Note that I’ve made some changes to the Imperial Styles page since you edited it (on the grounds that it wasn’t gamestate and I wasn’t expecting this proposal): I reduced the two four-level desire states to just a couple of yes/no ones. If you disagree with that, this proposal will need to be amended to revert the page to the specific earlier version.

I also undid your typo correction of “Mantle Limiations” in the Building Blocks! The current typo correction rule only applies to the main ruleset, and doesn’t extend to the Blocks page, so this proposal will need to bear that in mind.

Wavering between AGAINST and VETO on this.

Imperial Styles should be a communication for players to know how the emperor will behave, predictably. What they should not be is anything that sets out, guides, informs, directs or otherwise sets limits on how players should approach their own games. The Emperor should never be telling other players how to play. That is so contradictory to how nomics work that I can’t believe we’re considering it.

What happens if I don’t respect the way the Emperor wants me to play? Do I get told off? Does my DoV get voted down? Am I expected to bow three times in the Emperor’s direction every time I cast a vote?

This is the kind of thing that would make me stop playing forever if enacted.

@Kevan: apologies on the typo thing. I thought that the rule “That page is gamestate and may not be altered except as specified by the ruleset” includes the rule “Seekers may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset” but now I see that if it’s gamestate, that wouldn’t apply.

@Josh: the problem is in the Veto, not the Imperial Styles. At any time, an Emperor could start using the Veto to enforce their will, and there’s no guidelines I can see that would stop them. There’s not even a method of redress or debate; it just happens.

I’d personally rather know up-front what a specific Emperor is expecting, and then be able to decide if I want to participate in that dynasty while that person is Emperor. Being surprised later in the dynasty doesn’t sound like much fun.

If it’s the guideline phrasing, I’m happy to take that out. I’d rather you not Veto this, though, because I think the debate is important to have. Shutting down debate just because you disagree seems rather harsh.

[Josh] Is it the words “and Seekers are encouraged to respect” that are the deal-breaker here, or the wider idea that Emperors might start saying things like “I don’t want to see any cooperation, dice rolling or wizards this dynasty” and enforce that with vetos?

“and Seekers are encouraged to respect” does seem redundant, and misleading. If the Emperor is Scam-Averse people can still try to scam that dynasty, it’ll just be a lot harder to.

I’ve removed the “and Seekers are encouraged to respect” as I see that was a bridge too far, and I apologize for any hurt I might have caused by that phrase.

Poking the boundaries of what the rules should be is something I felt like we should always be free to explore, but I don’t want to make people feel unwelcome to continue playing just because I’m poking into a sensitive area.

That now reads a lot less objectionably.

I’ll still likely be an AGAINST on this, on the grounds that I still think we should let No Coops run for a dynasty or two - nothing we’ve said about it lately changes my view that we’ll never be able to define the reasonable limits of cooperation unless we push through the discomfort of a live test. But I don’t mind enshrining imperial styles in the ruleset, as they are, ironically, a good example of a mechanic that some were dubious about but which proved their worth through use.

I would request that No Communications not be added; I chose not to add it at the AA deliberately, as I hate it.

Done and done. Now we can evaluate the Imperial Style addition on its own merits, and the debate over No Cooperation can continue on separately.

As Imperial Styles are really a tool for the Emperor to communicate to the Players the general vibes for the dynasty, turning it into gamestate feels like it might cause some problems as you won’t be able to edit it before sharing your style

How is it gamestate, though?

Gamestate
Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.

There’s no regulation of the alteration of the page Imperial Styles being proposed here.

Oh I guess we changed it so “All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention” but if non-dynastic rules mention them its fine. Believe it used to be that any reference made something gamestate.

This is optional flavortext that some emperors apparently already use. Putting it down officially in this relatively small addendum to an AA seems like a Good Thing.
Additionally, as it’s optional, it seems fine.

The only change I’d make is something that proofs it against problems such as the one Clucky posited: such as “Suggested terms are available at Imperial Styles, but this list is not definitive or exhaustive.” (or something)

Since like… if someone wants to describe their style differently, they should be able to, and it’s just flavor and expectation setting.

Oh. I unidle. bc I think this is a nice thing to have and I was planning to unidle soon anyways.

4st is unidled. Quorum remains unchanged at 4.

Imperial Styles is freely editable, but I’m not opposed if you want to make a Proposal on top of this one to add that the statement can be more free-form than what’s on the wiki page.

Imperial styles isn’t freely editable any more; now it’s in a proposal it’ll get reverted to its state as at the time this proposal was posted when enacted, and thereafter it becomes gamestate that can only be edited as permitted by the rules.

Broadly I find there to be no direct difference between putting this into the ruleset and the status quo, so default gently towards having the page not be gamestate, having the ruleset be a little shorter, and letting some parts of game culture live in behaviour rather than rulestext.

I’m still not convinced that this makes the Imperial Styles wiki page gamestate. There’s no regulation of the alteration of that page being proposed, and the full text of the rule you’re referring to is:

If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).

So I still would like to understand how this is making the wiki page gamestate, if for no other reason than to avoid doing so unintentionally in the future.

Maybe it’s my logic parsing but “as a result of a Votable Matter enacting” to me means if the Votable Matter contains instructions that would make a wiki page gamestate.

Am I misinterpreting this? Is it being read as just the mere fact that it is a Votable Matter being enacted that automatically makes any wiki page referenced within it gamestate regardless of any instructions in that Votable Matter?

That doesn’t seem right, especially when I could have said “this wiki page must be treated as flavor text” which would conflict with this auto-gamestate interpretation.

I’d also assumed in my first comment that this would become gamestate, but it does look like Jonathan and Clucky are right here, it’s only wiki pages referred to by dynastic rules that become gamestate, and I can’t see any other rules that would say otherwise.

as putting this in the rules makes it clear that it’s an accepted thing - that new or lurking players won’t be expected to pick up on informal or conversational cues to find the wiki page and understand its relevance to the game that’s being played.