Tuesday, December 05, 2023

Proposal: Crime and Punishment

Timed out, 3-2. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 07 Dec 2023 16:18:49 UTC

Add a new subrule under the rule “Succession”, titled “Assassination”, with the following content:

Each Heir is either Relaxed or Vigilant, defaulting to Relaxed. This state is publicly tracked. As a daily action, a Heir may change their state from Relaxed to Vigilant or vice versa and increase their Stress by one. A Heir’s Stress is a publicly tracked number defaulting to zero. As a Daily Communal Action, a Heir or the Old King should Update Stress. When an Heir Updates Stress, they increase the Stress of each Vigilant Heir by one unless that Heir became Vigilant that day, and decrease the Stress of each Relaxed Heir by one unless that Heir became Relaxed that day.

As an Act of Subterfuge, a Heir may, as a weekly action, Assassinate, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
*Choose a number between 0 and 30, known as Concentration.
*Increase the Stress of the Heir performing this action by the value of Concentration.
*Choose a Heir who is not the Heir performing this action and is not Vigilant.
*Nominate a Successor for the targeted Heir, following the steps described under the rule “Successors” except for the step “Lose 4 Reputation”
*Lose 4 reputation
*Roll DICE30. If the result is greater than Concentration, the perpetrator is caught and executed, and they must Nominate a Successor for themselves and lose additional 4 reputation.

In the end of the rule “Transition of Power” add:

For the purposes of this rule, a Heir’s Claim’s strength is considered to be the value written for that Claim’s strength in the ruleset minus that Heir’s Stress.

Now there’s a cost as well as a possibility to get caught. I tried to make it so that it’s not always clear what is the best choice. I’m not completely sure about the numbers, though - all suggestions are welcome.

posted by Desertfrog at 05 Dec 2023 13:55:00 UTC Comments (8)

Comments

JonathanDark: he/him

05-12-2023 16:15:41 UTC

Minor nit: change “Subterfude” to “Subterfuge”

Since Stress reduces an Heir’s Claim Strength calculation, it’s hard to see anyone being Vigilant except for those that intend to perform Assassination and thus need to gain Stress in order to be able to choose a larger Concentration value. They’re telegraphing the intent to commit Assassination to everyone else at that point.

I suppose once one Heir does this for a sufficient number of days, everyone else might also become Vigilant just to avoid being the target, but that initial breakthrough decision seems undesirable. I suppose it depends on the threat of the Heir most likely to achieve victory.

Desertfrog: Jury

05-12-2023 17:28:10 UTC

Fixed, stress wasn’t meant to restrict concetration. (it wouldn’t even make any sense as bigger concentration gives more stress)

JonathanDark: he/him

05-12-2023 18:43:13 UTC

Much better, thanks!

for

Clucky: he/him

05-12-2023 19:46:37 UTC

against

The double daily action feels problematic. It gives benefit to being online at the time change so you can adjust your state accordingly and then quickly press the communal button.

Josh: he/they

05-12-2023 21:58:32 UTC

@Clucky It’s not always an advantage.

So there’s two variables: if you start Relaxed or Vigilant (and are thus moving to Vigilant or Relaxed respectively), and if you switched before or after the assessment.

So four cases: Relaxed to Vigilant, changing before (R>Vb); Relaxed to Vigilant, changing after (R>Va); Vigilant to Relaxed, changing before (V>Rb); and Vigilant to Relaxed, changing after (V>Ra).

R>Vb: You start the day relaxed. You change to Vigilant, gaining 1 Stress. The daily assessment occurs and you are excluded. Net gain: 1 Stress.
R>Va: You start the day relaxed. The assessment occurs and you get -1 Stress because you are relaxed. You change to vigilant and gain 1 stress. Net gain: 0 stress.
V>Rb: You start the day vigilant. You change to Relaxed and gain 1 stress.  The assessment occurs and you are excluded. Net gain: 1 stress.
V>Ra: You start the day vigilant. The assessment occurs and you get 1 Stress because you are vigilant. You change to relaxed and gain 1 stress. Net gain: 2 stress.

So, in short, if you are, say, British and looking at the game at 8am over your cup of tea considering whether to Update Stress or not, it’s down to which direction you’re travelling in, and which direction your rivals are travelling in. Either way it does probably give a tactical lever to the Brits or, even worse, the Australians.

for because I am British but those ‘unless that Heir became x that day’ could probably be changed to ‘unless that Heir became x since the last time Stress was Updated’.

Clucky: he/him

05-12-2023 22:47:57 UTC

Like you said, you’ve got that tactical record to decide if you want to change it or not. Sometimes you won’t, but always better to have the lever than not have the lever

Kevan: he/him

06-12-2023 09:19:48 UTC

against Never a fan of mechanics that reward players who check into the game frequently and are in a particular time zone (even if that might be me in this case).

SingularByte: he/him

06-12-2023 19:00:15 UTC

for  I suspect the timing issues can be sorted relatively easily.