire combat system. A guy get's attacked and then he rolls to parry and reverse the hit.

I dunno... it's all tied up in how I imagine it... I see a 'miss' as that swing/attack that never would have connected, part of the dance and shuffle of combat... but I see the 'hit' as a successful swing/attack... that remains successful if parried... just that it got blocked.

It otherwise would have connected and done damage... you saw it was coming and knew you had to do something to stop it.

It doesn't 'feel' like a reversal of the success of the attack.

Fate points... at least the way I've seen them used... seem to turn that 'hit' into a 'miss' for no in game reason at all.

I don't like that reversal.

If he were to spend from the 'luck pool' to boost his chance of a successful parry... I'd be fine with that idea.

It's a personal gripe... a fine line... I don't claim to be logical.

Yes but the problem with that is that it sort of negates the major reason for the luck pool. That is saving your bacon. "Oh, I should have spent the Luck point before the sniper ambushed me and shot me dead? How was I supposed to know there was a sniper?"

I wouldn't ordinarily spring a death trap like that on a PC without some chance to spot the sniper or otherwise suspect and make some sort of 'spot hidden' roll... which, accordingly, the 'luck pool' could be used to boost.

Ditto you example about looking really dumb. Generally speaking it isn't the hard moves that make you look dumb. It is when you are doing something easy when you trip over your sword and embarrass yourself. Also, since you don't know when you are likely to trip over your sword, spending in advance basically means not spending the points and being caught with egg on your face.

I'm mostly thinking of the big dramatic moments, when you go up against the arch-villain you've been tracking for a whole campaign... you KNOW you don't want to fail at that point... for the good of the story and the other PCs.

If it's the first day out and you get into some dumb fight with a street vendor and you fall on your sword... it's comic relief... that character was a red herring in the story... never meant to be the 'big cheese'... write him off and make up a new one.

Kind of joking there... just kinda.

There are a few of options other than a "reroll."

First is to spend the points when you would parry or dodge. For instance, rather than using a point to reroll or make a Luck save, you could just use a point to improve the result of your next dodge or parry roll.

Like I said, totally fine with that sort of thing...

Another option would be to spend the points after the hit to adjust the damage roll before it is made. For instance maybe a point turns a hit into minimum damage, or downgrades a special or critical down a grade. So that way a guy who take a critical hit from a spear and "knows" the other guy will be getting max impale damage could spend a point to downgrade the effect to only an impale, giving him a chance to survive the roll. Two could could turn the hit into a normal damage, and three would just result in minimum damage.

Again the key thing is to apply the effects before the roll. Make sure you give the player the chance to spend the points, but if they pass they don't get to go back. That way you are never going back and reversing anything.

Pretty much okay with that sort of thing as well... though I think I'd want the 'economy' of such points to discourage relying on them too heavily... depending on the type of game we were in (more for James Bond, less for gritty fantasy, none for film noir).

I think the main thing I wanna keep is the feeling of danger...

If I've got a pool of points that I KNOW allows me to do any dumb thing, see what happens, then reverse the outcome... I lose that sense of risk.

If I've got a pool of points that increase my chances of succeeding/surviving... but still with a leaves potential for disaster danger... then I still keep the feeling of risk.

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Parry comes first! (doesn't it? :confused:)

SGL.

. Some version of RQ/BRP require that you declare parries and some let you react to attacks. I've never seen one where parries came before the attack. Declared before the attack was rolled, but not before the attack.

Usually it's the :

"He swings"

"I"ll try to parry!"

Method.

So,

"He Swings"

"I'll parry and spend a point to bump up my roll by one grade!"

shouldn't disrupt the flow of the game.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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How would you determine when something was 'significant'?

I'd think that would be the player's call. A classic exmaple would be.

Spend a point to get a better result when selling your airspeeder? No.

Spend a Point to make sure your proton torpedoes blow up the Death Star. YES!!

Quite. It'd be up to the player to decide when to spend the point(s). However I'm intending to only allow it for 'luckily' escaping death, not just improving any old rolls* - and that is a GM decision. (*The Death Star shot could be argued, though - given they'd die if he didn't make it. But maybe Leia's roll, not Luke's...?).

Just one roll of 'Defence' ability, I think, but xPOW spent on it (decided before rolling). If it comes up, the damage is reduced by 10 (20 for special) (or some other sort of bonus for non-damaging deadly stuff?). A 'lucky escape' would normally be interpreted as riding the blow, involving a 5ft knockback, or possibly the shot hitting that bible/flask they always carry in their breast pocket...

But not going back in time and changing things that had already 'happened' (i.e. been rolled). Because, yes, it's all about how it feels. Is that ok?

I think the main thing I wanna keep is the feeling of danger...

Absolutely.

Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi.

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Jepp, that was what I meant. The parry is rolled before the attack is.

SGL.

I've never played it that way. More like the parry is declared before the attack is rolled, but the parry isn't rolled before. Usually we would roll attack then parry, or both at the same time.

All the examples I have seen in RQ and BRP books have the attacker roll first.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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I dunno... it's all tied up in how I imagine it... I see a 'miss' as that swing/attack that never would have connected, part of the dance and shuffle of combat... but I see the 'hit' as a successful swing/attack... that remains successful if parried... just that it got blocked.

It otherwise would have connected and done damage... you saw it was coming and knew you had to do something to stop it.

It doesn't 'feel' like a reversal of the success of the attack.

Fate points... at least the way I've seen them used... seem to turn that 'hit' into a 'miss' for no in game reason at all.

I don't like that reversal.

We one game reason is that the guy is just lucky. I think we have all had situation where we should have gotten hurt but didn't. From personal experience I've used a knife to cut things "wrong side down" a few times. I even had my hand on the sharp side to apply pressure for cutting through cheese, and when I realized what I had done, looked to find that I had miraculously escaped unharmed.

If he were to spend from the 'luck pool' to boost his chance of a successful parry... I'd be fine with that idea.

So I can assume that doing so with a dodge is along the same line of thinking, too? THe guy ducks or jumps back and avoids the blow.

It's a personal gripe... a fine line... I don't claim to be logical.

Well, I can't argue with that.

I wouldn't ordinarily spring a death trap like that on a PC without some chance to spot the sniper or otherwise suspect and make some sort of 'spot hidden' roll... which, accordingly, the 'luck pool' could be used to boost.

Would you tell the player to make a spot hidden roll? Or would you roll it in secret as a GM. If you tell the player to make a spot roll you are sort of giving him information for no game reason, since is he fails the roll he shouldn't had a reason to become "alert". If you are rolling for him in secret, how can he spend points?

But the "bang your dead" thing isn't just confined to ambushes. There are quite a few times when things could happen logically, but don't due to some funky way that the rules work. For instance, in the game leather armor will never stop a dagger. A character can never get grazed by a bolt action rifle (30-06/7.62mm that rolls 2D6+4 damage), for 1 point. Or get up from a fall unscathed. Or that a man can't hit a beat without getting an autokill. Or a blunt weapon inflicting no damage on an unarmored man.

In real life, all these things happen. They can't in the game due to the way dice work. Luck points can help address a flaw in the game. Every couple of years there is another story about some sky jumper whose chute doesn't open and he somehow survives the 20D6. There is no in game reason for that to happen in BRP, but there are some real life reasons that account for it. Since the game can't model everything, something like luck points help to do so.

I'm mostly thinking of the big dramatic moments, when you go up against the arch-villain you've been tracking for a whole campaign... you KNOW you don't want to fail at that point... for the good of the story and the other PCs.

If it's the first day out and you get into some dumb fight with a street vendor and you fall on your sword... it's comic relief... that character was a red herring in the story... never meant to be the 'big cheese'... write him off and make up a new one.

Kind of joking there... just kinda.

I'm thinking of both. Part of the problem with the latter scenario is that the street vendor thing can come up at any time. Dice a fickle. People play to have fun. If you were watching a film and Aragon tripped over his sword and died at the beginning of Lord of the Rings it might be funny, but having the player write up a new character and reworking the adventure to fit in another character isn't. It bogs the game down as the GM retcons the story and the player comes up with another stranger whom the other character would have no reason to deal with.

But in an established campaign, it can be worse than funny. What if Aragon tripped over his sword one night while his army is under siege. He isn't doing anything big at the moment, but is he skewers himself tonight, he won't get the chance to reach the big dramatic moment.

Pretty much okay with that sort of thing as well... though I think I'd want the 'economy' of such points to discourage relying on them too heavily... depending on the type of game we were in (more for James Bond, less for gritty fantasy, none for film noir).

Oh, I'd see a couple for Film Noir. Despite how dark the setting looks. Philip Marlowe manages to survive through even story. Considering how many times he manages to survive despite people having the drop on him.

And I thing the "economy" of such points is the kay factor to making them work. Too many and the game loses any challenge. Too few and the players probably won't have them when they need them.

I also prefer a system where the points get used up and must be replenished somehow over systems where the points are automatically refreseh each session or adventure. It makes the players less likely to "make sure" that they use up all their points, before they "lose" them.

I think the main thing I wanna keep is the feeling of danger...

If I've got a pool of points that I KNOW allows me to do any dumb thing, see what happens, then reverse the outcome... I lose that sense of risk.

If I've got a pool of points that increase my chances of succeeding/surviving... but still with a leaves potential for disaster danger... then I still keep the feeling of risk.

I agree. That is why I think not all "Hero Points" are created equal. My absolute favorite method is the Hero Point system from Bond. 1 point shifts the quality rating (think success/failure level) by one step. Bond also had 4 quality ratings rather than three success levels.

What that did was make it progressively harder to negate a good roll, or to force a good result, but fairly easy to tweak reality a little. Changing the equivalent of a critical to a miss required 4 points, and this in a game where Bond has 13. Bond also limited the points. Once spent they were gone, at least until you earned some more.

Every so often a character would build up a handful of points and feel a bit cocky, but it was fun because we all knew it wouldn't last for long, and one the points were spent it was back to normal. SO if the player wanted to rush across an open field while some goon sprayed .50 caliber bullets at him, well, he'd would be doing it again any time soon. If he pulled it off.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Perhaps if you wanted to use MPs as fate points you could do a Marvel Supers FASERIP style "I will make a special" type system.

You declare before an important roll what kind of success you want to make, then roll the dice, for each 10 points you miss by you spend 1mp, and even if you succeed you spend the minimum 1mp for the roll.

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That's a shame. It would have amused me to hear my players ask if they can "spend a PP".

:)

You could also save character sheets and hand out pennies to the players to "spend" when they use POWer.:P

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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You know really I don't see calling Power Points PP as an issue. D&D does it for Psionic Power Points (PP) and no one has even mentioned it that I have ever noticed. Honestly when reading my mind just replaces PP with Power Points subconsciously.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

30/420

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