Sigil: The City of Doors

"That's under the assumption that a person's chess record is good enough that the randomness of dice isn't better. I do not win tactical games. I don't have the patience for them and I don't enjoy them. So my 50% win rate in dice games is significantly higher than my chess record would be. Just the way it works out."

"In any dice game, if luck is solely on the side of one player, they always win.

However, while some dice games are indeed pure luck where any sort of strategy is irrelevant, there are also a lot that are quite tactical, all about knowing when it's worth it to keep pushing or it's better to fold now.

In general, I'm more wary about people who win often at dice than at chess. They're either blessed or crafty, while the second are just clever."

"It sounds like it's more analytical than I would understand," he replies. "I'm definitely more of a dice guy. Blind luck rather than tactical analysis is more likely to yield results for me."

"Each piece has an intrinsic and extrinsic values. The first is an attempt to determine their average strength in a vacuum, the second is always fleeting.

The king is the most extreme example of that, as its intrinsic value is infinite, namely you lose if you lose it. But at the same time it is also absolutely terrible at doing anything, its base movement terribly restricting and made even worst by the fact it isn't allowed to put himself in any danger whatsoever.

Other pieces like the rook are as strong in the late game as they are dead weights in the early game.

In short, it's one of the many things in life that, the closer you look at it, the not so simple it is."

"Well, not each piece. Just most pieces. The value of the king is always the highest because everything you do is to protect yours and corner theirs no? Not that I know the strategy of the game, and the little horsies do a diagonal move right? It's not my game."

"Ah, yes, the princess. Or countess, or baroness, not sure how nobility titles work in your home plan.

I would say there's a world of differences between the idealism of the one born with nothing and the one of the one born with everything though. They might look similar from afar, but they're built from experiences so dissimilar they cannot be directly compared and ranked. One might shine brighter when the other is more flexible, be better at cutting through but worst at resisting.

To use a chess metaphor: The true value of each piece depends on the state of the board."

"She'd never stand for a cynical lifestyle. A little bit of cynicism at any given time is to be expected when dealing with the drow, but hope is important to Eilistraeans. Illiam'iira is a better representation of that than I am though."

"Then may you remain in your goddess' divine grace, and away from the temptation of cynicism and immobilism."

"I guess I come from a different place mentally. As a devotee of Eilistraee I always sought sweeping changes to drow society. It was a divine directive though, and those tend to be relatively grand in scale."

"I fear actual change is simply not something much people aspires too. I would even hazard the guess a good deal of the revolutionaries would be quite fine with only nominal changes, as in just the identity of who's in charge. Same for the chaos people, who make sure to never cross the line of doing truly irreparable damages.

To use a metaphor as mathematical as it is barbaric, the equation as is presently is stable and only accepts the current status quo as its answer. New variables would needed to be added for a different output to maybe show up."