TRPG General Chat

and we thought that was bad. We got to the boss fight and 2 of our party were Killed and it took some clever strategy and critical hits to kill the damnable Shade Hulk.

BESW

Shadow Hulk? Hm.

What level are you guys?

Simon Gill

@Zachiel SHame I couldn't help.

Novian

12 ish.

BESW

Eeeyup. He's doing the DMG's "five levels higher" thing.

Umber Hulk = lvl 12; Shadow Hulk = lvl 17.

Novian

That things Fort Is Ungodly

I Miss the days of torturing beholders and telling them lame eye based puns.

We havnt fought one in some time.

Rope is their greatest weakness.

Rope and Grapple.

I to this day do not know how I managed to tie a Beholder up.

Nor why I felt it neccesary to torment it with lame eye based puns.

BESW

12:26 AM

...Sweet Celestia on a stick. That Shadow Hulk's Fortitude is unforgivable.

It's... something like 9 points higher than average for that level.

Novian

Indeed

It seemed to lack in the Will Saving Throw area however.

Or we just rolled good coincidentally with Will based attacks.

BESW

Will is closer to what it should be.

Novian

I was lucky one of my Ongoing damage powers was Dex Vs Fort or Ref.

BESW

As a general rule, a monster's AC should be 14 + lvl, and its NADs should be 12 + lvl. It can vary from -2 to +6 from that, but those are the base numbers.

So a level 17 Shadow Hulk's base Fort should be 29, up to 35.

...but it's 38.

Novian

I dont think my character will Ever willingly fight a Shadow Hulk Again.

She was just barely able to Kill that thing.

She had to crit twice on it for the finishing blow.

even then it wasnt certain I was going to kill it.

BESW

12:32 AM

Mmm.

I much prefer to pump damage and maybe hp, so the PC's powers have a chance to Do Cool Stuff without trivializing the fight.

Instead of preventing fight trivialization by making the PCs' powers fail.

Simon Gill

That was quick.... I've been logged in 10 minutes, and I've already broken the start menu.

BESW

@SimonGill [Thermian-style applause]

Novian

?

BESW

Have you seen the film Galaxy Quest?

Simon Gill

@Novian Just upgraded to the new version of windows.

@BESW Years ago now, so I only remember the major plot points.

Novian

12:37 AM

@SimonGill Im going to pass on upgrading to 8.

BESW

@SimonGill I'm having trouble finding a YT video of them clapping.

Novian

youtube has too many ads anymore.

went there yesterday and they had em every 3 videos on the sidebar

BESW

...script blocking.

Novian

My Adblocker doesnt do anything

I have to manually block the ads.

BESW

Ad blocking is lovely, but you'd really need a script blocker in there too if you're serious about it.

Simon Gill

12:43 AM

@Novian It's.... interesting. One of my jobs over the next few days is finding out if I can actually integrate my google account with the shiny windows apps instead of just hotmail.

@BESW I get the gist.

Thankfully, "When in doubt, reboot" usually works.

Woo! Got my first gold badge :D

BESW

Hey, grats!

Simon Gill

@BESW Thanks

Simon Gill

1:46 AM

Isn't it odd how a self-confessed rules lawyer can get up-voted for telling the GM to just go with it?

BESW

Hmmm? Your undead druid answer?

Simon Gill

And the one about becoming a god.

21

A: How does one become a god?

Follow the Rule of Cool Not a RAW answer, but if your dm agrees with you, there's nothing wrong with you taking epic actions to take on a divine portfolio. For instance: Murdering a god, see Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul Achieving the simultaneous prayer of a million worshippers (See the Doctor's Cr...

BESW

Well, both of them are running on the rules you made explicit in the undead druid answer.

And really, "will your players enjoy it?" and "will you enjoy it?" are the fundamental questions a GM should always be asking.

They often cover "How much do the players expect me to adhere to the rules?" but that's just a small subset of the larger issue.

Simon Gill

Heh, I just think it's odd, because normally, I expect the GM to follow the rules of the game (yeah, sometimes I'm That Guy and sometimes I'm the asisstant GM)

BESW

Yeah, but behind-the-scenes wire-pulling is a lot different from "the rules you assumed were true when you built your character are no longer applicable."

Simon Gill

1:54 AM

@BESW That does explain it, thank you.

BESW

An undead druid and her undead companion have no impact on the quality of the players' choices or their characters' ability to respond to the situation effectively.

...You know, I really like it when we get people asking questions like this:

2

Q: GM attacking a recently stabilized ally: is this allowed?

The title pretty much sums up my question. I was playing the Scales of War campaign with a group of friends, and my character was getting absolutely destroyed in an encounter. I had failed two death saves, but fortunately for me, the fight ended soon thereafter. However, it got me thinking: W...

Kinda brings me down off my high theory horse and into the "what's actually going on at the table?" end of things.

And helps us remember that a lot of what we take for granted is not actually explicit or intuitive to everyone.

Simon Gill

@BESW I was just about to ask, what do you like about it :P

@BESW Yeah, back to the old I don't know moments.

BESW

It's so easy to get wrapped up in Balance and Agency and GNS vs TBM until I forget those are all just tools for Having A Good Time Telling Stories With Friends.

In other news, TweetsofOld has some pretty good RPG plots sometimes.

Trouble is brewing between a couple of cowboys and a like number of gamblers here. A collision was expected today, but it was averted.AZ1899

Tweeted by TweetsofOld on January 14, 2013 at 9:17 PM

Simon Gill

2:11 AM

@BESW Could be an interesting con-game premise.

We'll play a scenario based on a random tweet from this account.

BESW

I'd do it!

https://twitter.com/TweetsofOld/status/290898650857603072
http://twitter.com/TweetsofOld/status/290847387084275713

Simon Gill

Probably have to run it in something lightweight. FATE Core, for instance.

:P

BESW

Certainly, something easily adapted to whatever the tweet happened to be.

Simon Gill

With fast character creation.

BESW

Yeah.

There is just some amazing potential for campaign shorts in there.

"Chris Johns, a smooth fellow, tried to sell chief detective Johnson a gallon of "white mule" last night. He was pinched. MO192"

Simon Gill

2:16 AM

And since it's only a session, nobody cares about keeping their character out of "danger".

BESW

"Hoboes are so numerous in Yuma that a tramp policeman has been employed. AZ1907"

Simon Gill

Successfully begging the question. A policeman who is a tramp, or a policeman of tramps?

BESW

Good point, but I'm not sure that's the right phrase.

[pedant]

Simon Gill

Probably not, but I should be asleep, and the distinction is clear :P

BESW

Heh.

It's changed its meaning, kinda. Petitio principii, or "assuming the initial point," is the original phrase. It's been improperly used so much that the other meaning ("raises the question") is actually considered a regular definition in some circles now.

Simon Gill

2:24 AM

@BESW Ah, pedantry of a different point. I thought you were disagreeing with my "policeman of tramps" construction.

@BESW As for petitio principii... Yay language mutation.

BESW

Well, the Latin is a translation from the Greek...

(I'm reading Fowler on it right now)

Fowler is a hoot, but doesn't actually address the language mutation issue. Since my copy is 63 years old, that may be understandable.

BESW

2:45 AM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Yo!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

morning

BESW

3:29 AM

Should this question be system-agnostic?

3

Q: GM attacking a recently stabilized ally: is this allowed?

The title pretty much sums up my question. I was playing the Scales of War campaign with a group of friends, and my character was getting absolutely destroyed in an encounter. I had failed two death saves, but fortunately for me, the fight ended soon thereafter. However, it got me thinking: W...

dnd-4e gm character-death

LitheOhm

7:02 AM

@BESW I'd say so

BESW

7:44 AM

@JeorMattan Good call on the deity-changing thing! Any particular reason for the "or something" on the page number?

BESW

8:18 AM

@ShaneB In 4e D&D, "monster" and "NPC" are actually separate terms that differentiate between the technique the GM used to build them (NPCs are adapted from character races and classes, while monsters are built in an entirely different paradigm). I --and most people-- use the terms interchangeably in practice.

(In previous editions of D&D, the terminology was not used to indicate a mechanical distinction.)

doppelgreener

8:48 AM

@BESW Dunno if it's so appropriate for system-agnostic but it's definitely dungeons-and-dragons at least. Also apparently that's post #7676767! Neat.

Also hi BESW. :D

BESW

Hi.

You're free to revert/retag.

doppelgreener

I would but I'm not sure it doesn't belong in system-agnostic...

BESW

Well, it definitely doesn't apply to all games... but very little does.

The one reason I'm suddenly inclined to revert the tagging is that it seems there is a system-specific answer.

Also! I would like to pick your brain for campaign ideas later tonight.

doppelgreener

@BESW Yes, well, for a start, the concepts of stabilising and the weight and effect of character death are system-specific, at the very least to D&D. Maybe in FATE, it is a huge deal for a character to even die in the first place, or maybe it's standard fare for a GM to attack someone who's down to drive them to use fate points, etc.

BESW

I've run myself into a rock wall of having too many immediate options and too specific of an end goal.

doppelgreener

8:55 AM

@BESW Please do, though I'm going out to dinner soon.

BESW

I won't be available for two hours or so. Making dinner, then gotta clean up.

doppelgreener

@BESW Righteo :D

BESW

Now I shall modify the answer to fit.

doppelgreener

IMO taking questions which are asked with system-specific mechanics and involve system-specific answers, and then making them system-agnostic, is the least useful use of the system-agnostic tag. Other users can learn from your systems.

I just don't know what meta question to ask about it or I'd already be starting one and responding with that to it.

BESW

mmm. I'm going to re-tag it 4e, actually, because there is a very specific 4e answer.

Rob

9:09 AM

Bazinga

BESW

@Rob Comes between Aazinga and Cazinga?

Rob

@BESW The alphabetic possibilities are endless, all 26 of them.

BESW

@Rob Then you get into Abzinga, Aczinga...

Rob

This could be about as confusing as whitespace compsoc.dur.ac.uk/whitespace

BESW

And now I have Neighborhood Super Spy stuck in my head. youtube.com/watch?v=9YuIxhFostE&t=11s

@Rob A programming friend told me about that. As a graphic designer who views whitespace as an entirely different creature, I was amused.

Rob

9:15 AM

@BESW There are some really strange languages out there, some of them actually used.

BESW

@Rob I'm sure.

doppelgreener

LOLCODE

LOLCODE is an esoteric programming language inspired by the language expressed in examples of the lolcat Internet meme. The language was created in 2007 by Adam Lindsay, researcher at the Computing Department of Lancaster University. The language is not clearly defined in terms of operator priorities and correct syntax, but several functioning interpreters and compilers already exist. One interpretation of the language has been proven Turing-complete. Language structure and examples LOLCODE's keywords are drawn from the heavily compressed (shortened) patois of the lolcat Internet mem...

 HAI
 CAN HAS STDIO?
 PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
     AWSUM THX
         VISIBLE FILE
     O NOES
         INVISIBLE "ERRROR!"
 KTHXBYE

Rob

@BESW Oh something you'd appreciate as a graphic designer; there's a design program, when your evaluation period expires it keeps working exactly as before, however all the fonts change to comic sans until you pay.

BESW

@OpaCitiZen I'm not sure it's germane enough to keep up in comments, but I'd say that the dearth of non-PC healing in the game could be used to support an interpretation that PC healers are more unusual in the world than a story centering around PCs would lead one to think.

@Rob It's not Papyrus.

Rob

@JonathanHobbs Heh heh, that's another good one; I think there's an interpreter called "Zoidberg" somewhere as well, that's just a name sadly and you can't write code along the lines of "Whoop whoop whoop"

@BESW I thought Comic Sans was the lowest of the low

Logos in comic sans -> creativebloq.com/logo-design/…

BESW

9:21 AM

@Rob Honestly both Comic Sans and Papyrus are not bad fonts. Papyrus is criminally low-resolution, but both of them are valuable and right to use in their contexts. They've just been plucked out of their contexts and smeared across unsuitable applications so generically that they've become the typographic equivalent of letter-by-letter typewriter-noise animation in PowerPoint.

Rob

@BESW Urrrrrrggg on that typewriter thing, like htmls' <BLINK>

@JonathanHobbs I'm impressed that the LOLCODE is Turing complete however.

BESW

@Rob yeah. There's probably a time and place where that's appropriate. In small doses, well-considered, and probably nowhere near a professional presentation.

There's a local banner-making shop here with Papyrus font on its big store sign. I wince/chuckle every time I see it.

Rob

@BESW Har, I wonder if that's Ironic

BESW

@Rob I'm not sure if that's better.

Also: comicsansproject.tumblr.com

Rob

@BESW Oh excellent :)

doppelgreener

9:30 AM

@Rob AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Rob

oO

Frickin' non-printing printer

Print damn you, prrrinnnnnnttttt!!!

@JonathanHobbs Oh dear - yet more proof that people have too much time on their hands :)

doppelgreener

@Rob No, this is the proof: Language list - Esolang wiki

Many of these languages are turing-complete.

Rob

@JonathanHobbs Oh dear oh dear, this one esolangs.org/wiki/Parenthesis_Hell reminds me of (shudder) lisp

doppelgreener

@Rob Oh no xD

BESW

11:59 AM

Put another 10 plays on Racist Barn and got the kitchen clean. [settles down to work on current campaign and think about next one]

Jeor Mattan

@BESW there is one, but you won't like it.

Zachiel

Mmmmh ssoooo. What if I sit next to you while I try to understand my chances for my next encounter? I'm gonna be quiet, I swear. XD

BESW

@JeorMattan Oh, I have a fairly enlightened guess. I'm just curious if someone could narrow that down a bit for the answer.

@Zachiel So long as you don't mind random FiMcraft music, feel free.

Jeor Mattan

12:18 PM

@BESW I guess your guess is right. My FRCS e-copy lacks page numbers, and therefore I can only provide the page number as in pdf page number, which may very well be somewhat incorrect in the real book.

Zachiel

@Jeormattan If you own a legit FRCS e-copy I guess you can download a pirate scan of it without legal issues

BESW

@Zachiel That's... fuzzy logic at best. But farbeit for me.

doppelgreener

@Zachiel There are generally accepted guidelines that if you own a real copy of something (a music CD, a book, a game) you can also download a pirated version because you still legally own a copy of it

I have no idea how valid they would be in a court of law though

Actually emulators used to (or still do?) say: "If you don't own a copy of this game, don't download the emulator copy - it's illegal! Fine if you own a copy though"

Jeor Mattan

@Zachiel too lazy to do that. I personally am fine with the lack of page numbers.

Zachiel

If you paid for it doesn't matter if you're playing the original or the copy, I guess.

Jeor Mattan

12:24 PM

and actually it does, at least in some countries.

Zachiel

as you wish

Do you know of any good site dedicated to helping D&D DMs at making tactics for NPCs?

BESW

I find Magician's blog to be very helpful by example, but it may not be what you're looking for.

magbonch.wordpress.com

And as a general rule Gnome Stew has at least one essay on just about anything. gnomestew.com

Jeor Mattan

@BESW that's a good one. I like his analysis of Next playtest.

Zachiel

12:57 PM

Mh I guess finding someone willing to spend some of his time with me for the sake of it is more akin to my needs

Jeor Mattan

I guess you're in the right chat for that.

Magician

1:15 PM

appears in a puff of smoke Who summoned me?

BESW

I didn't @ you or anything!

Magician

@BESW thanks for your support, it's really nice having an audience :)

@JeorMattan Glad you enjoyed it. Many others didn't take the joke so well ;)

BESW

@Magician My pleasure. I used a simplified variant of the Patient Two's multiple body parts concept on a dragon last week and my players thought it was pretty much perfect.

(I especially liked the triggered-action blast attack when one part went down.)

Magician

@BESW Glad to hear that. I'd be interested in hearing any more feedback on that or other stuff you've used, it's good to find out how others use and change my ideas.

BESW

It was pretty straightforward, which was nice: a lot of the variant mechanics on solos to make them less stunlocky require me to track MORE STUFF, which is bad.

I gave the head a MBA bite that grabbed, a standard attack that chomped a grabbed target for mad damage, and a minor-action 1/round breath attack that dealt half damage on miss to grabbed targets. The party immediately slapped the head down despite needing CA to attack it.

Magician

1:20 PM

@BESW ...did the headless dragon continue fighting? :D

BESW

Yeah, I made it so "taking out" a body part just meant you'd shut down its attacks, not lopped it off entirely.

Magician

fair

BESW

And then the body (the main bit) took the part's damage on itself when the part went down.

The basic conceit was that they had two fights in the room and needed to choose which to take on first: the cultists summoning dragon ghosts, or the dragon donning armor of animated dragonbone in the other corner.

They chose the ghosts (which used the possession mechanic we talked about last time), and so by the time they got to the dragon he'd put on nearly all his armor.

Magician

Oh, which variant of possession, and how did it go?

BESW

This meant three of his four bits (head, body, wings, but not tail) had +100 temp hp and a triggered power it had access to until it lost the temp hp.

@Magician The one where the monster disappears and uses powers with the possession keyword that manipulate the target's body while not depriving the player of his own turn.

It was a little rough around the edges and I didn't play it to the best advantage tactically, but it made the fight memorable and I'd do it again... but not often.

Jeor Mattan

1:25 PM

@Magician well, them people a free to have whatever opinion they want. Wait, aren't you the Magician from Rolemancer forums, by any chance?

Magician

...oh god, don't tell me you're from there too :D

Jeor Mattan

I am, albeit with a different name.

Magician

@JeorMattan which one, if that's not a secret? Small world, huh.

BESW

@Magician I'm actually trying to come up with a decent mechanic for an Allabar-like fight that I want to range over a city, and would appreciate any pointers or ideas.

Jeor Mattan

@Magician name's maurezen. Was mostly lurking there.

Zachiel

1:29 PM

@JeorMattan I'm back and you'd better start trembling XD

Magician

@BESW Hm. I vaguely recall answering your question about this, some time ago. New ideas?

Zachiel

@besw@ what's allabar?

BESW

@Magician Last time they were just encountering a couple of his tentacles shoved through a god's corpse. This time...

Magician

@JeorMattan Sounds vaguely familiar. Don't really remember you, sorry.

Jeor Mattan

@Zachiel sorry, will not =)

Simon Gill

1:31 PM

@BESW Makes me think of that old improv bit, where one person replaces another persons arms.

Jeor Mattan

@Magician not that I expected you to, with my level of activity there)

BESW

@Zachiel Allabar, Opener of the Way, is the herald and doorman of the Baleful Stars in the 4e multiverse. Think... the guy who punches a hole through the world so Lovecraftian horrors can get in.

@SimonGill Heheh, yeah.

This time, he's got a hole big enough. And it's in a city.

My vision is a little bit like the portal at the end of the Avengers film, but not quite.

Simon Gill

@BESW pointing upwards from underground, perhaps?

Zachiel

Sadly, I'm not familiar with Lovecraft except for rememberin a certain Chtulu exists and having seen some depictions of him and of other vaguely similar creatures that are supposed to be beyond human comprehension, driving humans nuts or something like that

BESW

A strange maddening storm fills the sky. Where lightning strikes, huge areas of the city turn to glass and crystal and ice. And down from the clouds reach great tentacles, wider than trees.

Magician

1:33 PM

@BESW Niiiice

Simon Gill

@BESW Even better :)

Zachiel

@besw cool

Simon Gill

@Zachiel The important thing about Lovecraft's Mythos is not that there are monsters. It's that We. Don.t Matter.

BESW

@Zachiel That's about right. In D&D 4e, those things are in the Far Realm. Mind flayers and beholders and such are their minions and avatars, and the stars themselves stare down hatefully from the sky.

@Magician Yeah, now I just need to make that mechanically compelling.

Rob

@SimonGill Well said; we are small scurrying little things around the toes of THE HORROR

Zachiel

1:35 PM

@BESW "...and the star themselves stare down hatefully from the sky."

BESW

Suuuure.

Rob

@Zachiel Are you implying Bowser is one of the Elder Gods?

Magician

@BESW and immediately I think of a recent post I made, on narrative mass combats, among other things, "Odds & Ends". If the city has named NPCs who can contribute to the carnage, it should be a good fit.

BESW

Actually!

Magician

... that seems to be my response to everything lately. "You have a problem? Here, I wrote about it"

BESW

1:38 PM

It's the enemy city of the nation the party fights for, and its destruction is a major plot point. It's led by three major families, each with a magical specialty turned toward war: blood, necromancy, and the elements.

I was thinking that each house could provide a debuff to the tentacles (like the necromancers giving radiant vuln by necrotising them) before being wiped off the map.

Zachiel

@Rob no but Tatanga might

BESW

Unfortunately, because the campaign got sped up by about six months, I had to cut out all the adventuring we'd be doing in this city before it got trashed.

Simon Gill

@BESW You may be better off going with the PCs in battle model for that.

Rob

@Zachiel He does have the look....

Magician

@BESW A shame, they won't care about it as much. It really depends on how mechanically involved you want this fight to get.

Simon Gill

1:41 PM

Each House can give a benefit in the final fight against the core of the being, if they are successfully helped out by the PCs in an encounter elsewhere in the city.

BESW

@SimonGill The Houses are the heart and soul of the enemy empire the PC have been fighting the whole campaign.

Magician

All the more fun to side with them against a greater threat

BESW

My original idea was to have adventures in which sabotaging each House would eventually lead to the Houses being unable to defend against Allabar.

Simon Gill

@BESW Me against my brother. Me and my brother against the HORRIBLE TENTACLES FROM BEYOND THE STARS! FTAGHN!

@BESW Oh, are they supposed to be helping the elder god destroy the city?

BESW

@SimonGill Well... they wouldn't have known the Stars were coming.

Magician

1:44 PM

Is there anyone in the city the party would actually want to save?

BESW

And they only reason they're trying to stop the Stars now is that they know it's not going to be confined to a city.

@Magician No, this is more of a "Can't let them get a foothold, not even here" deal.

Hrmmmm.

I might be able to get the party in on a diplomatic mission to kick things off. That could be fun.

"Sure, we've been at war for 120 years. Yes, I was there at the beginning and actually turned traitor so your first attack didn't turn out so well. But this" --gestures up-- "is bigger than us."

Simon Gill

@BESW They don't even have to be friendly. If they succeed in an encounter, that means a House is safe enough to be doing stuff. If they fail, they lose the benefits.

BESW

"Reeeeally."

Yeah, I can roll with this. Send the party in to try and talk some Star-fearing sense into their mortal enemies.

Simon Gill

@BESW I can see the evil cogs turning from here ;)

BESW

They'll probably be in the Blood Labyrinth or the Crucible by the time Allabar actually shows up to wreak havoc.

@SimonGill "Evil" is just a four-letter word for "plot."

Magician

1:49 PM

Ok, tossing idea out there, based on what @SimonGill suggested. Introduce someone sympathetic during the diplomatic mission - the whole nation can't be made up of villains. Then prepare, er, 4 encounters, one to save each house and one to save the nice people.

PCs only have time to deal with 3 of those encounters. Or 2, up to you. Let them choose whom they help

BESW

Four encounters is about the max my time budget can allow to lead up to the Big Fight, unless the encounters are very short.

Magician

Have monster stats or environmental conditions or what have you worsen with each passing encounter, that way you can use them in regardless of the specific encounter chosen

Simon Gill

@Magician I like this one.

BESW

Okay, brainstorming.

Magician

And yeah, saved houses provide a boon during the final fight, nice people don't do anything useful.

BESW

1:52 PM

Party is about to get a prophecy about "The Way will be Opened and the Stars will Come Through... the City of Evil will shatter," etc.

Simon Gill

@Magician Apart from being people you think are worth saving.

Magician

@SimonGill Naturally, so that's reward in itself.

BESW

I think I can cajole the party (through their superiors if nothing else) to reason that the city can't possibly hold its own unprepared and that even though it's their enemy.... bad idea to let the Stars get a foothold.

So the party puts together a diplomatic mission to their enemy's stronghold of Vor Kragal, where they negotiate and probably fail miserably.

Absolute diplomatic success: unite the bickering Houses to stand ready against Allabar... with their slave armies of 'lesser races' at the front.

Magician

Because "We have everything under control and your pitiful ploys won't get you anywhere, wretched 'heroes'", uh huh

BESW

More likely outcome: They are dumped in a dungeon/lab/torture chamber of one of the Houses when Allabar arrives, at which point any House they did convince is semi-prepared.

Party can try to stand against Allabar alongside the Houses or get the slaves out (I've established the slaves and slave armies, and will play them up in the diplomacy bits).

If they choose to get the slaves out, the Houses will crumble and Allabar will be more powerful; if they choose to stand with the Houses, Allabar gets debuffs and is distracted by slave army popcorns.

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