Post by ForgotToFlush on Apr 22, 2023 20:28:32 GMT
You might expect a Darnell interview this month, as Darnell is the lifetime achievement winner from 2017. I'll let Alex explain the situation:
Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed! Would you like to introduce yourself?
I'm Fenrir 👋🏾 a former moderator for the Mafia room. I forget exactly how I first found PS, but it involved trying to get into competitive battling and Choice Banding an Infernape with four setup moves. As far as Mafia goes, I was in Game Corner before joining an event during the Ultimate Gaming Olympics in 2016(?) and barely understanding what was going on but sticking around to see what was up. Once life got too busy I eventually stepped down. While I haven't played Mafia in a while, I still enjoy it when I get the chance and it also indirectly led to me getting into Survivor (the show, not the room), so I've played a few ORGs as well (and routinely waffle on whether to apply for the actual show).
I'm in a purgatory between studying for a degree in theater and working full-time as a teaching assistant, both of which I've enjoyed a lot. If everything goes according to play, I'll finally graduate this upcoming fall (people who knew me a few years ago probably still knew me when I was studying, COVID and other things kind of derailed some plans).
What else is there? 🤔 I'm really into creative writing and tabletop gaming, especially D&D and games involving trivia/social deduction. Since the weather here's gotten nicer I've been looking at the skateboard my roommate's given me with curiosity and fear, but as soon as I get equipment for it, learning that's going to be my focus 🛹 !
How did you get into PS! Mafia?
I think when I first joined (during the UGO event) it was for a trivia game about Mafia roles and setups. The only experience I had was playing in small groups with friends where there was a doctor and maybe a cop, so I had zero understanding but somehow made it a few rounds in (mostly by being pitted against other people who had just joined). The moment I remember the most involved aj asking if a particular setup was balanced and answering "...yes?" after a long pause (which was the correct answer despite being 100% a guess 😁).
I joined a large Classic game right after, 20 players if I remember correctly, and ended up as Mafia with no clue what was happening. I got bussed without understanding why my teammates were voting for me but decided I wanted to get the hang of this Mafia thing and stuck around.
What was the room like when you joined?
It was very active because of the time of year, but also more active in general. I didn't join during the "golden age" of Mafia when activity was through the roof, but 13-17 player games were pretty common (which could be a double edged sword when hosting). The forums were around by the time I joined, including PSAnon--in which I was also Mafia the first time I played, but this time I was the one bussing (thanks OM). Mafia Room Bot was my best friend and I remember some of the very popular themes being Greater Idea, Nomination, and ESun.
What used to be in the Mafia room which is not there anymore?
First answer: Forum activity and PSAnon, easily. It seems like there's a resurgence of forum activity lately, so here's hoping it stays because towards the end of my active tenure I was way more active on the forums than on the server. FtF can also attest to my multiple failed attempts tosteal AJ's job start up PSAnon again. Something about anonymous games just really appeal to me (probably the reduced reliance on meta since certain people can read me like a book 90% of the time).
Second answer: Activity overall. I sometimes join the room still (maybe I'm there right now!) and it's always saddening to see a game start and only three or four people join. Maybe I should commit to logging in and signing up for more games, but it'd also have to be under a new name--I've forgotten the password to my Pokemon Showdown account.
What kinda themes do you remember that might not be popular anymore?
-Vanilla. No one plays Vanilla anymore. Back when I was a boy you got your voice and your vote and you were thankful for it.
-As a side-effect of games being smaller, multiball games (i.e. setups with multiple scum factions). I used to love being scum multiball because I got to both hunt and mislead at the same time.
-I was always a fan of Modified Execution. This one may still be prevalent in the room; I haven't been around enough to know for sure. Honestly, I tend to enjoy anything messing with KP (kill power) even though it'd hard to balance, because I love forcing people/being forced into finding alternate ways to play based on new mechanics.
-A lot of MafiaScum setups. The Matrix setups come to mind, but there's a lot of setups from there that I found fun.
-While they weren't super popular on the server, I enjoyed the setups I played on PSAnon a lot. The last full game I played I got to be a vigilante responsible for the deaths of seven of my fellow townies. What's not to love?
I think between Semi-Nightless and Separated Scum I have a knack for just killing town regardless of my own alignment
But, and this is key: not actually winning
What was your favorite thing to do in the room? Playing, hosting, something else?
I liked both, but I lean towards hosting because I enjoy making setups using uncommon roles. There's also something satisfying about knowing everything going on while everyone else has no clue 😁
At some point I hosted a multiball open-contact setup with roles based on the Pokemon RSE Gym Leaders, called Hoenn Mafia. While it was definitely unbalanced, it was also popular enough to spawn games based on Johto, Sinnoh (Snaq note: Sinnoh game before Hoenn), and Kanto. One role was a Mafia-aligned 1-shot Lightningrod and the player (FtF) used it pretty early, so much of the rest of the game involved figuring out what had happened that night. Compare that to the Sinnoh game, where I was a scum player who landed one successful kill over four nights, and it's a small wonder I gravitated to hosting, for role madness and U-pick setups especially. I'm also prone to second-guessing myself a lot as a player, and that's where you get things like vigging all your fellow townies.
When hosting, what are some things that you can do to go from a good host to an excellent host?
The number one thing that comes to mind: know your mechanics. This is easier if it's a setup you've made, but you want to be familiar enough with action resolution to answer hypothetical questions players may ask without giving away what actually happened. I think the most common such questions involve things like roleblockers and jailkeepers targeting each other. Adding flavor can also keep people engaged depending on the setup; it's a lot easier to incorporate for a custom setup as opposed to a pre-existing one, but I plan on incorporating it somehow for the upcoming Fire and Ice game, for instance. (I actually haven't settled on what that flavor's going to be though, so answers on a postcard!)
How would you describe your playstyle?
If I'm actually active (and not asleep) I tend to type walls of whatever stream-of-consciousness comes to mind. Early on I end up reading into things with no meaning, usually with the intention of generating some form of content before revising my reads once there's more to go on. I definitely have a tunneling habit as town that I need to work on getting out of.
As Mafia (which I probably enjoy playing more since I don't feel as much pressure to be right), I mostly try to focus on replicating the wallposting tendencies that I have as town, but I think the added agenda of trying to keep myself and my teammates alive has gotten me caught more than once. I'm usually either vehemently against bussing or all in with it.
Walls don't translate as well to the chatroom setting, but that hasn't stopped me from trying. It's most fun when I'm playing with a large group of people who I don't know very well and I go from this radio silent slot to getting warned and muted by the bot for suddenly dropping 4-5 paragraphs of text (which then gets me voted out for "trying too hard" 🤔)
How was your journey in the Mafia room?
I was very much a naive teenager when I joined the room originally, and I remember vividly how badly I wanted to be staff. After about a month of activity I got voiced, and from there I waited another couple months before going on my campaign to be promoted to staff. I think there was even a pastebin I made of reasons I should be promoted, like I was going down the checklist of what not to do if you wanted staff. Looking back, it definitely worked against me, and in fairness to the staff at the time I definitely needed time to mature before getting the spot so if anything it helped them make the right decision. My favorite aspects of being staff were moderating the room and making sure games stayed on track, so when everything started becoming automated and the role became more of a setup approving/greater idea command entering job I began to lose interest and eventually resigned. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as staff though, and it's something that I look back on fondly.
I was definitely more of a fan of manual hosting, yeah. I think the automation was definitely the right direction for the room to take, and it's obviously way more streamlined now, but the mafia room I always enjoyed was with a manual host running everything, and I always enjoyed running games myself when I got the opportunity.
Would you Rather? Mafia or Town? PR or Vanilla?
Mafia vs Town: Mafia. Similar to how I like hosting because I enjoy having all the information, I also like the information advantage that comes with being Mafia. (Plus, where else is lying not only sanctioned, but encouraged?) Real talk though, I'm very prone to second-guessing myself out of accurate reads or tunneling into inaccurate ones as town.
PR vs Vanilla: It depends on the PR. Information roles help me soothe some of the anxiety with the knowledge that, for example, if I can investigate someone's alignment I can stop stressing over it. And I'm usually pretty good about avoiding the nightkill and softing if I have a power role. If I'm something protective, though, I don't have the best track record for picking reasonable targets. I enjoy Vanilla Mafia games a lot actually, but sometimes as Vanilla in non-Vanilla games I start to get antsy not knowing whose hands my life is in (even if a number of people townread me, am I about to be hero-vigged by the one person who doesn't?).
What are your favorite kind of power roles?
There's my favorite as a player and then my favorite as a host
Because while I enjoy vigilantes and other killing roles a lot, I don't enjoy them as much when they're in my hands
As Mafia, I like roles that disrupt or mess with what the town had, be it roleblocker, ninja, or godfather, since it fits the overall spirit of disrupting town's plans. Investigative roles are also very helpful form a scum perspective
As town, investigative roles top the list. I do feel like alignment-cops have a lot of power though, so I'd say things like Tracker that give information without being the end-all-be-all
I also really like Masons for some reason. Probably the knowledge that there's someone you can talk to and bounce thoughts off of who's acting in good faith. It's the same reason I enjoyed the hydra games I've played (FtF keeping me sane)
How has Mafia impacted your life?
The biggest way is probably that Mafia indirectly got me into Survivor and the ORG community. It's been a while since I played an ORG, but I've enjoyed the ones I played and kept in touch with a lot of people I met through there (until I vanished from the face of the earth for a year, my bad). But watching the show with my roommates is now a weekly ritual. So the short answer is that it impacted my life most through the people I met 💗
Mafia was also probably the start of my love for games involving strategy and collaboration as a whole, because I don't remember being involved in them much before joining. Even though escape rooms don't have too much overlap with Mafia, for instance, I did my first two during March and loved them, and something about the collaborative aspect overlaps in my view with Mafia and Survivor. (Even if you're town and don't know who your teammates are, I think people sometimes forget that you still need to work with the other players in order to actually get everything done--shouting your reads from the rooftops does nothing if people want you dead for it, no matter how right you may be).
I have also introduced many a student (remember, I'm a teaching assistant now 😁) to games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Skull, which have been very popular.
Do you have any memories of the Mafia room you'd like to share?
So as established, I have a history of poorly balancing my setups, but I used to be even worse at it—so much so that when I was being considered for Driver, one of the main questions was whether or not I could balance a setup in the event I needed to approve one. To gauge this, several people devised their own methods of testing, ranging from asking me to take a “second look” at something they’d made to inviting me to a 1-to-1 groupchat named “The Quiz” where I was quizzed on roles and setups at breakneck pace. And I don’t remember if I actually caught onto the fact that something was up 😂
There’s a setup called forest fire which puts six townies and a firefighter against two Arsonists with a factional prime or the choice to ignite and kill all primed targets. It’s a really fun setup and I was hosting it late one night when a new player named AdamantAipom joined. The full story is buried somewhere in the Mafia quotes thread, but poor AA ended up as an arsonist, and if I remember their partner died Day 1. So I was explaining the mechanics of the setup and how Mafia worked and, if I remember, explaining that 11-player Dethy wasn’t an option before I eventually accidentally let on that they could win by igniting on a given night (by mentioning it was LyLo). I asked DeathByWobbuffet (at the time a Driver if I remember correctly) what I should do in this scenario and he said to just let it play out as AA decided to ignite (after asking what a LyLo was, naturally). Cue AA winning and DBW revealing they had joined with an alt to meme only to more or less solo the entire game as Arsonist by pretending they were clueless.
Do you have any people from PS Maf youd like to give a shoutout?
So as far as people I definitely want to shout out to go, DBW was one of the first people I met in the room and he and cseel played a big role in convincing me to stay. FTF's been my closest friend the whole time through because we both joined around the same time. AJ got me very into playing Mafia on the forum and into Survivor by hosting PSAnon and Circus Mafia (which now goes by SmORGon, I played before it was cool). Snaquaza is interviewing me right now which, if I return to playing and hosting as I intend to, would play a big role. If I make a full list of names you won't get any sleep though, and the majority would be names I suspect people wouldn't recognize (firelights, anyone?)
Do you have any advice for the current players?
I think the best piece of advice is probably to remember that at the end of the day it's just a game. There're people with all levels of experience who forget that it's not worth getting super worked up over, and if they're not having fun they can just take a break from playing for a while and come back. The other big piece of advice, which I know people have said already, is to practice. No one comes in with clairvoyant understanding of everyone's mindset and alignment, and as time goes on you eventually start developing your own playstyle. Figure out what works for you.
This above all: Dayvig Snaquaza
Do you have any closing remarks?
I'm hosting Fire and Ice on the forum soon and everyone should join both that and later games 😄 I ran a closed setup by FtF a few days ago and that may find its way to the queue soon
(Snaq note: happening right now!)
Alexander489 — 04/02/2023 10:57 PM
idt its that big of a deal
just write smthn like
this person doesnt care about mafia or hte history so they will not be getting an interview
idt its that big of a deal
just write smthn like
this person doesnt care about mafia or hte history so they will not be getting an interview
(Interviewed by Snaquaza)
10 Years of Mafia : March Interviews
Fenrir Aesir
Fenrir Aesir
Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed! Would you like to introduce yourself?
I'm Fenrir 👋🏾 a former moderator for the Mafia room. I forget exactly how I first found PS, but it involved trying to get into competitive battling and Choice Banding an Infernape with four setup moves. As far as Mafia goes, I was in Game Corner before joining an event during the Ultimate Gaming Olympics in 2016(?) and barely understanding what was going on but sticking around to see what was up. Once life got too busy I eventually stepped down. While I haven't played Mafia in a while, I still enjoy it when I get the chance and it also indirectly led to me getting into Survivor (the show, not the room), so I've played a few ORGs as well (and routinely waffle on whether to apply for the actual show).
I'm in a purgatory between studying for a degree in theater and working full-time as a teaching assistant, both of which I've enjoyed a lot. If everything goes according to play, I'll finally graduate this upcoming fall (people who knew me a few years ago probably still knew me when I was studying, COVID and other things kind of derailed some plans).
What else is there? 🤔 I'm really into creative writing and tabletop gaming, especially D&D and games involving trivia/social deduction. Since the weather here's gotten nicer I've been looking at the skateboard my roommate's given me with curiosity and fear, but as soon as I get equipment for it, learning that's going to be my focus 🛹 !
How did you get into PS! Mafia?
I think when I first joined (during the UGO event) it was for a trivia game about Mafia roles and setups. The only experience I had was playing in small groups with friends where there was a doctor and maybe a cop, so I had zero understanding but somehow made it a few rounds in (mostly by being pitted against other people who had just joined). The moment I remember the most involved aj asking if a particular setup was balanced and answering "...yes?" after a long pause (which was the correct answer despite being 100% a guess 😁).
I joined a large Classic game right after, 20 players if I remember correctly, and ended up as Mafia with no clue what was happening. I got bussed without understanding why my teammates were voting for me but decided I wanted to get the hang of this Mafia thing and stuck around.
What was the room like when you joined?
It was very active because of the time of year, but also more active in general. I didn't join during the "golden age" of Mafia when activity was through the roof, but 13-17 player games were pretty common (which could be a double edged sword when hosting). The forums were around by the time I joined, including PSAnon--in which I was also Mafia the first time I played, but this time I was the one bussing (thanks OM). Mafia Room Bot was my best friend and I remember some of the very popular themes being Greater Idea, Nomination, and ESun.
What used to be in the Mafia room which is not there anymore?
First answer: Forum activity and PSAnon, easily. It seems like there's a resurgence of forum activity lately, so here's hoping it stays because towards the end of my active tenure I was way more active on the forums than on the server. FtF can also attest to my multiple failed attempts to
Second answer: Activity overall. I sometimes join the room still (maybe I'm there right now!) and it's always saddening to see a game start and only three or four people join. Maybe I should commit to logging in and signing up for more games, but it'd also have to be under a new name--I've forgotten the password to my Pokemon Showdown account.
What kinda themes do you remember that might not be popular anymore?
-Vanilla. No one plays Vanilla anymore. Back when I was a boy you got your voice and your vote and you were thankful for it.
-As a side-effect of games being smaller, multiball games (i.e. setups with multiple scum factions). I used to love being scum multiball because I got to both hunt and mislead at the same time.
-I was always a fan of Modified Execution. This one may still be prevalent in the room; I haven't been around enough to know for sure. Honestly, I tend to enjoy anything messing with KP (kill power) even though it'd hard to balance, because I love forcing people/being forced into finding alternate ways to play based on new mechanics.
-A lot of MafiaScum setups. The Matrix setups come to mind, but there's a lot of setups from there that I found fun.
-While they weren't super popular on the server, I enjoyed the setups I played on PSAnon a lot. The last full game I played I got to be a vigilante responsible for the deaths of seven of my fellow townies. What's not to love?
I think between Semi-Nightless and Separated Scum I have a knack for just killing town regardless of my own alignment
But, and this is key: not actually winning
What was your favorite thing to do in the room? Playing, hosting, something else?
I liked both, but I lean towards hosting because I enjoy making setups using uncommon roles. There's also something satisfying about knowing everything going on while everyone else has no clue 😁
At some point I hosted a multiball open-contact setup with roles based on the Pokemon RSE Gym Leaders, called Hoenn Mafia. While it was definitely unbalanced, it was also popular enough to spawn games based on Johto, Sinnoh (Snaq note: Sinnoh game before Hoenn), and Kanto. One role was a Mafia-aligned 1-shot Lightningrod and the player (FtF) used it pretty early, so much of the rest of the game involved figuring out what had happened that night. Compare that to the Sinnoh game, where I was a scum player who landed one successful kill over four nights, and it's a small wonder I gravitated to hosting, for role madness and U-pick setups especially. I'm also prone to second-guessing myself a lot as a player, and that's where you get things like vigging all your fellow townies.
When hosting, what are some things that you can do to go from a good host to an excellent host?
The number one thing that comes to mind: know your mechanics. This is easier if it's a setup you've made, but you want to be familiar enough with action resolution to answer hypothetical questions players may ask without giving away what actually happened. I think the most common such questions involve things like roleblockers and jailkeepers targeting each other. Adding flavor can also keep people engaged depending on the setup; it's a lot easier to incorporate for a custom setup as opposed to a pre-existing one, but I plan on incorporating it somehow for the upcoming Fire and Ice game, for instance. (I actually haven't settled on what that flavor's going to be though, so answers on a postcard!)
How would you describe your playstyle?
If I'm actually active (and not asleep) I tend to type walls of whatever stream-of-consciousness comes to mind. Early on I end up reading into things with no meaning, usually with the intention of generating some form of content before revising my reads once there's more to go on. I definitely have a tunneling habit as town that I need to work on getting out of.
As Mafia (which I probably enjoy playing more since I don't feel as much pressure to be right), I mostly try to focus on replicating the wallposting tendencies that I have as town, but I think the added agenda of trying to keep myself and my teammates alive has gotten me caught more than once. I'm usually either vehemently against bussing or all in with it.
Walls don't translate as well to the chatroom setting, but that hasn't stopped me from trying. It's most fun when I'm playing with a large group of people who I don't know very well and I go from this radio silent slot to getting warned and muted by the bot for suddenly dropping 4-5 paragraphs of text (which then gets me voted out for "trying too hard" 🤔)
How was your journey in the Mafia room?
I was very much a naive teenager when I joined the room originally, and I remember vividly how badly I wanted to be staff. After about a month of activity I got voiced, and from there I waited another couple months before going on my campaign to be promoted to staff. I think there was even a pastebin I made of reasons I should be promoted, like I was going down the checklist of what not to do if you wanted staff. Looking back, it definitely worked against me, and in fairness to the staff at the time I definitely needed time to mature before getting the spot so if anything it helped them make the right decision. My favorite aspects of being staff were moderating the room and making sure games stayed on track, so when everything started becoming automated and the role became more of a setup approving/greater idea command entering job I began to lose interest and eventually resigned. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as staff though, and it's something that I look back on fondly.
I was definitely more of a fan of manual hosting, yeah. I think the automation was definitely the right direction for the room to take, and it's obviously way more streamlined now, but the mafia room I always enjoyed was with a manual host running everything, and I always enjoyed running games myself when I got the opportunity.
Would you Rather? Mafia or Town? PR or Vanilla?
Mafia vs Town: Mafia. Similar to how I like hosting because I enjoy having all the information, I also like the information advantage that comes with being Mafia. (Plus, where else is lying not only sanctioned, but encouraged?) Real talk though, I'm very prone to second-guessing myself out of accurate reads or tunneling into inaccurate ones as town.
PR vs Vanilla: It depends on the PR. Information roles help me soothe some of the anxiety with the knowledge that, for example, if I can investigate someone's alignment I can stop stressing over it. And I'm usually pretty good about avoiding the nightkill and softing if I have a power role. If I'm something protective, though, I don't have the best track record for picking reasonable targets. I enjoy Vanilla Mafia games a lot actually, but sometimes as Vanilla in non-Vanilla games I start to get antsy not knowing whose hands my life is in (even if a number of people townread me, am I about to be hero-vigged by the one person who doesn't?).
What are your favorite kind of power roles?
There's my favorite as a player and then my favorite as a host
Because while I enjoy vigilantes and other killing roles a lot, I don't enjoy them as much when they're in my hands
As Mafia, I like roles that disrupt or mess with what the town had, be it roleblocker, ninja, or godfather, since it fits the overall spirit of disrupting town's plans. Investigative roles are also very helpful form a scum perspective
As town, investigative roles top the list. I do feel like alignment-cops have a lot of power though, so I'd say things like Tracker that give information without being the end-all-be-all
I also really like Masons for some reason. Probably the knowledge that there's someone you can talk to and bounce thoughts off of who's acting in good faith. It's the same reason I enjoyed the hydra games I've played (FtF keeping me sane)
How has Mafia impacted your life?
The biggest way is probably that Mafia indirectly got me into Survivor and the ORG community. It's been a while since I played an ORG, but I've enjoyed the ones I played and kept in touch with a lot of people I met through there (until I vanished from the face of the earth for a year, my bad). But watching the show with my roommates is now a weekly ritual. So the short answer is that it impacted my life most through the people I met 💗
Mafia was also probably the start of my love for games involving strategy and collaboration as a whole, because I don't remember being involved in them much before joining. Even though escape rooms don't have too much overlap with Mafia, for instance, I did my first two during March and loved them, and something about the collaborative aspect overlaps in my view with Mafia and Survivor. (Even if you're town and don't know who your teammates are, I think people sometimes forget that you still need to work with the other players in order to actually get everything done--shouting your reads from the rooftops does nothing if people want you dead for it, no matter how right you may be).
I have also introduced many a student (remember, I'm a teaching assistant now 😁) to games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Skull, which have been very popular.
Do you have any memories of the Mafia room you'd like to share?
So as established, I have a history of poorly balancing my setups, but I used to be even worse at it—so much so that when I was being considered for Driver, one of the main questions was whether or not I could balance a setup in the event I needed to approve one. To gauge this, several people devised their own methods of testing, ranging from asking me to take a “second look” at something they’d made to inviting me to a 1-to-1 groupchat named “The Quiz” where I was quizzed on roles and setups at breakneck pace. And I don’t remember if I actually caught onto the fact that something was up 😂
There’s a setup called forest fire which puts six townies and a firefighter against two Arsonists with a factional prime or the choice to ignite and kill all primed targets. It’s a really fun setup and I was hosting it late one night when a new player named AdamantAipom joined. The full story is buried somewhere in the Mafia quotes thread, but poor AA ended up as an arsonist, and if I remember their partner died Day 1. So I was explaining the mechanics of the setup and how Mafia worked and, if I remember, explaining that 11-player Dethy wasn’t an option before I eventually accidentally let on that they could win by igniting on a given night (by mentioning it was LyLo). I asked DeathByWobbuffet (at the time a Driver if I remember correctly) what I should do in this scenario and he said to just let it play out as AA decided to ignite (after asking what a LyLo was, naturally). Cue AA winning and DBW revealing they had joined with an alt to meme only to more or less solo the entire game as Arsonist by pretending they were clueless.
Do you have any people from PS Maf youd like to give a shoutout?
So as far as people I definitely want to shout out to go, DBW was one of the first people I met in the room and he and cseel played a big role in convincing me to stay. FTF's been my closest friend the whole time through because we both joined around the same time. AJ got me very into playing Mafia on the forum and into Survivor by hosting PSAnon and Circus Mafia (which now goes by SmORGon, I played before it was cool). Snaquaza is interviewing me right now which, if I return to playing and hosting as I intend to, would play a big role. If I make a full list of names you won't get any sleep though, and the majority would be names I suspect people wouldn't recognize (firelights, anyone?)
Do you have any advice for the current players?
I think the best piece of advice is probably to remember that at the end of the day it's just a game. There're people with all levels of experience who forget that it's not worth getting super worked up over, and if they're not having fun they can just take a break from playing for a while and come back. The other big piece of advice, which I know people have said already, is to practice. No one comes in with clairvoyant understanding of everyone's mindset and alignment, and as time goes on you eventually start developing your own playstyle. Figure out what works for you.
This above all: Dayvig Snaquaza
Do you have any closing remarks?
I'm hosting Fire and Ice on the forum soon and everyone should join both that and later games 😄 I ran a closed setup by FtF a few days ago and that may find its way to the queue soon
(Snaq note: happening right now!)