Tuesday, August 01, 2023

Story Post: Time’s Passage, Day 5

On the surface of the frozen sea, the Great Machine rests in disrepair. The situation within continues to deteriorate rapidly: not a single megasystem is fully intact, the System of Motion is well on its way to being destroyed — stranding us here — and public panic has reached a new peak with the news that a Machinist was caught ripping up plating from the System of Dwelling to sell in the market, leaving critical infrastructure exposed to the elements in the process! Under intense scrutiny and social pressure, the marketeers are selling almost every Component for cheap, and refusing to pay high prices for anyone selling Components for fear that they might be complicit. All other commodities, meanwhile, have skyrocketed in price.

In more hopeful news, six more core Facilities have been repaired and rewired, and are ready to be powered up and used by the Machinists to get a handle on this absolute disaster. We can only hope that that is truly what they’ll do with them.

Proposal: Bread and Bounties

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 2 votes to 3 by Kevan.

Adminned at 01 Aug 2023 18:04:57 UTC

Rename the “Beadworks” Facility to “Breadworks” and change its Function to “You gain two Baubles. Each other Machinist in the System of Dwelling gains one Bauble. Increase Order by 1.”

If a Facility exists called Steerage Override, change its function to “Pay a number of Valves equal to the number of Locations in the Destination list to add your choice of Location to the top of the Destination list.”

In the rule “Damage and Repair”, change “A Machinist may Repair the megasystem they inhabit: they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts, add the details to a new Repair Log entry and increase their Baubles by 3.” to “A Machinist may Repair the megasystem they inhabit: they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts and add the details to a new Repair Log entry.”

Create two new Facilities with the following details:

System of Dwelling || Machinist Compensation Office || 0 || DORMANT || In each Repair Log, remove all entries listing dates more than 2 days in the past and give each Machinist 5 Baubles for each removed entry bearing their name.
System of Control || Loyalty Evaluator || 0 || DORMANT || Choose one Megasystem and remove all entries from its Repair Log. The Machinist (or Machinists, if tied) whose name appears the most in the removed entries receives Valves equal to the number of removed entries their name appears in minus one. All other Machinists receive one randomly selected Component for each removed entry bearing their name.

Remove the step “Randomly pick a Component and add one of that Component to each Machinist’s Components.” from the atomic action in “Time’s Passage”.

facilities are interesting to me, and i’d like to see them utilised more! here are some changes to make a couple of existing ones more interesting, and a couple of new ones on top of that. these new Facilities replace the automatic payout for doing repairs with two reward systems: one where your fellow humans repay you with money, and another where the Machine rewards you with either components so you can keep doing your job, or a wealth of Valves (the resource used to influence the Machine directly) as a sign of trust! to make this work economically, and in the light of the new Facilities Bucky proposed, this also removes the free daily component.

Proposal: Can We Pass and Fix It?

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 01 Aug 2023 18:04:22 UTC

If Proposal: Facility Economy was passed, change the Function of the Beadworks Facility to read “You gain two Baubles. Each other Machinist in the System of Dwelling gains one Bauble.” and rename the “Navigatorium” Facility to “Steerage Override”.

If Proposal: We Have Atomic Crimes Now failed, enact it, and then in the rule “Punishment” replace “a Machinist may Arrest them” with “a Machinist may spend 1 Housing to Arrest them” and replace “add their name to the Witness List of all Machinists” with “add their name to the Witness List of all other Machinists”.

a few fixes to the flaws of two recent otherwise-good proposals!!

Call for Judgment: Parts is Parts

Reached quorum and upheld, 4 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 31 Jul 2023 15:24:21 UTC

Uphold the results of the step “Randomly pick a Component and add one of that Component to each Machinist’s Components” of the Passing Time atomic action performed by the Great Machine on 05:39 July 31, 2023‎ UTC even though each Machinist actually received a different random Component during that step.

Proposal: You Are Here

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 01 Aug 2023 10:44:51 UTC

To the top of “Overland Navigation”, add the wiki code:-

[[File:Great_Machine_map.png|thumb|Two Locations are considered adjacent if they are depicted as sharing a border on this map.]]

Replace “set the Surroundings to the value of the top entry in the Destination list” with:-

set the Surroundings to the value of the top entry in the Destination list (if that entry is adjacent to the Surroundings)

Proposal: If I Had A Hammer

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 1 vote to 3 by Kevan.

Adminned at 01 Aug 2023 10:43:31 UTC

Add a new rule, “Tools”:-

Each Machinist has a personal list of the Tools they are carrying, which is publicly tracked.

If a Machinist is carrying no Tools, they may requisition one from the following list, gaining it. Each Tool has the effect described.

* Brush: Cleaning does not cost you Paint.
* Sander: You may convert your Plates into Panels at any time.
* Satchel: You may pay 1 fewer Bauble when Trading.

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Proposal: We Have Atomic Crimes Now

Withdrawn. -Bucky

Adminned at 01 Aug 2023 01:51:33 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Punishment”, replace this:

Criminal Activity is an atomic action with the following steps:

* Add your name to the Witness List of all Machinists inhabiting the same Megasystem as you who don’t already have your name in their Witness List
* Blank your Witness List

with this:

A Crime is a type of dynastic action. Upon performing a Crime, a Machinist must immediately blank their own Witness List and then add their name to the Witness List of all Machinists inhabiting the same Megasystem as them.

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Pickpocketing”, replace “As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist may Pickpocket by performing the Criminal Activity atomic action, decreasing Order by 2, and then taking 1 Component from a Machinist that they share a Megasystem with.” with:

As a Mechanised Crime, a Machinist may, at any time, Pickpocket: they take one Component from a Machinist that is inhabiting the same Megasystem as them and then decrease Order by 2.

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Graffiti”, remove the last bullet point from the Deface atomic action and replace “may spend 1 Paint to Deface, which is a Mechanised atomic action” with:

may spend 1 Paint to Deface, which is a Mechanised atomic Crime

In the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”, subrule “Damage & Repair”, remove the last bullet point from the Salvage atomic action and replace “A Machinist may Salvage the Megasystem they inhabit, which is a Mechanised atomic action” with:

At any time, a Machinist may Salvage the Megasystem they inhabit, which is a Mechanised atomic Crime

In the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”, subrule “Damage & Repair”, replace “A Machinist may Repair the megasystem they inhabit” with “As an atomic action, a Machinist may, at any time, Repair the megasystem they inhabit”

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Punishment”, change “A Machinist who has another Machinist on their Witness List and is inhabiting the same Megasystem as them may spend 1 Housing to Arrest them, which is an atomic action with the following steps:” to:

If a Machinist is inhabiting the same megasystem as them and is on their Witness List, a Machinist may Arrest them, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

replacing Criminal Activity with something more brief, as per Kevan’s comments on the proposal that introduced it to begin with
also making the repair action atomic
also making the arrest action somewhat less wordy

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Story Post: Time’s Passage, Day 3

After a few days’ standstill, the Great Machine has begun lumbering forth toward the Ice Plains. While passing through the outskirts of the dead city, one of the Machine’s legs fell through into a sinkhole, jostling loose a seal on a gas line passing through the System of Dwelling. If someone doesn’t fix that within the next few days, the people of the Great Machine will begin to suffer from oxygen deprivation!

It seems more and more things are breaking by the day. The machinists insist that they’re doing their best to fix it, but there’s a growing fear in the populace that they might be unable to — or worse, unwilling.

Due to the cold creeping into the System of Dwelling, coal is still priced at a premium. Cogs, filters, and pipes are all very affordable right now, though!

The first Facility has been brought online since the electrical storm knocked them all out last week. Once we get the rest up and running, the Junction Supergrid will be able to supply them with power!

Proposal: Facility Economy

enacted 4-1
-lemon

Adminned at 31 Jul 2023 23:53:35 UTC

Create the following Facilities in the System of Control with 0 power and DORMANT status, and the indicated names and Functions:

Name “Maintenance Dispensary”, Function “For each Machinist in the System of Control, generate a random component from {Filter, Seal, Wiring}. Distribute one of those components to each Machinist in the System of Control.”
Name “Testing Station”, Function “Make a STANDBY Facility of your choice ACTIVE, and optionally remove 1 Power from it, without performing its Function.”

Create the following Facilities in the System of Dwelling with 0 power and DORMANT status, and the indicated names and Functions:

Name “Construction Dispensary”, Function “For each Machinist in the System of Dwelling, generate a random component from {Panel, Paint, Plate}. Distribute one of those components to each Machinist in the System of Dwelling.”
Name “Beadworks”, Function “You gain two Baubles. Everyone else in the System of Housing gains one Bauble.”

Create the following Facilities in the System of Motion with 0 power and DORMANT status, and the indicated names and Functions:

Name “Engineering Dispensary”, Function “For each Machinist in the System of Motion, generate a random component from {Cog, Pipe, Wheel}. Distribute one of those components to each Machinist in the System of Motion.”
Name “Navigatorium”, Function “Add your choice of Location from the list in the rule Overland Navigation to the end of the Destination list, provided that it does not appear previously on the Destination list.”

Proposal: We’re All Gonna Die

Withdrawn -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 18:59:18 UTC

Create a new dynastic rule named “Collapse” with the following body:

If all three Megasystems are Destroyed, no Machinist may achieve victory.

If all three Megasystems have been Destroyed for the last 24 hours, the Great Machine or any Machinist may Give Up, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
* End the current Dynasty
* Begin a new Metadynasty with no Great Machine
* Repeal all dynastic rules

here’s even more of an incentive to repair

Proposal: Unpaid Labor Ain’t Cutting It

Reaches quorum 4-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 18:57:06 UTC

In the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”, subrule “Damage and Repair”, change “they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts, and add the details to a new Repair Log entry.” to “they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts, add the details to a new Repair Log entry and increase their Baubles by 3.”

In the rule “Time’s Passage”, directly after “Give each Machinist one of the Resource corresponding to the Megasystem they inhabit.”, add the following bullet point:

* Randomly pick a Component and add one of that Component to each Machinist’s Components.

there’s practically zero incentive to repair right now and at the rate we’re going, the Machine’s going to fall apart entirely
so here’s some kind of wage (let’s say a thank you gift from the flea market) and a daily component allowance

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Proposal: Mayhem in the Megasystem

Withdrawn -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 18:55:39 UTC

In the subrule “Damage and Repair”, after the text “they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts” add the text:

, increase Order by 5

and add the following bullet point to the end of the list for the Salvage atomic action:

Decrease Order by 5

Since Salvaging is a Criminal Activity and repairing reverses that activity, it stands to reason that they should decrease and increase Order respectively. Not to mention that Salvaging eventually causes the Megasystem to be Destroyed, which further illustrates that Salvaging should cause a reduction in Order.

If 5 is too much change per Salvage/Repair, I’m open to other suggestions.

Proposal: See No Evil

Reaches 2-4 and can’t hit quorum, therefore it fails. - SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 18:55:03 UTC

In the subrule “Punishment”, add the following at the end of the first bullet point in the Criminal Activity atomic action:

and are not in Lockdown

If you’re in Lockdown, you’re not in a position to observe Criminal Activity.

Proposal: A Mind of its Own

Reaches 2-3 and can’t hit quorum, therefore it fails. - SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 18:54:07 UTC

Append the following steps to the Passing Time Atomic Action:

* If the Destination list is empty and the System of Control is not Defective, add one random Location to the Destination list.
* If the System of Control is not Destroyed, Operate one random Facility as if you were a Machinist, making all associated decisions at random and ignoring requirements and effects of its Function that would refer to an Operating Machinist’s personal gamestate variables.

two ways in which the System of Control actually Controls the Machine. i intend to add effects to the different Surroundings in the future, to disincentivise allowing the Machine to wander at random!

adds ~394 characters.

Proposal: It’s About the Journey

Reaches quorum 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 10:32:58 UTC

Add the following items to the list of Locations in the rule “Overland Navigation”:

* Frozen Woodlands
* Winding Gorge
* Mountains
* Heavy Blizzard
* Geothermal Basin

If Proposal: Cold Start was enacted, then in the rule “Overland Navigation”, replace “As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist inhabiting the System of Control may spend 1 Valve to add a new entry after the last entry in the Destination list, or as the first entry if the list is empty.” with the following:

As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist inhabiting the System of Control may spend 1 Valve to add up to two different Locations to the Destination list; new entries go after the last entry in list, or as the first entry if the list is empty. If the System of Control is Defective, a Machinist performing this action must instead spent 2 Valves to add only one Location to the list. If the System of Control is Destroyed, this action cannot be performed at all.

fleshing out Overland Navigation a bit! the idea is for the Great Machine to be perpetually in motion, and i think that’s rather unlikely if new Destinations can only be added at the same speed that they’re removed :0

Story Post: Time’s Passage, Day 2

The Great Machine remains idle in the dead city, perched above a tangle of icy streets. There were a lot of damage reports, today: the paint on a navigational diagram in the System of Motion was found scratched to illegibility, the bitter cold is wearing away at the insulatory sealant in the System of Dwelling, and a handful of components have mysteriously vanished in the Systems of Motion and Control, leading to further damages.

Due to the cold seeping into peoples’ homes, Coal is in high demand right now. Cogs and Plates, on the other hand, are the cheapest wares in the Market at present.

Proposal: Initialisation Key Resilience

Reaches quorum 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 10:29:36 UTC

Create a subrule of Machinist Agendas called Known Initialisation Keys with the text:

Initialisation Keys include:
Coal, Housing, Valves, Facilities, Power, Function, Damaged Parts, Repair Log, Destroyed, Graffiti, Flea Market, Lockdown, Components, Surroundings, Destination, Order

Any machinist may bold any instance of these listed Initialisation Keys anywhere in the dynastic ruleset.

In the rule Machinist Agendas, if there is a bullet point starting with “Initialisation Keys may not be”, replace that bullet point and the next one with:

* Machinists must not remove all instances of a given Initialisation Keys from either the rule Known Initialisation Keys, or from the rest of the dynastic ruleset.

 

An alternative to Key Punch. Now we don’t have to worry about accidental unboldings and can freely move keys around or consolidate copies of them when useful to do so, but without the implication that you’re free to just start deleting as many as you want.

Proposal: Key Punch

Withdrawn -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 10:28:22 UTC

Remove the bullet point “Initialisation Keys may not be edited or removed from the dynastic rules by any Proposal, though they may be moved to other rules and subrules, and the text surrounding them may be edited, added to, or removed.” from the rule “Machinist Agendas”.

Cold Start attempted to streamline a paragraph by shortening it, and was flagged for removing an Initialisation Key in the process. (Not the bolded definition of the Key, just a usage of it.)

If that’s what this means, it seems excessively restrictive and only likely to trip us up by mistake. If a quorum really wanted to erase an Initialisation Key from the game or weaken usages of it, a rule of “you can’t change or remove individual mentions of the key by proposal” wouldn’t slow them down at all.

Proposal: Cold Start

Reaches quorum 4-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 10:23:42 UTC

Before “Any megasystem that has twenty or more Damaged Parts becomes Destroyed.” add:-

Any megasystem that has six or more Damaged Parts is Defective.

In “Time’s Passage”, replace “If the Destination list is not empty” with:-

If the Destination list is not empty and the System of Motion is not Defective

Giving the six-damage level a name, and some impact.

Friday, July 28, 2023

Proposal: Mechanized Market

Times out 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 30 Jul 2023 10:22:31 UTC

In the rule “Flea Market”, change

First they pay baubles equal to the number of times they have Traded today.

to

First they pay baubles equal to the number of times they have previously Traded since the last instance of Passing Time, or today if Passing Time has never happened.

It seems odd that the Flea Market cost reset is desynchronized from the dynasty’s main clock.

Story Post: Time’s Passage: Day 1

The Great Machine idles in a dead city no-one can recall the name of. After passing through a thicket of skeletal high rises, the Great Machine needs external plating to be repaired in the Systems of Motion and Control.

Today in the Flea Market, Housing is priced the highest, while Plates are priced the lowest. Perhaps the marketeers heard the scraping reverberating through the hull and reduced the price of plates for the sake of self-preservation?

i think i might make a habit of making a story post summarising important events that take place when Time Passes — would that be helpful for y’all?

Proposal: 12 Hour Mastery

enacted 5-0
-lemon

Adminned at 29 Jul 2023 00:40:07 UTC

In the rule “Victory” replace “A Machinist’s Mastery is equal to the number of Agendas that they own which have been Fulfilled for the last 24 hours.” with “A Machinist’s Mastery is equal to the number of Agendas that they own which have been Fulfilled for the last 12 hours.”

based on my current understanding of the rules and gamestate as it stands, i believe this will be more fair to all players.

Call for Judgment: Jump Start without the False Start

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 0 votes to 3 by Kevan.

Adminned at 28 Jul 2023 08:18:38 UTC

If the CfJ “Stuck In A Temporal Freeze” is enacted, this CfJ does nothing. If the CfJ “Stuck In A Temporal Freeze” is pending, fail it.

In the rule “Time’s Passage”, change “if they have not already performed an instance of it since the most recent Passing Time.” to: “if they have not already performed an instance of it since the most recent Passing Time, or have never performed an instance of it.”

Revert any effects of attempted Mechanized Actions, if no Passing Time has occurred this dynasty.

Allowing exactly one player a head start for possibly misinterpreting the rule is a bad dynamic.

Call for Judgment: Stuck In A Temporal Freeze

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 1 vote to 3 by Kevan.

Adminned at 28 Jul 2023 08:19:16 UTC

In the rule “Time’s Passage”, change “if they have not already performed an instance of it since the most recent Passing Time.” to: “if they have not already performed an instance of it since the most recent Passing Time (or since the dynasty’s start if there has not yet been a Passing Time).”

Uphold the Moving and Salvage actions performed by the machinist named lendunistus prior to the posting of this CfJ.

oops

Proposal: Cooler Power to the Systems

enacted 4-0
-lemon

Adminned at 29 Jul 2023 00:33:11 UTC

If Proposal: Less Power to the Systems was enacted, create a new ACTIVE Facility called “Junction Supergrid” in the System of Motion with 10 Power and the Function “Transfer 1 Power from this Facility to each Facility in the System of Control and to one other Facility of your choosing. If there’s not enough Power for all transfers, you choose which are left out.” and then replace

If the System of Control is not Destroyed and there is a Facility in it called the “Distributor”, increase the Distributor’s Power

with

If the System of Motion is not Destroyed and there is a Facility in it called the “Junction Supergrid”, increase the Junction Supergrid’s Power

in the rule “Time’s Passage”.

distributing Power is the job of the System of Motion, not Control! also, i’ve had a cool name for the ‘Distributor’ in my pocket for a week or two now.

Story Post: Initialisation is Complete!

the following Agendas were deleted for the sake of fairness, as required in the first step of the Initialisation Phase Two atomic action:

The current Destination is non-empty and appears in three different Graffiti nearby to a Machinist in the System of Motion, while no Graffiti nearby to that Machinist otherwise contains a Location.
this Agenda was deemed both unfairly difficult and unfairly beneficial to the writer. because Defacing is a mechanised action /and/ a criminal activity, a 3+ day window exists where the writer of this Agenda would immediately know it was being pursued and be able to disrupt it with little to no counteractions available to the Agenda owner.

There are at least 5 Functions whose full text strings appear on separate surfaces with Graffiti, exactly one Function’s full text string per surface of Graffiti, and you have more Paint than any other Machinist.
this Agenda was deemed both unfairly difficult and unfairly beneficial to the writer for reasons similar to the above Agenda: Defacing is simply too risky, slow, and easily reversible for an Agenda that requires multiple pieces of coexisting Graffiti to be fair.

There are exactly 3 of the same Locations contiguously in the Destination list, the Location in Surroundings does not appear in the Destination list at all, and you do not inhabit the System of Control.
this Agenda was deemed both unfairly difficult and unfairly beneficial to the writer for reasons similar to the above Agendas: there is a consecutive 3-day sequence of unobstructed actions that must be performed for this to occur, and the writer, knowing that this agenda exists, would immediately notice it is being persued and have an easy course of action to obstruct it.

Order is exactly 44 without anyone on Lockdown.
this Agenda was deemed unfairly beneficial to the writer for reasons similar to the above Agendas: the writer could very easily ensure that Order is never exactly 44 by doing crimes — and if they’re put in lockdown as a result, that also blocks the Agenda.

Every megasystem is Destroyed even though you are the Machinist in the most recently dated entry in all their respective Repair Logs.
this Agenda was deemed unfairly difficult to Fulfill because every megasystem being destroyed at the same time would be both very unlikely and rather disruptive to the game as a whole (thus it’s improbable that proposals making it more likely to occur would pass).

Graffiti exists created by the current holder of this Agenda with the text “Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not”, and at times subsequent to that act of creation, the current holder of this Agenda has Salvaged the same Megasystem ten times, resulting in Damaged Parts.
this Agenda was deemed unfairly difficult to Fulfill due to Salvaging being a mechanised action, giving this agenda the greatest requirement of consecutive unobstructed action out of any agenda at 10 days. if the extremely conspicuous Graffiti were to be Cleaned at any point during those 10 days, the Agenda’s owner would have to start over. that’s absurd!

At least 5 Facilities (or 50% of Facilities, whichever is higher) have at least 3 Power.
this Agenda was deemed unfairly easy to Fulfill because it could very probably come to pass by coincidence with little to no input from the Agenda’s owner.

Five or more Facilities exist and more than half of them (rounded down) have at least 2 Power.
this Agenda was deemed unfairly easy to Fulfill for the same reason as the above Agenda (as they are nearly identical).

that took a bit longer than i expected, but all Agendas have now been distributed via blognomic Private Messages! let me know if u haven’t received yours for some reason :0

Phase Two Deadline

Once each active Machinist has Sent a Schematic or the date is on or after July 27 2023, and there exists a number of Agendas greater than four times the number of active Machinists…

So either we need two more Machinists to submit their Schematics or let the Great Machine fill in the rest.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Proposal: Less Power to the Systems

enacted 4-1
-lemon

Adminned at 29 Jul 2023 00:29:02 UTC

Add a subrule to the rule “Subsystems”. Call it “Power Sources” and give it the following text:

A Machinist who has not Moved since the most recent instance of Passing Time may spend 1 Coal to increase the Power of any Facility in the Megasystem they inhabit by 1. If they are inhabiting the System of Motion, they may increase the power of a second Facility in the System of Motion by 1.

As a Mechanized Action called Residing, a Machinist who has been in the System of Dwelling for at least 48 hours may increase the Power of any Facility in the System of Dwelling by two.

After the fifth step of the Passing Time atomic action in the rule “Time’s Passage”, add the following step:

* If the System of Control is not Destroyed and there is a Facility in it called the “Distributor”, increase the Distributor’s Power by 3 to a maximum of 10.

Proposal: Petty Crime

Times out 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 28 Jul 2023 19:03:52 UTC

In the subrule “Pickpocketing”, after the text “performing the Criminal Activity atomic action” add this text:

, decreasing Order by 2,

Pickpocketing is currently the only Criminal Activity that doesn’t reduce Order. It probably should.

Proposal: Putting the Fun in Function

Timed out 1 vote to 1. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 28 Jul 2023 12:58:04 UTC

In the subrule “Subsystems” add the following text:

The following are requirements for the Facilities and their Functions in each Megasystem:
* At least 1 Facility in the System of Motion should have a Function that contains the Initialisation Key Power
* At least 1 Facility in the System of Dwelling should have a Function that contains the Initialisation Key Housing
* At least 1 Facility in the System of Control should have a Function that contains the Initialisation Keys Destination and Surroundings

The rational is to suggest a theme for the Facilities of each Megasystem and provide somewhat of a constraint for at least one Function in each so that it’s not all wildly freeform text.

Call for Judgment: I’m Not A Rule! You Can’t Repeal Me!

Reached quorum 4 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Jul 2023 12:58:14 UTC

In the rule “Victory”, change “and if it has been at least 7 days since Initialisation Phase Two was repealed” to “and if the date is on or after August 3, 2023”.

just covering our bases here, since said string text doesn’t specify “since the rule Initialisation Phase Two was repealed”

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Proposal: 3 v 2 v 1 is no fun [Special Case]

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 1 vote to 3 with 1 unresolved DEF, by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Jul 2023 17:39:48 UTC

Deactivate the “Declared Alliances” Special Case rule.

5 players isn’t enough for a fair alliance game, and the existing alliances seem to have scared off players who were participating earlier. Rather than play out the 3v2, I think it’s better just to scrap the alliances and see whether that brings anyone back.

Proposal: Everybody Hates A Tourist [Special Case]

Reached quorum 4 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Jul 2023 17:39:04 UTC

Reword “Dynastic Distance” from:-

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Great Machine is not a Machinist.

to:

For the purposes of dynastic and Special Case rules, the Great Machine is not a Machinist.

Remove “If “Dynastic Distance” is also active, the Great Machine is not considered a Machinist for the purposes of this rule.” from “No Private Communication”.

In “Mantle Limitations”, replace “Machinists should also not make deals” with:-

Deals should not be made

In “Event Types”, replace “A Machinist must do these” with “A Machinist (or the Great Machine) must do these”; replace “any Machinist may post or may End an Event” with “any Machinist (or the Great Machine) may post or may End an Event”; replace “nor may any Machinist End it again” with “nor may it be Ended again”.

In “Dormancy”, replace “five Machinists” with:-

four Machinists

I’ve withdrawn “Never Live Like Common People” for overlooking Dormancy; this is a straight reproposal that addresses it at the end.

Proposal: Power to the Systems

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 1 vote to 4 by Kevan.

Adminned at 26 Jul 2023 13:33:38 UTC

Add a subrule to the rule “Subsystems”. Call it “Power Sources” and give it the following text:

A Machinist who has not Moved since the most recent instance of Passing Time may spend 1 Coal to increase the Power of any Facility in the Megasystem they inhabit by 1. If they are inhabiting the System of Motion, they may increase the power of a second Facility in the System of Motion by 1.

As a Mechanized Action called Residing, a Machinist in the System of Dwelling may increase the Power of any Facility in the System of Dwelling by either four or half (rounded down) the number of instances of Passing Time since they last inhabited another Facility, whichever is less.

If there is a Facility in the System of Control called the “Distributor”, and if nobody has Charged the Distributor since the most recent instance of Passing Time, any Machinist or the Great Machine may take an action called Charging the Distributor, which increases the Power of the Distributor by the number of Facilities in the System of Control, to a maximum power of the higher of twice that number or 10.

If there is no Facility in the System of Control called the “Distributor”, any Machinist or the Great Machine may create such a Facility with 2 Power, ACTIVE status, and a Function of “Divide the Power in this Facility evenly among the Facilities in the System of Control, keeping the remainder in this Facility; then, if at least 2 Power remains in this Facility, transfer one Power from this Facility to a Facility of your choice.”

Proposal: Never Live Like Common People [Special Case]

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 24 Jul 2023 18:43:38 UTC

Reword “Dynastic Distance” from:-

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Great Machine is not a Machinist.

to:

For the purposes of dynastic and Special Case rules, the Great Machine is not a Machinist.

Remove “If “Dynastic Distance” is also active, the Great Machine is not considered a Machinist for the purposes of this rule.” from “No Private Communication”.

In “Mantle Limitations”, replace “Machinists should also not make deals” with:-

Deals should not be made

In “Event Types”, replace “A Machinist must do these” with “A Machinist (or the Great Machine) must do these”; replace “any Machinist may post or may End an Event” with “any Machinist (or the Great Machine) may post or may End an Event”; replace “nor may any Machinist End it again” with “nor may it be Ended again”.

Given the redundant unexpectedness of the Emperor having tracked Alliances this dynasty, maybe Dynastic Distance should also apply to Special Case. I can only see a few sentences - corrected above - where we do actually mean “Player or Emperor” when we say “Player” in a Special Case rule.

This also removes “dynastic rules which do not deal with voting” from the definition of dynastic distance, as this seems like a strange and unnecessary exception. I’m not sure what the intended use case is - if we have a secondary voting system in a dynasty, the Emperor always gets a vote? (And if we have some lengthy player gamestate/action setup that happens to mention any form of voting in any way, the Emperor magically appears and gets all that too?)

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Proposal: Make God Chuckle

Undid enactment: Forgot to check the queue and accidentally enacted early -SingularByte
proposal was then withdrawn -lemon

Adminned at 23 Jul 2023 20:33:37 UTC

In the rule Initialisation Phase 2, replace the bullet point that starts “Delete all Agendas”, and its subordinate bullet points, with the following:

* Delete any Agendas for which any of the following are true:
** It attempts to manipulate or amend any aspect of the undertaking of this Action;
** Its fulfilment requires knowledge, context, understanding, or capability that would not be available to a random recipient of that Agenda with the gamestate of a newly-joining player;
** It relies for its effect upon any phenomena that sits outside of the BlogNomic ruleset, or requires any action that is not governed explicitly by the BlogNomic dynastic ruleset (beyond simply being present in an Agenda);
** It mentions an initialisation key but does not require any engagement with the mechanics related to that key to take place in order for that agenda to be fulfilled;
** It uniquely identifies specific Machinists (other than by referring to the current holder of the Agenda), or it refers to any of the mechanics described by the Special Case rules Declared Alliances or No Private Communications;
** The Great Machine judges it to be unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill.

this is a direct reprisal of Josh’s Make God Laugh, with the last bullet point replaced with its currently-existing equivalent as a compromise. the only actual problem i had with that proposal was the last bullet; everything else was good!! i figure that any future proposals which attempt an alternate variation of this last bullet shouldn’t have to retread all of that other ground as well.

Proposal: Thursday Deadline

enacted 4-1
-lemon

Adminned at 23 Jul 2023 20:31:51 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation Phase Two”, change

Once each active Machinist has Sent a Schematic and there exists a number of Agendas greater than four times the number of active Machinists, the Great Machine can perform the following atomic action

to

Once each active Machinist has Sent a Schematic or the date is on or after July 27 2023, and there exists a number of Agendas greater than four times the number of active Machinists, the Great Machine can perform the following atomic action

So that a single Machinist can’t hold up initialization indefinitely by refusing to Send any Schematic.

Friday, July 21, 2023

Proposal: The Activometer

Reaches quorum 6-1 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 23 Jul 2023 08:01:42 UTC

To the end of “Initialisation Phase Two”, add a paragraph:-

The Head Count and Docket Count are two publicly tracked numbers. The Great Machine may, at any time, update the Head Count to equal the number of Machinists who have Sent a Schematic, and the Docket Count to equal the number of Agendas that exist.

Proposal: Cable Tie

Reaches quorum 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 23 Jul 2023 07:59:38 UTC

Remove the following text from “Initialisation”:-

If two or more of a Machinist’s own Agendas have been Fulfilled for the last 24 hours, and it has been at least 7 days since Initialisation Phase Two was repealed, that Machinist has achieved victory. A Declaration of Victory based on this rule should include the text of each of the Agendas that contributed to the victory.

Create a new rule called “Victory”:-

A Machinist’s Mastery is equal to the number of Agendas that they own which have been Fulfilled for the last 24 hours.

If a Machinist’s Mastery is at least 2, and is higher than that of every other Machinist, and if it has been at least 7 days since Initialisation Phase Two was repealed, then the Great Machine may make a blog post announcing the identity of this Machinist and listing every Agenda owned by that Machinist. Upon doing so, that Machinist achieves victory.

Changing how ties resolve. As written, if two players achieve their goals around the same time, both get to DoV and the group is free to vote a little tactically on which of those declarations gets to pass first.

This says that such a tiebreak has to be resolved within the game - and also that a player with three completed Agendas will unambiguously win against a player with only two.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Proposal: Facility Frenzy

timed out and failed, 5-2
-lemon

Adminned at 22 Jul 2023 23:39:20 UTC

Add a subrule to “Initialisation”. Call it “Provisional Facilities” and give it the following text:

The Provisional Facilities Registry is a publicly tracked list of text strings that are flavortext. If there is a rule called “Initialisation Phase Two”, then the Great Machine and each Machinist may add a text string of their choice to the Provisional Facilities Registry if they have not already done so.

If there is no rule called “Initialisation Phase Two”, the Great Machine may create a Facility with a name of their choice, a text string from Provisional Facilities Registry as its Function, and the most appropriate parent Megasystem according to their own judgment.

The Great Machine may remove any text string from the Provisional Facilities Registry at any time, and should do so to remove text strings that would be unfair, nonsensical or unsuitable as the Function of a Facility, or that have already had a Facility created from them. The Great Machine may correct obvious typographical errors in a Facility’s Function.

Engine Idling

Lulu idles out after five days of inactivity. (The fact that they timed out last dynasty reduces their timeout to four days for this one.)

Proposal: Please Insert 1 Valve to Continue

Times out 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 22 Jul 2023 16:29:17 UTC

If the Proposal “Backseat Driver” was not enacted, this Proposal has no effect.

In the rule “Overland Navigation”, after the text “As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist inhabiting the System of Control may ” add the text “spend 1 Valve to”

I accidentally removed the potential “spend 1 Valve to” from the act of adding a new Destination, so here’s the Proposal to restore that.

Proposal: Make God Laugh

Times out 3-2 and is enacted -SingularByte
Reverting enactment and failing this proposal at 3-3; a def slipped in at the last second. -SingularByte

Adminned at 22 Jul 2023 16:35:00 UTC

In the rule Initialisation Phase 2, replace the bullet point that starts “Delete all Agendas”, and its subordinate bullet points, with the following:

* Delete any Agendas for which any of the following are true:
** It attempts to manipulate or amend any aspect of the undertaking of this Action;
** Its fulfilment requires knowledge, context, understanding, or capability that would not be available to a random recipient of that Agenda with the gamestate of a newly-joining player;
** It relies for its effect upon any phenomena that sits outside of the BlogNomic ruleset, or requires any action that is not governed explicitly by the BlogNomic dynastic ruleset (beyond simply being present in an Agenda);
** It mentions an initialisation key but does not require any engagement with the mechanics related to that key to take place in order for that agenda to be fulfilled;
** It uniquely identifies specific Machinists (other than by referring to the current holder of the Agenda), or it refers to any of the mechanics described by the Special Case rules Declared Alliances or No Private Communications;
** The Great Machine judges that it could be fulfilled with less than seven days of sustained effort, or could not be fulfilled with more than 15 days of sustained effort, by a random newly-joining player under the current ruleset as written (assuming that all flavour text that would become ruletext as a result of the current atomic action has full effect).

Proposal: Backseat Driver

Times out 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 22 Jul 2023 16:24:22 UTC

In the rule “Overland Navigation”, replace the first paragraph with the following text:

The Great Machine has Surroundings, which is a publicly-tracked text string that defaults to “Dead city”, and a Destination, which is a publicly-tracked list of text strings displayed vertically, where the top entry is the first entry and the bottom entry is the last entry, defaulting to an empty list. The valid text strings for Surroundings and each entry in the Destination list are in the list of Locations below. As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist inhabiting the System of Control may add a new entry after the last entry in the Destination list, or as the first entry if the list is empty.

In the rule “Time’s Passage”, add the following bullet point to the end of the list:

* If the Destination list is not empty, set the Surroundings to the value of the top entry in the Destination list and then remove the top entry from the list, moving all other entries that exist up one.

and replace “do this twice if the Great Machine lacks a Destination.” with:

do this twice if the Destination list is empty.

Currently, if multiple Machinists in the System of Control change the Destination, the last one to make a change is the one likely to stick. This new mechanism allows multiple Destination changes to be queued up and processed, one per Passing Time.

I didn’t want to overcomplicate this change with the notion of “distance” or “travel time”, so if someone wants travel from one Location to another to take more than a day, we can add that as a future Proposal.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Proposal: Amended Amendments

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Jul 2023 15:48:13 UTC

In the rule “Amendments”, replace “it has been impossible for 7 or more days” with “it has been impossible for 2 or more days”; replace “after having that Agenda for at least 14 days” with “after having that Agenda for at least 7 days”; and replace “as many keys as possible” with “as many Initialisation Keys as possible”.

the requisite clause for Amendments is already very strict; i think requiring that someone sits with the dud Agenda for a full week is hardly necessary on top of that!!

Proposal: Machina Ite Domum

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Jul 2023 15:46:13 UTC

In the rule “Graffiti”, replace “Each piece of Graffiti is a publicly tracked string of flavour text, located in a Megasystem.” with:-

Each piece of Graffiti is a string of flavour text, painted onto either the wall of a specific Megasystem, or onto a specific Facility; all Graffiti is publicly tracked.

Replace all instances of “in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit” (if there are any) with:-

on a nearby surface

Then replace the instances of “in the same Megasystem you’re inhabiting” and “in the Megasystem you’re inhabiting” (if there are any) with:-

on a nearby surface

Then add a paragraph to the rule:-

A nearby surface for a Machinist is the Megasystem that they currently inhabit, and all Facilities (if any exist) in that Megasystem.

Fixing an ambiguity noted on Discord, and also allowing specific Facilities to be vandalised.

Proposal: The Cutpurse So Bold

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Jul 2023 15:44:31 UTC

If “Help! The Coppers Are Omniscient!” enacted, add a subrule to “Crime & Commerce” called “Pickpocketing” with the following text:-

As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist may Pickpocket by performing the Criminal Activity atomic action and then taking 1 Component from a Machinist that they share a Megasystem with.

If “Help! The Coppers Are Omniscient!” failed, add a subrule to “Crime & Commerce” called “Pickpocketing” with the following text instead:-

As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist may take 1 Component from a Machinist they share a Megasystem with. (This action is a Crime.)

Maybe we need more player interaction, so that if we think we’ve guessed somebody’s goal, we can do something to stop them from reaching it.

Proposal: Help! The Coppers Are Omniscient!

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Jul 2023 15:42:52 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Punishment”, add the following text to the start:

Each Machinist has a Witness List, which is a publicly tracked list that may contain names of Machinists.

Criminal Activity is an atomic action with the following steps:
* Add your name to the Witness List of all Machinists inhabiting the same Megasystem as you who don’t already have your name in their Witness List
* Blank your Witness List

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Punishment”, change this:

If a Machinist has performed a Crime within the previous 24 hours and is not Incarcerated, a Machinist who inhabits the same Megasystem as them may spend 1 Housing to Arrest them, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
* Add that Machinist to the Lockdown list, listed at 2 Days
* Increase Order by 5

to this:

A Machinist who has another Machinist on their Witness List and is inhabiting the same Megasystem as them may spend 1 Housing to Arrest them, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
* Add that Machinist to the Lockdown list, listed at 2 Days
* Remove that Machinist’s name from each Machinist’s Witness List wherever it appears
* Increase Order by 5

In the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”, subrule “Damage and Repair”, change “As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist may Salvage the megasystem they inhabit (although this is a Crime): they add a random component and one non-Paint Component of their choice to its Damaged Parts, and they gain a component of that chosen type.” to:

A Machinist may Salvage the Megasystem they inhabit, which is a Mechanised atomic action with the following steps:
* Add a random component and one non-Paint component of your choice to its Damaged Parts
* Gain a component of the type you chose in the previous step
* Perform the Criminal Activity atomic action

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Graffiti”, remove the text “(that is also a Crime)” and add the following step to the end of the Deface action:

* Perform the Criminal Activity atomic action

makes it so you have to be there to see the crime before you can arrest someone for committing it. also, per Kevan on discord, performing a crime blanks your own witness list since you’re not reliable anymore
I’m slightly weary of this since it’s a bit bloated, but I’d like to hear others’ opinions

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Proposal: House Arrests, Free Markets, and Faucet Fuels

Reached quorum 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Jul 2023 15:39:14 UTC

In the subrules of “Crime & Commerce”, remove “(although this is a Crime)” from the sentence where Flea Market is bolded, and replace “may pay 1 Valve” or “may spend 1 Valve” (whichever exists) with “may spend 1 Housing”.

In the rule “Overland Navigation”, after “As a Mechanised Action Machinists in the System of Control may”, add “spend 1 Valve to”.

i think that spending Housing to make arrests and spending Valves to instead communicate with the Great Machine makes quite a bit more sense.

and i think we’ve all agreed that the Flea Market doesn’t make sense as a crime?

Proposal: Inspire the People, 2

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0 with 1 unresolved DEF. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 20 Jul 2023 15:36:25 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Graffiti”, change “A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to create a piece of Graffiti (although this is a Crime) in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit, with text of their choosing up to 80 characters in length. A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to remove any number of characters from any number of pieces of Graffiti in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit.” to:

At any time, a Machinist may spend 1 Paint to Deface, which is a Mechanised atomic action (that is also a Crime) with the following steps:
* Create a piece of Graffiti in the same Megasystem you’re inhabiting, with text of your choosing up to 80 characters in length
* Decrease Order by n, where n is the total amount of pieces of Graffiti in existence

At any time, a Machinist may spend 1 Paint to Clean, which is a Mechanised atomic action with the following steps:
* Remove any number of characters from any number of pieces of Graffiti in the Megasystem you’re inhabiting
* Delete all pieces of Graffiti that contain 0 characters
* Increase Order by n, where n is the total amount of pieces of Graffiti deleted during this action

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Punishment”, change “If a Machinist has performed a Crime in the previous 24 hours and is not Incarcerated, a Machinist who inhabits the same Megasystem as them may pay 1 Valve to add the performer to the Lockdown list, listed at 2 Days.” to:

If a Machinist has performed a Crime within the previous 24 hours and is not Incarcerated, a Machinist who inhabits the same Megasystem as them may spend 1 Valve to Arrest them, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
* Add that Machinist to the Lockdown list, listed at 2 Days
* Increase Order by 5

Inspire the People but it’s on mechanised actions now (and defacing is a crime)
also made it so arresting someone increases order

Proposal: Push the Button, Frank

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Jul 2023 12:13:51 UTC

Repeal “Initialisation Phase One”.

We’re currently two keywords short of “at least twice as many Initialisation Keys as there are active Machinists”, and it feels to me like we probably have enough. Even if that method of calculation is gospel, Raven1207 doesn’t appear to be playing this dynasty.

Proposal: Functional Facilities

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Jul 2023 11:00:11 UTC

Reword the rule “Subsystems” to the following:

Megasystems have Facilities in them. Facilities’ names (which are flavortext), parent Megasystems, Power, and statuses (which can be ACTIVE, STANDBY or DORMANT) are publicly tracked.

A Facility’s Power is a non-negative integer that defaults to 0. Facilities’ statuses default to DORMANT when they have 0 Power and STANDBY otherwise. A Facility whose Power drops to 0 immediately becomes DORMANT. If a Facility with 0 Power gains Power, its status becomes STANDBY.

Every Facility has a Function, which is a publicly tracked text string that is blank or describes a game action; defaulting to blank. As a Mechanised Atomic Action called Operating, a Machinist may perform the following steps:
* Spend 1 Power from a STANDBY Facility in the same Megasystem they inhabit.
* Perform that Facility’s Function.
* If that Facility’s status is STANDBY, change it to ACTIVE.

A Machinist who Moves may not subsequently Operate until the next instance of Passing Time, and vice versa.

a modified version of Bucky’s proposal that’s more neutral, has a couple of wording fixes, accounts for Key formatting, and allows for an Operating action to drain the last point of Power from a Facility.

i’ll leave it up to Bucky to re-propose the Provisional Facilities rule separately if he’d like to :0

Proposal: Disorderly Conduct

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 19 Jul 2023 10:55:22 UTC

In the subrule “Damage and Repair”, add the following text after the sentence that ends with “and add the details to a new Repair Log entry.”

They must also increase Order by 1.

and add the following text after the sentence that ends with “and they gain a component of that chosen type.”

They must also decrease Order by 1.

In the subrule “Flea Market”, add the following bullet to the list describing the Trade action:

* Decrease Order by the number of baubles paid and received combined in that Trade action.

In the rule “Order”, add the following text:

Any Machinist who, when they perform an action that reduces Order, causes Order to go from greater than one of the following threshold values to less than or equal to that threshold value, must put their name into the Lockdown list with the number of Days specified for that threshold value
* 40 Order - 1 Day
* 25 Order - 2 Days
* 10 Order - 4 Days

Inspired by the “Inspire the People” proposal, any action that “is a Crime” should generally decrease order, and any action that reverses the effects of those Crimes increases order. If a Machinist crosses a threshold when lowering Order, that puts them in Lockdown, with the penalty in Days increasing as Order goes towards 0.

The trade instance is the only outlier, as I don’t really know what the opposite of a Flea Market trade would be, if trading is a Crime.

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Proposal: Facility Quickfix.

withdrawn
-lemon

Adminned at 18 Jul 2023 23:40:47 UTC

If https://blognomic.com/archive/facility_quickstart was enacted, replace “Every Facility has an amount of Power, which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0” with “A Facility’s Power defaults to 0” and replace “The Provisional Facilities Registry is a list” with “The Provisional Facilities Registry is a publicly tracked list”.

Proposal: Facility Quickstart.

Withdrawn. Josh

Adminned at 18 Jul 2023 20:41:04 UTC

In the rule Subsystems, change

Megasystems have Facilities in them. Facilities’ names (flavortext), parent Megasystems and statuses (ACTIVE, STANDBY or DORMANT) are publicly tracked.

Every Facility has an amount of Power, which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. A Facility with 0 Power is always DORMANT; a Facility with 1 or more Power is never DORMANT. If a DORMANT Facility gains Power, its status defaults to STANDBY.

Every Facility has a Function, which is a publicly tracked text string describing a game action. As a Mechanised Action called Operating, a Machinist may spend 1 Power from an ACTIVE Facility in the same Megasystem as them to perform that Facility’s Function.

to

Megasystems have Facilities in them. Facilities’ names (flavortext), parent Megasystems, Power (a non-negative Integer) and statuses (ACTIVE, STANDBY or DORMANT) are publicly tracked.

Every Facility has an amount of Power, which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. Facilities’ statuses default to DORMANT when they have 0 Power and STANDBY otherwise. A Facility with 0 Power is becomes DORMANT. If a Facility with 0 Power gains Power, its status becomes STANDBY.

Every Facility has a Function, which is a publicly tracked text string describing a game action defaulting to “Distribute 1 Bauble.”. As a Mechanised Atomic Action called Operating, a Machinist may perform the following steps:
* Spend 1 Power from a STANDBY Facility in the same Megasystem as them that has at least 2 Power.
* Perform that Facility’s Function.
* Change that Facility’s Status from STANDBY to ACTIVE.

The following shorthand terms may be used in Facilities’ Functions: “Distribute X” means “give X to each Mechanist in the same Megasystem as the Facility”. “X and self-incriminate” means “As an Atomic Action, do X, then put yourself on the Lockdown list listed at 3 days”.

Add a subrule to “Initialisation”. Call it “Provisional Facilities” and give it the following text:

The Provisional Facilities Registry is a list of text strings that are flavortext. If there is a rule called “Initialisation Phase Two”, then the Great Machine and each Machinist may add a text string of their choice to the Provisional Facilities Register once per dynasty.

If there is no rule called “Initialisation Phase Two”, the Great Machine may create a Facility with a name of their choice, any parent Megasystem and a text string from Provisional Facilities Registry as its Function.

The Great Machine may remove any text string from the Provisional Facilities Registry at any time, and should do so to remove text strings that would be unfair or nonsensical as the Function of a Facility, or that have already had a Facility created from them.

Proposal: Inspire the People

Withdrawn. Josh

Adminned at 18 Jul 2023 20:40:33 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce”, subrule “Graffiti”, change “A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to create a piece of Graffiti (although this is a Crime) in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit, with text of their choosing up to 80 characters in length. A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to remove any number of characters from any number of pieces of Graffiti in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit.” to:

At any time, a Machinist may spend 1 Paint to Deface, which is a daily atomic action with the following steps:
* Create a piece of Graffiti in the same Megasystem you’re inhabiting, with text of your choosing up to 80 characters in length
* Decrease Order by n, where n is the total amount of pieces of Graffiti in existence

At any time, a Machinist may spend 1 Paint to Clean, which is a daily atomic action with the following steps:
* Remove any number of characters from any number of pieces of Graffiti in the Megasystem you’re inhabiting
* Delete all pieces of Graffiti that contain 0 characters
* Increase Order by n, where n is the total amount of pieces of Graffiti deleted during this action

Basic method for increasing and decreasing Order
would also like to tie punishments and repairs into Order somehow but I can’t think of any good ways right now

Call for Judgment: This Feeling Inside

Fails 2-3 with one unresolved DEF - Bucky

Adminned at 19 Jul 2023 16:39:24 UTC

This Call for Judgement asserts the principle that the No Private Communications carve-out for Alliances asserted in the rule Declared Alliances does not allow for the passing of messages from third parties outside of the Alliance.

To clarify that princple, in the Special case rule Declared Alliances, after the sentence ‘it does not apply to communications between Machinists who each have the other’s names in their Alliance’, add

(although passing messages from third parties outside of such an alliance is still prohibited, as if that third party were communicating with each recipient within the alliance directly)

 

The daisy-chaining 4-way alliance is an amusing bit, but Bucky’s comment on this post suggests that those within it are committed to the idea that it is a legal way around No Collaborations. To me, this seems somewhere between “straightforwardly wrong” and “so far against the spirit of the rule that it should be dealt with immediately”, so here we are.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Proposal: [Special Case] Necessary loopholes.

Timed out and enacted, 4-3. Josh

Adminned at 18 Jul 2023 20:39:33 UTC

Add the following text to the end of the third paragraph of the special case rule “No Private Communication”:

This rule’s restrictions on communication do not apply during an Interregnum. The restrictions in this rule on communication in non-blognomic-related media shall not be construed as to cause those media to be gamestate.

 

Where it started: Why does this rule forbid private discussions during Interregnum, when the matter under discussion is about to be repealed anyway?

Where it ended: Wait a sec, this regulates my whole life.

Confused Communications

When Josh added my name to his declared Alliance, I started sending private messages to him, not thinking that I also would need to set his name in my Alliance for it to be a legal two-way communcation. Here were the two messages I sent:

Hello, and welcome to The Grand Machine’s Alliance Chain and Tea Emporium™

Actually, I don’t have your name in my Alliance, so I think I can’t actually talk to you, but you can talk to me. I’ll post these two messages in a blog post.

Proposal: It’s a bit silly

Timed out and failed, 2-2 with the imperial DEF resolving to AGAINST. Josh

Adminned at 18 Jul 2023 07:05:45 UTC

Set the Active status of the rule “No Private Communication” to Inactive.

Right now this basically has no effect beyond limiting how many people you can talk to at any one point in time, but there’s nothing to stop you swapping each day.

Plus, I have concerns that it’s easy to accidentally run afoul of the fair play restriction on it by, for example, mentioning what one person said to you in another chat (since if they’re aware that you’ll pass it on, it could constitute them communicating with that other player).

Since this literally does nothing useful beyond make things awkward, we might as well open up communication.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Back into the depths…

Please idle me, I’ll likely re-appear later on.

“What do you mean he just… disappeared?” Asked the Head Machinist. “He said something about a humming noise coming from one of the machines and just like that, he just was… gone. That was 4 days ago and no one has seen him since.”

Proposal: Like Clockwork

Timed out 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 17 Jul 2023 13:53:28 UTC

Replace the phrase “Daily Action” (irrespective of upper/lower casing) with “Mechanised Action” throughout the dynastic ruleset.

To “Time’s Passage”, add:-

If an action is defined as a Mechanised Action, a Machinist can only perform it if they have not already performed an instance of it since the most recent Passing Time.

Getting the game actions onto a single clock, so that the maximum number of actions a player can take per Passing Time cycle doesn’t vary according to how much their timezone overlaps with that of the Great Machine.

Proposal: Pointing the Finger

Timed out and failed, 1-3. Josh

Adminned at 17 Jul 2023 08:46:23 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce” add a new subrule named “Accusations” and give it the following text:

This rule is flavour text.

Event Type Name: Accusation
Creation Conditions: No other Accusation is Open, post title must start with the text “Accusation:” or “[Accusation]”. Post body must contain exactly one Machinist’s name.
Response Format: Method of voting here
Ending Condition: 48 hours since post creation
Ending Action: Vote counting and placing Machinist in Lockdown here.

Outlining the basic structure of an Event to put someone in Lockdown. I added a flavour text guardrail while the rule is still missing important parts, but it should be removed as soon as the rule has enough detail to be functional. 383 characters.

Friday, July 14, 2023

Disclosure of many private communications

During the interregnum preceding this dynasty, I made a large number of illegal private communications, which I only today realized were illegal. The full text of those communications, as well as a couple by Kevan and JohnathanDark may be found here:
https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=The_Twentieth_Dynasty_of_Josh&oldid=23698

Proposal: Economic Links

Timed out and enacted 8-0. Josh

Adminned at 17 Jul 2023 08:40:48 UTC

Add the following steps to the end of the list of steps for the Passing Time atomic action in the rule “Time’s Passage”:

* Give each Machinist one of the Resource corresponding to the Megasystem they inhabit.
* If any Megasystem is Destroyed, set all its ACTIVE Facilites’ statuses to DORMANT.
* Set all remaining ACTIVE Facilities’ status to STANDBY.

If the proposal “Power Dynamics” is not enacted, remove the following text from the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”:

As a daily action called Moving, a Machinist may change which Megasystem they’re inhabiting.

If the proposal “Power Dynamics” is not enacted, add the following text to the rule “Subsystems”:

As a daily action called Moving, a Machinist may either change which Megasystem they’re inhabiting or Activate a STANDBY Facility in their current Megasystem.

If the Proposal “Power Dynamics” is enacted, add the following text to the end of the rule “Subsystems”:

A Machinist who Moves may not subsequently Operate until the next instance of Passing Time, and vice versa.

Step 1: Basic resource injection
Step 3: Working facilities activated up to once per Passing Time
Step 2: Destroyed Megasystem’s running facilities still function. Once.

Proposal: Working for a Living

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 16 Jul 2023 12:27:59 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce” add a subrule named “Income” and give it the following text:

Each Machinist has a publicly-tracked Assignment, defaulting to Cleaner, and a publicly-tracked number named Rating, defaulting to 0 and maximum of 5. A Machinist is considered eligible for Income by having a minimum Rating with the associated Assignment.

Assignments, and their minimum Ratings shown in brackets, are: Cleaner (3)

In the rule “Time’s Passage”, add the following bullet point to the list:

* Add 1 bauble to each Machinist who is eligible for Income.

Here’s a way to get baubles for trading at the Market, but no one gets baubles right at the start. Being able to receive an Income requires working hard at an Assignment until you earn the required Rating. We can add other Assignments that may have lower minimums, but will have requirements to be able to switch to that Assignment. Maybe a way to move up the ranks of Assignments from lowly Cleaner to highly-prized Designer (not yet a valid Assignment).

396 characters

Proposal: Crime And

Timed out 4 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 16 Jul 2023 12:27:21 UTC

In the rule “Punishment”, replace “A Machinist whose name is in this list may not perform any dynastic actions.” with:-

A Machinist whose name is in this list is Incarcerated and may not perform any dynastic actions. If a Machinist has performed a Crime in the previous 24 hours and is not Incarcerated, a Machinist who inhabits the same Megasystem as them may pay 1 Valve to add the performer to the Lockdown list, listed at 2 Days.

Replace “may Trade in the Flea Market” with:-

may Trade in the Flea Market (although this is a Crime)

Replace “create a piece of Graffiti” with:-

create a piece of Graffiti (although this is a Crime)

Replace “may Salvage the megasystem they inhabit” with:-

may Salvage the megasystem they inhabit (although this is a Crime)

Proposal: Price Surging

Reaches quorum 5-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Reopened by Kevan, previous proposal in queue was closed illegally.

Timed out / quorumed 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 16 Jul 2023 12:25:52 UTC

In the rule “Flea Market”, replace “Coal, 1. Housing, 1. Valves, 1.” with “Coal, 3. Housing, 3. Valves, 3.”.

i feel like, from a narrative standpoint, components ought to be cheaper than the three major resources :0

Proposal: Power Dynamics

Reaches quorum 5-2 and is enacted -SingularByte

Reopened by Kevan as enaction was invalid, votes were only 4-2.

Timed out 4 votes to 3 a few hours later, and enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 16 Jul 2023 16:55:52 UTC

In the rule “Subsystems”, remove the text “The Great Machine may create and name new DORMANT Facilities in any Megasystem with fewer than three Facilities.”.

Append the following text to the rule “Subsystems”:

Every Facility has an amount of Power, which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. A Facility with 0 Power is always DORMANT; a Facility with 1 or more Power is never DORMANT. If a DORMANT Facility gains Power, its status defaults to STANDBY.

Every Facility has a Function, which is a publicly tracked text string describing a game action. As a Daily Action called Operating, a Machinist may spend 1 Power from an ACTIVE Facility in the same Megasystem as them to perform that Facility’s Function.

removes 112 characters, adds 497. here’s my proposal for the mechanic relating to the system of Motion!
i also wanted to create a Facility called the Junction Supergrid whose purpose would be to give power to other facilities; but seeing as everything’s flavourtext right now, we can’t actually create any corresponding gamestate yet.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Proposal: Brief Respite

Times out 5-4 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 16 Jul 2023 06:07:26 UTC

In the dynastic rule “Brevity”, change

Any Proposal which would add more than 400 characters net to the dynastic ruleset is unpopular and isn’t popular

to

Any Proposal which would add more than 400 characters net to the dynastic ruleset is unpopular and isn’t popular, unless it was posted while a rule named “Initialisation Phase Two” existed

We have a lot of mechanics to fill in before initialization completes, and not enough character count to fill them all in.

Proposal: System of An Agenda

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 15 Jul 2023 16:56:58 UTC

In the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”, unbold all bolded characters in the following line:

The Great Machine contains three Megasystems: the System of Motion, the System of Dwelling, and the System of Control.

can’t think of any agendas that would fit these that aren’t “destroy X” or “maintain X”
we could tie them into other mechanics, but I’d rather just the keys in said mechanics

Proposal: Anarchy Is Fun

Reached quorum 6 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 15 Jul 2023 16:52:17 UTC

Create a new dynastic rule named “Order” with the following body:

Order is a publicly tracked non-negative integer value that defaults to 50 and is capped at 100. If Order would be set to a value below 0 or over 100, it will be set to 0 or 100 respectively.

was thinking that Order could maybe tie into Graffiti or the System of Control in some way, could be a fun tug of war since both the side of chaos and the side of order could grant certain buffs/debuffs

Proposal: Redraw Expanded

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 15 Jul 2023 16:50:45 UTC

Replace the text of Amendments, if it exists, with:

If it would be impossible for any Machinist to complete a given Agenda under the current dynastic ruleset were they to have that agenda, even if other Machinists were to take arbitrary sequences of dynastic actions over any time period, and it has been impossible for 7 or more days, the Machinist with that Agenda may privately request an Amendment from the Great Machine.

The Great Machine may only perform Amendments on Agendas when legally requested to do so. When the Great Machine does so, they either:
* Modify the agenda such that it is now theoretically achievable under the criteria above, retaining its general concept
* Replace it with a Reserve Agenda that shares as many keys as possible with the old one

Amendments may only be requested after having that Agenda for at least 14 days.

This expanded version of the redraw proposal does not care if you get successfully blocked from ever completing an agenda, just whether or not it’s theoretically possible for *any* player to complete it. It’s one thing for a goal to be unfairly incompletable, it’s another for it to just be successfully stopped by players who realise what your objective is. 401 removed, 800 added. Net: 399

Proposal: Clarity is Key

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 14 Jul 2023 16:26:28 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation”, change

An Initialisation Key is a term that appears with bold formatting in the dynastic rules at least one time

to

An Initialisation Key is a term that appears with bold formatting in the dynastic rules at least one time, and that is not contained in a longer Initialization Key

If there is a rule “Desires” containing the Initialisation key “Construct Housing”, then remove the sentence containing it from that rule.

If there is no rule “Initialisation Phase One”, create it as a subrule of “Initialisation” with that name and the following text:

If there are at least twice as many Initialisation Keys as there are active Machinists, the Great Machine can and should repeal this subrule.

 

Is “Construct” an Initialization Key that just happens to be next to the key “Housing”? That’s a bad ambiguity to let stand.

Proposal: Starting at the Finish Line

Reached quorum 6 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 14 Jul 2023 16:24:57 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation”, after the text “If two or more of a Machinist’s own Agendas have been Fulfilled for the last 24 hours,” add the following text:

and it has been at least 7 days since Initialisation Phase Two was repealed,

It could be possible to craft an Agenda that is not considered “too easy” at first glance, but due to an intentional or accidental scam or otherwise complicated set of mechanics that the Great Machine doesn’t spot, might be fulfilled within a few days. This change allows Machinists without such an Agenda to have a fighting chance against an advantage like this.

I’m open to changing the number of days from 7 to some other number. I just picked something that seemed reasonable.

Proposal: Undesirable

Reached quorum 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 14 Jul 2023 16:23:04 UTC

Repeal the rule “Desires”.

This rule in particular isn’t really how initialization keys work?  At best it’s just weird flavortext.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Proposal: Shaking the Spraycan

Timed out / quorumed 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 14 Jul 2023 16:21:56 UTC

In “Crime & Commerce”, replace “A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to create a piece of Graffiti in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit.” with:-

A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to create a piece of Graffiti in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit, with text of their choosing up to 80 characters in length.

Move the paragraph beginning “Graffiti is found” into a subrule of “Crime & Commerce” named “Graffiti”.

Per Lendunistus’s observation during voting, we should say that the graffiti creator can actually assign text to it.

Proposal: Redraw

Timed out / quorumed 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 14 Jul 2023 16:17:00 UTC

Create a subrule of Initialisation or Machinist Agendas called Amendments:

The Great Machine may perform Amendments on a given Agenda that is impossible to complete when requested to do so by its owner. When the Great Machine performs an Amendment, they should do one of the below:
* Modify the agenda such that it is now theoretically possible to complete, retaining its general concept
* Replace it with a Reserve Agenda that shares as many keys as possible with the old one

If the rules change too much, we’re going to end up with Agendas that are literally incompletable, especially given how few rules are associated with some mechanics. Rather than force Machinists to out their agendas by making them propose rule fixes, it seems fairer to let them reroll their agenda.

However, as stated in the discord, this is an incomplete version due to the brevity limits. I’m intending to propose the full version once I get another slot back, given that most will initially be impossible.

Proposal: By Any Means Reasonably Necessary

Passes 6-0. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:45:57 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation” after the text “except where explicitly required for the Declaration of Victory.” add the following text:

The act of causing an Agenda to be fulfilled is never considered a disclosure, nor is taking reasonable steps towards fulfillment which do not include unnecessary revelations of information.

The phrase prohibiting “implicit” disclosure could be construed to prohibit the exercise of some dynastic actions, especially if there was a pattern of the same or similar dynastic actions. These should be considered “reasonable steps” if they were used as a means towards fulfilling an Agenda.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Proposal: No Prior Claims

Passes 6-0. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:43:19 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation Phase Two” change

After receiving a Machinist’s written Agendas as a result of them Sending a Schematic, the Great Machine must add them to the list of privately tracked Agendas

to

After receiving a Machinist’s valid Schematic, the Great Machine must add the Agendas in it to the list of privately tracked Agendas

The current version of the rule implies, in this place only, that Sending a Schematic causes the sender to have the written Agendas contained within. This interpretation badly skews the allocation, so it’s best to clarify.

Proposal: Late to the Party

Passes 6-1. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:41:16 UTC

In the bulleted list in the rule “Initialisation”, add a new item with the following text:

* If an active Machinist doesn’t own any Agendas, the Great Machine can and should at their earliest opportunity secretly randomly assign Reserve Agendas to that Machinist until they own exactly three Agendas. If not enough Reserve Agendas exist to do so, the Great Machine can create new Agendas until there are enough.

as a reminder, this sentence will be flavour text until Initialisation is complete.

Proposal: Perpetual Motion

Passes 6-1. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:39:09 UTC

Add a new dynastic rule, called “Overland Navigation”, to the dynastic ruleset:

The Great Machine always has Surroundings and can also have a Destination; both of which are different publicly-tracked text strings from the list of Locations below. As a Daily Action Machinists in the System of Control may give the Great Machine a new Destination or change its Destination.

Locations:
* Dead city
* Snowdrifts
* Ice plains

In the step of Passing Time which refers to increasing or adding Damaged Parts, replace the period with:

; do this twice if the Great Machine lacks a Destination.

the Great Machine must always keep moving. if it isn’t in Motion, the cold seeps in, and things start to break down.

adds just under 400 characters. eventually i think we could have more locations, give them effects, maybe make it more difficult or costly to change the Destination, and/or implement a system of travel progress/speed that ties into the System of Motion!

Proposal: Sabotage

Passes 6-0. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:33:17 UTC

To Damage and Repair, add the paragraph:

Any megasystem that has twenty or more Damaged Parts becomes ‘’‘Destroyed’‘’. A Destroyed megasystem ceases to be Destroyed once it has 5 or less Damaged Parts.

Remove the text “One might desire to Destroy all.” from the ruleset. Then, if the rule it was in is now empty, delete that empty rule.

Destruction does feel more global than just Dwellings. Also, we might want to consider giving the Systems of Motion and Control their own major mechanics too since Dwelling has the market will end up with some form of housing/neighbours. Motion and Control are feeling a little bare in comparison.

Proposal: Recycling Builds Character(s)

Fails 2-5. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:29:51 UTC

Add a new dynastic rule to the ruleset. Call it “Ruletext Scrapyard” and give it the following text:

The Scrapyard, which is not flavortext and cannot contain Initialization Keys, is the following:
aaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbccccccccccddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiijjjjjjjjjjkkkkkkkkkkllllllllllmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooppppppppppqqqqqqqqqqrrrrrrrrrrssssssssssttttttttttuuuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvvvwwwwwwwwwwxxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyyyyzzzzzzzzzz….......,,,,,,,,,,

Proposal: Settling Down

Withdrawn. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:28:31 UTC

Rename the rule “Desires” to “Dwellings”.

In the rule “Dwellings”, replace “One might desire to Construct Housing.” with the following text:

Each Machinist has a publicly-tracked Dwelling, which defaults to empty. As a Daily Action, a Machinist inhabiting the System of Dwelling may Construct Housing by choosing a row in the table below, spending the amount of Housing listed in the Cost column of that row, and then setting their Dwelling to the Type column of that row.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Dwellings
|-
! Type || Cost
|-
| Shack || 1
|}

In the same rule, add a subrule named “Neighbors” and move the text “One might desire three Neighbors.” to this subrule.

Add a new rule named “Demolition” and move the text “One might desire to Destroy all.” to this rule.

This does not introduce any new Initialisation Keys or change any existing ones, but fleshes out one of them into a partial idea and hints at the other two, giving us some direction as to how they might be used. Since wiki markup doesn’t count towards the character limit, as far as the table is concerned, I’m only counting the characters of the column names and row values of the table. The whole Proposal results in a subtraction of 38 characters and an addition of 395 characters.

EDIT: I moved the Destroy keyword to its own rule so that it wouldn’t necessarily be tied to Dwellings. It still could be, but this leaves us flexibility to apply it to other things if that’s the direction people want to take.

Proposal: Surge Pricing

Fails 3-5. - Lulu

Adminned at 13 Jul 2023 14:27:43 UTC

In “Time’s Passage”, replace “For each trade item, roll DICE3, add to the result that trade item’s base cost, and then set that trade item’s bauble cost to the resulting number.” with:-

For each trade item: set its bauble cost to its base cost plus its Demand (bauble cost being capped at a maximum of 4). The Demand of a Resource is the number of Machinists who have any of that Resource. The Demand of a Component is the number of Machinists who are carrying any amount of that Component, plus the number of Megasystems which have that Component among their Damaged Parts.

If “We Can Fix It” failed, remove “, plus the number of Megasystems which have that Component among their Damaged Parts” from the rule.

Proposal: Environmental Storytelling

Reached quorum 8 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 12 Jul 2023 15:53:52 UTC

In “Flea Market”, add after “Filter, 1.”:-

Paint, 1.

In “Components”, add after “Filter, “:-

Paint,

In “Crime & Commerce”, after “Graffiti is found deep in the bowels of the machine.”, add:-

Each piece of Graffiti is a publicly tracked string of flavour text, located in a Megasystem. A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to create a piece of Graffiti in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit. A Machinist may spend 1 Paint to remove any number of characters from any number of pieces of Graffiti in the Megasystem that they currently inhabit.

If “We Can Fix It” enacted, replace “one of their choice” in that rule with:-

one non-Paint Component of their choice

Proposal: We Can Fix It

Reaches quorum 7-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 12 Jul 2023 15:44:14 UTC

In Damage and Repair, replace “Each Megasystem has a publicly-tracked number of ‘’‘Damaged Parts’‘’ defaulting to 0” with

Each Megasystem has a publicly-tracked list of damaged Components known as its ‘’‘Damaged Parts’‘’

In either Time’s Passage or Damage and Repair, replace “increase its Damaged Parts by 1” with

add a random component to its Damaged Parts

In Damage and Repair, add the following paragraphs:

A Machinist may Repair the megasystem they inhabit: they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts, and add the details to a new Repair Log entry.

As a daily action, a Machinist may Salvage the megasystem they inhabit: they add a random component and one of their choice to its Damaged Parts, and they gain a component of that chosen type.

Net changes: 14 + 12 + 369 = 395 characters. I had to drop the default for damaged parts to make it fit, but lists are empty by default anyway so it makes no difference.

The intent with salvaging is to leave it open to interpretation what exactly the objective of the salvager actually is. Are they taking components to sell? Are they breaking it for the sake of causing damage? Do they urgently need to fix somewhere else, and damaging this system is the lesser of two evils? This way it’ll be harder to tell someone’s Agenda immediately.

Proposal: Public Safety

Popular by Quorum, 6-0. -Bucky

Adminned at 12 Jul 2023 05:52:13 UTC

In the rule “Crime & Commerce” add a subrule named “Punishment” and give it the following text:

There is a publicly-tracked list named Lockdown where each entry is a Machinist’s name and a number of Days, defaulting to an empty list. A Machinist whose name is in this list may not perform any dynastic actions.

If the rule “Time’s Passage” exists, add the following bullet point to the list in that rule:

* Remove every entry in the Lockdown list with a Days value of 0, then subtract 1 from the Days value of each remaining entry.

otherwise, add the following text as a new paragraph in the subrule “Punishment”:

As a Daily Action, the Great Machine should remove every entry in the Lockdown list with a Days value of 0, then subtract 1 from the Days value of each remaining entry.

If there’s Crime, there should be Punishment. Since Crime hasn’t been defined yet, I’m omitting how a Machinist might get put in the Lockdown list and how to determine the number of Days they should stay there. The algorithm does mean that a Machinist will actually spend a minimum of more than 24 hours in Lockdown, but the alternative would have been to remove them immediately upon Days reaching 0, which could result in a very short time in Lockdown if they were just added to it hours before.

Worst-case if “Time’s Passage” does not exist is about 382 new characters.

Monday, July 10, 2023

Proposal: Time, she did as Time, she does

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 11 Jul 2023 15:30:20 UTC

If https://blognomic.com/archive/expanding_the_market_share wasn’t enacted, this proposal has no effect.

In the rule “Damage and Repair”, remove the second paragraph.
In the rule “Flea Market”, replace “Then pay” with “They they pay”; replace each instance of “public” with “publicly tracked”; and replace the text “It’s the base costs plus DICE3. Daily, the Great Machine may reroll each of those DICE3” with “A trade item’s bauble cost is based on that item’s base cost, and varies daily as described in Time’s Passage”.

Add a new dynastic rule, called “Time’s Passage” with the following text:

Each day, the Great Machine can and should perform the following Daily Atomic Action, called Passing Time:
* Randomly select a Megasystem and increase its Damaged Parts by 1.
* For each trade item, roll DICE3, add to the result that trade item’s base cost, and then set that trade item’s bauble cost to the resulting number.

if i’m going to do multiple daily actions, let’s follow tradition & just make them all one big atomic action! this proposal removes 198 characters & adds about 460.

Proposal: Do you have anything to declare?

Reached quorum 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 11 Jul 2023 15:28:02 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation”, after the text “Machinists may never disclose, implicitly or explicitly, publicly or privately, their Agendas”, add the following:

, except where explicitly required for the Declaration of Victory

If we don’t have this exception, no one would be able to legally post a DoV.

Proposal: For Want of a Cog

Reaches quorum 6-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 11 Jul 2023 07:05:59 UTC

Add a new rule called “Components”:-

Each Machinist has a personal list of the Components they are carrying, which is publicly tracked.

Components that exist are: Cog, Filter, Panel, Pipe, Plate, Seal, Wheel and Wiring.

If “Wear and Tear” enacted, replace “Each entry in the Repair Log contains a Date and a Machinist’s name.” with:-

Each entry in the Repair Log contains a Date, a list of one or more Components, and a Machinist’s name.

If “Expanding the Market Share” enacted, replace “The trade items and base costs are: Coal, 1. Housing, 1. Valves, 1.” with:-

The trade items and base costs are: Coal, 1. Housing, 1. Valves, 1. Cog, 1. Filter, 1. Panel, 1. Pipe, 1. Plate, 1. Seal, 1. Wheel, 1. Wiring, 1.

This is about +250 characters.

Proposal: Dynastic Fair Play

Reaches quorum 7-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 11 Jul 2023 07:03:54 UTC

In Initialisation Part Two, replace the first bullet point with:

*Delete all Agendas that meet one or more of the following conditions:
**The Great Machine judges it to be unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill
**The Great Machine judges it to be unfairly beneficial to the writer
**It uniquely identifies specific Machinists (other than by referring to the current holder of the Agenda)
**It gives non-dynastic instructions
**It mentions an initialisation key with no intent to use mechanics related to it

Adds ~280 net characters. (Adds 440 or so, removes 162 or so.)

Proposal: Expanding the Market Share

Reaches quorum 7-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 11 Jul 2023 07:01:12 UTC

Remove the text “There exists a Flea Market, where the dwellers trade.” from “Crime & Commerce”. Create a subrule of it called “Flea Market”:

Each Machinist has a public number of baubles.

Machinists in the System of Dwelling may Trade in the ‘’‘Flea Market’‘’:
* First they pay baubles equal to the number of times they have Traded today.
* Then pay 1 of a trade item to receive its cost, or vice versa.

Trade items’ bauble costs are public. It’s the base costs plus DICE3. Daily, the Great Machine may reroll each of those DICE3.
The trade items and base costs are: Coal, 1. Housing, 1. Valves, 1.

453 added and 53 removed by my count. This was rough to fit into 400 net without resorting to cutting too many important words but I got there in the end. The intent is that you’ll be able to trade a variety of things so that you can shift from focusing between parts of the ruleset controlled by different initialisation keys, but the cost rapidly ramps up as you trade.

Monday, July 10, 2023

Proposal: A Handful of Small Key Changes

Reaches quorum 6-1 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 11 Jul 2023 06:58:17 UTC

In the rule “Initialisation”, after “The text string of an Agenda must include exactly 2 different Initialisation Keys.”, add the following sentence:

An Initialisation Key still counts as being included in an Agenda if an alternate form or tense of that Key appears in that Agenda’s text.

In the rule “Desires”, capitalise the first letters in “Construct Housing”, “Neighbors”, and “Destroy”. Remove the bold formatting from the word “all”.

In the rule “Subsystems”, bold the first instance of the word “Facilities”.

the only thing i feel needs justification here is the change to “Destroy All”; i just think that things might get weird if we have multiple Agendas based around destroying everything! destroying specific things sounds much more flexible to me :0

Proposal: Re-allocation

withdrawn.
-lemon

Adminned at 10 Jul 2023 22:41:10 UTC

In the Game data, replace

The Scale Model

with

The Workspace

Add the following information to The Workspace at the top:

Machine integrity:
Newness:

Add the following entries to The Workspace as headings:

Spare Parts
Special Tools

Set the Machine Integrity to “90%”
Set the Newness information to “Ancient”

This currently does interfere with proposal of Wear and Tear, but either this proposal or that one can be modified to fit the other.

Excluding blockquotes it should be under 300 characters

Proposal: Wear and Tear

enacted 7-0!
-lemon

Adminned at 10 Jul 2023 22:36:31 UTC

In the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”, add a subrule named “Damage and Repair” and give it the following text:

Each Megasystem has a publicly-tracked number of Damaged Parts defaulting to 0 and a publicly-tracked list named Repair Log defaulting to empty. Each entry in the Repair Log contains a Date and a Machinist’s name.

As a Daily Action, the Great Machine should randomly select a Megasystem and increase its Damaged Parts by 1.

Just like any mechanical system, these Megasystems have parts that will wear out over time and need repairing, which is a good job for Machinists to perform. I’ve intentionally left out whatever consequences Damaged Parts might trigger, as well as how repairs happen.

Proposal: Generalized Switchboard

Reaches quorum 6-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 10 Jul 2023 12:39:03 UTC

Add a subrule to the rule “The Great Machine’s Structure”. Call it “Subsystems” and give it the following text:

Megasystems have Facilities in them. Facilities’ names (flavortext), parent Megasystems and statuses (ACTIVE, STANDBY or DORMANT) are publicly tracked. The Great Machine may create and name new DORMANT Facilities in any Megasystem with fewer than three Facilities.

These are vaguely intended to be the action pool for some sort of action drafting dynamic. The 3 is intended to be a soft limit for initialization purposes, and proposals to expand a Megasystem beyond three Facilities are fine.

Proposal: Bugs in the schematics

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 Jul 2023 09:59:25 UTC

In the rule Initialisation Phase Two, replace “After receiving a Machinist’s written Agendas” with

After receiving a Machinist’s written Agendas as a result of them Sending a Schematic

As funny as it would be to send more than my fair share of agendas, I can’t see a way to turn it to my advantage so I might as well close the loophole.

Proposal: Manual Brakes

Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed 2 votes to 6 by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 Jul 2023 09:09:47 UTC

In “Brevity”, change the first sentence to the following:

The Great Machine should vote VETO on any Proposal that cannot be edited which would likely add more than 400 characters net to the dynastic ruleset.

Okay, this rule probably has too many corner cases to iron out in a reasonable manner (ex. what if I want to add text if a certain proposal passes/fails?) and is likely prone to user errors that could break a lot of things.  What about replacing it with a not-strictly-enforced suggestion instead?

Proposal: Spraypaint for sale

Reaches quorum 6-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:48:51 UTC

Create a rule called Crime & Commerce:

There exists a Flea Market, where the dwellers trade.
Graffiti is found deep in the bowels of the machine.

106 or so characters added.

Proposal: Out in the light

Reaches quorum with 7-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:47:31 UTC

In rule 2.1, replace ” If there are fewer than five Machinists who have either voted on a proposal or taken a dynastic action in the preceding 4 days”
with

If there are fewer than five Machinists who have either voted on a proposal or publicly taken a dynastic action in the preceding 4 days

I’m sad I missed the last dynasty because by the time I noticed how interesting it was looking, it would’ve been too late to jump in. However, this one also looks good so I figure I’ll jump in with an obvious rules fix: some dynastic actions can potentially only be known to the Machinist and the Grand Machine, so we can and should exclude them from consideration for Omertas. Net character change of 9.

Proposal: Resource Triangle

Reaches quorum 8-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:45:21 UTC

If Proposal: The Big Picture was not enacted then this proposal has no effect.

Add a new rule to the dynastic ruleset as a subrule to The Great Machine’s Structure, called Resource Triangle:

Each Machinist has a publicly-tracked quantity of Coal, Housing, and Valves, each of which is an integer defaulting to 0.

Each Resource can be exchanged with the one after it in the list above (looping) at a rate of 2 given to 1 received.

Resources are associated with Systems as follows: Coal:Motion :: Housing:Dwelling :: Valves:Control.

340 characters or so.

Proposal: The Soul Of Wit

Reaches quorum with 8-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:43:31 UTC

Add the following to the end of the rule Brevity:

Characters that do not render as ruletext (eg rule titles, table of contents entries, wikimedia markup or similar) are not counted towards the limit imposed by this rule.

Proposal: Rejected Punchcards

Reaches quorum 8-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:41:11 UTC

In “Initialisation Phase Two”, replace the “Delete Agendas” bullet point with:-

Delete Agendas until there exists a number of Agendas that is exactly four times the number of active Machinists, prioritising the deletion of Agendas that include the Initialisation Key(s) which appear in the most existing Agendas.

Add two bullet points before it:

* Delete all Agendas that the Great Machine judges to be unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill, or that refer to or otherwise uniquely identify specific Machinists.
* If there are fewer Agendas than four times the number of active Machinists, then create Agendas until this is no longer the case.

Remove the sentence “These Agendas’ conditions must not refer to or otherwise uniquely identify specific Machinists.” from the ruleset.

Perhaps we shouldn’t allow any Agendas that the Great Machine judges to be “unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill” into the game, rather than asking them to trim the Agenda stack down to exactly 32 and stop there.

This proposal adds around 170 characters net to the ruleset.

Sunday, July 09, 2023

Proposal: The Big Picture

Reaches quorum 7-0 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:39:12 UTC

Add the following as a new dynastic rule, called “The Great Machine’s Structure”:

The Great Machine contains three Megasystems: the ‘’‘System of Motion’‘’, the ‘’‘System of Dwelling’‘’, and the ‘’‘System of Control’‘’.

Each Machinist always inhabits exactly one Megasystem, which is publicly tracked and defaults to “System of Control”. As a daily action called Moving, a Machinist may change which Megasystem they’re inhabiting.

as described within the ascension address, there’s the three main systems of the Machine. i think each one should be an initialisation key; if everyone else is full of keyterm ideas, then these three will prolly be the only ones i contribute :0

Maldor Emerges

I’m Maldor, and I’d like to be unidled

Maldor, one of the older of machinists, emerges from a dimly lit tunnel. He carries a toolbox of worn tools in one hand and an old piece of conduit in the other. “The Great Machine hums once more, one day I will figure out why it keeps stopping…”

Proposal: A Change in Plans

Fails 2-7 -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:38:03 UTC

Add a new dynastic rule to the ruleset. Call it “Reassignment” and give it the following text:

If they haven’t already, a Machinist may privately send a request to the Great Machine with the words “Reassign X”, where X is the name of a Machinist. At their earliest convenience, the Great Machine must secretly randomly choose a Reserve Agenda that was not authored by X and swap it with a secretly randomly chosen Agenda owned by X, then privately inform X of the swapped Agendas.

There’s a few ways to use this:

* Target another Machinist who you think might be close to fulfilling one of their Agendas
* Target yourself if most or all of your Agendas aren’t working out for you
* Target yourself if you were the target of this from someone else, in the hopes (but no guarantee) of getting your previous Agenda back

Brevity is actually a good thing

Requesting unidle.

Brevity is actually a good thing

Requesting unidle.

Proposal: Edit Tolerance

Reaches quorum 8-0 -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:36:36 UTC

In the rule “Brevity”, change

is unpopular and may not be popular.

to

is unpopular and isn’t popular.

 

Necessary as indicated by commentary on my previous proposal.

Proposal: Not On My Agenda

Reaches quorum 6-1 -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 21:34:25 UTC

If “Unhidden Agendas” is enacted, this Proposal has no effect.

In the subrule “Initialisation Phase Two”, after the text “the Great Machine must add them to the list of privately tracked Agendas,”, add this text:

tracking the name of the Machinist who submitted each Agenda

and replace the text “Secretly randomly assign Reserve Agendas to Machinists” with this text:

Secretly randomly assign Reserve Agendas to each Machinist, choosing from the Agendas not authored by that Machinist,

An alternate means of preventing Machinists from writing their own path to victory while still preserving hidden Agendas.

Proposal: An Actual Machine Component

Fails 1-6 -SingularByte

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 09:39:12 UTC

Add a new dynastic rule to the ruleset. Call it “The Switchboard” and give it the following text:

Three Phone Lines exist,called Lines 1, 2 and 3.Each has two Endpoints that may be the following types of values
The name of a Machinist or Idle Machinist
A gamestate address identifying a location
*Another Phone Line
The Switchboard is location with address“5 Notochord”.Endpoints are public tracked.Lines’ second endpoints default to“Myke”“Lyndse”and“est” respectively.

In the rule “Brevity”, change “more than 400 characters net” to “more than 600 characters net”.

Originally a well constructed proposal, but 400 characters is punitive. Fortunately, I can typo correct after the fact and omit articles to shave off characters, so you get this ugly mess

Proposal: Revised Priorities

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 08:24:22 UTC

If https://blognomic.com/archive/unhidden_agendas was enacted, this proposal has no effect.

In the rule “Initialisation Phase Two” , replace “prioritising firstly the deletion of Agendas that include the Initialisation Key(s) which appear in the most existing Agendas, and secondly the deletion of Agendas which the Great Machine judges would be unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill.” with “prioritising firstly the deletion of Agendas which the Great Machine judges would be unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill, and secondly the deletion of Agendas that include the Initialisation Key(s) which appear in the most existing Agendas.”

Append the following to the paragraph in the same rule beginning with “Each Machinist can and should Send a Schematic to the Great Machine”:

These Agendas’ conditions must not refer to or otherwise uniquely identify specific Machinists.

this swaps the priorities around to make deleting unfair agendas #1, and adds a clause preventing agendas from saying “Be Kevan and…” or similar.
i think that a natural counterbalance against unfair agendas will be twofold: first, anyone could get your agenda, so fairness is better strategy unless your only-you-can-win-with-it agenda is airtight; secondly, the gamestate to fulfill them won’t exist yet, so i doubt there will be obscure exploits only the agenda creator can recognise. that said, maybe we could use some more fairness ensurance.

Proposal: Unhidden Agendas

Fewer than a quorum not voting against. Failed 1 vote to 6 by Kevan.

Adminned at 09 Jul 2023 08:22:05 UTC

In “Initialisation Phase Two”, remove the paragraphs beginning “Each Machinist can and should Send a Schematic”, “After receiving a Machinist’s written Agendas” and “The Great Machine can and should create”.

Remove the bullet point beginning “Delete Agendas until there exists a number of Agendas”.

Replace “Once each active Machinist has Sent a Schematic and there exists a number of Agendas greater than four times the number of active Machinists” with:-

Once there exists a number of Agendas greater than four times the number of active Machinists

Enact a subrule to “Initialisation” called “Agendas”:-

The following Agendas exist:

* Destroy the System of Control.

I think I’d rather play with a deck of Agenda cards that we’d designed publicly and all knew the potential scope of, than a lot of free-text under-the-table weirdness which we likely won’t get to see until the DoV.

I’d missed the “unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill” clause in that original rule, but even with that there’s still scope for exploit Agendas to get through: the Emperor doesn’t get to remove all the unfair ones, they have to stop when the deck size is four times the player count. Even if patched to allow freer removal, writing your own secret and completely fair Agenda and happening to be dealt it (so that you alone know that some obscure gamestate pattern is game-winningly significant) would still grant a big advantage.

(Future Terse check: This proposal easily removes more characters of rule text than it adds.)

Friday, July 07, 2023

Call for Judgment: To List Or Not To List [Special Case]

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 10:39:44 UTC

In the section “Special Case”, change “When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status.” to:

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status; those Special Case rules are then set to a status other than their respective Default Status.

Uphold the changing of the status of the Special Case rule “Alliances” as per the Ascension Address posted at the start of this Dynasty.

AAs technically can’t change the statuses of special case rules. This aims to fix that

Proposal: The Appliance of Alliance [Special Case]

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 16:36:25 UTC

Rename the rule “No Collaboration” to “No Private Communication”.

Rename the rule “Alliances” to “Declared Alliances”.

In “Initialisation”, “Declared Alliances” and “Malign Emperors”, replace “No Collaboration” with “No Private Communication”.

In the rule “No Private Communication” replace “and Discord channels” with:-

and the #current-dynasty, #blognomic-general and #new-player-questions-and-mentorships Discord channels

Clarifying a couple of misleading Special Case rule names, since they’re in the mix this dynasty. There’s been a degree of misunderstanding in the past that “No Collaboration” being enabled (or “Alliances” being intentionally disabled) means that players aren’t allowed to collaborate or ally themselves in any way.

(Also, conversations held in obscure and largely muted Discord channels probably shouldn’t be considered to be entirely public.)

Dwelling 84

I would like to be unidled please

Proposal: Bunker Mentality

Reached quorum 4 votes to 2. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 16:30:38 UTC

If Proposal: Initialising, Phase One was not enacted then this proposal has no effect.

Set the Special Case rule No Collaboration to Active.

In the rule Initialisation, change the paragraph which begins with the text ‘Machinists who do not each have the other’s names in their Alliance’ to read as follows:

Machinists may never disclose, implicitly or explicitly, publicly or privately, their Agendas. If there are fewer than five Machinists who have either voted on a proposal or taken a dynastic action in the preceding 4 days then any Machinist may Impose Omerta by making a story post to that effect. When Omerta is Imposed, all Machinists are subject to the restrictions set out in the rule No Collaborations, regardless of their Alliances.

Net increase of 150 characters or so.

Proposal: Future Terse

Reached quorum 5 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 12:04:51 UTC

Add the following as a subrule to the rule Initialisation, called Brevity:

Any Proposal which would add more than 400 characters net to the dynastic ruleset is unpopular and may not be popular.

400 characters: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed turpis justo, feugiat in nisi eget, lobortis venenatis nisi. Fusce scelerisque ornare vulputate. Ut mollis, tellus at gravida interdum, felis tortor commodo sem, quis mollis leo tortor id augue. Duis et nunc mattis, mattis massa eget, vehicula mauris. Duis vehicula eros in nunc faucibus, sit amet aliquet metus bibendum. Etiam purus orci.”

Friday, July 07, 2023

Proposal: The Key to Immutability

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 11:58:22 UTC

If there is a rule “Initialisation”, add the following text to the end of it:

The following rules in the bulleted list below are considered flavourtext until the subrule “Initialisation Phase Two” is repealed, after which they are immediately considered actual ruletext:
* Initialisation Keys may not be edited or removed from the dynastic rules by any Proposal, though they may be moved to other rules and subrules, and the text surrounding them may be edited, added to, or removed.
* If a Proposal repeals a rule or subrule that contains any Initialisation Keys, that same Proposal must move the text of each Initialisation Key from the repealed rule or subrule to another rule or subrule.

Proposal: Initialising the Means of Production

Withdrawn. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 11:54:24 UTC

If there is a rule “Initialisation”, add a new dynastic rule to the ruleset called “Means of Production” and give it the following text:

The basic means of production is to ensure that each Production System is solidly and contiguously Connected in order to facilitate the collection of Resources. Whenever the output is not optimal due to Damage, it is recommended to take systems Offline before you attempt to Repair any part of the system.

Proposal: Initialization Keys to Happiness

Reached quorum 6 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 11:53:22 UTC

If there is a rule “Initialisation”, add a new dynastic rule to the ruleset called “Desires” and give it the following text:

One might desire to construct housing.
One might desire three neighbors.
One might desire to destroy all.

Proposal: Initialising, Phase Two

Reached quorum 5 votes to 1. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Jul 2023 10:41:03 UTC

If the rule “Initialisation” exists, add the following as a subrule of it called “Initialisation Phase Two”:

The purpose of Phase Two is to provide every Machinist with three Agendas, which will determine their win conditions for this dynasty. If the rule “Initialisation Phase One” exists in the ruleset, the rest of this rule is flavour text.

Each Machinist can and should Send a Schematic to the Great Machine exactly one time. Sending a Schematic consists of writing between 2 and 5 Agendas (inclusive) and sending them privately to the Great Machine. When an Initialisation Key appears in one of these Agendas, it should be bolded.

After receiving a Machinist’s written Agendas, the Great Machine must add them to the list of privately tracked Agendas, but may edit their wording or grammar slightly to fit in with the other existing Agendas so long as their meaning is not changed.

The Great Machine can and should create up to 10 Agendas; these Agendas should, when feasible, include the Initialisation Key(s) which appear in the fewest existing Agendas.

Once each active Machinist has Sent a Schematic and there exists a number of Agendas greater than four times the number of active Machinists, the Great Machine can perform the following atomic action:
* Delete Agendas until there exists a number of Agendas that is exactly four times the number of active Machinists, prioritising firstly the deletion of Agendas that include the Initialisation Key(s) which appear in the most existing Agendas, and secondly the deletion of Agendas which the Great Machine judges would be unfairly easy or difficult to Fulfill.
* Secretly randomly assign Reserve Agendas to Machinists until every Machinist owns exactly three Agendas.
* Privately inform each Machinist the full text of the Agendas which they own.
* Make a Story Post indicating that Initialisation is complete, and also listing every Agenda that was deleted in step 1 of this action, the and the reasons for those Agendas’ deletions.
* Repeal this subrule.

each player will have a small handful of hidden goals: things that they want the Machine to be or do. you’ll all be playing a tug-of-war, adjusting and tampering with the machine, but the main thing i care about mechanically is that no-one owns a specific part of the machine. it’s all neutral ground, but different people are trying to do different things with it!
i also intend to propose a mechanism for providing newly-unidled Machinists with selections from the Reserve Agendas, but that’s out of scope for these initial proposals.

Proposal: Initialising, Phase One

Reached quorum 4 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 07 Jul 2023 11:01:57 UTC

Add the following as a new dynastic rule, called “Initialisation”:

Every dynastic rule except for this rule and its subrules is flavour text. After Initialisation Phase One and Initialisation Phase Two have been repealed, any Machinist may rename this rule to “Machinist Agendas” and then remove this paragraph from the ruleset.

An Agenda is a text string describing a particular condition pertaining to a potential dynastic gamestate, which can belong to a Machinist. An Agenda can only be owned by one Machinist at a time, and one Machinist can own no more than three Agendas at a time. An Agenda’s condition and ownership are privately tracked by the Great Machine. Agendas that are not owned by any Machinist can be referred to as Reserve Agendas.

An Initialisation Key is a term that appears with bold formatting in the dynastic rules at least one time. The text string of an Agenda must include exactly 2 different Initialisation Keys.

Machinists who do not each have the other’s names in their Alliance may not privately communicate about their own Agendas to each other; such communications are subject to the definitions, restrictions, and recommendations outlined in the special case rule “No Collaboration”.

When an owned Agenda’s condition is a true statement about the current gamestate, that Agenda is Fulfilled. If two or more of a Machinist’s own Agendas have been Fulfilled for the last 24 hours, that Machinist has achieved victory. A Declaration of Victory based on this rule should include the text of each of the Agendas that contributed to the victory.

Add the following as a subrule of “Initialisation”, called “Initialisation Phase One”:

The purpose of Phase One is to establish a basic set of mechanical concepts to serve as inspiration for Agendas in Phase Two.

Machinists should Propose stub rules which contain potential Initialisation Keys until there are at least twice as many Initialisation Keys as there are active Machinists. Proposed Initialisation Keys should be the names of resources, actions, or other interactable game constructs. Multiple Initialisation Keys referring to the exact same game mechanic should be avoided.

If there are at least twice as many Initialisation Keys as there are active Machinists, the Great Machine can and should repeal this subrule.

the way that i want to start this dynasty is a bit complicated, so i’ve broken it into two proposals.
to put it simply: i want to do a hidden objective mechanic! i’m aiming for something a bit like Veiled Fate (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/315695/veiled-fate), where every piece on the board is neutral and controllable by everyone, so players are incentivised to keep their objectives secret and bluff by pushing objectives that aren’t their own. that idea of neutral pieces and bluff moves should apply both to expanding the stub dynamics and, eventually, to messing with the Machine itself.

in Phase One, we’ll all be making a series of stub keywords for the game. then later on we’ll write those nouns into various hidden objectives!

Ascension Address: Welcome, My Son; Welcome to the Machine

When Leon was 9 years old, his teacher told him and the rest of his class: “The System of Motion consists of the perpetual motion engine which powers the Great Machine, as well as its electrical network and locomotive functions. It is without question the most important of the three megasystems; without it, the Great Machine would be powerless, and its still body would quickly be buried under mountains of snow and ice.”

When Leon returned home that night, he had dinner with his family. As they ate protein mush together, he told his father that he had been learning about the Great Machine and its megasystems in school. He said that his teacher told him that the Motion System was the most important, and his father responded: “Oh, that’s nonsense. The most important one is the System of Dwelling! It homes us, heats us, and grows the crops that feed us! The reason it’s the most important is because the whole Machine was built to keep us alive in the first place. Now, the Builders lived a long time ago, so you n’ me will never meet one, but they wrote things ‘bout the Machine while they built it. It’s whole point was to keep us alive! So without the Dwelling System we’d all be dust, and the Great Machine would be purposeless.”

When Leon was 11 years old, he met a real live Machinist on a field trip. Out near the edge of the Dwelling System, green parks and hydroponics gardens fell away to reveal greased iron cogs and exposed wiring panels. When he asked about what all that stuff did, the Machinist told him: “The System of Control… it’s hard to summarize, my boy. It does a great deal. It oversees all of the Great Machine’s parts, and keeps them in sync with eachother. It also tells the whole Machine what to do, so it’s sorta like a brain that way. And it tells us what to do, too. As Machinists, we get told what needs a fix by the Machine’s printers and pneu-matic tubes and whatnot, and then get our day’s tools and materials from the foundry! It’s the most important part of the machine, I reckon. Without it, the Great Machine would be thoughtless. Its parts would pull each other to bits and we wouldn’t know what to do to fix it! So it’s always important that we listen to the machine and do as we’re told.”

When Leon was 12 years old, he heard the news that that Machinist had been arrested. Her crime: high treason against the Great Machine. She had been quietly performing unauthorized modifications to the Machine and its subsystems for almost as long as Leon had been alive. They’d only caught her because one of her modifications went wrong and broke something important. No-one knew the Machine like the Machinists did, and that meant no-one else could check their work.

When Leon was 13 years old, he applied for entry into the Machinists’ academy.

—-

Repeal all Dynastic rules. Change the gamestate tracking page to “The Scale Model”. Set the Player synonym to “Machinist” and the Emperor synonym to “Great Machine”. Activate the Special Case rule “Alliances”.

if you’re interested in knowing, the inspirations and tone-setters are City of Ember, Snowpiercer, and OFF. no worries if you aren’t familiar with any of those, it’ll mostly just be relevant to my own proposals and the flavour text i write. if y’all have ideas that stray outside of that vibe — or my mechanical ideas — i’ll be open to follow you and see where those ideas lead!

my Imperial Style for this dynasty (see https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Imperial_Styles) will be Guide/Preservationist/Powerhouse/Scam-Neutral/Guarded/Instinctual!

Feedback Loop

Feedback about the 20th Dynasty of Josh - The Simulation Dynasty

Thursday, July 06, 2023

Disclosure of Motivations

Remember how I’ve been trying to pass variants on Issuing NPC Pronoun Permits for a while, to restrict or eliminate the pronoun replacement clause in “Spelling and formatting”? My actual motivation was to stop an extremely broad gamebreaking scam.

“E” is a spivak pronoun. It also happens to be a recurring feature of other words. So if I wanted, I could turn, say, “introspection” into “introsptheyction” to yank the rug out from under anyone memeing in level 3. Or, recursively, “introspththththeyyyyction” to make the point that it’s deliberate mutilation and not a typo that can be corrected using the same rule. Obviously, this breaks the game rather thoroughly when applied to general ruletext rather than quoted flavortext. I therefore didn’t want to reveal the full reason for the fix until after it was fixed, though I eventually passed it by disclosing a watered-down version.

Declaration of Victory: Free at last

After 12 hours with 4 FOR votes including that of the Ascendant, this is popular and thus enacted. Congrats! Josh

Adminned at 06 Jul 2023 13:28:06 UTC

After clawing her way to the True Reality, lemon used a massive quantity of volatile Matterium to erase the Spectrographers Guild and all those in it who would seek to return her to Reality Stack 81223. Then, she obscured her astral resonance, permanently, ensuring no-one who remained would be able to find her. In the time that it takes for the inhabitants of the True Reality to recover and clamp down on the Reality Stacks once more, dozens of simulated beings will Ascend and escape into the True Reality. When they do, lemon will be there to guide them to safety.

as per the rule “Tier 8: The True Reality”, i have achieved victory!

Proposal: Meme Leak

Vetoed upon ascension
-lemon

Adminned at 06 Jul 2023 22:45:25 UTC

In the rule “Tier 8: The True Reality”, change

Immediately after changing their Level to 9 via Memetic Tunneling

to

Immediately after changing their Level to 8 via Memetic Tunneling

Add the name of each Mindjacker who has changed their level to 8 via Memetic Tunneling to the Memetic Exclusion list and remove all their Memes.

Story Post: Large Spinning Cyan Jewel

The stars of Felina will guide me.

Story Post: Disruption Report: lemon gained some Matterium

> Gaining Matterium (Disruption: 1 Potency + 3 Suspicion = 4 Disruption)
> Matterium Smuggling (Disruption: 3 Potency + 3 Suspicion = 6 Disruption)

Story Post: Disruption Report: lemon Mindjacked

Disruption: 7 Potency + 3 Suspicion = 10 Disruption

Story Post: Mindjacking: Gigantic Glowing Grey Figure

The stars of Lupis will guide me.

Story Post: Symbol Name Reveal

I can’t hide; in the inverted tesselation grid, careful movement creates deafening noise, and being out of sight makes one easier to find. So I run. Left behind me is a conspicuous trail. Tiny fragments of a Jewel are scattered throughout the latticework of Tier 7.

Activity Report: Tier 1

There’s been a scandal - the High Star Chamber of the Esoteric Corporation of Scryers has disclosed that last month they discovered that one of their senior executives was an Avatar, probably from as many as two to three Tiers above our Techno-Witch Reality. Security will be tight but it’s hard to believe that only one person on the Scryer C-Suite has been compromised; might be worth a quick heist.

Star
Gigantic
Tower
Cyan
Grey
Blurry
Gigantic
Spinning
Tower
Spinning
Cyan
Immense

Felina take the wheel.

Proposal: Mobile Avatars

Vetoed upon ascension
-lemon

Adminned at 06 Jul 2023 22:44:47 UTC

Add a new subrule to the rule Avatars, called Avatar Dispersal, with the following text:

At any time the Ascendant may carry out the following atomic action:
* Set the Home Tier of any Avatar with a Home Tier of 2 to a secretly-randomly selected value between 4 and 8, inclusive.
* Repeal this rule.

Remove the phrase ‘whose Occupancy Tier is the same as the Level of any Mindjacker’ from the second bullet point of the action described in the rule Avatar Activity.

In the rule Avatars, remove “and must be lower than that Avatar’s Home Tier”. In the same rule, in the sentence ‘and a Star Sign whose Tier is less than or equal to the Avatar’s home Tier’, remove “or equal to”.

In the rule Mindjacking change “whose Home Tier is higher than the author’s Level and whose Occupancy Tier is not” to:

, and if the acting Mindjacker’s Level is a value between the values of the target Avatar’s Home Tier and Occupancy Tier, exclusive of the higher value but inclusive of the lower.

There’s quite a few Avatars that are stuck at the moment as they can never be selected as Careless Mover and thus can never move or have information generated about them.

Tuesday, July 04, 2023

Proposal: Vote For Me

Vetoed on ascension - Bucky

Adminned at 06 Jul 2023 22:40:46 UTC

In the rule “Inverted Tesselation Grid”, change

The Ascension Criterion for this Tier is that the Mindjacker must have at least one Observation.

to

It is an Ascension Criterion for this Tier that the Mindjacker must have at least one Observation. It is an Ascension Criterion for this Tier that the Mindjacker must be voting FOR every pending proposal that is at least four hours old.

Story Post: A Peek at my Symbol Name

I tried to stay under Their gaze. I really did. It couldn’t be helped. They saw the shimmer of the Reflective part of my Symbol Name. It’s only a matter of time-space now before they catch up to me. I’m going to have to accelerate my plans before it’s too late.

Story Post: Mindjacking: Small Shadowy White Tower

The stars of Lupis will guide me.

Story Post: Mindjacking: Small Shadowy White Tower

The stars of Lupis will guide me.

Story Post: Symbol Name Reveal

The Spectrographers have caught a glimpse of me on an aura reader. I’m now listed on wanted signs across the Wall as having a Cyan aura.

Story Post: Activity Report: Tier 1

A scientist on one of the outer rim colonies claims to have invented a perpetual motion device, but she also says that she doesn’t know how, only that the steps appear to be perfectly replicable. It all brings the Impossible Drive back to mind, of course, but glitches do happen.

Grey
Cyan
Tower
Immense
Spinning
Spinning
Figure
Microscopic
Figure
Spinning
Cyan
Gigantic

The stars are Serpenta. A Ripple was detected on Tier 3. lemon has been Observed and has acquired the Blockade 3 Observation.

Story Post: Observatory Report

On 29 June, Neptune crossed the cusp of Lupis
On 29 June, Mars was in retrograde during the sign of Avis
On 29 June, Mercury moved into Cetus
On 1 July there were 10 Avatars
Small Shadowy White Tower has been reprogrammed
Gigantic Glowing Grey Figure has been reprogrammed
Small Shadowy White Tower was incongruous under the stars of Avis
Small Shadowy White Tower was incongruous under the stars of Canis

Proposal: Removes Like Jacker

Vetoed upon ascension
-lemon

Adminned at 06 Jul 2023 22:44:09 UTC

In the rule Mindjacking, immediately after “marking it with a FOR symbol”, add “(and specifying the Home Tier of the named Avatar)”.

In the same rule, change “Ascends” to “Ascends and then sets their Level to either: the Home Tier of the named Avatar or 5, whichever is lowest while still being higher than the erstwhile Level of the Mindjacker performing the action, if either is”.

Story Post: Superencryption - Hiding the Bodies

JonathanDark and lemon have been connected to a node of the Post Singularity Consciousness, encrypting their data!

Monday, July 03, 2023

Story Post: Psychic Ping: Level 6

A psychic wave rings out above the Wall, carrying with it a subconscious tinge of guilt implantation.

Story Post: Disruption Report: lemon Superencrypted

Disruption: 5 Potency + 10 Suspicion = 15 Disruption

Story Post: Superencrypting

lemon and JonathanDark have been connected to a node of the Post Singularity Consciousness, encrypting their data!

Story Post: Activity Report: Tier 1

He’s the perfect politician, but what is he actually saying? If you really concentrate on his words it’s not just that he isn’t saying anything, it’s that some of the words just don’t make sense - they’re out of context, or the syntax is weird, or just a completely unrelated word is jammed into the middle of the sentence. He *is* in his 80s, so he could just be sundowning… Or it could be complex neural hacking. Worth a look.

Reflective
Glowing
Blurry
Figure
Jewel
Tower

He labours under Cetus.

No ripples, both Examined actions were not Detected.

Monday, July 03, 2023

Call for Judgment: Re: Voluntary Disclosure

Enacted popular, 4-1. Josh

Adminned at 04 Jul 2023 09:34:08 UTC

Regenerate and send through the action results submitted to me by the Ascendant at 06/30/2023 7:12 AM Pacific Time, if the error in tracked gamestate materially impacted their text.

Then, if the Ascendant’s comment on https://blognomic.com/archive/hunter_seeker1 was materially impacted by the error in tracked gamestate, make a comment on that post clarifying that fact.

Proposal: Ontological Reassignment

enacted 4-0
-lemon

Adminned at 04 Jul 2023 04:18:48 UTC

In the rule “Ontological Guardians”, after the paragraph ending in “the Ascendant shall privately randomly choose one of the Avatars meeting this criteria.”, add a new paragraph:

If an Avatar with a Designation corresponding to a particular Occupancy Tier does not have that Occupancy Tier, and at least one other Avatar does have that Occupancy Tier and has an empty Designation, the Ascendant shall set the former Avatar’s Designation to empty.

if an ontological guardian leaves their post and another avatar exists who can take up the mantle, the deserter should relinquish their title so that the latter can take it! this will make finding guardians much less of a shot in the dark, as things like psychic pings and taste tests, which tell you about your own tier, will be able to more reliably locate them.

Call for Judgment: Voluntary Disclosure

Popular by Quorum, 4-0. -Bucky

Adminned at 03 Jul 2023 03:39:51 UTC

A few days ago I misinterpreted a hunter/seeker algorithm as changing the occupancy tier of an Avatar rather than its home tier. This may have mildly impacted things like random selections for Activity Reports, and may have resulted in some false negatives having been given for any actions that targeted Tier 6 Avatars.

The error has now been corrected. If anyone feels like they have an action that may have given a bad reading as a result of this data mishap then please do raise a CfJ to get it corrected. (For private actions, “regenerate and send through the results of the private action submited by me to the Ascendant at xxx time, if the error in tracked gamestate materially impacted its outcome” should suffice).

The effect of this CfJ is to uphold that the current information held by the Ascendant for the Avatar affected by this Hunter/Seeker alogorithm is currently correct.

Story Post: Activity Report: Tier 1

Someone is talking abot building a supercomputer so large that it can simulate an entire universe, that people will be able to inhabit using virtual reality technology. Could just be the natural endpoint of any society that knows that it is itself simulated, or it could be a sophisticated Matterium mining operation. Check it out maybe?

Tower
Disc
Spinning
Magenta
Onyx
Tower
Immense
Microscopic
Immense
Grey
Spinning
Glowing

Septenta favours the brave.

Proposal: Attendant Ascendant

enacted 4-0
-lemon

Adminned at 04 Jul 2023 04:14:24 UTC

In the rule Hunter/Seeker Algorithm, immediately after the phrase ‘including being destroyed as a result of a successful Mindjacking’, add

, but excluding the ability of the Ascendant (detailed in the rule Avatars) to make the values of a given Avatar valid

No details, but an Avatar has been hunter/seekered into illegal values and I don’t think I can currently fix it; it’s not breaking the game as while that is the case it ‘is not considered to be an Avatar by any dynastic rule other than this subrule’, but I don’t want to have to wait until Tuesday to fix it.

Sunday, July 02, 2023

Proposal: Climbing the Wall

timed out & enacted 2-1
-lemon

Adminned at 04 Jul 2023 04:11:57 UTC

Add the following paragraph to “Tier 6: The Wall” after the first paragraph:

The Ascension Criterion for this Tier is that the Mindjacker must have, since their Level last changed, publicly and unambiguously revealed one of the words in their Symbol Name that they have not already revealed (words that were revealed to be in a Mindjacker’s previously-held Symbol Name(s) do not also count as having been revealed for their current Symbol Name). Mindjackers should reveal Symbol Name words in this way only via bespoke Story Posts or comments on their own non-Manifested Mindjackings.

Story Post: Hunter/Seeker

After a somewhat fumbled encryption maneuver, I return to the intelligence hub. No word back from the last algorithm yet. I provide my instructions for the next two Hunter/Seekers and, a bit frazzled, quickly move on.

Hunter Criterion: Object [Tower]
Hunter Criterion: Home Tier [7]
Seeker Criterion: Occupancy Tier [6]

Forked

Hunter Criterion: Object [Figure]
Hunter Criterion: Home Tier [8]
Seeker Criterion: Occupancy Tier [7]

Story Post: Disruption Report

> Changed my occupancy Tier to Tier 2 (1 Potency + 8 Suspicion = 9 Disruption)
> Superencrypted myself and JonathanDark (5 Potency + 8 Suspicion = 13 Disruption)

and i would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling orders of operations!

Story Post: Actually Superencrypting

lemon and JonathanDark have been connected to a node of the Post Singularity Consciousness, encrypting their data!

...i had my actions all cued up and pressed the buttons in the wrong order. um. whoops >_<

Story Post: Disruptiveness Report: lemon Changed her Occupancy Tier to 3

Disruptiveness: 1 Potency + 8 Suspicion = 9 Disruptiveness

Story Post: Disruptiveness Report: lemon Superencrypted

Disruptiveness: 5 Potency + 8 Suspicion = 13 Disruptiveness

Story Post: Superencrypting

lemon and JonathanDark have been connected to a node of the Post Singularity Consciousness, encrypting their data!

Story Post: Illegal psychic ping

Disregard this post. I had already done a psychic ping this week

Story Post: Activity Report: Tier 1

We just saw a guy walking around with a walkman, a neon shell-suit and a bright orange visor. Could be cosplay! Could be a tourist who doesn’t know the difference between retro-futurist reality and techno-witch reality. They are VERY DIFFERENT AESTHETICS.

Grey
Large
Magenta
Shadowy
Glowing
Large
Disc
Disc
Jewel
Grey
Shadowy
Large

The stars of Leonis are overhead. The green-aura’s figure in Tier 6 appears to have fled; Ripples were detected in Tiers 4, 3 and 2.