Kasimir

Truly, everything is different this game Happy to break our record with you instead, Dark bro We can set a record that will go down in greatness in SE history. Just don't expect informative gametalk 2014 Kas is paranoid (much, much more paranoid than I am now) and does not do this.

@Burnt Spaghetti Care to join the reversals? Let's go full twilight zone. 2014 Kas had no chill, man. Comes from signing up to games with you, Wilson, Wyrm, and Awes around, and awareness of how endangered I was on the SErengeti I'm totally channelling his attitude towards PMs though. What are PMs we don't do that here what are trusts never heard of them roleclaims? excuse you not in my PMs >:) "Not you again," said the quartermaster, wearily, which Duncan thought was pretty unfair. Wasn't as if there was a shortage of anything to drink, and he was pretty sure the quartermaster was holding up five fingers so he wasn't all that drunk yet, just buzzed enough to feel the beginnings of the world going hazy at the edges. (Good. He wanted that. The haze was pleasant, and everything felt fine. No wild chalklings, no Nebrask, no memories. He could go someplace else, someplace where they'd never find him, where they'd never—) "I just want a drink, man," Duncan said. He wasn't even slurring his words yet, which he took to be a good sign. "Take some of the edge off." Functional. He was still functional. Maybe that was why they'd sent him out yet again. Because he was broken, but not broken enough, and that was all that mattered to them, even when those hazy mornings came and it was all he could do, lying on his back and feeling the crushing certainty that nothing was ever going to be okay again. Ever. (Wyatt. He should never have trusted him, should he? And now it wasn't going to come right again.) "Listen," said the quartermaster, pinching the bridge of his nose with two or three fingers. Duncan wasn't terribly sure. "Go and wash up and get some water. Sober up. This isn't the time to come apart on us, Kerr. Not with the—" "I know," Duncan said tersely, and his chalk-hand wasn't shaking. The quartermaster sighed. "One drink," he warned. "No more. You get through this, you're dry for the rest of the day. I know what you're going through, but we need every man right now, and I'm not running a bar here." You don't, Duncan wanted to snap. Instead, "Fine," he said, and accepted the bottle. Cheap spirits, enough to burn his throat and take some of the muchness of the world off, shove a little of that load off his shoulders, but it was better than nothing. He stalked off to go clean up.

PM me one LG and we'll give it a go. Could try for 2k Better switch off your email notifications, Sart! Or, y'know, I'm sorry.

I now see why you reacted the way you did to the announcement of Gears-Quinn getting dethroned as longest PM, Axl

El's Jeskeri game. Village, half-Village, Elims. Three-way throwdown. Ash probably doesn't remember because we were both Korathi and the most I did that game was to find Cultists, which...wasn't our wincon, lmao sorry

You had two actually. I was in QF46 and complaining that the mobbing on you didn't make sense and was likely hostile-driven. And then I used you as bait in LG68 and caused more confusion, sorry But I'm not playing this time. I will scream at people PMing me to try to get me to do moderate analysis. I understand if y'all need to mob me over that, and accept the consequences, but I am not in this game for any serious or partially-serious play I'd low-key say I'm playing like 2014 Kas would but that guy had no chill, so >>

I'm currently planning to use that second slot to rerun Wyrm's LG7 House Wars game instead. (Yes, I know, we've had a lot.) Or to rework it and reskin it - basically, he had a significant number of patch notes but I think his Informant mechanic was promising and fun, even if it disadvantaged the skaa. And Wyrm'alor's notes leave a prospective GM with a decent place to look to in terms of fixing it. Same insight as yours, Araris. With the meta the way it is right now, plus a few chaosmongers among the players, a fixed/reworked Informant mechanic might give players a lot of fun things to do.

Did I not play with you or GM you before?

Sigh. Don't know about this, but I haven't been in a game with Alv in forever and I know I only have myself to blame, so as much as Rithmatist games have been unkind to me... Signing up as Duncan Kerr, who has taken to drinking to deal with his problems. Something about a bad stint on the frontlines in Nebrask. Or maybe someone ate his sweetroll. Who knows? I'm going to try for the quiet, RPful game I wanted. As Sarge has got the analytical angle covered, I feel like it's fine for me to step back into the shadows and RP and chill Please don't look to me for extensive logic or reasoning. I just want to have fun since an old friend is playing @TJ Shade > new alcoholic has joined the chat

Who knows how many chill PMs we could've hit?

I was planning to play this game low-key, rather than partly engaging revenge mode for STINK. You, Invention, and Illwei more or less got me involved Next time, I'm ignoring your PMs when I want a quiet game >> Edit: If it wasn't for arguing in-thread with you, I wouldn't have legged it to Shadesmar - as it was, I was seriously considering just camping on Roshar and lurking with RP

I can tell you there's a high chance I'd have just camped on Roshar, prayed for rain, and then had an ethical crisis on whether it was really okay to take down half the game with me, and then sighed and quietly did nothing for the rest of the game

The true horror of the AG: the number of players it sent down the path of raw chaos. Once you start down the path of chaos, forever will it dominate your destiny... I heard a sound...as though a bloodthirsty voice and a voice of starlight had cried out in fear and were abruptly silenced

AFTERMATH: DIE NACHT DER APOKALYPSE He was alive. Tenth of the Dusk had not expected this. He was breathing heavily, as the adrenaline flooded out of him slowly, leaving him staring over the broken body of the enemy, and Enoras. Enoras, surprisingly peaceful in death. "You saved me," he breathed aloud. Understanding, suffusing his mind gently like the moonlight drawn through clouds on a still night. "Why?" But there was no answer. There would never be an answer again. Kaikoa lay, still on the ground, and Tenth's heart shattered all over again, like the chapel glass. He walked over to her - each step feeling like a leaden eternity. He remembered the first Kaikoa. He scooped her up, setting down his machete. She was so light in his cupped hands. Lighter than his heart, or his memories. There was a sound. A raw, animal sound, like heartbreak. Screaming through the chapel. Tenth realised he was on his knees, that it had come from him, that he was weeping and he could not seem to stop. He cradled his Aviar in his hands, but Kaikoa was still and Kaikoa was silent, and Kaikoa was gone, and it did not feel like victory at all, only sorrow so grievously purchased. A bright feather fluttered to the ground. "It hurts everytime, doesn't it?" said a man, from behind him. He had the advantage on Tenth. How he had crept up on Tenth, Tenth did not know, except of course he did. He had been distracted. Tenth felt tired, slow, and his fingers grasped for the hilt of his machete and but then it skittered out of his grasp. The man hunkering down beside him was Alethi, and his single eye reminded Tenth of the waves lapping on the shores of little Sori on a bright day. "I've buried both of mine now," he continued. "I've never had another. It hurts like the day I lost them, sometimes." He sighed. "Sometimes, we carry oceans of pain within us. But I think you might know a thing or two about that. Are you going to bury her?" On Patji. Where it had all begun. But Tenth could not bring himself to say it. Talking...was difficult. And it only hurt when he breathed. "Why?" Tenth managed, at last. Kaddar pressed his lips together in a thin line. "Because I know what it is to lose a friend," he said, at last. "And I loved both of them, as much as light and air. Their names were Nirn and Hulin, and in another life, I buried them on a world now lost to Ruin." Beyond them, the fragments of Odium gleamed ominously, pulsing with raw hatred. "Have you come..." Tenth grimaced. "For that?" Kaddar shook his head. "Of course not," he said. "Only a fool gives himself to God's own divine Hatred, even diminished. What to do about Odium is another issue entirely. As, I think, is the question of what to do with you." He was regarding Tenth now, as though Tenth was some particularly interesting sentiment. "Why did you not give it up?" "Ran out of time," Tenth said. That, and everyone seemed to not have wanted to take up Valor. He supposed he understood why. Even diminished, Valor was the glory of battle, the warm rush of courage in his veins, the bright singing clarion call to pick himself up, and to struggle on. He wanted none of it. (Battle was an Aviar lying cold and still in his hands and nothing, nothing would ever bring her back.) "Give me the Shard," Kaddar said. "What do you plan to do with it?" Tenth asked, warily. "Hide it," Kaddar said. "Hide it someplace no one will ever look. I'd destroy the Shard for good, if I could. But it is a much harder task to get rid of a Shard of Adonalsium than you and yours seem to think." The words struck Tenth like a punch to the gut. "Then...this. All of this. Was for nothing?" Kaddar shook his head. "They were a threat. And your actions, and those of everyone on this world have ensured that Odium and the others will cease to be a threat for a time." He smiled, and there was a weary knowledge in his expression. "The world, or a single life, is never saved for all time. One day, the village will no longer be destroyed by koloss. One day. One day. We can but hope. Salvation is always ever temporary. It must always be fought for, and earned. And you have won it, on this day." Tenth stared at his quarry. He'd spent a long time trying to track down Kaddar. And in the end, the Alethi had come to him. He did not want Valor. He did not want the power of gods within him, no matter how diminished it was. He had not wanted Ambition, either. He did not feel particularly hungry any longer. Only tired. Only broken. "Take it," Tenth said, and he reached out and took Kaddar's outstretched hand. Valor left him, at once, warmth blazing in Tenth's hand, the last of the call to battle, warm, stark courage in his blood, and then fading away as the Shard passed to the next vessel. Kaddar let out a long breath. "Good," he said, at last. "You did well." "I did not," Tenth said, grimly. "What now?" Kaddar raised an eyebrow. "The choice is yours, of course," he said, as though it should have been fairly obvious. "You can bring me in to the Ghostbloods, though I think you'll find that they no longer have a price on my head. Or, you can help a friend of mine look for someone. I could use a bounty hunter of your skills and reputation." "Who?" "An Alethi Ghostblood, by the name of Khas. I think you might know him." Tenth did. Khas had taught him a few tricks with the sword, for all he favoured the spear. It had, however, been seven long years, and Tenth had eclipsed Khas. The student had become greater than the teacher, now. (He remembered gripping a bloody sword and standing over King Naladar. But that was another life, and he had been young, cocky, and unblooded then.) "Gone missing, then?" "Oh, no. That's the friend," said Kaddar. "Khas wants you to find someone. Someone who has been lost for a very long time." Tenth thought about it. Then he thought about it some more. He wanted only to grieve for Kaikoa. But something, perhaps the last of Valor, perhaps the last of the stubborn strength that had him crawling out of the pit trap with a broken leg and fleeing Patji, something gave him the strength to keep his voice even as he asked, "Who?" Kaddar smiled, engimatic. "Have you heard of King Wurum of Alethkar, First of His Name, Protector of the Realm, and the Herald of the Storms?" Tenth looked at him. "Can't say I have," he said, flatly. (A darkeyes stumbling in the street. Five knives in the back, one from one he had thought a friend. A dying whisper cruelly twisted. A killer of kings, wincing as he pulled the arrow from a Grandbow out of cracked Shardplate, stormlight leaking. Lives upon lives.) "Well then," said Kaddar. "You have your work cut out for you."

Oh, no, it's a different one, don't worry I'm already contacting the people I need to make this a wonderful experience for my players, true to the spirit of OG SE Fun is guaranteed* for all! I also firmly believe even one of your noted prowess can't break an OG game, but you're welcome to prove me wrong Thanks, Cage-Shuffle-Squat Bro My bro Wyrm's got really fun games and I hope to continue his legacy sometime too. *Your prospective GM accepts no responsibility for resulting trauma, paranoia, or a lasting distrust of spikes that may or may not result from playing such a game. Refunds not granted. Play at your own risk.

Thanks man To be honest, I'm also requesting a specific IM if possible because there's one particular skillset I absolutely need my IM to have for my OG LG. So this may not actually be an issue.

Ah, what the heck. I didn't want to say it explicitly, but I think I will, because informative and whatnot, amirite. @Elbereth - I didn't involve the GM or complain because I felt it made me weak. That my job was to be able to take the heat, and that I should've fought back more viciously instead of just logging off and leaving. That the wrong lay with me because I should've just laughed it off, despite Len mocking me for bad reads. That I was overreacting - that a good player would just deal with it, and carry on. (Yes, we know I turned out to be right that Len wasn't actually reasoning but acting from Evil knowledge, but still.) Alv knew this was a problem - he commented that converting me might lead to in doc problems, so I guess it wasn't all in my head. It bothers me a lot that I left the community for months on end and idled out of a game run by my friends not because I wanted to but because I didn't want to play any more games with then!Len after that experience with him. And it bothers me that I didn't feel okay bringing it up to a GM or IM or any SE friends and all. I don't think anyone really knew, until I alluded to it in retrospect. I'd never think that of my players as a GM, or of any SE players as a friend. If you have problems, you should deconflict. I'm glad deconflicting went well this time - I talked to Fifth for advice on approaching Archer. But I'm also just pointing out that there can be significant psychological barriers with regard to reaching out for help, even if we tell players to talk to the GM and the IM. And now I need a drink... Edit: And thanks a lot, @little wilson - I know Len felt you were too harsh on him in the dead/spec doc, but reading this years later, it just feels good to know at least one person was sticking up for me, even if no one else did. That maybe I shouldn't have just quietly taken it and gone away.

I can say a bit about this here, but as I noted in the game and several times, I'm very far from being a PM master, and if you're thinking about PM spider type capabilities, you're looking more at players like Burnt and Illwei for advice. Lies. All lies. Most of it was Wyrm's fault. And Wilson's. What's interesting is 2014 - 2015 Kas was very adamant about PM safety. I refused to let people roleclaim to me, screamed if people tried, and generally refused to give out my role information either. It was fairly impossible not to in this game, as I had a role that reduced all votes on me by one, and so I basically just went ahead and claimed it in thread the moment the missing vote was discovered. And then proceeded to troll people with bad poetry And yet... I was also the most chatty player in the game This wasn't a contradiction in terms. I've tended to use PM roles to info-share in restricted communication games. And I naturally like bantering, PMing, and chatting casually with other players. (My PM partners this round can confirm ) What I'm not very good at is specifically and deliberately getting players to give me information, or roleclaim to me. That's okay. I don't want roleclaims. I want people to practice opsec But as I've mentioned, my use of PMs is generally to solicit reads, to try to engage seemingly-inactive players (which I did a tiny bit this game but was way too tired to get into), and to try to build a rapport with players. I have used PM rapport before to get several Villagers to turn on a Village trust (but I was also a Villager and that 'trust' was Evil, so there ) So with those clarifications out of the way, some questions to ask yourself: Are you a naturally chatty player? Can you become one? [IMO, if you aren't, or you aren't interested in it, it's not worth it. Get another player on your team to work the PM game, stat. I recognise this is less applicable to Team Evil this game. But if you're not good at it, you're better off cultivating another player who is and getting your info off them - in this game, I got to supplement my weak PM spider game by being in contact with Illwei, which means functionally all I needed to do was to get Illwei to trust me.] What do I want out of PMs? Do I want to gain trust? Do I want to build rapports? Do I want to gain information? [I don't want information, I want reads, so I'll often banter and then ask players for their view on in-game events. If exchanging information, you may often need to offer a bit of it yourself. Keep in mind that people generally don't appreciated being treated like a vending machine where you push buttons and info comes out - focus on being a pleasant/fun conversation partner first. On the other hand, some players like Devotary or Araris prefer you get down to business right away. Talking to Stink is an art - he told me about Nalthis but this was also amidst two concurrent PMs (we were aiming for 3) full of chill talk, and honestly I wasn't hitting Stink up for info but because it's fun to chill with him If building rapports, you definitely want to be a fun conversation partner. The main reason I trusted Evil Wyrm in MR1 despite having a bad gut feeling about it legit boiled down to how much rapport he'd built with me over two to three full cycles' worth of bantering in the darkeyes faction doc.] What skills do I have, and how do I bring them to bear on PMs? [Like I said, I'm naturally chatty or I enjoy bantering with players, so my PM game tends to focus primarily on building rapport with players and then using that to gain reads. It doesn't work with some - my PM with Mist kind of petered out, as I'm not that charismatic, but it was enough to get me conversations with a bunch of players. If you're better at compiling info, you may consider starting up as an info trader. And so on.] Who are the people I naturally have a good relationship with? [IMO, seek them out immediately in PMs, as it's easier to get the conversation going, especially if you're bad at the PM games. And in my case, there's no point in joining a game where Wilson or Wyrm are playing if I'm not immediately going to PM them and troll them hard ] No worries, and thanks Archer - I apologise as well for my strong language as I was feeling kind of frustrated about getting side-eyed for a tactic you yourself (and several other Villagers) appeared to be employing. And identifying players who had too much information is definitely a decent Evil tell, so that's all and good. That's fair Ash, I think I overestimated a bit from how everyone and their horse appeared to have clocked me by Cycle 3 And yeah, I think El and Wilson were cackling just a tad at the whole irony of the one player you promised not to kill being your kill switch for Honour >> Hello Stormfather my first GM, it's nice we meet again I was talking to Wilson about this, actually. Between Meta's trolling and LG5 being my first game, in which we let the Village execute all spanreed holders and then I yeeted the spanreed you so kindly gave me, I try not to apply hard role distro assumptions anymore. I'd soft-assumed Ruin was Village for the purposes of working, but prepared to revise that assumption, especially after Ruin blew up Shadesmar, since the number of compromised Elims was a bit too high for a bus to have been plausible by that juncture I agree with the emphasis on the importance of being a vanilla. I've previously written that stuff about your vote being your voice and your power as one, and I've admittedly enjoyed it more than being a role most times. In a way, I actually feel 'minor roles' were functionally vanillas this game because while I did get off one or two useful scans, I was really more helpful to the Village poking around, asking questions, and trying to make sense of things without getting trolled as hard as I was in MR1 by Wilson It's one of the best lessons I took from early SE, so thanks for bringing it up again. I feel like sometimes, there's inertia. I don't remember if we pulled in the IM for that game - I think Wyrm and I kind of flagged it to them? But it was also too late, and that's that the damage was already done. (Sorry. It's been years and my memory seems to think games don't exist after LG15b ) But say, look at what happened when Len was going after me in LG29. I didn't see this as something worth asking an IM about, and I didn't really know how an IM could make things better. Len was viciously attacking me, I hated it, but it's not like you can totally ask a player to lay off either. Because I didn't see many options for intervention, or reasons to, I figured the best thing to do was to quit and I just went inactive and never logged back into SE for quite a few months/a year++ after that. I don't know, I just want to flag: is this an issue too? Surely it is, if a player feels their best recourse is to leave the game, like I was considering doing D3. Noting that something that might be worth for a GM to try is something I call 'proactive GMing.' As I noted briefly in the Roshar doc, my philosophy is that I like to make my IM suffer >:) I don't want to mention names with regard to games I've personally GMed, so I'm just gonna note that my attitude as a GM is to highlight potential problems to my IM. This could be a player who is visibly unhappy about being executed early for several games in a row. This could be signs that two players might be about to throw down in subsequent cycles. My attitude is that if I proactively highlight these situations to my IM, and ask the IM do a welfare check, or at least just make sure everything's okay, this can potentially stop situations from even exploding in the first place. And if despite my best efforts and the IM's best efforts, these things explode anyway, then minimally we have forewarning and can get on top of things instead of being caught pants down. P.S. Please still assign an IM to my games?

I really feel like we are Is this why you got it and were chill when I was paranoid of you this game? Some thoughts of my own from across the game. As the dead/spec doc commented, I had been planning to take it easy and have a chill, relaxed game. Discovering that I was a Forger/Poisoner was interesting as I noticed some fun synergies between the roles, and had pretty quickly worked out a plan to mass enough charges to die mid-to-end game and take out oh, around half the surviving players with me. Kind of as a throwback to LG12's Desolation of Elantris. (Would I really go through with it? More on that later. But it was a fun goal to work towards anyway.) These plans went quite decidedly out of the window when @Orlok Tsubodai contacted me D2 about being Invention. (For those who haven't seen the exchange in the dead doc, I had constructed a Vietcong grade tunnel on him, and when he claimed Invention, I was so stunned I could only say a flat, ".........what." And scurried off to get a drink to process this. And then proceeded to start yelling in my GM PM. (I'm sorry Wilson, El. I do that a lot, I know, but it entertained you so whatever ) About half an hour (I think? Not gonna get that detailed) to a bit over an hour later, @TJ Shade also claimed Autonomy to me. By this point, I was screaming more in the GM PM as I got the sinking feeling my desire to have a quiet, RPful game, was being yeeted firmly out the window. (Wilson and El confirmed Evil: they were cackling.) I probably did go mildly insane and that explains how I ended up going...IDK, halfway serious for this game. I'm tired, I was juggling a heavy work week, and I don't think I have the energy anymore to go full-out kasyana the way I used to when I was much younger >> Which explains why the promised backreading, post, vote, and link analysis never actually materialised. Not that I think this was a bad thing. I don't want to be bringing that kind of intensity as a game attitude anymore these days. By mid-D2, these plans to chill and amass poison vials had definitely slalomed out the window when I received a PM from the New Prudence, Illwei. (They definitely derailed after someone killed Stink, as I was having so much fun chilling with him.) 1. I'm not sorry about doing mechanical analysis - in a strange bookend, the first and only other game Wilson GMed me in was MR1, and in the dead doc, because I was bored, because Wilson was trolling me intensely, because the dead could still influence the game, and because the faction dead kind of figured we were getting played by the 'Elim' faction, we banded together and pooled our information and did a craptonne of mechanical analysis to figure out what was going on. It's something I'm good at, and as a Villager, if the info is there, there's every reason for me to play to my strengths. (It also was less intensive than link analysis, which was a plus.) Here's the issues: 2. Accurate perception. I have had a major issue with this throughout games. Being able to make an accurate assessment of Axl's threat would've let me realise that a doubletap on Axl was unlikely and figure out that Swan was lying faster. (For those who missed it in the Roshar doc or Elim doc: Axl and Swan happened to comment on two conflicting sets of actions, and I may have low-key made Wilson panic when I asked her to clarify if there was a GM error...) Some of it boils down to what I call textual nunchi, which some players like Wilson are very good at, and some like me are rubbish at. And as I told one or two people, the truth is, in my head, I'm still the fresh rando who just finished wetting himself after a stint as an Elim in Maili's LG5. And since MR1, I've always seen myself as the Village renegade: I don't do trust groups actively, I work parallel to them, or even tangentially. I see my job as being that of catching what trust groups miss because of Elim action and manipulation. (There's one or two cases I took part of the Village lead, but I've generally not wanted to work with groups.) The key problem was: after all the claiming went down, and after I was in contact with Lion, I stopped being the Village Renegade. That was no longer a role I could continue to play. I don't know. I think what I'm saying is - I know the proactive strategies Wilson and other Village leads or prospective Village leads (even in a multiple Village leads scenario) employ. I think that engagement with other players was partly on me but I was still thinking on Renegade level, which is - PM players, talk to them, get reads. So I either have to learn to update my perceptiveness to better understand the role I'm playing in a game, or to fade back to the shadows if I intend to continue as Village Renegade. 3. Dingogate: 4. Playstyles: This one's going to be a doozy. First, solidarity with Stink, because I too experienced playstyle flak during this game. Some of it was well-intentioned, about my RP style being difficult to read. Fair enough: while I have fun RPing, I don't want to make life harder for players who just want to play the game. So I started OOC notes. Some of it was less well-intentioned, and I did not appreciate receiving rather aggressive condescension from players like Iguana/Archer just for having a more PM communication heavy playstyle, particularly when they were doing the same thing themselves. After burning a poison charge on Iguana N2, I was moving to get myself executed D3 and talking to Orlok about that. This would have taken both me and Iguana down, due to certain interesting facts about how poison kills work in this game. (More on this later as well.) So, specifically on chaotic playstyles and ethics... Other side thoughts: someone please post, I have wrap-up RP I want to get to Thank you for the pass nominations, as I genuinely did not expect to win one. Also, @TJ Shade and I have officially smashed the Gears-Quinn PM record in this game. The new longest one-on-one PM began D2 with a Shadesmar PM that was blessed by Prudence and reached 1277 messages. Thanks, Dark bro. I enjoyed our discussions immensely Edit: Apologies @Orlok Tsubodai - I felt bad about not being able to offer the support you asked for, but I'm glad you found a villager willing to do so. I apologise for not being able to be as strong an ally as hoped for. And @Ashbringer - I actually felt so bad about not being able to help Orlok out I told him that I'd understand if he rescinded the deal on my protection because it didn't feel right to me I was going in on you guys but you guys were restricted from attacking me... But I admit I'm also surprised you all agreed in the first place, considering I wasn't very subtle about hiding my identity.

Let's see how it goes? I definitely wouldn't be opposed to having a co-GM if it's too complex but I especially really need help on faction balance. And I'm not up for running it so soon anyway

Yeah. Rules will go up at some point when I'm done tinkering. This will go either badly or very well, there is no middle ground, and I'm gonna have to ask for a lot of help because I swore to do certain unspeakable things to myself should I run a faction game again, but...

Actually that LG was my Sanderson space horror LG, as I'm running OG Tyrian rules for my upcoming LG slot But I still wanna do the space horror at some point!

Partly agreed. We both used to be (still are I suppose?) on the PM safety camp and I've been known to ask players about to roleclaim to me to shhh. And to generally spend games turtling out and ignoring PMs. (For which Claincy killed me in the AG...) I changed my views, of course, and I'd like to think they're more nuanced now. IDK. I definitely think roleclaims were rarer in early SE days - I sent Wilson and El a single screenshot which explains my general attitude as a player, even now. But I also remember in AG2, we already had some idea C2 that the Smoker distribution was abnormal. (Though Maili was in the game, so....) But claiming just like that was rare. Exceptions: Wyrm the Tineye, etcetera, but not the rule. But then, in LG7, apparently y'all were claiming in docs after the first day? I think it took Gamma, me, and Ren forever to get to that stage because we were the House of Paranoia. I do think people seem overall more willing to claim now - I just also think that to be fair....we weren't exactly paragons of PM safety either, previously. It's just very egregious in this case because of the Shadesmar Eight. I'm still not comfortable with claiming upfront and I only got bolder with claiming at the point I had placed Poisoner targets and stopped caring if I got killed as I figured that I'd like my targets taken out. I've always had a certain 'lolwhatever' streak about claiming if I feel it's strategic - hence that QF6 time where I casually roleclaimed in a PM group with Evil!Maili.

Oh wow - it's too smooth? I haven't extensively used their B nib - still trying that one out.

Nah, Cyclops is saying the same thing - can write for longer periods with Jinhao than ballpoint Nice! I like the Safari M - changed out my F for a M, but have since tried a B nib