Previously in this guide: “The Outside” Leveling Guide for Mid-Level Characters

Understanding, implementing and discovering more advanced Rationality spells generally requires a better understanding of the game’s implementation of your character.



Generally speaking, your character is implemented as if you have at least two different characters inside of you.

The character’s implementation has two very different systems acting simultaneously. They are called System 1 and System 2. Someone wasn’t very original in variable naming, but whatever. Roughly speaking, System 2 is your characters RAM, “thought” activity and the Willpower attribute. System 1 is basically everything else, including “feelings” and “emotions” signals.

In understanding a statements like: “I can’t make myself work on my paper”. The first “I” is System 2, and the “myself” is System 1 in this case.

I say at least two because System 1 is itself implemented as multiple characters.

One of the common misconceptions about the Outside is that is a primarily a PvP game. Although both global and local PvP exists, engaging in them is not the recommended or fastest way to gain XP. The Outside is also not a PvE game, although those quests do come up often.

The primary mechanic of the Outside, which makes it unique among RPGs is that this is fundamentally a Player vs Self game.

There are demons in the Outside, but those all reside in either System 1 or System 2 inside the player.

Scope Insensitivity demon is a System 1 default demon that every character has to face. This demon alters your thinking making your believe that the lives of 10 strangers is only a little more important than the life of 1 stranger. This demon can be defeated by repeated application of “Shut up and Multiply” spell, where you or another trusted player take out a sheet of paper and uses the Mathematics skill. Generally it’s ok to use trusted higher level players to apply the Mathematics skill, unless you are truly desperate.

Semantic Stopsigns is an example of a fairly common System 2 demon. This demon ends the process of thinking through putting up a mental roadblock with a good-sounding word written on it. Most things involving the so-called Politics quests involve this demon. The demon can be defeated with a simple 2-step Rationalist Taboo and Replace Symbol With Substance spell. In the first step, you taboo the demon-stop word in question, whether it is “Regulation”, “Democracy”, “Justice”, etc. In the second step you try to understand the actual real world impact that particular concept represents.

Another demon is “Affective Death Spiral” demon, which causes people to constantly seek confirmation of their favorite weird theory, which frequently manifests in statements like “The Outgroup is behind all the Bad Things.” This particular demon can be defeated by a divide and conquer approach, where you cut up the Great Idea into parts and treat them separately.

In fact, the misconception that the Outside is about PvP is itself due to the Generic Outgroup Demon.

Some internal demons can be a lot of more difficult to defeat or even notice, because they posses “Stealth” and it does not seem like a demon is there. Some demons can exists as a by-product of extremely high-level Narrative or Ideology spells cast by Demon Aggregates, also known as Elder Gods, such as Cthulhu, but that’s a longer story.

A Player V Self game does not mean constant infighting, on the contrary, constant infighting is the norm and self-alignment is the goal. In pursuit of self-alignment, there are two other key spells:

a) “Self-compassion” Spell: Imagine that an act that you have done was in fact done by another person? Would you take it in your heart to forgive them? If yes, then it’s probably ok to forgive yourself as well.

b) “Self-check in” spell: Close your eyes and see if there is anything your body needs right now.

The answer might be “water” or “nap” activity. Sometimes it’s “I am done with this work bullshit” activity. Sometimes it can be “exercise” or “walk”, however the exact answer is not important. Far too many players disregard the glaring “self-care” messages that flash on the internal radar. These basic steps make the rest of the tricky problems of demon-slaying a lot easier.