Prompt: Fictional Futuristic Device
Reminder that all Acrotypes will be Secret from here on out unless the rules are changed.
Welcome to BlogNomic, a self-modifying game where changing the rules is a move. Players make blog posts proposing alterations to the ruleset, discussing and casting votes in the comments: if enough vote in favour, the rules are changed and play continues.
The game has been running since 2003 and resets every month or so. Have a look around the wiki for more information and history, or join our Discord. New players are always welcome to join the game at any time.
Prompt: Fictional Futuristic Device
Reminder that all Acrotypes will be Secret from here on out unless the rules are changed.
In the rule Idle Wordsmiths, change
unless the Wordsmith who would become Active has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days)
to
unless the Wordsmith who would become Active has become Idle within the past 48 hours (2 days)
In the rule “Scoring”, replace “a Scoring posted to it from every active Wordsmith other than it’s author” with “a Scoring posted to it from every active Playing Wordsmith other than it’s author” and replace “For each Wordsmith other than the Puzzler that did not post a Scoring” with “For each Playing Wordsmith other than the Puzzler that did not post a Scoring”
If a Wordsmith is Yielding, maybe we shouldn’t have to wait on them to post Scorings and penalize them for not Scoring other Wordsmiths’ Backronyms. Yes, they could just idle, but the point of Yielding over idling is the intention to continue playing, just not this particular Acronym round.
Are you a Druid looking for animal companions, then come on down to Weird Al’s DnD to grab yourself a Raccoon Radar Beeping Machine. Weird Al’s DnD, where we put the strange in strangest and the odd in oddities.
In the rule “Scoring”, change
for each word in the title of that Backronym that includes all the letters of a Buzzword, text with that title word and the position of that Buzzword in the Buzzwords list
to
for each word in the title of that Backronym that includes all the letters of at least one Buzzword, text with that title word and the position of the first such Buzzword in the Buzzwords list
It’s quite possible for one word to super-match two different Buzzwords that contain similar letters, but the current rule assumes each Backronym word only triggers the information-granting clause on one buzzword, so this clarifies how the Puzzler’s supposed to handle it by using the Buzzword-list order.
Add the following text to the end of the rule “Favorites”:
For the purpose of matching Favorites to words, differences in pluralization, tense or grammatical aspect are considered to be irrelevant, as is the difference between the positive, comparative and superlative forms of an adjective.
They should still work if someone adds an “s” or “ing” to the end.
Intended for high stakes corporate negotiations, our two-camera facial scanner with cutting-edge expression recognition technology and attached universal language model can determine both when one participant in a discussion offended or confused another to within a tenth of a second, as well as the specific vague communication or linguistic or cultural differences that led to it, within four minutes of the offense.
In “scoring” replace “lowest number of points” with “second lowest number of points”
Giving people who still want to join now an outside chance at winning
The RRBM allows you to observe Rusty Robot Battles from a safe distance. Turns out we still haven’t cured tetanus in the future and so staying away from shrapnel benefits everyone.
The ultimate in non-lethal solutions to war. Don’t kill your enemies - just shrink them! Guaranteed to scale down biological life forms to at least one-tenth their original size. CAUTION: Lingering radiation in the blast area will continue to produce effects for the next 10,000 years +/- 100 years. Subjects entering the blast area after detonation should wear appropriate shielding and spend no more than 3 days in the area.
Nothing will spoil your day more than a pair of rocket boots firing with different propulsive forces! Even the smallest of fuel miscalibrations can be uncomfortable on a long journey. Perfectly balanced at even the highest of speeds, this rapid-feedback manifold modulator fits either heelplate and will ensure that wherever you go, you will always be putting both feet forward!
A plant that is used to devolve hostile organisms at the genetic level, such as removing antibiotic resistance in bacteria, eliminating animal-to-human transmission in viruses, or selectively de-inbreeding dog breeds.
Reached quorum 4 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.
Adminned at 08 Jul 2025 13:27:50 UTC
In “Scoring”, add a new bullet point after the first in the “may make a Scoring on a Backronym as long as all of the following are true” list:-
* No Backronym has been Closed since the most recent Acrogenerate action (if the Acrotype is Secret)
Before “Once a Backronym has been resolved”, add a new paragraph:-
If the Acronym is Secret, then an Open Backronym can only be resolved if every Open Backronym was either posted at least 48 hours ago, or has a Scoring posted to it from every active Wordsmith other than its author.
Removing the temptation for players to wait for early Secret Backronyms to resolve and have their author publicly identified, before using that information to cast (or change) a Score on a later one. This proposes that the Puzzler can’t start closing the Backronyms until all of them are closable, and that further Scores can’t be posted while he’s doing that.
Popular, 6-0 with 1 DEF and Puzzler voting FOR. Enacted by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 17:47:45 UTC
In the rule “Acronym”, replace “If the result is less than or equal to the Threshold” with:-
If the result is less than or equal to the Threshold (or if the state of the blog is Endgame)
Patching the greater/less oversight in Keep Endgame Verdict Absolutely Nonrandom.
Popular, 7-0. Enacted by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 12:28:59 UTC
If “Keeping Evasive View, Anonymous Neophite” was not enacted, enact it.
In the rule “The Word Bank”, remove the text “If the Acrotype is not Secret, then”.
In the same rule, just before the text “When a Wordsmith posts a Backronym” insert the text “If the Acrotype is not Secret, “.
In the rule “Acronym”, insert the following as the first step in the Acrogenerate atomic action:
* If the Acrotype is Secret, add all of the words in the title of every Backronym posted since the most recent Acrogenerate to The Word Bank, ignoring words that are already in The Word Bank.
During a Secret Acrotype, words don’t get added to The Word Bank until the start of the next Acrogenerate, allowing folks to still anonymously post Backronyms and adhere to the current Word Bank while eventually contributing their titles to the Word Bank for the next round.
Withdrawn. Failed by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 12:27:31 UTC
If “Keeping Evasive View, Anonymous Neophite” was not enacted, enact it.
In the rule “The Word Bank”, remove the text “If the Acrotype is not Secret,”
Seems like there’s a fair number of people in favor of keeping the Acrotype Secret, but also keeping the Word Bank in play. Why not both?
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 12:38:38 UTC
In Russian politics, to be loved is to be feared, and to win the national heart of the people is to rule with strength and indomitable will. Can you balance the ruthlessness of purging your political rivals with successfully managing one of the largest countries on earth to be the most beloved leader of the Russian people? A game of negotiation, resource management, and push-your-luck, for 2-5 players.
I think I’m slowing the game down quite a bit right now, and I don’t think I’ll be able to speed up my actions much, so I am hereby requesting to be idled.
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 12:37:24 UTC
In the newest expansion to the hit board game, Global Takeover, three new factions emerge, ready to claim the world for their own. Drain your opponent’s will as hungry vampires, abduct and probe you’re way to victory as invading aliens or spread godly fear as ruler wielding nuns.
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 12:35:22 UTC
Another exciting expansion in the classic tile laying game series.
Timed out and failed, 6-1. Josh
Adminned at 07 Jul 2025 07:27:26 UTC
Add a new subrule to the rule “Scoring”. Call it Authorized Secrets and give it the following text:
Although the author of a Scoring is generally encouraged to share the reasoning behind it, the following information is expressly exempt from such disclosure and should not be shared in a Scoring even if it strongly affects the score:
* The identity of their Rival
* Any Wordsmith’s Favorites
* The true author of a Backronym in a Secret Round
By putting this in a subrule of Scoring, “The Puzzler is considered to be a Wordsmith” applies to it.
Times out Unpopular 2-3. -Bucky
Adminned at 06 Jul 2025 19:44:42 UTC
Add the following as a new paragraph in the rule “Favorites”
As a Virtual Round Action, a Wordsmith may remove a word from their Favorites.
Allowing players to slowly shift their favorites list if they decide they want to change its layout over time
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 22:40:04 UTC
Race to capture a fellow player’s heart tokens before they do the same to each other. Buy time by causing breakups and breakdowns, because only two of you will win.
Timed out and failed, 3-3. Josh
Adminned at 06 Jul 2025 10:46:36 UTC
In the rule Acronym, change
Set the current Acrotype to a publicly randomly selected Acrotype. Repeat this step if the selected Acrotype is the same as the Acrotype selected in the most recent Acrogenerate before this one.
Perform the Steps listed in the table that are associated with the current Acrotype, in the order in which they are listed for that Acrotype.
to read
Set the current Acrotype to be Secret, and then perform the Steps for that Arcotype, ignoring the result and repeating this step if the selected Acrotype is the same as the Acrotype selected in the most recent Acrogenerate before this one.
Anonymous entries might be more fun.
Popular, 4-0 with 1 DEF and reduced quorum from Puzzler voting DEF. Enacted by JonathanDark. Skipped the instruction to replace “If the result is greater than or equal to the Threshold” as that text no longer exists.
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 13:53:06 UTC
In “The Threshold”, remove the definition of the Finalize action, and replace “Final Acronym” with “Endgame Acronym”.
In “Acronym”, replace “If the state of the blog is Endgame, cease performing the rest of this action and instead Perform the Finalize action” with:-
If the state of the blog is Endgame and a single Wordsmith has more points than any other Wordsmith (ignoring any Wordsmiths that are not allowed to achieve Victory for other reasons), skip the rest of this action and instead make a blog post declaring that Wordsmith victorious; upon doing so, that Wordsmith achieves victory
Replace “If the result is greater than or equal to the Threshold” with:-
If the result is greater than or equal to the Threshold (or if the state of the blog is Endgame)
Tied endgame scores are quite likely to happen, with how close the scores are. We could just run another round of Endgame if that happens, instead of flipping a coin.
Reached quorum 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 12:03:57 UTC
In the rule “Acronym”, replace the text “If the result is greater than or equal to the Threshold” with “If the result is less than or equal to the Threshold”.
In the rule “Scoring”, move the text “, or twice the result if the state of the blog is Endgame” to just after the text “and add the result to the Points of the author of that Backronym”.
Threshold increases as the median Wordsmith Points increases. I’m pretty sure we want the chances of going into the Endgame to be greater as the Threshold increases, not less.
Example: When the Threshold is 1 (median Wordsmith Points is 21), the chance of rolling greater than or equal to 1 is 100%. When the Threshold is 20 (median Wordsmith Points is 40), the chance of rolling reater than or equal to 20 is 5%.
The other part of this is when “Replacing Unoccupied Sets Tactfully” was enacted, it pushed out the doubling of Points gained during Endgame to a different sentence, likely because the author didn’t anticipate the Proposal that added the Endgame doubling clause in. I’m attempting to restore the original intention that I think it was.
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 22:37:57 UTC
A co-operative game about a government-sponsored mech programme battling extradimensional kaiju incursions.
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 22:34:10 UTC
In the latest installment of the viral Kitchen Exorcism Venture board game series, we enter into a pizzeria and attempt to clear away a ghost which has been maliciously sneaking anchovies onto the customer’s orders. Will the crew find the ghost quickly enough, or has it been a vengeful saboteur the whole time?
Fewer than a quorum not voting AGAINST. Failed by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 00:03:52 UTC
Add a subrule to “Acronym” called “Nicknames” with the following text
Each Wordsmith may have a Nickname. Nicknames are publicly tracked strings that are between 3 and 10 letters long and consist only of alphabetical letters. If the only thing a proposal does is change the nickname of the wordsmith who is the author of that proposal, such a proposal does not count against that author’s limit of 2 pending proposals and may be enacted at any time provided it still has a quorum of FOR votes
Replace steps of the the “Names” Acrotype with the following
* For the purposes of the rest of these steps, if a Wordsmith has a Nickname their Name is considered to be their Nickname rather than their actual Name
* Create a set containing the names of all active Wordsmiths.
* In that set, remove the name of any Wordsmith selected in a Acrogenerate action performed with an Acrotype of “Names” this dynasty (unless this would remove all Wordsmiths, in which case skip this step)
* Publicly randomly select a Wordsmith’s name from that set.
* Set the Acronym to that Wordsmith’s name, with any characters other than alphabetical letters removed and with it trimmed to only its first 10 letters if it would otherwise be more than 10 letters long
Turns out the blog has a limit of 100 words in a proposal title.
At 14 letters, “Trapdoorspyder” could easily run into problems where people can’t otherwise post a valid Backronym and are limited to using really short words. Would rather just use “TDS” or some other shorter name they want to pick.
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 22:21:53 UTC
Adminned at 05 Jul 2025 22:18:22 UTC
The king is in poor health, and as such the real political power rests with his eight Viziers. Collect power, exert influence, and looks for ways to shift and twist the story towards your favor in this drafting game for 3-8 players
Popular, 8-0 with 1 DEF and Puzzler voting FOR. Enacted by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 04 Jul 2025 23:57:46 UTC
In the rule “Backronym”, after the text “The author of such a Backronym is privately tracked by the Puzzler, and the Backronym is instead posted under the name of the Puzzler.” add the following text:
If the Acrotype is Secret, the Puzzler may also create and post a Backronym for which they themselves are the author.
In the rule “Scoring”, insert the following as the second step in Resolving a Backronym:
* If the original author of that Backronym was the Puzzler, skip to the step that begins with the text “Post a comment”.
and in the same rule, before the text “For each word in the title of that Backronym that includes all the letters of a Buzzword” add the text “If the original author of that Backronym is not the Puzzler,”
When the Acrotype is Secret, the Puzzler can add in their own Backronym to help obscure the authors of the others, but nobody gains or loses Points on the Puzzler’s Backronym.
Popular, 8-0 with 1 DEF and Puzzler voting FOR. Enacted by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 04 Jul 2025 23:56:07 UTC
Give the following Wordsmiths 1 point each:
Bucky
Trapdoorspyder
Josh
There was a three hour window in which people could collect their Proposalnym point from “RUST”. Not really fair to the people who weren’t online to collect it.
Prompt: Board Game
Reminder that this is a Secret Acrotype, so send your Backronyms directly to me for posting.
Popular, 5-2. Enacted by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 04 Jul 2025 23:52:45 UTC
In “Rules and Votable Matters” in the Appendix, replace
If the Puzzler has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they are not considered to be a Wordsmith for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal. Votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Wordsmiths on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid, but the Wordsmiths who made them still contribute to quorum
with
If the Puzzler has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they (and any other Wordsmiths who have voted DEFERENTIAL on it) are not considered to be a Wordsmith for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal.
We’ve had a few cases this dynasty of players voting DEF on the Emperor’s DEF, and because these votes “are not considered to be valid”, we’ve had to duly wait (in some cases for the full 48 hour proposal timeout) to see if they might cast a FOR/AGA vote on it, in the same way that we’d wait for someone who hadn’t voted at all.
Maybe it would make more sense to also count these votes as abstentions? Even in cases where the player DEF is cast before the Imperial DEF, it still seems fair to interpret it as “I will vote FOR if the Emperor votes for, AGAINST if they vote against, and abstain if they abstain”, if they don’t check back in later to reconsider their vote.
Adminned at 03 Jul 2025 18:54:32 UTC
Originally, the motto of Sir Edwin’s Academy had been something to do with having strength in the face of adversity. Then adversity had come knocking at their doorstep, and half the faculty left in the middle of the night. The phone lines were down. The lights kept flickering. The wrought-iron fence had grown 4 feet taller by sunrise. It was very clear that the Academy had entered the Borderlands– what was less clear was how they were going to get out.
The principal, of course, decided that they weren’t. He’d run the boarding school for decades now. With an entire school’s worth of children and young adults, staying was much safer than any treck outside could be. They had plenty of food in the industrial freezers, and the gardens could be expanded to take over the lawn. He drafted a plan, recruited the near-graduates and the remaining teachers, and started turning Sir Edwin’s into a fortress.
It’s been years since Sir Edwin’s Academy changed. Plenty of the graduates enter into the Borderlands, but many stay, building and refining the place that made them who they are. They’ve got training barracks now, armories and R&D labs, everything they need to keep conquering the wastes around them. Sawyer had been 13 when the Borderlands came knocking on their doorstep. He’d been terrified that next morning, surrounded by other scared kids, his favorite teacher missing from the dining hall. Now he’s anything but scared. He leads the uniform development team, reinforcing the armor each student wears when they exit school grounds. He came up with the RUST position himself, designed 80% of the current uniform on his own. Most of the students that were there that day remained in the Academy after graduation. They won’t run out on the place that raised them.
The motto of Sir Edwin’s Academy used to be something about having strength in the face of adversity. Now, Sir Edwin’s doesn’t have a motto. Its students no longer need one.
Withdrawn. Failed by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 04 Jul 2025 02:23:27 UTC
In the rule “Scoring”, replace “for each word in that Wordsmith’s Favorites that matched a word in the title of that Backronym, add 1 to that Wordsmith’s Points” with
for each word in that Wordsmith’s Favorites that matched a word in the title of that Backronym, add 2 to that Wordsmith’s Points
and in that same rule, insert the following step before the step “Post a comment to that Backronym containing all of the following”:
* For each word in that Backronym author’s Favorites that matched a word in the title of that Backronym, add 1 to that author’s Points and remove that word from that author’s Favorites.
Since everyone seemed to like the idea of Favorites, how about allowing you to gain a little bit of Points on your own Favorites, but more Points if you hold off and let someone else use a word in your Favorites?
Adminned at 03 Jul 2025 18:50:48 UTC
Yea I have nothing for this section this time
Timed out, 4-1. Enacted by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 04 Jul 2025 02:17:26 UTC
In the rule Scoring, after
Calculate the median value among all of the recorded numbers of that Backronym, rounded down to the nearest integer, and add the result to the Points of the author of that Backronym.
add the sentence:
If no such numbers were recorded, use the value 4 instead.
If the ruleset contains the text
At any time, a Wordsmith’s Generosity is the mean average of the value of their most recent Scorings on the Backronyms posted by other Wordsmiths in response to the preceding two Acrogenerates, not including the most recent Acrogenerate if there are currently open Backronyms posted in response to it.
add the following text after it:
For this calculation, the mean average of an empty collection is considered to be 2.15.
Do not choose an element of an empty set. Do not divide by zero.
Reached quorum 7 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.
Adminned at 03 Jul 2025 16:16:57 UTC
Append the following to the end of the subrule “buzzwords”:
If any of the Buzzwords are contained in the Word Bank, the Puzzler may remove them from the Buzzword list.
My calculations might be incorrect, but I believe there’s a slim potential for buzzwords that can’t be claimed because they were chosen as buzzwords while already being contained in the Word Bank.
Adminned at 03 Jul 2025 18:47:02 UTC
Having found that people were remarkably inept at doing away with their old, out-of-fashion clothes and therefore infrequently buying new, in-fashion clothes, clothing corporations begin hiring individuals to tutor people in environmentally friendly methods for getting rid of their new clothes so that there would be room in their closets for new ones.