Thursday, February 05, 2015

Proposal: As Far as I Could Throw It

Self-killed and failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 06 Feb 2015 22:59:04 UTC

Repeal the rule “Trust”.

Remove every sentence from the dynastic rules which uses the word “Trust” or “Examine”.

Enact a new rule, “Triumph”:-

If at least two Crewmembers are Disabled, and all Androids are Disabled, then the Humans are Triumphant. If at least two Crewmembers are Disabled, and all Humans are Disabled, then the Androids are Triumphant. If both groups would be Triumphant at the same time, then neither is Triumphant.

It’s niggling me that our Trust metaphor doesn’t make enough sense - whose Trust is it? If it’s how much the whole crew trust a player (or how much the player trusts the rest of the crew), then there’s cognitive dissonance when it doesn’t match the players’ actual attitudes - we’ve had two Trials and some heated disagreements, but aside from a minor doctor examination everybody is at the default 5 Trust mark. If it’s the trust of the Computer or the crew’s distant employers, then why does the least trusted Human win?

Broken metaphors feel like they can be a quietly corrosive influence in Nomic, because if players don’t have a good grasp of what a mechanic really means, it gets stretched in different and potentially contradictory directions, and can lead to unsatisfying not-really-scams where someone receives an unintuitive reward or penalty which doesn’t match the story that players expect to see played out.

I’m struggling to think of a neat concept that captures the vague sense of the mechanic (it’s maybe something about the player’s personal job satisfaction?) yet still works with “lowest Human value wins”. Renaming it and switching to “highest Human value wins” just makes it a reward for Humans doing the stuff they’re supposed to do anyway, so I’m boldly suggesting a repeal, keeping just an unwired placeholder team-win mechanic for now.

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

05-02-2015 11:40:32 UTC

against I think that while we lack so many central mechanics, repealing this doesn’t make sense. We still have no effective means of lynching, no ways for the werewolves to interact with the humans apart from blocking their proposals, no real way of gathering information on each other… If we get more of the shell of the game in place and this doesn’t fit then fine, but on the off-chance that this is the mechanic that will inspire someone to insert a core interaction into the game, I’d rather not remove it.

ayesdeeef:

05-02-2015 11:47:33 UTC

against

ayesdeeef:

05-02-2015 14:51:27 UTC

I’ve been reading the Fall o Five and the Revenge of Seven (books from the I Am Number Four series). Maybe the human with the lowest trust is wins because he is rewarded for his infidelity to the humans by the mysterious leader of the Androids. On the other hand, if an Android takes out all the Humans and gains the highest Trust than he becomes the mysterious super villain’s head honcho.

ayesdeeef:

05-02-2015 14:51:37 UTC

^Fall of Five sorry

Brendan: he/him

05-02-2015 20:31:43 UTC

imperial

Darknight: he/him

06-02-2015 00:04:07 UTC

imperial

Skju:

06-02-2015 01:33:57 UTC

for

_Fox_:

06-02-2015 05:05:28 UTC

  imperial

Sylphrena:

06-02-2015 15:49:07 UTC

against While I agree that the metaphor should be changed, I’m not sure it’s necessary to repeal the rule in the meantime. The rule makes strategy much more interesting, and I feel like it doesn’t harm anyone right now, so there’s no reason to repeal it.

Bucky:

06-02-2015 16:26:56 UTC

against

Brendan: he/him

06-02-2015 21:55:16 UTC

against CoV.

Kevan: he/him

06-02-2015 22:58:32 UTC

against Self-kill since this is controversial, let’s try changing the metaphor.