Newbie looking for critizism...

[Lugaru]

What do you think of this setting?

Please tell me if you've seen this done before or executed better. As a note the system Im using is a fast and dirty single d6 v.s. d6 system with many bloody criticals, much skill use (because you cant fight all the time if its this dangerous) and a fantasy setting.

Before I start I dont know how fond you guys are of seeing yet another "really long setting post" so trust me, I'll try to keep it short and not too overly detailed.

Basically all I need to know is does this stuff sound exiting or shall I put off making a setting untill I have a better premise in mind? Just want to clear this up before I start... the reason Ive gotten far designing my game without a setting is that it focusses more on a mood than an idea, characters can be blissfully ingnorant of the mythology that forms their world but continue to live out their violent, hopeless lives. Ok... here we go:


Gods : We start out with a grand city where all the eternals live in peace and harmony, creating grand works of art, beautiful creatures and so on. A la Paradise Lost, a faction forms trying to take control and they are cast out after an incredibly long (I mean they are inmortal) and nasty war. They end up in a nasty sub region filled with ignorant and alien creatures that they beat into submission using them to try to forge another "beautiful heavenly realm" (ending up with a hellish baroque citadel). This "hell" is a prison, but occationaly a lowly demonic emisary is sent out to the world to perform acts of comerce, diplomacy and of course wreak a little havoc. A dozen or so good and evil gods exist in eighter region, giving the players something to worship. I dont believe I will ever flesh out one of these regions though, cuz I hate games that give the devil stats. The less is known, the better... exept for some myths about petty rivalries and godly execess.

Necromancy: A human city learned a wonderous art allowing the preservation and reanimation of corpses, creating a new type of funeral rite. Basically the soul goes on to its final resting place, while the body remains as a delicatly preserved and beautifully garbed servant of the city, avoiding grief by being disguised in a porcelain mask. They did come into war against other civilizations that envied their incredible wealth (In a society where the main work force had no needs, even the poor where rich) forcing them to mass produce disgusting zombies as protection and also to find new, deadlier uses for the reanimation magic. In the end they won, but not before transforming their once magestic palace into a dark, evil place. Mad with power they began shipping out hundreds of undead soldiers in the bellies of reanimated whales to smite their enemies... before long the secrets of necromancy had become as wide spread as the destruction it brought with it. This war continues today.

Origin of the species: The earths population was destroyed and recreated on several an occation (like in meso american mythology), but of course there where survivers every time. Although Humans (the most recent creation) populate most of the world, a host of goblinoid, elven, antropomorphic and simply bizzare creatures exist from past "worlds", most of them much tougher than humans (having survived several cataclysims, developed technology for a longer period and had more time to evolve) yet for every 1 potent creature out there, a 1000 humans exist to crush it, so humans ultimatly rule. As for the necesary "twist" a great deal of elves have joined cities and try extremely hard to be human, wearing their clothes, eating their food and speaking their language. The rest of the elves of course hate this. Races like trolls and ogres (toned down yet still potent versions of what we are used to) can be played, with your main problem being that social advancement is an uphill battle.

World civilizations: Im thinking of maybe dividing the world into about 10 or so different styles of civilization, each with a few countries and so on but its unlikely I'll bother mapping the whole mess, just set guidelines for adventures in different parts of this world. Any way's the most advanced of civilizations has embraced elves, dwarves and such creatures using their innate knowlege to create a complex pre industrial world complete with gun powdered muskets, primitive asembly lines and such. Its cross to bear are massive revolts and rebelions, high crime rates and much rogue use of technology. Other society ideas include a much more philosofical one that know's every thing about humanity (exelent philosofers, doctors and all that), a heavily magic oriented one, our good necromantic friends I mentioned earlier, warlike humanoid nations of Orcs and such, underground cities and all that. I dont want to make it too D&D'ish so most large cities will continue to be cruel, simple and ignorant places that mimic real world human societies without too much "b.s." fantasy paraphanalia like "the city is policed by golems" or "this city is protected by a mystic barrier". Instead I just want cities filled with over worked people, poorly designed waste management, tons of only slightly organized crime and many neighborhoods full of repressed and abused inmigrants ("another kid is gone... it must of been those damn Trolls! We shouldent have let them set up camp outside the docks!").

The overal importance of a character: When you start, you are usually a nobody. If your story teller follows the guidelines on how to reward a player, it will take you a while to become some one with wealth and power. In the meantime you might occationaly find yourself cleaning stables to afford a night at the inn or drafting yourself into the army just so you can see a piece of bread every day. Your character cannot have a title such as Knight, Assassin, Necromancer, Samurai or whatever until quite a few skills are learned, social requirements are met and so on. Of course munchkinism will probably still happen at some point, so if in your game players can kill kings and battle gods, in this game its likely that they will at least become potent enought to take over cities and defeat major npc's.

Suggestions?

[ethan_greer]

Hi, welcome to the Forge!

If you're going for gritty, grim, realistic fantasy cities, you might want to check out HarnWorld.

For further ideas to develop your Necromancy concept, you might want to check out Fire Sea by Margaret Weis (sp?) and Tracy Hickman.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm trying to distill down the interesting parts to single statments.

1. There are gods both above and below that are worshipped, but don't interact all that much directly with the exception of the occasional demon.
2. Necromancy City threatens world.
3. Monsters and other creatures exist from several dark ages past.
4. Varying regoins with differing but grimly realistic civilizations have technology ranging from primitive to early gunpowder.
5. Play occurs in the setting starting from the bottom levels of society working up.

See Glorantha, Harn, Talislanta, Tekumel, Jorune, Earthdawn, Mythus, about a zillion settings for RPG available online for free (stuff like http://www.fargoth.com/  ), MERP, Forgotten Realms, Children of the Sun, Arrowflight... I'm not going to finish this list, you should get the point.

I'm failing to see what you are proposing as remotely new. Sure, there were two interesting ideas (porcelain masked zombies, and zombie whale transports) that are probably original although even they are based on obvious memes. I myself was involved in a project where we had a city who's people had their spirits trapped in beautiful fired clay bodies when they died.

The whale thing is pretty cool....

I especially like how you see the need for a "twist" for elves. Having a "twist" for elves is about as original as an Italian grandmother having oregano or something as a "secret" spice for her spaghetti sauce. Lesse, in Glorantha, the twist is that elves are plants. In Earthdawn there are blood elves who have thorns that peirce their skin to out them in a constant state of pain. In Children of the Sun, the elves are the bad guys from days long past. In Arrowflight elves mated with demons to create humans (or something like that), In Talislanta one of their advertising points is: "No Elves!" Bog standard to have Elves and a "twist".


Thing is, that originality in setting isn't really all that important. I think you could definitely make what you have original enough that it might be a setting worth playing in possibly. The question is how do the setting and mechanics interelate? Is there a synergy there that's worth investigating and playing? In fact, setting is not neccessary at all if your game is crreated correctly.

Otherwise, I wouldn't count on anything you have so far to be able to attract players all by itself. It isn't substantively different than literally hundreds of such settings available published or for free. Can we see what you have for system? That might help enable us to give you direction better.

You may also want to look at the Fantasy Hearbreakers essay (I hate assigning it, but it might be a helpful read).

Mike

[Lugaru]

Edit: I ran a spell check, it was pretty pathetic.

Thanks! Frankly I was expecting to see a few "been there, done that" replies but the setting (for the time being) is mostly cosmetic revolving around a universal (somewhat) system I'm doing. Its too bad Im not familiar with most of the games you guy's mention... I basically havent purchased a single gaming supplement in over 10 years... right now especially because I just moved to Boston from Mexico, so I dont have a gaming group. Im designing this system more as a hobby than as something to play with people...

About the system people have the usual physical & mental stats, with a value assigned of course. It's an outdated way of doing things, but at the same time it paints an image very efficiently. Players have assigned stats depending on their race, which can be modified with a few "attributes" (you buy "muscular", your character is now a muscular human... etc). Of course nothing is random, although I might eventually create some random generation rules because people seem to dig that stuff, especially for npc's. Stat numbers are low, but with enough variation to see a difference from character to character. I'm not fond of percentile or die pool systems, percentile being a drag and die pools are too silly (Ok, we played a race and he got two successes while I got one... he ran twice as fast as I did!).

Skills operate on 3 levels... the "you dont have it so don't bother putting it on your character sheet" level, the "Ok, you can fish just as well as any other fisher man" level and the "your a good bit above your peers" level. Its common not to know stuff, but your story teller might let you do it without the knowledge just by making it a lot harder... it just beats writing "poor" next to a dozen skills. If you know enough on it, you just write down that you have the skill. To be gifted at something, you usually require either a specific attribute when creating your character or buy a very special modifier from your race/profession. Skills rarely require rolls, but those that do simply use the "roll under x stat" system. Not that many social skills exist, since it's not worth fleshing out unless some one could profit from their use.

Professions: They consist in a single pre requisite skill and then a whole bunch of possible skills. Example: Soldier... pre requisite is tactics training, which basically allows you to fight better alongside others, using a few simple fighting styles. Other included skills are weapon proficiencies; special combat maneuvers, communicating from a distance (horns, bugles, smoke, mirror codes), first aid and stuff like that. You buy whatever you want as you go along. Any way's nothing prevents you from taking a specific path... just like you could be an Occultist with 4 occultism related skills you could also have the first prerequisite skill in 5 classes (in other worlds you know the basics on hunting, fighting, street smarts and all that). All in all character classes are something you build using abilities that are grouped in professions... like an Amazon would have barbarian and hunter skills or whatever. Monster hunter could have soldier and occultist skills... etc. This also eliminates "classes"... I hate the idea of "baby" paladins and "beginner" samurais... you earn the title and skills as you go along.

Levels: Ok.. There's really no levels... just learning points. Depending on your race and the amount of skills you have, that's the amount of XP you need for a learning point (usually a number like 8 or 10). Then you simply use the point to learn a new skill... simple. Some skills enhance a stat so there are no rules on "spending xp to improve stats". You get experience from fights (usually 1 point, not the best way to gain xp), from getting your ass kicked (great way to learn), from trying stuff for the first time or at a new level of complexity (don't expect to gain experience from doing the same things a lot on purpose) and mostly from acting out your flaws and stuff like that. You also gain xp by modifying the world (with ACE points, but more on that latter).

Combat is the sweet part... its resolved by rolling a d6 v.s. another d6 and adding certain bonuses. By looking at the result (without using any tables) you know how much damage was done (difference + str. + weapon), if it was critical (a diff. of 3 or more) and any other stuff you might be interested in. If you use the "critical locations" plugging (no reason not to use it, its fast), it takes another roll (unless you got a diff. of 4 or more, then you just pick). Using the plugging makes the game less about "consuming your enemies hp's" and more about "inflicting a single crippling or fatal wound" such as a strong hit to the neck would mean decapitation... etc. As for equipment any one can wear or wield any thing, but every time it adds up over your strength rating, you get some kind of a penalty (first time around it just makes some skills harder, but for instance 3 times your strength in armor and weaponry makes you a sitting duck).

The quick, deadly and balanced (not too huge a difference between two characters) combat makes other way's of resolving your problems seem much more attractive. Still some "kill em all" players will exist.. I just don't know how long they will last without a merciful storyteller.

Player/storyteller interaction: There's no rolling behind screens unless that specific storyteller wants to do so for some reason. Mostly players know how difficult or easy challenges are... it's just their characters that don't. Since this game is terrible at rewarding players (very little experience and cash come's your way) you can either role play or complain about how powerful your character would be if this where another game. ACE (alter characters environment) points exist as a crutch to help players learn to interact with the storyteller. In their most basic form they can allow players to alter the description of something that's happening (I put my hand in front of my neck... so instead of the arrow killing me it just... AUCCHH!) But its main use is for characters to generate situations, npc's and objects. Examples are spending ace points to "remember I have an army buddy that might let us sleep in his stable" or "I was disarmed, until I saw that sword over the fireplace". On the other hands the limits of how much this stuff can benefit you are capped pretty low.

Bout elves, your totally right. Only problem is that Im going for an element of familiarity, so I need to include them. I just hate the whole "elves represent all that is white, pure, civilized and natural" so I want to do 'em more warts and all. Afraid of humans and trying hard to be like them, at the expense of their far superior culture.

All in all its designed to be easy to learn, require as little "lets check the book" possible and give fast, realistic results.

www.geocities.com/lugaru
You can check it out, its intended to be free, fast and fun... I constantly had additions to my playing groups so I needed to make a system that ran fast enough for newbies but wasn't too crappy for experienced players.

[Mike Holmes]

Digesting.

In the meanwhile, look up Ygg in the search engine, as well as "Standard Fantasy".

Dice pools silly, eh? OK.

Mike

[Lugaru]

'Bout die pools: I dont mind dice with a grade curve... I just cant stand the average "successes" method... example:

Tom and Rob run a race... they both get 2 successes. Its yet another tie. But if you do it like this

Tom: 8 7 4
Matt: 7 7 3

Again Tom and Matt had two successes, but Tom still wins by a few milliseconds. Also Im not fond of having too many dice rolling at once... I mean some game's Ive read about require up to 10 d10's. The only time Ive really messed with die pools was a game where you tried to roll low ammounts adding several dice... with 4 dice for beggininers, 3 for intermediate characters and 2 for masters.

By the way a search on Ygg didint pop up any thing exept for this post, a search on "standard fantasy" popped up over 100 hits... so I guess you meant there's a ton of them. No matter...

[Walt Freitag]

By the way a search on Ygg didint pop up any thing exept for this post

Dang, you're right. That's very odd, there are dozens of threads about this game design and it was referred to often as Ygg.

If you search for Yggdrasil instead, you'll find a bunch of them.

- Walt

[Lugaru]

Yggdrasil hangover... duuudee...

Ok, I read quite a few of the posts and yes, it seems to be coming along quite nicely. I went ahead and posted on the "Bob made a goblin" thread.

Still, what Im going for is rather different... let me play out a few sample combats just to give you an idea.

First the way I do stats... stat's range from 1 (mice and such) to 10 (huge monsters)... any thing over that would be uncivilized. Any way's the way your stat's work is that they have dual numbers such as

1-2= 0 bonus
3-4= 1 bonus
5-6= 2 bonus
7-8= 3 bonus

The reason? Your stat is used more for skill rolls (cuz there is no opponant) but on challanged rolls (me v.s. you) we use the bonus. Also stat numbers help dictate stuff like hp's, mana, how much you can carry and other crap.

To not go too deep into stats and all that let's say matt and jack have a 2 bonus on every stat... let's give each a sword and here we go!

(These are real rolls)
1)Matt rolls 1, Jack rolls 6... we can safely assume Jack jumped out of the way with grace and style.
2)Jack rolls 5, Matt rolls 3... a hit but not critical (It needs to be a diff of 3 or more). The damage equals 8 (2 diff + 2 str bonus + 4 from the sword). Matt had 18 hp but now its 10... yeah, a sword hurts even when its a graze.
3)Matt rolls 6, Jack rolls 6... its a graze! Graze's are divided by 4 (and usualy ignored if the dude wears armor). Damage= 0 diff + 2 str + 4 from the sword / 4... 1 damage. A small cut.
4) Man... Jack is angry! He rolled a 6 and Matt rolled a 2... that means its a diff. of 4 (not only critical, but he can choose what sort!). Damage is 4 diff + 2 str + 4 from teh sword... 10 damage!. Here's the deal on criticals:

First you decide if the critical did less than 1/4 of your oponents hp... if so then ignore it. If it did 1/4 (5 in Matt's case) or more then its a nasty critical... the kind that cripples your arm for a few turns, temporarily blinds your eye or causes you to bleed for a while. If 1/2 damage was done (10) then its a really nasty critical... the kind that chops off an arm, impales your heart or in Matt's case... CUTS OFF YOUR HEAD. The end.

Jack get's 1 xp from the battle... 10 more and he'll be able to learn a new skill. There's at least 50 skills so far in the game without even promoting yourself into the advanced skills yet... so he'll be entertained for a while slashing briggands.

How things work: ok... if Jack wouldent of been able to pick the spot, he would of rolled 2d6 and that would of picked the type of critical damage. Crittical effects are different for piercing, bashing & slashing. Fiery criticals ignite you and so on...

This is all you need to know about combat...
-armor subtracts damage. Weapons increase it and change the type. -Strenght dictates how much armor and weaponry you can use.
-Skills (weapon skills) add one to your roll... a huge advantage (its like an extra 2 skill levels).
-Special combat maneuvers cost a point of mana (spells cost more but I like to think warriors get exhausted too) and allow you to make more attacks, do more damage or have a better roll. Some add effects like choking, tripping and disarming to name a few.

Easy to learn or what?

[Mike Holmes]

Lugaru, this is going to come off as very harsh. I'm not trying to be insulting, but I feel that it needs to be done like this for impact.

Ok, I read quite a few of the posts and yes, it seems to be coming along quite nicely. I went ahead and posted on the "Bob made a goblin" thread.

Oh, boy did you miss my meaning.

Yggdrassil is not coming along nicely. It's dead in the water, as far as I know (Christoffer?). My point was not that this was somthing to emulate. You must not have run across one of my many rants against the whole idea of standard fantasy, etc. It's dead, and what you have isn't remotely as good as Ygg is.

Did you read the Heartbreakers article I linked to above?

You are not designing a new game. You are making house adjustments to D&D. As such, this is going to have very, and I mean very, limited appeal.

First the way I do stats... stat's range from 1 (mice and such) to 10 (huge monsters)... any thing over that would be uncivilized. Any way's the way your stat's work is that they have dual numbers such as

1-2= 0 bonus
3-4= 1 bonus
5-6= 2 bonus
7-8= 3 bonus

The reason? Your stat is used more for skill rolls (cuz there is no opponant) but on challanged rolls (me v.s. you) we use the bonus. Also stat numbers help dictate stuff like hp's, mana, how much you can carry and other crap.

Just like the dual stats in D&D. But with different numbers for some reason. Ah, reading ahead, I see it's so you can roll less dice. Cool.

(These are real rolls)
1)Matt rolls 1, Jack rolls 6... we can safely assume Jack jumped out of the way with grace and style.

...snipped example and combat explanation...

This is nigh identical to everyone's first heartbreaker rules. An attempt at singe roll resolution with static weapon damage, and quick resolution. Still stuck on criticals, too. Nothing broken that I can see, but nothing remotely original.

Jack get's 1 xp from the battle... 10 more and he'll be able to learn a new skill. There's at least 50 skills so far in the game without even promoting yourself into the advanced skills yet... so he'll be entertained for a while slashing briggands.

EXP like D&D, eh. And fifty skills withoug getting into "advanced skills". Well, at least you didn't just refer to the GURPS skill list.

How things work: ok... if Jack wouldent of been able to pick the spot, he would of rolled 2d6 and that would of picked the type of critical damage. Crittical effects are different for piercing, bashing & slashing. Fiery criticals ignite you and so on...

Random hit locations. One of the first Dragon magazine articles I remember reading was about a hit location table. Damage types? Have you seen a Rolemaster crit chart?

This is all you need to know about combat...
-armor subtracts damage. Weapons increase it and change the type. -Strenght dictates how much armor and weaponry you can use.
-Skills (weapon skills) add one to your roll... a huge advantage (its like an extra 2 skill levels).

This was all invented in TFT a product that came out in 1979.

-Special combat maneuvers cost a point of mana (spells cost more but I like to think warriors get exhausted too) and allow you to make more attacks, do more damage or have a better roll. Some add effects like choking, tripping and disarming to name a few.

I have no comment.

Easy to learn or what?

Here's a system. Whenever something happens and we're not sure how the outcome will occur, as in combat, or determining how well a baboon does in de-licing his companion, roll a d6. If the roll is a 1-3, the player says what happens. On a 4-6 the GM says what happens.

Easy to learn or what?

Yesterday you inspired me to write yet another in a series of articles. Note that it's not aimed at you specifically, but at would-be designers in general. You were just the trigger that got me to write it. Here's a link to it:

Mike's Standard Rant #1: Designers! Know Your Hobby!

The point of all this is that I wouldn't even know where to start helping you with your system other than to say that you aren't going to have something remotely interesting until you start over and incorporate some of the concepts developed over the past 25 years of game design.

If the system is just for home use, and you're wondering if it's sufficient, I can only say, try FUDGE. Or any of the zillion free games that exist that are all, unfortunately superior to what you have down so far.

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Yikes! That hurts. A wise man once said "everyone should write a heartbreaker."

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

Yikes! That hurts. A wise man once said "everyone should write a heartbreaker."

And I still think that's true. But I don't know that anyone can give advice on how to do so.

Further, I think that this Heartbreaker has earned him his wings so to speak. No need to complete it in gory detail. Time to set it aside and become a game designer.

Mike

[Lugaru]

Edit: I just meant to add... Im here to have my ideas critized, not to have them thrown into a larger group that we all have read articles on how to shoot down... I could of gone to any forum for that.

What killed Ygg?

Any ways I had read about the whole "fantasy heartbreaker" thing on another occation, but irony is Im really not basing my material on any of those games. I played D&D for the lat time maybe.. uhm... at least 10 year's ago. Quicky background: I was making die based games... an aunt recognized that as D&D so she got me a copy... that was ok but eventually the system got on my nerves and I started doing systems without buying any supplements ever again. This is my most current...

Still the one thing that get's me is the lack of though put into modern gaming... quick example: Roll a d6... if you get a 4 or more you pick what happens. Ok... why not throw a coin? Arent all characters the same, but with a different name? Is there any posibility for advancement? And ideas like this have equally been done to death by indie gamers... its like saying D&D is embarrasing hair metal while story teller games are the "nu metal". The only differences is what decade we are in and whats currently a fad, according to the articles Ive read I mean. As far as execution goes over simplification is not automatically superior.

Another thing... for instance I've never played rune quest so I know nothing about its random hit loccations but does Rune Quest suck so bad that if something of mine coincided with it, it would taint my game? I dont know what GURP's skill lists are like, but are you embarrased to have used them? All in all I cant compare my system with theirs... but I do know it's been optimized for the type of play it generates, and no time is lost on eighter of these accounts.

And I mean making a new story teller type of game is easy... let me invent one right now....

You have 1-5 points per ability that you create and write down. Any thing you want. Abilities are eighter phisical, combat, social or resource oriented. We use a deck of playing cards for this game... to accomplish something you pull as many cards as your stat dictates, the more hearts (for social skills), diamonds (for resource checks), clubs (for phisical tests) or spades (for ass kicking) you get, the more controll you have over the outcome. I want to get a hotel room? I pull a diamond or use one from my hand. I want to shoot a guy? Awesome, I pulled two spades and a club, the two spades should allow me to incapacitate him.

Now so it's not a fantasy heartbreaker I could put it in the setting of Amores Perros, Mexico city crime and dog fighting. Its original... just not what Im going for.

Just maybe I want to play in a fantasy setting. It allows you to do lots of things. Secondly I might want a system with some meat on the bones... if not I would be playing one of those games that people designed in 15 minutes, like what I just mentioned above.

Lastly, about experience... what do you suggest? The whole "using a skill raises it" system tends to be easily abused. Giving out "levels" as you see fit is the same thing, only rounded out. Non advancement beats the purpose... you catch my drift.

I hope to keep hearing critizism (the title mentiones this word, as an invitation to slap my ideas around as much as you want) in hopes that new ideas come up.

Edit: I just meant to add... Im here to have my ideas critized, not to have them thrown into a larger group that you've read plenty on how to critize.

[Mark Johnson]

I hope to keep hearing critizism (the title mentiones this word, as an invitation to slap my ideas around as much as you want) in hopes that new ideas come up.

What is the single biggest problem that you are having with the game or setting thus far?  Having designed the game, I am sure that there is that one element that just doesn't work to your satisfaction.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Ygg isn't dead, it's just pining for the fjords. Or actually all my stuff is still on another computer - a computer I haven't had access to for about well, since I stopped writing here about Ygg pretty much. In the mean time I picked up another project (web game), and I originally planned to complete that before I picked up Ygg again.

However I'm kinda stuck with that, and I started reading on the forge again anyway. So... I'm back :) I still don't have my notes though so I'm kinda winging it.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Oh, and what Mike is saying is basically (tell me if I'm wrong Mike):

You don't have anything different enough to be new, and if it's old there is no reason why people wouldn't stick with one of the big popular titles even if your game would happen to have a few advantages compared to AD&D. If you want to make something that matters you have to take things to a new level.

As for me:

I want to do that but the short story is that I'm making slow progress and that has been pretty frustrating with people trying to help me making sense out of my idea. (I still insist I'm working with the same inspiration as when I arrived!)

I guess you can look at all my articles and see how much work it is to really try to take standard fantasy to a new level. All that discussion and still not finished...

It's a difficult genre to do something new in. Know what you're doing, that's all. Do you have the endurance to polish the coal until it becomes gold?