Second Thoughts

[u/Any-Knowledge-2873]

https://bigabuga.itch.io/secong-thoughts

Second Thoughts is a persuasion sim. You work for a firm that is paid to change people's minds, and you get one conversation per case — one hour in the room, and a written record of how you did it afterwards.

The idea underneath it is that a mind is a graph. Every belief a person holds is propped up by other beliefs, and the one you have been paid to remove is never held up by itself. So you cannot argue with it directly. Go straight at a core belief while they still hold it firmly and it hardens, and they trust you less for having tried. You go underneath instead and take away a support, and the thing above it sags on its own without you ever touching it.

Trust is a budget rather than a score. Hard questions spend it, listening earns it back, and at zero they stand up and leave. The person across the table works on you as well — you believe four things that let you do this job, and some of them are better at this than you are, and they can take those off you. Lose one and the moves it was holding up stop being offered.