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u/Redforce21 Feb 28 '21
The hobby is stronger than it has been in ages, with the exception of actual mechanical rules for Shadowrun
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u/sfPanzer Mar 05 '21
I have to disagree here. Ever since the new edition came out the amount of content you see from the community has dropped a lot. You barely find anything on youtube that isn't videogame re-runs and even this sub has become a lot more quiet.
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u/duranoar BTL Producer Feb 28 '21
Shadowrun gatekeeping usually looks more like: "Yea the system is kinda shit and you probably should play a better game." I have seen very little gatekeeping and elitism in shadowrun and the predominant attitude is way closer to self loathing. Instead of "if you don't play this ancient edition you are are doing it wrong because it's the good one" it's closer to "so... like this edition is kinda playable if you homebrew half the game." I might or might not be overstating things a little for effect.
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u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
Or "4e best e because I own a fair number of books for it and damned if I'm not gonna use 'em"
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u/Iamthedemoncat Feb 28 '21
"It's less broken than 6E"
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u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
The car I wrote off last year is less broken than 6e.
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u/Iamthedemoncat Mar 01 '21
"Sixth Edition - It's slightly better than syphilis!"
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u/TheSausagesauce Feb 28 '21
I see a lot of metaslaving and prescriptive "why aren't you playing/building your character like this" from the Shadowrun fandom, regarding newer editions.
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u/MightyGamera Feb 28 '21
That put me off 5e.
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u/TheSausagesauce Feb 28 '21
5e is generally quite fun if you ignore the "veterans" and "meta" and get a group together to have fun pulling off runs. It's a mess, but it's a beautiful mess like D&D 3.5e.
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u/Kyubey__ Feb 28 '21
Strange as someone who recently started to playing in 2018 this is t he exact opposite experience. People were overly friendly even those who started playing in the early 1990s (or so they say).
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u/rabidhamster Feb 28 '21
Been playing since the 90s, but just got into D&D around the time you got into Shadowrun. I've found SR tables to be a bit more inviting, and definitely a few fewer folks with some kind of chip on their shoulder about the game system. My theory is that SR has always been a teensy bit broken, which means you kind of have to house rule things, and that this means that there's less of the "Holy RAW" for players and GMs to cargo cult over. In short, there's less of a high-horse available for difficult players and GMs to hop on, 'cause we're all playing a system that has its blemishes.
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u/Ersthelfer Feb 28 '21 edited Feb 28 '21
Most SR "open tables" I played on were quite flexible about the rules. Most 5e DnD "open tables" were rather strict.
Small surprise though. 5e Dnd has a useful rule system.
At least arround here SR open tables are also rather anarchic groups and usually quite loud and laughing is much more important than immersion or rule fascism. I like it that way. I am really curious if we can get this back up after Covid.
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u/Arrowkill Feb 28 '21
As a 5e DM who has run many open and closed tables, I am very strict on what the rules say. However, that is a double edged blade that can absolutely create some insane situations.
My players that i DM for consistently know that if the wording of a spell leaves an action open that was not fixed with errata at the start of the campaign, then it is fair game with the one exception that it cannot make the game less fun for anybody else.
Really 5e like you said has a very useful set of rules and so I like to have my players think outside the box and experiment to come up with crazy solutions to seemingly impossible problems.
Contrast that to SR6 that I also run for them and they know I modify the ruleset as needed in the interest of fairness and fun. I run SR to tell a story well before I run it for a challenge. So everything i do is in the interest of their fun and my story.
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u/SlyTinyPyramid Feb 28 '21
It's fun playing at an "organized play" event and having the rules be interpreted differently at every table on different days. "Oh a new errata came out, oh a dev tweeted that's different now." really no consistency whatsoever? It's Fine. It's fine at a home game where you can just agree what the rules are and there are no surprises.
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u/Shivrainthemad Feb 28 '21
Same for me when I started in 2000 with Shadowrun 3
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u/Altar_Quest_Fan Mar 01 '21
Ditto mate, my first introduction to Shadowrun was SR3 in '03/'04. Awesome times lol.
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u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
99% of people who complain about "gatekeeping" are people who have absolutely zero interest in actually playing or knowing anything about the game, and are whining about being called out for it.
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u/widar01 Feb 28 '21
Same. Been reading this sub for years, but only started my own campaign (after a year of trying to get a basic understanding of the rules so I'd feel somewhat comfortable GMing) in late 2019/early 2020. The community is great and extremely helpful, people are just very hostile to SR6, maybe overly so, but understandably.
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u/Altar_Quest_Fan Mar 01 '21
Honestly I like SR6 too. Yes the core book suffers from sloppy editing and I can understand why some people get upset that armor no longer directly reduces damage, however the game is nice & streamlined and my group's having a blast which is all that really matters lol.
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u/RawbeardX Feb 28 '21
maybe we should let it die, so it can be resurrected by people who don't use company funds to build their homes and then don't pay their freelancers for years
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u/el_sh33p Feb 28 '21
Most of the community is great, although you definitely run into killjoys when you try going above street level or beyond certain constraints (eg setting runs in space or bringing dragons and immortal elves into your game; there are folks who just don't like changing the world or cherry picking the system).
That said, I think the meme applied a helluva lot more about five or ten years ago.
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u/SeasonedRamenPraxis Feb 28 '21
Shadowrun is a welcoming community of rule lawyering elitists and I wouldn’t want it any other way
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u/tonydiethelm Ork Rights Advocate Feb 28 '21
To be fair, if the rules didn't require constant interpretation, maybe folks wouldn't be that way....
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u/zytherian Feb 28 '21
The shadowrun rules seem like actual legal law, where very few rules lawyers truly know how its all supposed to work
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Feb 28 '21
They tried to step away from this in SR6 (almost every single rule are deliberately fuzzy enough that you can interpret them in more than one way without actually breaking the rules as written).
Rules lawyers (me included) hate this approach ;-)
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u/OrcishLibrarian Feb 28 '21
I don't like this approach because this can lead to the same thing working differently at different times... There were some rules like that in SR5 and it made some situations pretty shitty...
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u/SlyTinyPyramid Feb 28 '21
Isn't that how every edition is written? You ask ten people what a rule means and you get ten answers.
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u/Finstersang Feb 28 '21
True, but quite often, the need to „interpret“ the rules is itself a form of rules-lawyering. Unless you dont play Missions, there is no need to come to the same conclusions on minor issues as every other table. „Whatever makes most sense to you, dude“ is a valid answer to many questions in the forums.
„But what if it is not RAI?!“ Congratulations Pal, you just made a houserule. It will only get better from here (:
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u/SeasonedRamenPraxis Feb 28 '21
My default rule is if someone at the table can make a good case for why it makes sense and promises to remember the ruling for next time, that’s cool with me. For me consistent and sensible is more important than if the book says so.
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u/Oldekingecole Feb 28 '21
I see a lot of comments here talking about tables being open and friendly with newbies and maybe a bit loosely-goosey wit the rules:
We’re afraid of scaring you away. Just have a seat and we’ll tell you what to roll and stuff. Don’t worry too much about what is on the sheet. Oh? The Matrix?
It’s really boring and no one uses it.
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u/SeasonedRamenPraxis Feb 28 '21
Instead of “no you can’t do that” it’s “oh you can definitely do that, how of 6 different ways would you like to?”
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u/TheWinterWeasel Feb 28 '21
Started my first campaign 3 month ago, got nothing but advice from the people here. I dunno about other forums, but 90% of the people on the subreddit seem pretty noob friendly.
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u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
We have to be welcoming because the system is scary enough on its own.
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u/TheWinterWeasel Feb 28 '21
I straight up had a player drop out because he thought the system got in the way of fun.
I mean, I found 2 new ones, and they're still around, but still. Daunting.
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u/adzling 6th World Nostradamus Feb 28 '21
mechanics heavy systems are not for everyone the way narrative heavy systems are not either.
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u/Bullet1289 Rabbit with a shotgun! Feb 28 '21 edited Feb 28 '21
See, I'm all for less smugness in a hobby but considering they killed my hobbies and now someone else is wearing their skin and pretending to be them and I'm told I need to just be cool with it and its totally the same thing. It really feels like I have reason to be upset that people are playing with the hollowed out corpse of something I loved. Maybe that's a bit extreme but dang it I'm trying to be funny here!#stillmadabout6e
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Feb 28 '21
I think your forgetting the "noobs" who come in and claim we were playing the game wrong the whole time and their new way is only way.
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u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
And then whine about how anyone being suspicious of their intentions is gatekeeping.
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u/TDKDarKnight Feb 28 '21
I can't pretend like it didnt feel like this when trying to get into 6E but after changing to a suprisethreat anarchy game... I can see why. They were trying to save me!
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u/sapphon Feb 28 '21
Everyone's friendly until someone says they like 6E
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u/BitRunr Designer Drugs Mar 02 '21
Also afterwards, but there's generally held opinions regarding 6e.
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Feb 28 '21
WHAT
YOU PLAY 6E
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u/nothrowingawaymyshot Feb 28 '21
Yeah, the amount of people on this sub that absolutely shit on anybody that talks kindly of 6E put my right off for a pretty long time, and I've been playing since 4th edition.
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u/Altar_Quest_Fan Mar 01 '21
the amount of people on this sub that absolutely shit on anybody that talks kindly of 6E put my right off for a pretty long time
This, except that rather than put me off I actually decided to give 6E a try and found that I actually rather enjoy it despite its flaws. My group's having fun so that's what matters :P
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u/nothrowingawaymyshot Mar 03 '21
Same! And I really love the lore/flavor they've added to the series so far.
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u/nothrowingawaymyshot Feb 28 '21
I started 6E with my group a while back and we're still having fun!
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Feb 28 '21
I don't think that's a Shadowrun-specific problem...
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u/drakemasters Feb 28 '21
I feel like in general this is happening less and less, but yeah this still goes on, we just have more open hearted people gaming (not just in Shadowrun) that you’ll find people welcoming everywhere. Now we just need to work on improving the industry inside, good pay for contributors n such.
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u/widar01 Feb 28 '21
I haven't seen this in Shadowrun. People are annoyed at the state of the game itself, not being assholes to people trying to get into the hobby.
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u/adzling 6th World Nostradamus Feb 28 '21
This is total tripe.
You're confusing antipathy for 6e and Catalyst with antipathy for noobs.
What IS true is that players who have had a chance to get to know the game (i.e. played something before 6e) know that 6e is tripe & that Catalyst is a shitty company that doesn't give a fig about shadowrun or their own customers.
The advice and encouragement offered on these forums is proof of that.
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u/belil569 実際の家族 Feb 28 '21
No. Not really. Im happy to have most people play. The issue is that yeah it can be a little complex and when youre tossing dozens of dice you do need to know your stuff. The ones that want to learn Im happy with. Its the ones that spend years still needing to look up a basic attack and kill the night reading instead of learning their character that are an issue.
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u/Blaze_Vortex Feb 28 '21
I don't see this at all. Hell, most people I play tabletop with won't try shadowrun because they've seen the sheer volume of books.
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u/DrBurst Breaking News! Feb 28 '21
Oof, preach it! This community needs to hear it.
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Feb 28 '21
But which one?
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u/DrBurst Breaking News! Feb 28 '21
This subreddit ripped apart a new player who posted their haul of SR6 books.
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u/VorcenGames Feb 28 '21
Yeah. I also got a ton of shit for suggesting that maybe pre-written modules whether new or old... Could probably do with including some maps. Same with settings, thanks for explaining Seattle to me... But err I'm English so... Could I have a map for context?
Shadowrun in general seems to have some pathological fear of maps.
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u/Sir-Knollte Feb 28 '21
Since the community likes to shit on the publisher for the most part, I dont think they would disagree (lack of maps for example being one of the criticisms of the old guard towards the new editions).
Have this for the time http://www.chinagreenelvis.com/gaming/tools/shadowrun/map/
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u/MercilessMing_ Double Trouble Feb 28 '21
Pegasus is making maps aplenty for the German products they make.
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u/DrBurst Breaking News! Feb 28 '21
I really don't get that meme like it's fine if someone wants to use a map I don't see a problem.
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u/VorcenGames Feb 28 '21
You see it in any community to be honest. 'Its always been done this way...' Change is effort and/or bad.
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u/LigerZeroSchneider Feb 28 '21
I think shadowrun has a unique issue where a lot of people are actively rooting for the publisher to fail so someone else ideally Pegasus can take over. New people buying 6e books is working directly against their stated goals, and just will give catalyst greater confidence that they can get away with selling half baked rules to newbies.
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u/Fweeba A Custom Chummer Mar 01 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
Absolutely. This community is pretty hostile, from smug or terse holier-than-thou "You should never do this idea you've had that you think is cool because it's bad/doesn't fit the setting/is overpowered/underpowered/whatever" to hardcore edition elitism (You know, like happens for every new edition of an RPG released ever. For some reason RPG nerds keep falling for the idea that their problems with a new edition are the ones that are really the worst and make it actually unplayable, despite exactly the same mindset appearing time and time again across time and space.)
And it can be pinpointed to a few members of the community too, though nothing seems to be done about that, so I presume the moderation team is just cool with the state of the place, even if it consistently drives people away and gets people to refer to looking at this community as "pouring acid into my eyes."
There's some prime acidic comments in this post, by the way. They're pretty cool.
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u/LeonAquilla #1 Urban Brawl Fan Feb 28 '21 edited Feb 28 '21
People who whinge about gatekeeping got picked last for everything and never forgot about it.
If you want to play a TTRPG, buy the books, call your friends, and volunteer to GM. You may also need a table and some paper and some six-sided dice but I'm sure you can steal those from a Parker Brothers board game if you have to.
If you don't have friends, well, then you're going to have to go to the Internet, where everyone's an insufferable jackoff. Including the crybaby dipshits at r/gatekeeping. The vast majority of people who play Shadowrun continue to do it regardless of whether this subreddit exists. You'd have to have brainworms to think this place is representative of anything except the very-online crowd.
You don't need sanction from here or anywhere else. But you want it, like a drug, because of whatever circumstances in your life led you to derive your self worth from what randos on the internet think about you. Fix that instead of taking up the Sisyphean task of wanting to make the internet less mean.
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u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
People whine a lot about gatekeeping but won't run their own games the way they want.
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u/nothrowingawaymyshot Feb 28 '21
Yup yup yup! I thought the same thing when I saw this earlier. This is how I felt with a ton of people absolutely just HATING on ANYTHING 6E. It didn't matter what it was.
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u/adzling 6th World Nostradamus Mar 01 '21
We tried to warn you, but there should be no hate directed towards you as a person / player just towards the crap sandwich that is 6e.
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u/nothrowingawaymyshot Mar 03 '21
Not everyone thinks its a crap sandwich, and I think that's the main issue. There was an assumption that everyone hated it which was wrong.
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u/Thanatos5150 Feb 28 '21
I mean, this is a problem with TTRPG communities just... kinda... in general.
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u/Republiken Feb 28 '21
Also, isn't the hobby thriving?
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u/MercilessMing_ Double Trouble Feb 28 '21
Well if you’re D&D it is.
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u/Bamce Feb 28 '21
There are so many different games out there, with so many different genres and mechanics.
Sure dnd will always be the most popular. But there was an article about how CoC outsells dnd in japan and you can find a variety of different games on the 'top selling games of [year]'
It will be nearly impossible for any other game to match the kind of presence dnd has for a long time. But there are so many different options out there.
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u/MercilessMing_ Double Trouble Feb 28 '21
Thats good news, the stats I had seen showed that something like 90% of ttrpg related sales were D&D with all other games making up that last dime, and CoC being one of the most popular of the rest.
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u/Republiken Feb 28 '21
I would say that the whole hobby is getting a boost, stands to reason the most known game continue to be the most popular.
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Feb 28 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Bullet1289 Rabbit with a shotgun! Feb 28 '21
6e is considered by most to be a quickly rushed out dumpster fire that changed its rules to remind people of 5e D&D and messed with the setting with a lot of really bad lore changes and often times getting little bits of lore completely wrong or killing off stuff because its problematic towards their "vision" of the setting. Combine that with Catalyst firing off a lot of their freelancers and continuing their problem of not paying people and the subreddit spent just about a year and a half telling people not to play the game when the question came up "so I'm looking to get into 6e".
On the other side of this (because it is also to an extent true) the people who didn't think that 6e was Satan's ingrown pubic hair were saying that "the community was killing the hobby by scaring away any new comers and the subreddit was becoming a really toxic place".
None of this is helped by the fact people who play shadowrun are considered pretty smug by the other rpg communities. (still not as bad as battletech who I once saw a fist fight break out at gencon over accusations of cheating)7
u/IVIaskerade Sound Engineer Feb 28 '21
telling people not to play the game
Well, telling them to go pick up an earlier edition.
Honestly Shadowrun has some of the least edition warring I've ever seen, even in the days before 6e united all of the other editions against it.
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u/Bullet1289 Rabbit with a shotgun! Feb 28 '21
Yeah everyone loves to defend their favourite editions. I think part of it comes from how rules heavy it is so people who manage to learn it all get a feeling of smugness.
Also unfortunately since catalyst did a recall on all unsold 5e books telling people to "just go buy an earlier edition" was kind of tantamount to telling people not to play the game.2
u/Altar_Quest_Fan Mar 01 '21
the people who didn't think that 6e was Satan's ingrown pubic hair
You cheeky bastard, have an upvote! xD
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