Given that the Traitor rule still achieves its purpose when the Emperor completely forgets about it (and doesn’t even assign anyone), I don’t see a benefit in changing its default.

I like the mentor rule! I don’t like traitor, though. I’m with you on that.

Both of these rules have probably been around long enough now that we can have a discussion about how well they’ve achieved their purpose in practice, and decide whether to keep them on that basis, rather than whether or not individual players do or don’t like them. (Which sounds like it means how much they feel they’d use the rules, here - does Tantusar mean that they wouldn’t want to be a Mentor and wouldn’t choose to lie if assigned Traitor, so can see no immediate benefit for the game in having these rules?)

I have no intention of being or assigning Mentors, and I personally would choose to lie even if I wasn’t explicitly assigned Traitor. I just don’t care about the specific social cost involved.

That’s up to you. But if the Mentor system is good for the wider game by helping retain new players, and the Traitor system is good for the wider game by adding intrigue to other players’ interactions, we should still keep them around.

If I thouhgt that people would magically start assuming that I’m not being deceitful because the Traitor rule was off then I’d have more respect for it.

Oh, I’d genuinely feel entirely confident in trusting any veteran player not to double-cross me on something (whether that’s wanting to discuss a possible loophole with them, or trusting them to complete an action I’d started), and to be reporting their understanding of all information truthfully, if the Traitor rule was inactive or repealed. I think there are only a couple of players that I wouldn’t.

It feels like that’s quite common. That it only takes an introductory “right, I’ve got a plan, can I trust you?” to lock down someone’s word to a point where they’d feel too uncomfortable to break it.

I’m not a fan of Traitor either, because it doesn’t work unless you ‘believe’ it works. And I just plainly don’t.

I think the traitor rule is solid, and puts doubt in things. I also think it strengthens the expectations to be fair when the traitor rule is not in play.

per Kevan

Are the don’t-like-it votes genuinely saying that they think some dynasties should have the Traitor rule active and others shouldn’t, or is this intended more as a soft repeal, putting a rule into the “have to remember to explicitly activate this” box to cut down on how many future dynasties it will appear in?

I can’t bring myself to vote either way: I imagine I’d be pretty bad at acting deviously as the Traitor, but at the same time I recognise the utility of the rule.

Well, I played a lot of table games with Traitors, like Lupus in Tabula, Battlestar Galactica, The Resistance and Shadows over Camelot, for example.

Traitor is good in those games because they are coop games. All the players are fighting against the game. The Traitor(s) will win if the other players lose.

But how can Nomic players lose? I think the only way to lose is to make the game boring X-D

Furthermore, it seems to me not very funny to play Traitor in BlogNomic. In coop games with traitor(s), a traitor usually pretend to collaborate with the other players, but secretly acts against them. It’s also funny for the other players to find the Traitor, because it can ruin the victory. But it seems to me that in BlogNomic a Traitor can’t do much damage. It can only damage itself…

It could be interesting if the Traitor is someone that is not obligated to follow any code of conduct, but simply wins if nobody win. When a Metadynasty is proclamed, a Traitor can do a Declaration of Victory.

Anyway, it’s a bit off-topic, sorry :P

BlogNomic is rarely a pure cooperative game but it’s very often a team game, where rival groups are working against each other. If you’re the Traitor and happen to be given a critical role of a team, you may be able to win the dynasty single-handedly by betraying your teammates.

But betrayal rarely if ever happens in BlogNomic, because we’re often the same people playing the same game repeatedly. If I betray you in this dynasty, I win, but you (and probably others) won’t trust me if I try to make a secret deal in the next one (or the one after that, if ever again). As a result, teams can safely shift into the kind of bland alpha-player routine that you sometimes see in co-op games, where one player calls all the shots and everyone else just does what they’re told, to get the team to victory.

The Traitor rule attempts to rebalance that, by reintroducing the idea that one of your teammates could change their mind halfway through your plan and run off with all the money.

To add a counterpoint to Kevan’s excellent explanation, the fact that there is no unanimity on the authority of the Traitor rule adds an interesting level to the game:

- I mildly avoid players who have been vocal about playing along the Traitor rule because I don’t want to be screwed by the possible betrayal. I want to play to my advantage of course, and teamwork is ludicrously strong at times in comparison to playing solo.

- Even if I personally don’t believe in the power of the Traitor rule, others believing in it (which is all it needs to work) is convenient for certain Dynasty designs.

I agree with both of you. My only fear is that a player can be designed as Traitor, but (s)he don’t like it.

I think that a Traitor can be played by anyone, with or without a rule. A team, for example, can ask a player to act as a spy and disturber, pretending to be on the side of the rival team. Or a player can create a secret internal opposition, as many politicians do :)

Per se it’s not a problem, because nothing prevents you from just not betraying even if you’re the Traitor. It doesn’t mind-control you. You still have your own agency. In fact, that’s what I’d request people to do if they ally with me: don’t play as the Traitor even if you’re formally chosen to be it.

Sure, people could later make rules that target the Traitor specifically. But the same happens all of the time for any other personal variables anyways (Benefit a Majority, Punish a Minority).

Yes, the rule still works as intended if the designated Traitor doesn’t like the rule and/or doesn’t want or get the opportunity to do anything Traitorous. The main intent of the rule is to inject an element of uncertainty into teamwork - which as Cuddlebeam says can be “ludicrously strong”. If you know you can trust your team 100% because (aside from Tantusar?) no veteran player is likely to ever break an earlier promise, it’s much easier to pull off simple victories where everyone just gives all their diamonds to one player trusting that they’ll stick to the plan rather than making a run for it.

Whether it’s “convenient for certain dynasty designs” is the question this proposal is pretending to ask by defaulting it to inactive, and which hasn’t been mentioned. Is that true, or is this rule equally good or bad for all dynasties?

It’s admittedly funny (or perhaps appropriate?) that this proposal was made during the one dynasty that can’t possibly have a Traitor.

I can think of a lot of veteran players who would be likely to break promises. It’s a bad long-term strategy, though; being able to make a binding promise is one of the most powerful weapons you have in game-theoretic situations. I don’t think less of people who break informal promises; it’s a valid way to play. I do, however, cease to trust them in the future, something which becomes a major disadvantage if other people do the same thing.

I’m not sure if the existence of the Traitor rule helps this much. It may still be optimal play to hold to your agreements even if you’re the Traitor. After all, the rule doesn’t actually do anything except create a circumstance in which people think “I can trust this person 92.8% of the time, but they will betray me if they’re the Traitor”. I guess 92.8% is good odds, so you’ll probably trust someone who might potentially be a Traitor even if you know they’ll betray you if they are. That does mean, however, that the Traitor rule doesn’t do much to block pooling victories (although it may discourage them from becoming too large).

One trend in BlogNomic that I dislike is the whole “roll a dice to see who becomes Emperor” thing that’s happened in a lot of pooling victories recently; it shows a lack of creativity to aim for such a low share. Back when I was winning BlogNomic regularly I normally managed to negotiate a 100% share of either the win or the mantle (in the case of my first win, both, and it was a 4-person pooling victory!).

(For what it’s worth, I’d consider a “theoretically perfect” BlogNomic victory to be a pooling victory with every other player helping you, none expecting anything in return. This is probably unachievable, but it’s an interesting goal to aspire to, and some players have come close using victory proposals.)

>it shows a lack of creativity to aim for such a low share
It’s survivor bias.

It’s just the best performing version of a Pool. Others have been tried, but they didn’t do as well as the ‘everyone gets a decent share’.

And it’s boring when it keeps on happening. But it just works. (And that’s the problem)

Originally I was for this proposal, but I’ve changed my mind based on what the older players have had to say.

[ais523] “I can think of a lot of veteran players who would be likely to break promises.” Can you remember any cases where people actually did break a promise, though? All the examples I can think of are where there was only an implicit social agreement (such as admins or the Emperor acting neutrally) being broken, or when a player lies through omission, or words a promise carefully so that they can trick the other player without technically breaking their word.

I think team play is often an enjoyable part of Nomic, and it’s a mistake to think of pooling itself as a bad thing. I agree with your “low share” take, and it’s always a bit sad when players seem bamboozled into it, not seeing the connection between the odds they’re accepting on the roll and the odds they felt they had of winning the game otherwise, or it not occuring to them that they could have negotiated (or taken elsewhere) a huckster’s plan being offered at a 90/10 split.

For me I think it’s at its worst when it becomes an alpha-player situation: one invested player masterminding a complex strategy where the rest of the team don’t care too much about the game and are little more than sockpuppets handing resources over. Hopefully the Traitor mechanic gives that kind of alpha player pause, if any lowly pawn in their plan could ruin things by deciding halfway through the chain of events that they were going to keep their police radio jammer switched off after all. (And the answer isn’t necessarily “decide whether to take the 92.8% gamble”, it’s also “set the rules and situation up so that any betrayal is less damaging” - and that can make parts of the plan more visible to other players, which feels like more of a game.)