synopsychic | (no subject)

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So since the books in this place are huge letdown and it looks like we're gonna need someplace to store physical records soon, has anybody thought about building a library in here?

['Here' of course meaning Liminal Space in general, not this one specifically since... Transient.]

Seems like we could use one.

[And although he's already mentioned it before attached to another (admittedly more important) broadcast:]

...If someone wants to give me a pen and a couple empty notebooks I could probably get us started off with some stuff from home.

[Super low budget, but it is what it is.]

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So to speak, yes.

To tell the truth, I'm enjoying the challenge of playing it from this side.

It's a different perspective, that's for sure.

[He'll take it.]

How's all this compare to your game?

Larger and more chaotic. No matter how many demons I brought in, there were only ever one or two "players" and one or two "game masters". I also kept my "cast" a lot more consistent - there was the player, his avatar on the board, and everyone else was part of the environments I created.

Hm...to put it another way, if I was playing a nice game of chess, the Trumps are playing Global Thermonuclear War.

[Somehow, that makes sense.

Enough that it gives him a laugh, anyway. How is this his life, seriously...?]

Ha, I hear you. Still, doesn't hurt to have somebody who at least kind of gets it on the team. I'm all ears if you've got any suggestions on how to play this one.

[It's not cheating because they're teammates!! ...Not that he'd have given half a shit if it was, whoops.]

The best advice for playing chess is "turn the chessboard around". See what your opponent sees, play the game in your mind as if you were trying to win from his perspective, and use that to predict his movements.

However, that has two major flaws: it requires you to know the rules of the game, and it requires your opponent to behave in the way you expect. Beginner chess players lose when they don't know the capabilities of their opponents' pieces, and advanced chess players lose when their opponent behaves suboptimally to confuse their strategy.

When I was running a game like this, I did everything in my power to prevent my opponent from learning all the rules, and the Trumps do the same. Likewise, we have no idea what their goal actually is. Learning these two things is essential before we can even begin to think about "winning the game".

If my opponent had at least started with the latter, he'd have saved himself a lot of grief...I'm determined not to make the same mistake myself.

[....Damn, he wasn't expecting a serious answer.

He's grateful for it, though- he's pretty good at the chess thing in his world- and has in fact been situating himself here in a way his teenaged self hadn't been equipped to do when he'd first arrived in Ergastulum- but hearing from the closest person to a Trump he's spoken to yet is invaluable.]

Mm-- [He hums at the appropriate intervals, quiet for a few moments while he absorbs the suggestions and possible pitfalls both.]

So what you're saying is we got our work cut out for us, then. Figured as much. [He's had a similar conversation with Naoki (minus the personal experience in running the game), and so a lot of this has been on his mind since then.

This more or less confirms that as one of the better ways to proceed, rather than the outright blow them away approach. ...Not that he has a problem with that in some cases, but here? Fuck that. He'd rather not be deleted from existence when there's a safer way to go.]

From the stuff I've been hearing on here it sounds like most of us are on the same page, so we could be worse off.

If nothing else, we're at least not working at complete cross-purposes. The next time this happens, though, hopefully I'm self-aware so I can convince people to do some organizing.

Yeah, the whole infiltrator shtick complicates things a bit. [Lololol understatement of the century.]

I'll give it a shot too, if I can. Least we got the network when we're ourselves, right?

And access to Liminal Space, if I'm not mistaken. That has a number of useful possibilities.

Shit, really? That's convenient. I thought they just kinda dropped us off and that was that.

I came here retaining my knowledge of how to travel from game board to player's seat and vice versa, as it were. I was unable to remember this ability in Misericordia, but if that fails to hold true next time...

Huh. Guess I'll have to try it out if I get to be me the next time around.

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