BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

This is Habanero’s idea, taking the one from “Let’s Move On” and modifying the second bullet point:

A Snail in the Bucket or on the Bench does not count as a Snail for the purposes of dynastic rules other than this one, with the following exceptions:
* When a dynastic rule makes an explicit reference to Snails in the Bucket or on the Bench, then those Snails are considered to be Snails for the purposes of that reference
* Snails in the Bucket or on the Bench have the same gamestate variables as those not in the Bucket or on the Bench

My concern with this idea is that “Snails in the Bucket or on the Bench have the same gamestate variables” could be interpreted to mean that they contain the same values as other Snails’ variables. The phrase “have the same gamestate variables” may still be too loose.

I’d think a variable and a value for that variable are two very different things that you can’t just say are the same. Maybe that’s just programmer brain though and the distinction isn’t at all clear to the non-nerd.

Would it just be easier to replace all the definitions of the variables with say “Snails (including those in the Bucket or on the Bench) have a publicly tracked amount of blah blah blah”? Then we wouldn’t even need the second bullet point. Hopefully we can all agree the first one works as intended.

After thinking it over some more, I don’t think the first one works quite as intended either. It’s too restrictive, things like (this isn’t actually in the rules) “Select a random Snail, including those in the Bucket. That Snail gains 1 Fame” would be broken because the second “Snail” doesn’t explicitly mention Snails in the Bucket, even if that Snail might implicitly be in the Bucket.

I think I’m beginning to see Josh’s point with the positive statement. Might just be easier to say Bucket Snails can’t take any dynastic actions while there’s an Ongoing Race instead of trying to iron out a statement which manages to exactly specify all of our plain English intuitions about when we’re referring to Bucket Snails and when we aren’t.

My revised suggestion is just replacing the whole mess with

Snails in the Bucket or on the Bench may not take any dynastic actions while there’s an Ongoing Race.

It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s impossible to creatively interpret. We might need to do some combing over the rules to correct a few spots (the Award Ceremony comes to mind, e.g. the Fan Favourite should only be calculated among those who are actually racing), but after that we should be in the clear.

That’s actually quite elegant, and I’m surprised we didn’t think of it sooner. Well done!