Play Test Session #2

This actually took place a while ago now but what with Christmas and the #12daysofRolemaster this post got pushed back somewhat.  My playtest player is back from university soon and it suddenly dawned on me that I never posted this write up. It was also useful to me to come back up to speed with where Gao is.

We left Gao out cold after losing a sword fight with a couple of assassins. Unbeknownst to Gao the assassins had left him for dead. The Emperor had used the body of the assassin that Gao had disabled to cover himself with fresh blood and had played dead.  Eventually the assassins had been discovered by the palace guards, the alarm raised and a running battle ensued as the assassins attempted to flee though the Forbidden City.

The Emperor had been recovering in bed when the assassins had attacked having been magically healed by a court healer (lay healer). The Emperor’s wounds and Gao’s had me go over the healing rules in Arms & Character Law. I did really want to use the rules as written but there is no way on earth I am ever going to apply those healing rules. The rules would have had Gao laid up in bed for 10 days given the Injuries and Recovery roll and by chance there would have been a permanent injury because of an even double roll! In my RMC game we use cinematic healing and the same will apply here. The issue is not just with, possibly, realistic healing times but also the plot was supposed to follow this thread. The Emperor has witnessed first hand that Gao saved his life on the night of the first attack and saved it again on the second when someone had obviously arranged for the guards to be elsewhere. When no one can be trusted at court Gao is the shining exception. Thus the Emperor can entrust Gao with the task of finding who the assassins are working for. If Gao is laid up for 10 days then this is ridiculous and any trail would be stone cold by then and even the Emperor would not sit on his hands for nearly two weeks doing nothing when assassins could strike at any time. One option would be to massively up the level of the Lay Healer. The way the spell acquisition works in RMU a 25th level Lay Healer would be more than capable of solving the whole conspiracy anyway without Gao so the whole adventure is moot. Option ‘B’ is to go back to Cinematic healing. This heals Gao’s broken bones in 10 hours rather than 10 days and giving him his #hits back is not a problem.

So on with the adventure!

Gao wakes up in a comfortable bed overlooking a tranquil palace garden being attended by many servants. His aches and pains have gone but he has no memory of anything since being in the fight with the assassins. Soon after he is awake an official brings him the Emperors gratitude and a request to attend the Emperor in his chambers. What happens is the Emperor explains that no one can be trusted except just a few of his closest advisors, including the court healer who could easily have declared the Emperors original chest wound fatal and allowed him to die though inaction. Simply by healing the Emperor he has proven his loyalty. As no one else can be trusted it falls on Gao to find the traitor that is plotting against the Emperor. There are some clues to start off with. The assassins’ weapons all bear the makers mark of an honoured sword smith here in the Forbidden City. Furthermore, three of the assassins that were killed have been identified as men sentenced to months in a cangue (punishment cage) for violent crimes. It is possible that these men had bought their freedom in agreeing to slay the Emperor. Gao gets a set of documents that give him freedom of movement around the city and a rank equivalent to an auditor or tax collector that means he had great authority. This comes complete with an over robe bearing a square badge displaying a Peacock known as a Mandarin Square.

The audience ends with Gao being given a fine quality Qi Jian. I am not normally in favour of giving out free bonus items but the combat last time was so disappointing and the fact that with only one PC the chances of him being out numbered is great I think he needs a bit of added fire power.

Gao leaves the palace and decides to investigate the sword smith first. What follows is three failed perception rolls cumulating in an open ended downwards which leaves him completely miss informed. The emperor had sent a couple of trusted guards individually to shadow Gao with two ideas in mind. If they are loyal then should be able to lend him some assistance if he gets into trouble. If one is loyal and the other is not, then chances are the traitorous one will try and kill Gao and the second will still be able to assist him. If both are traitorous then Gao will die but two more traitors have been exposed.

The player had been trying to see if anyone was following him through the narrow streets of the city or looking suspicious. The failed rolls had meant that the guards were not spotted but at this point I made a mistake. I thought that with the open ended roll leaving Gao completely miss informed I would tell him that one of the stall holders was paying a bit too much attention to him. This send the player into a spin of paranoia and and at one point the player was considering doubling back to kill the stall holder. I think in retrospect I should have ignored the OE downwards and just treated it as a normal failure. That cost us a great deal of the game session, we live and learn.

Eventually we arrived at the weapon smiths abode. It is a double storey building with sloping red tiled roof and a central courtyard. Dragon shaped ‘gargoyles’ project from under the roof tiles carry rain water away from the walls and ornate iron gates, again with the dragon motif give access to the courtyard.

Gao has the vocational skill for Oriental Administration so he knows how to act as a tax collector and his plan was to inspect the weapon smith’s order books to see who bought the weapons. Gao decided to go in heavy handed and try an intimidate the weapon smith. Seeing as he is dressed in official mandarin garb and has all the right credentials I gave Gao a +20 to his intimidation attempt but as it happens he didn’t need it, he succeeded with his natural skill. Furthermore, Gao makes a Vocational skill roll to understand the order books and the abbreviations and marks. This is only partially successful but he gets the weapon smith to explain what he doesn’t understand. It turns out that weapons were ordered and paid for by a Magistrate here inside the Forbidden City. The only address is for the palace and the weapons were collected in person so he does not have a delivery address. These blades stuck in the weapon smith’s memory because he made 4 sets of 8 blades. 8 is the luckiest of numbers representing fortune but 4 is the number of death. Most of his orders are for pairs of blades as these are both lucky and bring peace.

Gao decided that he was probably dealing with an innocent here and commanding the weapon smith to report any more orders by the magistrate directly to the palace for approval in future he left the workshop.

Leaving the shop Gao again totally failed to spot anyone following him or acting suspiciously.

Before the session started I had not decided if one, both or neither of the guards following Gao were actually traitors. I try and have one combat per session but with all the faffing about with fake spies earlier I decided to just roll and see if either of these guards had it in for Gao. As it happens the first I rolled for turned out to be a traitor. I also habitually roll the Empathy, Reasoning and Self Discipline of my casual NPCs so I can get an idea of how to play them. This first guard has a 12 Empathy, 92 for Reasoning and 19 for SD. It is not a great leap to guess that he has worked out that Gao is now heading to the guard house and this is not good for the traitors. Gao is heading straight towards him when Guard 1 draws his Qi Jian and attacks. This fight turned into another grind it out, chipping away at #hits. Neither combatant moved much, the first guard caught Gao flat footed etc. but the attack roll was abysmal and after that they stood in the street and parried and counter attacked at each other. Gao slowly increased the percentage of his OB to attack once he realised the person fighting him was not getting through. The worst critical inflicted in 6 rounds was 5AK. Previously I had not read up on the changes to stun so this time rather than having Dazed, staggered and so on we just had the different levels of stun (-25/-50/-75). This didn’t make much difference but the important thing in this fight was the fact that the traitor guard is alive despite being unconscious.

That is where we left this session. Gao is down to 12#hits and is standing over the knocked out guard.

Next time…

I am hoping next week to be able to continue this game using RMU Beta 2. I am using the Beta RAW with the exception of the changes listed in JDales New Tables thread on the forums and next time I will be using double the #hits damage as discussed on the forum.

 

Legends of Shadow World pt3: The %#!@ hits the fan.

Image result for it's a trap gif

Last night the group attempted Chapter 3 of “Legends of Shadow World”. It did not go well. The session only ended up being 2.5 hours with 3 out 5 players killed and the other two “tapping out” since they could see the writing on the wall. This section was just too hard, and there are still 2 more! However, there is a gap between C4 and C5 where the group can rest, heal and gear up for the final confrontation.

I’m running these with loose notes, a rough outline and after the session I do an edit and then update the online files. Since they are meant as “tourney style” modules there is considerable railroading built into the adventure to segue between the chapters.

I’m heading off for an overseas adventure, so we won’t run Chapter 4 until next month. That will give me time to adjust the first three. What I would like to do is have another group play test these for feedback and other ideas. I can’t really run my own players through again and get good feedback now that they’ve already done it.

Keep in mind that these are not “publish ready”–it’s some bare-bones copy, a bit of exposition, pre-gen characters and hand-drawn layouts. I’m not interested in an editor or idea feedback–I need a 5 person group and GM run it in a session for gameplay feedback.

If you have an interest let me know. I can be reached at bhportland at yahoo.

Looking Forward

The second half of 2017 (yes,  know that June is technically in the first half of the year!) seems to be about completing projects.

After much badgering, Lightning Source found the print master for the RolemasterBlog Fanzine issue 1 and that is now in print and available.

This weekend  I will start the selection process for issue 3 and start to write the new unique content. I want the Fanzine to diverge from what is posted here and contain more playable content, more detailed NPCs, more new magical items and more fully detailed hoards using the treasure rules in C&T. Out posts here are open for all to read but the Fanzine is easier for a GM to keep close to his or her chest and not spoil the surprise if an adventure has a sting in the tail.

Why a fanzine?

I was asked last week, “Why a fanzine?” The answer is that paper has a longer life than a blog post that rolls off the front page on the site in just a few days or weeks and is then rarely seen again. A fanzine will hopefully be bought by one member of a gaming group and passed around. Hopefully for every one copy bought ten people will read it.

Moving forward I am selecting posts that have the most upbeat and positive views of RM. I don’t want someone to read it and think ‘these are the fans and all they do is complain’.

I hope to have the June issue in the can by the 10th of June and then we will see how fast it gets into print. Issue 2 was much faster to produce and layout than issue 1 and I can apply all of that to issue 3.

Now we are easing off on the blog posting this leaves more time for completing other projects. There is much hinting at the 50in50 project. We now have almost all fifty plot outlines sketched out, thirty of the fifty are written up in long form. I have also seen some of the graphics and battlemaps and they are looking great. We have mooted a September start and I cannot see that being a problem at all.

40th to 60th level adventures

Brian is full steam ahead with his 40th to 60th level adventures and I would like to join him in that. I have two ideas of my own for that. As it happened I was reading the stats for Titans last night. I had no idea how tough they were but surprisingly low level (15th). Thankfully it is easy to level them up to make a tougher version.

Gamemaster or Rolemeister

I also have, possibly two, child friendly versions of Rolemaster to write over the summer. I really want to keep the rules for each to under 30 pages and the cards used for skill, maneuver and combat resolution will all be generated by an algorithm which will save me a lot of work. I think that will be branded as Gamemaster rather than Rolemaster or some other variation. I quite like Rolemeister but I am not sure it is appropriate for a childrens RPG.

If that doesn’t keep me busy I have some games to run. My RMU playtest is back up and running. My playtester has returned from university for the summer. Before I know it my autumn gaming weekend will be coming up.

Not much gaming content in this post but if you get bored over the weekend look up Titans. They are seriously impressive.

Unifying and Simplification: Rolemaster Herbs

One of the early appeals of Rolemaster was it’s “realism”, and while most people thought of the combat system there was also exhaustive material around magical herbs. In many ways, RM herbs supplanted traditional fantasy RPGs reliance on healing magic and healing potions. Some even argue that RM healing spells are relatively weak, or that the detailed injury system required too many spells to heal even minor wounds.

I think many players/groups use herbs in different ways: some to augment natural healing processes while others allow for instant, miraculous healing effects. “Chew and screw” so to speak. Instant effects allow groups without skilled healers to adventure, or groups in intensive dungeon environments to maintain their tempo.

No matter how a GM handles effects and healing times, RM established some basic criteria for herbs: location codes(biome), form, prep and rarity. Peter discussed creature codes  in a previous blog, and certainly RM herb codes were another example of over complexity!

RMU has done much to simplify herb criteria; biomes are simplified, rarity is given a modifier and “form” & “prep” are fairly simple. What RMU didn’t do is completely unify these simplified criteria with the RM skill and resolution process.

What we have done is apply difficulty modifiers to 3 criteria for herbs.

  1. Rarity. The same as RMU, we give herbs a modifier for it’s rarity. This can be applied to a foraging/survival skill check or as a check to see if an herbalist or store stocks the herb.
  2. Preparation.  This is where we diverge from RMU which sort of combines prep and application into one criteria. Each herb is given a prep modifier, based on the difficulty in preparing the agent for use. Whether that’s brewing, distilling, steeping, powdering etc.
  3. Application.  Finally, we give an herb an application modifier, based on the difficulty of delivering it’s effects. For healing and other herbs with a range of effects the maneuver roll can act as a % of success–so a 85% roll would delivery 85% of the healing effect. For herbs with an “all or nothing” effect it’s simply a pass/fail maneuver.

Interestingly, you can have a herb that is relatively easy to prepare but difficult to apply correctly or more commonly, difficult to prepare by very easy to apply. For herbs that require no prep, or the application is easy we just give it an n/a and don’t require a skill check.

Using these criteria gives herbs complexity, but still rely on the simple skill resolution process.  Additionally, players may need to rely on different herbs at lower level that don’t require a high level of skill to prepare or apply, or may need to pay an herbalist to do the preparation for them. (For simplicity sake, I don’t get into much detail on “freshness” and removed most of the herb keeping spells from BASiL).

Also note, we put all rolemaster herbs into our SW Master Encounter table by biome. You can find that HERE.

So this is the last blog for May! Whew, we did a blog every day this month!!! For the next few months I’m going to reduce by blog pace to about 1/wk and focus on getting adventure files ready, finish the other projects I’m working on and do a bit of travelling overseas!

Gun Powder in Shadow World.

So, I’ve introduced gun powder to Shadow World. Part of this is based on hints that Terry has made in various SW products and the other is my integration of “Alchemy” into my rule set. I’ve already established that the Essaence affects covalent and ionic bonds (which explains magical materials) and Kulthea is not rich with reactive minerals.

Gun Powder is interesting, unpredictable, and not necessarily a game changer in a world with Elemental Magic, but technology is still progressing. I like the steampunk opportunities in Shadow World, and I like the “Musketeers” angle that can be created by combining simple guns with sword play.

As an ancillary example, someone brought up the “Powder Mage” books on the RM forums. I think you could easily model that world with Rolemaster, but you would have to create a ruleset around the “powder control” displayed in the book. Any of the Magician elemental lists are good templates: rather than controlling an element, you just create spells around detecting, sensing, controlling or buffing using gun powder. The book series also has regular mages—very powerful and would need their own powers or spell lists. Otherwise, in response to that forum post, the Powder Mage setting is easily modeled with RM rules.

Back to Shadow Word. We have ancient tech lasers and energy weapons, crystal power, steam energy, electric zap guns and everything in between. Why not introduce gun powder and guns as a unreliable, but occasionally potent technology? Shadow World Gun Slinger anyone?

Rolemaster Adventure Hooks: Head Fake or Trope Embrace?

If you are a regular reader here than you probably know that Rolemasterblog is putting together a challenge of writing 50 Adventures in 50 Days! These are short adventures or “hooks”, and while there is no such thing as a new idea, I think that Peter and I have come up with some twists and turns that add depth to a one dimensional challenge.

For me this is an exercise in both creativity and discipline. I try to outline an idea every day or two and work to add an interesting element to give it some “flair”.  What I have found is that I’m torn between embracing classic RPG tropes and trying to come up with something new and novel. As much as I want to avoid standard adventures ideas, there is something appealing about an old fashion dungeon crawl or fortress layout! But I also enjoy subverting classic tropes and messing with my players assumptions!

Hopefully, people will enjoy the Rolemasterblog creative content–even derivative ideas could spark your own creative process.

 

Personal Bugbear

There is one bit of every version of Rolemaster so far that I absolutely detest. That is the use of cryptic lookup codes. These are the codes that appear on the herbs and poison list and the monster locations/habitats.

It is the monsters habitats I really cannot stand. I know this has come up in the past but I was statting out an adventure the other night and these codes had me flipping back and forth through Creatures and Treasures yet again.

Black Stalker

This time is was the Black Stalker. This is the first line of their entry in C&T.

Black Stalker – [(–)–EK#–8]; 5’6″–7′;

At least it isn’t obtuse or unclear where these hunters are found! What is even more bizarre is the translation of these particular codes resolves as Enchanted/magical places and the cross-over points between dimensions and also ruins. Which is in fact wrong!

The whole point of the stalker is that it can be found anywhere. They hunt their designated target without fail, where ever they are. This really is like having the Terminator after you!

Creature Law

I was looking at the new Creature Law again and I noticed that these codes have finally been stripped out.

In the new Creature Law the Black Stalker has been somewhat toned down making them easier to defeat (slower initiative, weaker armour, poorer stalk & hide skill and the magical bonus on their weapon has been halved).

I don’t think toning them down is a bad thing but I was thinking about BriH’s goal of writing adventures for 50th level characters and these were going to be my go to villain. They were potentially too dangerous to use with a ‘normal’ party. They certainly punch above their weight on the battle field.

In my game I do not use the full breadth of the creatures in the D&D universe. Although I play in the Forgotten Realms the average module will have 20 different species living in the same location often with not a hint as to how they co-exist. I tend to slim those down. RM allows you to level creatures up and down so I don’t need to have kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, ogres, bugbears, owlbears, a gelatinous cube, two green slimes and a black pudding all in the same cave to create a challenge. When I am doing a conversion like that those dreaded creature codes can burn up 10% to 20% of all my prepping time trying make these things coherent and true to the setting and rules.

Good riddance to them is all I can say!

Rolemaster Character Creation in 15 Minutes.

Search around the internet for Rolemaster discussions and you’ll see that a lot of people gripe about how much time it takes to make a 1st lvl character. Much of this complaining is grounded in the deadliness of the system: it sucks spending an hour or two on creating a character only having them die with a bad fumble or high critical roll in their first outing. I get it.

Even if you are an experienced RMer, you can easily spend an hour building a character and filling out the multi-page character sheet. But what if it only takes 15 minutes or so to make a character in Rolemaster? We’ve simplified and modified the rules enough that character creation is flexible, easy and quick…and…a player can make virtually any character type they want. The key is using “packages” to replace the normal Adolescent and Apprenticeship skill picks. We combine this approach with our own ‘no profession‘ rule set, but it can work for the standard professions rules as well. It’s also not an “all or nothing” proposition; players can still go through individual skill buy for character creation if they want, and normal skill selection is still used after the first level.

We recently added a player to our group so I had the chance to test my newer rules out. So how do we do character creation? First, I have a player sketch out their character concept and review the various skill packages (cultural and vocational—we’ll get to that in a bit). They now have strong idea of the character they want to play and probably a solid plan moving forward. This was done prior to, on their own time and I didn’t add it to the creation time, but, that conceptual planning certainly makes the quick creation time possible.

Step 1. Roll Stats. I have the players roll 11 sets (appearance stat is used) of 3 rolls. The lowest roll in each set is dropped, the next lowest is the temp and the highest the potential. There is no minimum threshold and there are no prime stats that can be replaced with 90’s, but the player can assign the stat roll sets as they see fit. We have started adopting innate stat skills, so every stat now has some important use. Time: 2-3 minutes.

Step 2. Choose a race & culture. Like RMU we use preset skill packages for various general cultures, races and specific SW societies. This replaces the original “Adolescent Skill Pick” step in RM. You can see some of the choices HERE (need RM Forums account to download).  Time 2-3 minutes.

Step 3. Choose a vocation/profession package. We have over 40 regular vocations to choose from, plus another 20 SW specific vocations. This replaces the “Apprenticeship Skill Pick” step in standard RM and represents the time spent after childhood in teen and early adult years. Vocation packages include cultural notes, type of training, years spent at vocation, skills, spell lists, established relationships, experiences, starting equipment, and wealth and property. You can see some of the choices HERETime: 2-3 minutes.

Step 4. Special Skill Rank Bonus. Players have 6 “points” that can assign as skill rank bonus(s)—sort of like aptitudes and replaces the normal assigned profession rank bonus. They have the choice of: (1) +3 OR (2) +2, OR (1) +2 and (3) +3 OR (6) +1 to assign to specific skills of their choice. This gives the player flexibility to really shape the character’s abilities and talents! Time: 2-3 minutes

Step 5. Pick Spell Lists if applicable. Cultural and Vocational Packages will give general and/or specific spell lists but some choices might need to be made. We individual spell pick. Time: 0-5 minutes.

Step 6. Calculate HPs and PPs. Calculate rank bonuses, special bonuses and stat bonuses for skills. Time: 5 minutes.

Step 7: Fill in character sheet. Add equipment, calculate encumbrance and DB. Time: 2-5 minutes.

Obviously with a spreadsheet version, steps 6 & 7 are almost automatic, reducing time further. In my player’s example, he chose a Fustir-Gost Shaman which gave him a good range of outdoor skills,  fighting ability, and practical Channeling magic. It took him 21 minutes to make complete his character.

A couple of points to emphasize:

  • After the 1st lvl players follow normal skill selection (50 DPs)—the packages are only for adolescent and apprenticeship.
  • New cultural packages are easy to design and introduce and can be effective in framing a particular race or culture’s comparative advantages or unique attributes.
  • While we use around 50 vocational packages, the possibilities are infinite. For example, a Fustir-gost fisherman will have a different profile of skills than a Sulini fisherman or a soldier from Eidolon will have different skills than a soldier from Rhakhaan.
  • Vocation packages include more than skills—it provides a variety of resources and background cues to flesh out the character. Here is a rough outline for several of the “Militia” professions:

Vocation Packages Sample

Quick character creation doesn’t mean generic characters—50+ cultural packages and 50+ vocational packages allows for thousands of unique combinations. For us it’s a great solution for simplifying and shortening the Rolemaster character creation process and it may be a good bolt in when introducing new players to the game.

BASiL Deep Dive: Automaton Spell List

Part of my deconstruction of Spell Law was to come up with simpler rules for various alchemical processes that could be more easily used “in game”. One of the appeals of original RM was the framework for creating magic items, but the time and effort involved in making items needed to occur outside gameplay. The alchemist was better as an NPC or the spells should have been shifted to Closed lists (like the detailed healing spells lists in the Channeling Realm).

What sort of alchemical processes could be simplified to be usable in actual game play?

  1. Simple Alchemical Formulae or Devices:  acids, grenades, glues, glow lanterns etc that can be made in hours or a day.
  2. Single use simple embedded items: charms, candles, elixirs, salves, lotions, oils, powders that are consumed when activated.
  3. Basic constructs: drones, miniatures, robots, engines, machines that can be powered and controlled.

With #3 above in mind, one of my favorite new spells lists is “Automaton”, a Closed Essence list I created as part of my BASiL project. My intent was to create a very simple and flexible spell list that allowed for basic automata: motive power (movement), direction (control), and agency (sensory data). Basically simple robot capability with a few lines of programming code.

All of my BASiL spell lists include 1-2 pages of GM/player notes that provide more detailed direction on use and limitations but I didn’t include those in my file uploads to date. I’ve had a few questions about this list and we’ve grappled with some in game usage with one of my players so I thought I would dive deeper into the list as I envision it.

  1. First, the list isn’t just limited to a “robot” or stereotype anthropoid construct found in RM “Creatures and Treasures”. This spell list could function on any mechanical or compound device: a propeller, pulley, wheel axle etc.
  2. The spells do not create structural integrity or range of motion–functionality must be built into the object or target. For instance, animate dead might create a skeleton undead and it’s assumed that the spell “binds” the bones together into a coherent form again. These spells do not do this: cast on a stone statue it wouldn’t imbue flexibility or fluidity to solid stone. However, this spell could animate a corpse. A GM will need to adjudicate some items. For instance its conceivable that a paper origami dog has flexibility to move it’s legs, neck  or wag it’s tail.
  3. The strength and durability of the target is not improved or increased by this spell. (The paper dog would be destroyed if it got wet, a glass rod would still shatter if exposed to hard surface or torque).
  4. Tasks and Triggers should be seen as simple computer code. “And”, “If” and a few word sentence. This spell does not impart sentience or even basic A.I.
  5. Animate has a duration, otherwise it could create a perpetual motion machine or free work. Because of this duration (and perhaps spell list accessibility) it isn’t practical for a primary drive system in skyships, airbarges, paddle boats etc.
  6. Animate spells are constrained by the size of the object powered–not by the size of the moving part only.  So you can’t use a Animate I to power a TINY engine to drive a 120′ warship. Basically I’m trying to tie in concepts of HP & torque into the RMU size framework.

One of my players has really been clever with this spell list and while occasionally he pushes it’s use, I feel the size and duration limitations balance it out well and make it useful for in game play.

You can download the list here (Peter still haven’t figured this file thing out yet)

Automaton

 

 

First Level Shouldn’t Suck!

If we’re soapboxing, I’ll jump  on one of mine: First Level shouldn’t suck! The whole premise behind first level should be giving a player a character who’s gone through her formative years and experiences and is ready to set out on her own, not some abstraction of early adolescence who can’t survive being stung by a bee, let alone a minor encounter with a wild dog. The old joke about D&D magic users having to hide behind fighters until they were about fifth level has a sad basis in fact, and Rolemaster (in my opinion) seems intent on turning first level into a collection of those magic users. Continue reading “First Level Shouldn’t Suck!”