Monday, August 03, 2009

On Completing Good Deeds

Some things about completing the Steps of Good Deeds:

The only ways that each Step can be “accomplished” are enumerated in the Ruleset. These ways fall under 2 categories:

1. Specifically defined: Written out directly in a Rule, such as: “A Bill Murray can “Find the Whales” by spending 4 Icicles.”
2. When all the terms in a Step are defined in the Ruleset in such a way that they can be “accomplished” in the normal English sense.

While it may seem that you have completed a step in another way, unless it conforms to one (or more) of these 2 methods, it hasn’t actually been accomplished in a real Gamestate method; otherwise, there would be all sorts of shades of meaning as to whether something had been “accomplished.” cf. “edible” back in arth’s Dynasty.

It is necessary for me to say this because Bucky has tried to claim that he completed the first 3 Steps of the Good Deed “Writing the History.” Technically, he has not, since things like “History” and “Empty Section” are not defined by our Ruleset. Since I doubt anyone would deny that he has done these things in the past, I would suggest Bucky Propose that he has completed these Steps already; or, otherwise, Propose a Rule that will define the missing terms in that Step.

Outside that, the idea was really to add more to the History (i.e. something you’re just doing now), although I would hardly be offended if your Rules allow Steps to be “accomplished” retroactively. But when you are adding Steps, keep in mind that unless all terms in a Step are defined by the Ruleset, then a new Rule needs to be Proposed and passed in order for those Steps to ever be accomplished by anyone.

posted by Qwazukee at 03 Aug 2009 00:34:01 UTC Comments (5)

Comments

Bucky:

03-08-2009 00:56:34 UTC

“A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word” means that if a keyword is not defined by the rules, its normal English meaning is in full effect.  And while the History pages are not currently defined in the ruleset, they have been referenced as such in past rulesets without being explicitly defined. These two points between them cover the scope of my claims.  (well, that and archiving the ruleset from the previous dynasty)

Bucky:

03-08-2009 00:58:20 UTC

Addendum:  The History pages were created by a proposal which didn’t create a rule to back them.  As a result, they are a defined part of the game, but not gamestate information.

Qwazukee:

03-08-2009 01:03:30 UTC

I’m really not trying to be a jerk, Bucky, I’m just afraid that unless this is tight, the “shades of meaning” discussion will eventually cause this Dynasty to fall apart.

You raise a couple of issues.

1. “History” really needs to be defined in the Ruleset, at least in the Glossary. It’s silly that it has existed like this for so long.

2. I don’t think the English definition of “History” is enough here. A history of something could exist anywhere; I have no doubt that the history of Blognomic is included, at least partially, in places outside that one wiki document. Since this is at least slightly ambiguous, I think that it can’t be counted without a specific definition in the Ruleset somewhere.

Feel free to CfJ about it, if everyone else thinks I’m being too strict then I’ll back off. I just want to be really careful that this doesn’t end badly.

Bucky:

03-08-2009 01:25:01 UTC

The Dynastic Records used to be defined in the ruleset.  That clause was removed by (http://blognomic.com/archive/reductio_imperator/) to allow players to edit them freely.

Qwazukee:

03-08-2009 01:31:52 UTC

Haha, you voted against it, Bucky (for a completely unrelated reason).

Anyway, we should define the History once more, even if only for the purposes of this Dynasty (perhaps as a Dynastic Rule).