Friday, December 11, 2009

Proposal: Be Careful What You Wish For

Vetoed -Darth

Adminned at 12 Dec 2009 13:44:59 UTC

If a rule exists called “Wish Fulfillment”, reword it to:-

Each Adventurer has a number of Wishes, between 0 and 3. New Adventurers start with 3 Wishes.

An Adventurer with one or more Wishes may “Make a Wish” by decrementing their Wishes by one and PMing the Djinn with a message which has the title “I wish” and whose body contains requested changes to the Gamestate and/or Ruleset. This message is known as a Plea.

At any time, the Djinn may assess the oldest Plea which has not yet been assessed, by reading it and deciding whether or not to grant the wish. If he decides to, the Gamestate and/or Ruleset shall be updated accordingly, and the Djinn shall make a blog post announcing the Plea and its effects. If he decides not to grant the wish, the Djinn shall make a blog post announcing that a Plea from a specific Adventurer was rejected, without specifying the content of the Plea.

The Djinn is encouraged to privately note a set of evolving criteria for accepting and rejecting Pleas, and to apply these criteria consistently.

I’m approaching this from a Mao kind of angle - it seems more fun (and more robust) if we don’t know the exact rules by which the Djinn accepts and rejects wishes (except by observing the wishes that others are successfully granted), and if he can add new exceptions on the fly to prevent anticlimactic loopholes.

posted by Kevan at 11 Dec 2009 17:51:58 UTC Comments (18)

Comments

ais523:

11-12-2009 18:10:48 UTC

TAKING THE NAME OF THE GAME IN VAIN! (deals Kevan 3 cards)

spikebrennan:

11-12-2009 18:23:55 UTC

for
Miscard.  Penalty to ais523.

Klisz:

11-12-2009 18:27:45 UTC

for

NoOneImportant:

11-12-2009 18:41:16 UTC

for

Even more capricious. Me likey.

Hix:

11-12-2009 19:56:11 UTC

against Don’t wanna lose my wish if it’s not granted.  Why cap Wishes at 3?

I think Wak’s “Wish Fulfilment” Rule already gives em the leeway to make eir own criteria, no?

I also don’t want to give nigh-dictatorial powers to the Djinn; Wak’s version at least doesn’t permit the Djinn to grant wishes involving arbitrary gamestate changes.

Ornithopter:

11-12-2009 20:01:38 UTC

for

ais523:

11-12-2009 20:02:43 UTC

against for arbitrary gamestate and ruleset changes. Let the Djinn decide what he won’t do; but let the rules decide what he can’t do.

Josh: Observer he/they

11-12-2009 20:14:14 UTC

for

Apathetic Lizardman:

11-12-2009 20:35:57 UTC

imperial

Oze:

11-12-2009 20:54:45 UTC

for

redtara: they/them

11-12-2009 21:08:49 UTC

against Per Hix.

Bucky:

11-12-2009 21:09:08 UTC

against as per Hix and ais523.

Qwazukee:

11-12-2009 21:21:30 UTC

imperial

NoOneImportant:

11-12-2009 21:30:32 UTC

against

CoV, good point, this costs you a wish even if it’s not granted.

Wakukee:

11-12-2009 21:44:56 UTC

veto The power to arbitrarily change rules in unfair. And would like their to be some wishes which an adventurer know will pass.

Wakukee:

11-12-2009 21:50:50 UTC

* I would like there to be some wishes which an adventurer knows will pass.

Kevan: he/him

11-12-2009 22:27:05 UTC

Hmm, I hadn’t noticed that the original rule only used up a Wish if it was granted. That would get a bit spammy if we were going with hidden Djinn rules; the optimum approach for an Adventurer would always be to wish for the biggest, most over-the-top version of what they wanted, and then keep scaling it back until they reached a wording that the Djinn accepted.

Any wish that had already been granted to another player would be safe to rewish verbatim. It would also give an idea of the kind of direction it was safe to head in.

Kevan: he/him

11-12-2009 22:45:06 UTC

And I’m not sure I follow “unfair”. You could process wishes with a rule of “may not change the ruleset” or “may not change the ruleset except to define new possessions which the Djinn doesn’t consider too powerful” or whatever seemed fair.