So yesterday I posed a "wrong answers only" challenge (https://archive.gamerplus.org/newsfeed/3068?ft=site) on a picture. I said that there was a gaming-related point that I'd explore later.

Later is now.

That is something that is pitched as an "eternal pen" (or sometimes "eternal pencil"). It writes like a pencil, but is about as difficult to erase as an ink pen, hence the inconsistency in names. And while not "eternal", it will outlast me. If I wrote a lot daily using only that pen, in a decade's time I might start noticing a bit of wear at the tip. If I rotate the tip as I use it—say between pages—I may not ever notice wear over the rest of my lifespan.

So how is this potentially gaming-related? This "new invention" that got a lot of press a while back (like ... 2015 or so?) is really just the latest rendition of something called "silverpoint" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverpoint) What's old is new.

Before pencils existed, metalpoint did. The metal used could be lead (hence "pencil leads" – the first pencils used lead for the core), copper, brass, or, as the name suggests, silver. The technology and tooling fell by the wayside over the years as pens that carried their own ink (instead of requiring inkwells) and erasable pencils showed up. The former were more flexible than metalpoint while the latter had the advantage, from the seller's standpoint, of constantly requiring updates. You didn't buy one and use it for decades. You bought one and used it for a few weeks and bought another. And another. And another. Also metalpoint required tough papers and was rough on the hands. (Writer's cramp is a very real problem with silverpoint...)

But now, with newer alloys, the writer's cramp angle is going away and with a cultural shift away from environmentally-hostile disposable culture, silverpoint, or a close kissing cousin, is making a comeback.

Past technologies are a gorgeous ideas mine. A lot of amazing things were made in the past that fell by the wayside for a variety of reasons, not all of them having fallen to superior alternatives. (I'd argue that silverpoint is one of these: I like my metalpoint devices like this one better than pencils. Erasure is a non-starter for me. I don't make mistakes…) As a GM, part of doing good world-building is to look at alternative courses of technological evolution. What would the world look like if metalpoint were kept as the foundational writing/drawing form? What would the world look like if shipping had expanded from junks instead of caravels? There's a huge mine of ideas in history just waiting for someone to go spelunking through it.