Unrealities of Mine

A really good text on the Nordic Scene

2006-08-25T00:28:00.000+02:00

I just stumbled on (ok, I got it from Sven) this really good text about the Nordic Scene and Knutpunkt. It is a bit more elaborate and include more hard numbers than my previous article on the subject, but my text still got some important info not found in this one.

If you want to know about the roleplaying stuff I do these days, you have to turn to Sven.

Promethean

2006-06-07T00:17:00.000+02:00

The previews for White Wolfs next World of Darkness game Promethean: The Created is well underway. Initially I was a bit sceptical about it, as I thought WW would keep to close to their established format, even if the game is a limited series of five books. Sure they will stick to the 5x5 splat format but the social splats are very different due to prometheans not havning a proper society. There also seems to be a lot of other differences in the basic concept that makes it uniqe enough for a new game. Most importantly, the more I hear about the details of the game the more I look forward to trying it out. The concept of someone who is not human at all but wants to be is something I have often wanted to play in various rpg:s but for never gotten around to do. Yes, Data is one of my favourite fictional characters.

If you want to know more about Promethean the following links should do the trick. Starting from above will make the most sense if you are completely new to the game.

Podcast with main book developer Bill Bridges
Interview with developer Matt McFarland
Podcast with developer Matt McFarland
Marcon demo game report
Kublacon demo game report
Promethean homepage with all the daily previews

Victory for Lordi!

2006-05-21T02:06:00.000+02:00

Congratulations to the Finnish monster rockers Lordi for winning the Eurovision Song Contest. They may not represent the best of the genre, but the melodic metal of their entry Hard Rock Hallelujah kind of grows on you. Most importantly it is a large departure from the type of music normally in the top spots of the contest. As the winner is decided by phone voting all over Europe this may be an indication that metal is rising in poularity. Or just that all metalheads voted ten times each...

Role, Play, Art

2006-05-19T17:54:00.000+02:00

The Knutpunk 2006 book is now available online as a PDF.

Role, Play, Art—Collected Experiences of Role-Playing

Knutpunkt is over

2006-05-04T14:37:00.000+02:00

Knutpunkt 2006 is over and it was a blast! Thank you everyone who showed up.

Due to being one of the organisers I didn't have time to attend as may seminars as I wanted, but making travel arrangements also made me meet and talk to people I might not have encounterd otherwise. All in all I think it was a good choice to be part of the crew for my first Knutpunkt.

I will post some more reflections and a picture or two later. We have also made a forum, Post Mortem, for talk about the event.

(I hope I still got some readers left after making no posts in over a month...)

Cat!

2006-03-18T11:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I and my girfriend finally brougt home the cat we have had reserved for over a month now. It's a beautiful Somali girl (Somali is an Abyssinian with longer fur). Just look at the silly smile on my face!

She do not have a proper name yet, feel free to make suggestions.

Read this!

2006-03-18T10:19:00.000+01:00

This article over at the Kallista Press blog got an excellent explanation of something that I have touched on myself.

Read it!

Finally!

2006-03-15T16:40:00.000+01:00

Gamers have wondered for nearly 20 years why there is no Warhammer 40.000 roleplaying game. In 2007 the wait will finally be over.

The reactions over at RPGnet is unsurprisingly very positive.

Knutpunkt 2006 in Stockholm

2006-03-04T01:09:00.001+01:00

Knutpunkt 2006 is open for registration!
The convention is limited to 179 participants and we will enforce a strict first come-first serve policy, so hurry and register at:
http://kp2006.jeepen.org/

Who is coming to Knutpunkt?
Look at the registration rooster at: http://kp2006.jeepen.org/

When is Knutpunkt?
Friday 29 april - Monday 1 may on Barnens ö outside Stockholm. It costs 500 SEK and you get entry to all the seminars, the locale, a proper bed, the big party and Sweden (priceless).

What is Knutpunkt?
Knutpunkt (Eng. Junction/Nodal point) is a yearly Nordic convention on the craft and theory of role-playing. The goal of Knutpunkt is to provide a meeting place for people interested in enhancing and analysing role-playing. This we do by seminars, discussions and experimental larping. Knutpunkt in 2006 is the tenth annual conference. It continues to be a big influence on as well as a big source of inspiration for Nordic larp.

When can I meet the organisers?
Thursday 9th of mars 19:00 we will be at the bar “Wirströms” on Stora Nygatan 13 in the old town, Stockholm. Come, talk to us and hang out with a lot of nice larpers!

Where can I register?
http://kp2006.jeepen.org/

Where can I find out more?
http://jeepen.org/knutpunkt/

What if I want to organise something?
Send a description of your arrangement to: programme@jeepen.org

No love for the d12

2006-02-26T22:42:00.000+01:00

Why is the d12 used less often than other dice?

Violent young girls

2006-02-20T12:46:00.000+01:00

This Saturday I had taken on my responsibility to introduce three girls between 13 and 14 years old to roleplaying. The event was taking place at a youth camp arranged by an organization for soberness. (These organizations are quite common in Sweden, many of them created during the turn of the century.)

I had a number of goals when planning the events five hours:
- I wanted to play a fairy traditional scenario, to give them an image of how a typical roleplaying session work.
- I wanted to base it on a commercially available Swedish game.
- I wanted to simplify the rules to enable quick learning of the system and getting on with the actual play.
- I wanted to avoid fantasy, to counteract the opinion that roleplaying is fantasy.
- I wanted the players to have fun and getting to play as they wanted, seldom saying "No, you can't do that at all".

I choosed to use a convention scenario called "The seven mutants" for the game Mutant*. I simplifying the already quite basic rules and did not use the pre-made characters. Instead I created a system where you drew four pieces of paper containing different parts of you character like "personality" and "appearance". You could redraw, choose openly or invent something on your own. It was only an aid for the imagination. It really worked out well.

Now, time after time I have met the opinion that "girls seldom like roleplaying games and computer games because of their great focus on violence and sexual stereotypes. They want stories about relationships". With this in mind I had decided to downplay the violent part of the scenario, a classic murder mystery.

I was so wrong. It started when choosing weapons. I had stated that it was a good idea for their characters to have some kind of weapon, as it fitted both the setting and the scenario. Having the simple and common breach loaders manufactured at this post apocalyptic times was not enough. They wanted artifact weapons with large clips and big calibers. An ancient .44 Magnum revolver was a popular choice and one girl picked the ultra destructive plasma carbine. Hmmm.....Ok, everyone wants big guns. Munchkinism is natural...

We started playing and everything went smooth. They had no problem understand how to play and the separation between the players and the gamemaster seemed natural to them. They were involved in the plot, played their characters well and overall impressed me. But the longer we played the more violent they got. They liked rolling for damage. They really liked when the first enemy exploded by the plasma carbine. They soon started to base their action on how to maximize the potential carnage. At one point at the end of the game they had do decide on which of two factions they would support. As one would let them kill one person and the other five it was an easy decision. And of course they followed up by killing the other side of the conflict and a couple of innocent bystanders. When they did not just kill their opponents they used a combination of seduction and drinking them under the table. Sex, drugs and violence.

I had fun and I'm certain they had too. One of the girls complained on stomach aces from laughing to hard at a couple of in-game funny moments.

After the initial scenario we had some time left and they wanted to continue, this time "playing something with less violence". Sure.... The mission they got was supposed to be sneaky and focusing on social interaction but they still wanted plasma rifles and they still ended up murdering both the target for their investigation and their employer, in addition the requested sneaking and lying.

I do not know if my sample is big enough but maybe it is time to scrap the common understanding that girls do not like sex, drugs and violence in their fiction.

Immersion on RPGnet

2006-02-09T10:34:00.000+01:00

The last week has seen a large number of threads on the topic of immersion over at RPGnet. Even better, an unusually large amount of the posts have been constructive and interesting. Take a look for yourself (I use the handle Havoc):

Immersionism -- What Is It

Immersion Thoughts

Weak and Strong Immersion

Immersive character design & encouraging immersion

And, while I'm at it, a couple of interesting threads more or less related to immersion and/or freeform:

Indie RPGs, BDSM, and Anarchy

With Apologies to Mr. Edwards

Confessions of a former story addict

I wonder if this interest in immersion will continue, or if it's just the flavor of the week...

System and immersion

2006-02-07T17:36:00.000+01:00

I have been trying to write something about systems helping immersion for a long time now, never really getting to it. Then I stumbled onto this thread on RPGnet, discussing what immersion is but quickly turning into a "Can rules ever help immersion" war. I had to post in it anyway. You can either read all 140 post made this far or just read my own post right here:

First, immersion is certainly not all or nothing. Simply "feeling" the game world and "shared imaginary space" is a form of immersion. For this discussion to have any meaning it needs to be narrowed down to character immersion, or even deep character immersion.

To have any form of "deep" immersion in a character it is not enough to feel *for* the character and try to think as it would. You need to go one step further and *be* the character, your and its mind being one. In practice this will never be a total unification, but it can be darn close, both in table top and larping.

Most mechanics do hinder this process but not all. In many cases I can feel more immersed when having stats that are never used for anything than my own reference. Defining my characters in this way makes the risk of having to reason around if I can do something smaller, resulting in less breaks in the immersion.

Well defined procedures for how a scene is ended and how and when you talk out of character can help immersion too, as it also reduces the need for reasoning, with others or in your mind. A smaller portion of the brain capacity is needed if you got a strict procedures, leaving more for you character.

So, mechanics in the form of resolution systems seldom, maybe never, help immersion. Mechanics in the form of a strict framework for play can often help it.

I also agree on the near religious aspects of immersion. Exactly what it is can never be fully explained or defined, only experienced. A good thing is that in a game striving for immersion, everyone can immerse to their own ability and liking, filling in the rest with acting. You are never forced to immerse and are never excluded for the inability to do so. No one but you should be able to tell the difference anyway.

Maybe I get around to making my "real" post about system and immersion some day...

Related, I just found out about this forum focused on immersive play (seems down right now). I have not yet abandoned my plans to start or help starting a forum focused on Nordic style free form and larping, but right now it isn't moving at all.

General comments

2006-01-30T02:47:00.000+01:00

The purpose of this post is to act as a place for readers to post general comments and questions. It will be linked from the menu bar for easy access.

Rules and background stories

2006-01-29T03:34:00.000+01:00

Two treads on RPGnet have made me realize some important stuff about roleplaying.

- Maybe the main difference in how Forge-style games are designed and how I want to use rules is when the rules are used. Forge often makes a point in having rules for the things that matters most in the game, and makes sure that you use these rules. I personally mostly want to use the rules for unimportant stuff, when they help me get on with the roleplaying. Instead of playing out a long scene where the outcome is not crucial, I let the player use a skill. If is is really important, I want the full experience and having the outcome depend on what the characters do or say, not the dice roll. (RPGnet tread)

- When players write a background story for their characters, it is not primarily for me as a storyteller but for themselves. Many in the RPGnet tread argues that a long background story makes the player think he has managed to explain his wishes for the game in great detail, while the GM in reality do not get the important information. That may be correct, but as long as you do not use the background story instead of actually talking to each other, that problem should not arise. I find a well developed background, mostly describing the personality, to be of great help in making the character come to life. (RPGnet tread)

(And no, I haven't read everything in those two treads. Some RPGnet discussions have an ability to go on forever. There are rarely anything important being written after the first ten pages...)

Ending stuff is good!

2006-01-08T23:07:00.000+01:00

This Friday something rare happened, as I played the planned final session in a RPG chronicle. This is rare because most chronicles I have participated in have ended in a much less satisfactory way. They are fun for a while but not having a set ending they sooner or later turns into nothing as people move or the general interest wanes. More often than not this is discovered to late to give everything a proper ending. The next session is planned to be "sometime soon" but this point in time never arrives.

The chronicle, named Utmark (Outlying land), was set in the Fading Suns universe with some use of the rule system from the Swedish game Skymningshem. The characters was part of an expedition examining an abandoned space station. The style of the game changed a bit as we played, having its ups and downs. This made me very aware of my preferences as a player, rather than a game master. This will be a great help both when choosing games to participate in and when designing my own chronicles.

- I do not like dungeon crawling at all, even (or maybe especially) when there is no rules or combat involved. The second session had a detailed exploration of the station. The exciting parts was drowned out by hours of choosing between the right or left door.

- I sometimes like to roll dice. It was a bit weird to realize that I was asking about or requesting a dice roll more often than many of the other players. I have always seen myself as primarily a free former, but in many situations I found that a dice role gave certain strategic actions a bit more weight, or that what was going to be a very long discussion with an NPC might better be decided by a roll. Note that most sessions only had around ten rolls, so this is in contrast to using no rules at all. A conflict resolution system would be entirely out of the question.

- Player secrets are unimportant. In most cases when one character has a secret from another we handle it with sending notes or talking with the GM in private. In this case nearly everything was open, even thou there was a lot of scheming. The immersion gets a little bit trickier but in no way impossible, and you win a lot getting to experience the full story as a player. Splitting the group for longer times have always been a cause for loss of interest among the players not in focus.

- Music can be done right. I've never managed to use music in a good way. I usually put it on in the background with it sometimes reinforcing the theme and sometimes ruining it. Trying to change track for different parts of the game have never worked as I wanted. Kristoffer (the GM) made really good use of music by only playing it in certain parts of the story, and leaving it off for most of the time. I observe and hopefully learn.

- Immersion is still king! As much as I liked the other parts of the game, the situations where I really go the chance to feel my character was the most enjoyable. Setting these scenes up with other types of play might actually make is even better but no immersion is like no orgasm...

As Kristoffer will most likely read this I grab the opportunity to thank him for a good chronicle!

Roleplaying christmas

2005-12-25T02:32:00.000+01:00

Merry christmas or happy holidays or whatever...

Frispel* has written a free form scenario called Dan före dan, about a group of lonely men the day before christmas. It looks very promising and also mentiones my brother in roleplaying Sven.

Get it here*. If you know Swedish, that is...

Spreading the word

2005-12-17T07:50:00.000+01:00

This is only relevant for my Swedish readers.

I and some other roleplayers are explaining what we do to Sakine over in this post on her blog. Join in if you want to...

Two larps and one musical

2005-11-21T05:50:00.000+01:00

I have finally gotten myself together to write about my latest larping experiences, now over a month ago...

Fröken Ingeborg är försenad

First out was Fröken Ingeborg är försenad (Ms Ingeborg is late)*. Following up on their previous game Aurora Borealis*, NCID* one again returned to the 30's and Lovecraftian horror. This time they wanted to make is run as close to a Lovecraft story as possible, with the gradual buildup of fear and madness.

The larp had two parts played out in the same evening, the first being a dinner while waiting for Ingeborg. It was fairly standard for this type of Swedish larp, not bad but nothing spectacular. I played the husband to be of Ingeborg, a very ordinary man feeling a bit out of place among all the artist and occultists. The second part, when searching for Ingeborg in an abandoned mining area was very nice. By mine I mean the real thing, making for a fantastic mood. Examining the swampy holes in the light kerosenerne lamps was fantastic. Another nice technique was the dinner group meeting up with another party also searching for Ingeborg. My only real complain is that the ending felt a bit anticlimactic. I would have preferred the lamps one by one running out of fuel, leaving us in complete darkness.

Efter mörkret

One week later I went to Gothenburg for Efter mörkret (After the Darkness)* by Fabel*. Fabel is known to produce very professional plays requiring a minimum of preparation, and they are in fact professionals as the group sells roleplaying experiences to companies.

The basic plot was a fairly standard post apocalypse story, with humanity mostly destroyed by a plaque. A group of survivors was trying to get to the fabled Ark, where humanity tried to build a new world. Fleeing from marauders, our group took shelter in a subterran complex.

The game started at this point, with the stage being a large bombing shelter in central Gothenburg. Our group faced the expected difficulties of cooperation and establishing some kind of order, and my own very stubborn ex-farmer did nothing to help. After a while we made contact with another group, in the same situation as ours but that was just the beginning of the difficulties. Already present in the mountain was a weird cult lead by the charismatic and power mad Engel...

As you can see this was another event with split groups, this time two parties of refugees and one with the cultists. The style of play differed greatly between the cult and the outsiders. We had the creeping fears of the mountain and our inability to cooperate. They lived in a complex hierarchy based on oppression and violence.

I personally loved it but as I see it some of the other participants may not have gotten as much out of the game as I did. As my role had the attitude that noone could do something good enough than himself, I got in the position to be in the center of all the difficult and dangerous part of the play. I got to explore the areas surrounding our camp and more importantly be one of four emissaries to the courts of Engel. It all ended with the four of us imprisoned with the task to choose of the other refugees to be sacrificed for the others safe passage. After heated and horrible debate we choosed two of ourselves. It was a very intense experience and I nearly threw up from winning the draw and instead sending my best friend to be cooked and eaten. Not surprisingly it ended with all the refugees dying by some event and me starving to death after eating my fellow prisoners. The player of the sacrificed friend of my character, who only had experience from fantasy larps thought the ending was a bit weird but I assured him that it was pretty expected fro this sub-genre of Swedish larps. That by itself its may be a bit weird.

This was one of the better larps I have ever attended, but I'm not to sure if the players whos characters never got to leave our camps would agree with me. As the plot was in fairly tight controll by the arrangers, I think they could have made more effort in dividing the experiences among the players.

En shoggot på taket

This is already way to long so I will cover the musical briefly. One week after Efter mörkret I visited the Lovecraft convention MiskatoniCon, held for the first time in Stockholm I didn't have time for much of the actual convention, but couldn't miss the first ever performance of En shoggot på taket (A shoggoth on the roof - also read this article). I was really impressed by the result and especially the singing. If you get the chance to see this some time in the future, take it!

Ahh.. That's it... I hope at least some of you are still with me this far. Enough for now.

Choose your poison

2005-11-16T02:54:00.000+01:00

It seem like I'm about to switch drug, from Star Wars Galaxies to World of Warcraft. Same shit, different name... Maybe I should finish my text about the last months larping and play less computer games.

If you know Swedish, check out Svens new blog about living in Turkey*.

Promethean, the fourth WoD game?

2005-10-31T01:26:00.000+01:00

Substantial rumors gives the name of the upcoming fourth World of Darkness game as "Promethean". It will apparently circle around some sort of "players as constructs" theme, but little more is known.

"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds which I should first break through and pour a torrent of life into our dark world."

Earlier rumors have stated that the game will follow a limited format, close to how Orpheus was released.

Links:
WW forum
Shadownessence
RPG.net

Edit: This is no longer just a rumor, and there is an official Promethean forum.

Free WoD: Rulebook!

2005-10-21T13:30:00.000+02:00

The new free book on DriveThruRGP is the World of Darkness: Rulebook! If you haven't yet read this book this is the time to give it a try. And if you already have the dead tree edition, an electronic version is always a good complement.

In my opinion, this is one of the best systems out there. Maybe it's because my general dislike for rules. The Storytelling system do not even try to be very innovative, it does what it should and keep out of the way the rest of the time. Compared to some of the other "modern" systems, it do not try to direct the game flow towards a certain style of gaming. Or maybe it does, just by not trying...

The best part is the combat system. There are numerous RPG:s claiming not to focus on combat, but most of them still have very detailed rules for it. In Storytelling, you basically make a skill roll and apply equipment and situation modifiers as for any other action. The dice only gives you the mechanical effect (damage on target), so you need to roleplay the specifics as with other skill rolls. It is more a system for violence than combat.

The rules are by no means perfect. There are some weird and unnecessary stuff about damaging objects, but those pages are easy to ignore. If you are sensitive about realism you may notice that the rules for firearms are a pretty bad approximation of reality. But, if you want a simple rule set, either as a backup when mostly free-forming, or for the tradition but not rules-fixated game, you should at least give it a try.

Note that this book is not only the basis for Vanpire, Werewolf and Mage, but is designed as a stand alone horror roleplaying game.

Semi-random stuff...

2005-10-12T22:37:00.000+02:00

It was quite some time since I last posted, and I still don't have anything coherent to say, just a collection of semi-random observations:

- Check out Infinite Armies. Excellent idea and good value. It still have some balance issues but I happen to know that an updated version is in the works. It will be free for owners of the original. If you read Fenix* you will get a review by me in the next issue.

- Daily previews seems like the standard method of hype building for White Wolf. Next up to get the treatment is Racer Knights of Falconus. The new homepage launched today. I haven't played any of these new "constructible card games", but this one looks kind of fun.

- Last week we started a new RPG chronicle. It is Fading Suns but with rules from the Swedish game Skymningshem: Andra Imperiet* (Twilighthome: The Second Empire). We play an expedition examining an old space station. This is supposed to be a short chronicle finishing in 6-7 short weekly sessions. I'm not game master for this one.

- I'm getting more and more tempted to visit Dragonbane, even thou I normally don't attend fantasy larps. The more I read about it the more certain I get that it will be something really special.

- Matti Paalanen have managed to leave Teosto, the Finnish organization managing payments for public performance of music. His nice background music is back online. I have updated the links in my original post.

That's all for now. I'm quite sure I have forgotten something, but I'll have to get back on it...

Larps of the Autumn

2005-09-14T23:42:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening I got two larp invitations. NCID*, the creator of Mellanrummet is arranging Fröken Ingeborg är försenad (Ms Ingeborg is late) and Fabel have two arrangements, a rerun of Efter Mörkret* (After the Darkness) and an independent second part called Monster*.

As all of them are pretty small and expected to be popular I spent a lot of time today coordinating "my crew" and the result is that I, Linnéa and Fredrik will attend Fröken Ingeborg är försenad and Efter Mörkret. The first one had only half of the positions open after less than 24 hours. Popular indeed!

We decided to skip Monster, as they were all pretty close together in time, and it's style did not appeal as much to us as the others.

I will tell you at a later time what these larps are about. Now, I need to sleep...

Nordic lajv part II - The others

2005-09-07T16:59:00.000+02:00

This is the second and final part of my article about Nordic larping (lajv).

I'm not even sure if Ben Lehman have even read the first part, but I will try to finish this article anyway. If you haven't done so already, go read part I first.

First a note about the Nordic lajv in general, as pointed out by a reader. We have a high ratio of female participants in the games, one estimate being 30-40%. From what I know this is not true for American larps.

Vampire
When Vampire: The Masquerade and the Minds Eye Theatre became hugely popular in the US we had the same situation over here. Vampire was the game to play and if you were a vampire lajv player, you was coolest of the cool. Nowadays there games are not as common but there are still lots of them going on. I do not claim to know how the game is played in the US but here it differs quite much from what is written in the book (remember that I'm generalizing here):

- I have never seen or even heard about equipment cards being used. If you got a weapon you need some sort of passable replica or prop. It is not uncommon to have people bring very real knives and other melee weapons to games. They are of course just for show.

- The amount of rules used varies. Almost all games have lots of modifications. In most cases the goal is to never need a narrator for resolving character to character conflicts. The most common attitude is that the rules should only be used when a situation cannot be resolved by social interaction. Combat is more or less rare.

- No minors and no alcohol? This depends on the game in particular, but there is not general consensus that either of them is necessarily bad, but maybe not combined...

In total the Swedish vampire larps take on the characteristics of Swedish larps in general. Less placeholder props, less rules and less combat. The game part isn't as important as the acting part.

Airsoft
Ever since airsoft guns got license free in Sweden the hobby have been growing. Some of the player just see it as a simpler and cheaper alternative to paintball, but there is a large community that wants more.

This type of game is called MilSim, after Military Simulation. Instead of a simple eliminate all or capture the flag game, this variant tries to simulate an actual military operation by having a more complex mission, realistic gear and true to life chain of command. In its pure form there isn't very much of roleplaying a character, the focus is on the action.

This is starting to change. Influenced by the larping scene more and more game incorporates roleplaying as an important part of the game. One method of bringing out these aspects is incorporating non combatants that the soldiers have to interact with in another way than just shooting them. The focus is still on action but many of the more recent MilSim games I have heard about (I have never attended one myself) is to be considered a lajv in the usual sense of the word.

Art lajv
This is a very difficult group to describe, even thou it is the only type I regularly attend. Maybe this is why I have a hard time making generalizations, as I see each game as a unique experience instead of having them described to me in general wordings. I will try anyway.

The average Swedish art lajv:

- Is played during one day or evening.

- Have much more focus on character and theme than equipment.

- Have participants of a minimum of 18 years old. This is seldom a rule but more of the way it happens to be.

- Is played indoors and seldom in a classic fantasy world. All other genres are represented, but mostly historical (1900+) and contemporary settings.

- Is played with no other mechanical rules than signs for slowing down or breaking the game in uncomfortable situations.

- Have a theme that the organizers try to focus on. It is expected of all participants to respect and contribute to this theme.

I realize this do very little do describe how a lajv like this is actually played. To get a better understanding you can read my post on the lajv Mellanrummet.

Ok. That is it. If you have questions or do not agree with me please feel free to post a comment. This is not the definite truth about Nordic larps, but the best I can do.