Friday, February 17, 2017

A Long Spoon

The new rule “The Bet” can be read in a couple of ways. Since triggering it under the superficially intended reading would reveal secret information, I thought I’d check which interpretation was intended by its proposer, and (perhaps more importantly) what an informal consensus thinks.

From the rules, we’ve got:

  • Cuddlebeam gains Eternal Torment “if any remedy has the potential to Cure the Black Death”.
  • “Each Remedy has the potential to Cure one Disease”
  • “When a Remedy is Tested, there is a 50% chance that the Remedy now Cures a random Disease”

If a Remedy exists which has been Tested and was found not to Cure a random Disease, does it still “have the potential” to Cure the Black Death? (In plain English every Remedy has the potential to do anything, because we’re playing Nomic, but even regarding it as a strict keyword and reframing it as something more like “each remedy has an empty cure slot”, do such test-failed Remedies still “have the potential”?)

posted by Kevan at 17 Feb 2017 09:33:00 UTC Comments (8)

Comments

pokes:

17-02-2017 11:11:35 UTC

I had intended that a tested remedy no longer under the current ruleset has the potential to Cure BD since there’s no legal way it can be tested again. I also intended it to reveal secret information.

But I also enjoy your reading and am open to an informal consensus agreeing to it.

Kevan: he/him

17-02-2017 11:53:05 UTC

There are plenty of legal ways, though, because we’re playing Nomic. I think both the plain English and the literal keyword reading both take us to the same conclusion.

Viv:

17-02-2017 11:58:14 UTC

Legitimate reading of “potential”, I agree.

pokes:

17-02-2017 12:09:12 UTC

As if we didn’t have enough examples in the literature already, let this be a lesson about making deals with the Devil.

derrick: he/him

17-02-2017 14:43:02 UTC

any untested remedies would have potential to cure it. Any tested remedies would not.

That assumes that there isn’t an existing cure, of course. Its entirely possible someone has a cure.

orkboi:

17-02-2017 22:40:19 UTC

I read this to mean that “if any remedy has the potential to Cure the Black Death” would trigger only if a tested remedy had been found to cure the Black Death. That would be my preferred reading.

That said, Derrick’s reading that an untested remedy also has the “potential” to cure the Black Death sounds like a reasonable interpretation.

I’m entirely happy to defer to the Doctor for final decision.

Kevan: he/him

19-02-2017 18:21:48 UTC

Two days later I’m calling it that any remedy which cures no Disease “has the potential to Cure the Black Death”. Under this reading, yes, “[a] remedy has the potential to Cure the Black Death” and Cuddlebeam is now Eternally Tormented.

If anyone strongly disagrees with this reading, they should raise a CfJ. If anybody wants to know for sure whether any Remedy cures the Black Death, they can propose to find out.

pokes:

19-02-2017 19:18:27 UTC

for