"More of an acquaintance, really.  But I encourage you to do so."

"What was the unrelated consultation?"

"Hm?"

"You said you were considering introducing him for unrelated consultation?"

"Right, yes, I see.  - Apologies, I just remembered, I was curious about what you meant when you said that someone being magically good at board games might risk warping something delicate?"

"I don't have a very good model of this but being good at sports is probably - mostly body type and then maybe things like reaction time that seem pretty generically good? Whereas being good at chess might involve - being really interested in chess, and thinking several moves ahead, and being particularly good at assessing the strategic situation from a board position, and stuff like that, which isn't bad, but it might be near things that you wouldn't want to change, like if you were, hm, normally mindful about the present moment or prone to picking out aesthetic patterns rather than strategic ones in stuff you looked at or if chess crowded out your other interests, and it seems to me like mental stuff is interdependent enough that it might be harder than physical stuff to put back how you want it afterwards, especially if you had an unpopular trait and your other traits directly related to that somehow."

"Ah, yes, there's a risk of that sort of thing, although actually what I'd meant about the leagues being worse and better than physical sports was that people have strong opinions on how much magic is appropriate to use while playing.  Especially since under some circumstances it's possible to use it to glean which tactic your opponent is currently using."

"Well, now, that would completely ruin poker."

"I haven't picked up enough detail on that to be certain whether it contains any such circumstances."

"It involves bluffing."

"That isn't necessarily something that could be ruined by magic!  It would be possible to learn tells, sometimes, or to investigate your opponent's propensity for lying in general, but inclination is not action and no magic-version yet created is narrow enough for someone to be able to look and see whether another person is currently telling the truth.  I'd meant 'tactics' more broadly; intentions for reacting to various situations rather than an understanding of what the current situation is."

"Oh, I see. Then it would not ruin poker necessarily."

"It would be fairly horrifying if people were capable of picking up that level and type of detail."

"I don't think I can go around expecting that nothing you have and accept here will horrify me."

"I suppose not."

"Probably something on Kular would horrify you too, though I'm not sure what if we take as a given that nobody there's magic and that limits our options."

"Is there anything on Kular that horrifies you?"

"Nothing - straightforward? There are controversial things on which I have opinions and those are inevitably going to horrify somebody and sometimes somebody's me. Foreign policy and xenowildlife conservation and prison conditions and work requirements for the dole and regulation of corporate working conditions and stuff."

"Creta doesn't really have prisons.  Except for use in - very specific situations."

"Well, you have mandatory personality traits, I imagine that cuts way down on crime for all that I find it creepy."

"Substantially.

I was actually in one once; it's a bit of a funny story . . ."

"...is it."

"Mmhm, the foibles of youth and all that.  Said personality traits only become mandatory for people fifteen and older - well, the start of them; there are levels and that's when the first ones are - and I was quite the stubborn terror back in the day.  Had to be locked up for half a week after my birthday before I'd agree to it, and then I just took lack-of-hunger off the person they sent me.  So some poor soul had to starve himself until I actually went through with it, and it's something he can laugh off now but it really was quite selfish of me; it's terribly embarrassing.  - Ah, I'd forgotten to convert the years; it would be . . . seven Earth standard.  And hm, that's actually quite close, accurate out to - three decimal places.  Useful to have noticed."