Sunday, July 27, 2025

Proposal: Oysters on the Oregon Trail

Popular, 8-4. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 28 Jul 2025 19:08:25 UTC

In the rule “The Night” (2.3), insert a step into the atomic action “Sale”, after “They buy their meal” and before “They leave the plaza”:

They eat their meal: If the Active Customer’s Choice contains the Ingredient “Oyster”, then the Yard roles a DICE20 to determine the outcome(s). (If multiple conditions apply, then all of the applicable actions must be followed in the order they are written.)
* If the result is equal to 1: The Active Customer shares their story on social media. During the next Night, that Truck does not perform a Sale.
* If the result is less than or equal to 2: The Active Customer gets food poisoning. The Truck whose Menu contained the purchased Dish refunds the Price of the Dish by deducting the Price of the Dish from that Truck’s Dollars (to a minimum of $0). The Active Customer returns home and is immediately removed from the Customers list.
* If the result is greater than 15: The Active Customer is pleased, and gives a flat Tip of $5, which is immediately added to that Truck’s Dollars.
* If the result is equal to 20: The Active Customer shares their story on social media. During the next Night, that Truck gains an additional $5 from any Sales that they perform (on top of the Price of the Choice and any Tips).

If the proposal “No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” has been enacted, in the subrule “Dishes” (2.1.1), replace the paragraph starting with “The available Ingredients” with:

The available Ingredients and their Costs are: Oyster ($5), Beef ($3), Lamb ($3), Chicken ($2), Pork ($2), Falafel ($1), Wrap ($1), Salad ($1), Cheese ($1), Sauce ($1).

Otherwise, if the proposal “No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” has not been enacted, replace that paragraph with:

The available Ingredients are: Oyster, Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Pork, Falafel, Wrap, Salad, Cheese, Sauce.

This would allow only players who opted in to take the risk of food poisoning, for a potential bonus.

Comments

eternalservererror:

27-07-2025 20:26:29 UTC

  for I like it. Those who don’t want to take the risks don’t have to.

Clucky: he/him

27-07-2025 22:21:06 UTC

for

Darknight: he/him

28-07-2025 00:26:28 UTC

for

DoomedIdeas: he/him

28-07-2025 03:25:07 UTC

for

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

28-07-2025 05:52:54 UTC

for excellent implementation

Chiiika: she/her

28-07-2025 07:48:23 UTC

also; fyi; you may want to reference rules by names instead of points because points may change with previous enactments

Josh: he/they

28-07-2025 07:51:49 UTC

against This is still essentially obligatory, as a 1-in-4 chance of getting a minimum 25% bump is too much to allow your competitors to have while you don’t, and that’s the kind of slightly boring dice-decision that dice-mechanics make you do, working out equity and then grimly trudging to the outcome.

In order for this to have tension as a decision the balance between the good outcome and the bad outcome need to be equal or tilted slightly towards the bad. The good outcome being 2.5x more likely than the bad makes this a no brainer.

Also it means that anyone who has already posted their Menu for this round does not have access to this obviously beneficial decision.

Kevan: Yard he/him

28-07-2025 08:12:12 UTC

imperial Does sound like the numbers need more work here. Players can change their Menus at any time before the Night, though.

aria: she/they

28-07-2025 11:16:47 UTC

I’m not particularly attached to any of the numbers, I do understand the reasoning behind what Josh said. I would (probably) vote for a followup proposal that tweaked the numbers to be a little more risky.

Chiiika: she/her

28-07-2025 11:36:45 UTC

against cf Josh

eternalservererror:

28-07-2025 12:29:45 UTC

As a virtual Prep action, a Truck may change its Menu to any list of Dishes.

I don’t see any limit on the number of virtual Prep actions that can be taken. Does the ruleset specifically need to say that this can be done any number of times?

eternalservererror:

28-07-2025 12:30:29 UTC

Oops, just saw Kevan’s comment.

JonathanDark: he/him

28-07-2025 12:51:38 UTC

“Players can change their Menus at any time before the Night, though.” is enough for me.

for to Pass-and-Fix the numbers

Josh: he/they

28-07-2025 15:11:44 UTC

@JonathanDark You can fiddle with the numbers but all you’ll be left with is ‘roll dice against fixed odds to win or lose.’ It will never be a fun decision.

arthexis: he/him

28-07-2025 15:20:22 UTC

for

Desertfrog:

28-07-2025 18:48:32 UTC

Mildly against

Vovix: he/him

28-07-2025 18:58:33 UTC

against Still personally not a fan of output randomness, and as Josh pointed out, rolling the dice here is expected to be a good decision (which makes it even more frustrating when it backfires)