Friday, July 19, 2013

Proposal: Eyeless in Gaza

Times out and cannot be enacted 6-7 / Skju

Adminned at 21 Jul 2013 08:53:03 UTC

To the rule “(o)”, add:-

Each Image and each Style contains a number of Sockets, equal to the number of the top level section that item is listed in on the Wikipedia link (eg. “Everyday life” items have 7 Sockets, while “Science” items have 10).

As a weekly Action, a Player may set their Eyes to any value between zero and 24. If a Player’s Eyes value is greater than the total number of Sockets in their Image and Style, and also greater than 1, then that Player is Impossible. If it can be proven that a Player was Impossible at some time during the current Dynasty, then that Player cannot declare Victory.

A bit dramatic at the end, but just wanting to establish the strongest possible penalty for lying about Sockets, from the start, to deter temptation - we can tone it down later.

Comments

RaichuKFM: she/her

19-07-2013 15:21:02 UTC

against I don’t see how Sockets would be hidden, unless nonces would affect it, but nonces don’t have to come from said page.

Kevan: he/him

19-07-2013 15:39:51 UTC

Only you know what your Style is. If you claim to have 12 Eyes and “Epic of Gilgamesh” as your Image (with 5 Sockets), then players will know that either your Style has at least 7 Sockets, or you are Impossible.

Clucky: he/him

19-07-2013 15:47:14 UTC

for

RaichuKFM: she/her

19-07-2013 16:47:07 UTC

for Ah, I misread the rule. I think that makes my Style illegal; I will correct it now.

Josh: Observer he/they

19-07-2013 16:59:10 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

19-07-2013 17:48:58 UTC

possible suggestion: Instead of doing Socket(Image) + Socket(Style), maybe do something like 2 * (Socket(Image) + Socket(Style) MOD 12) so that it isn’t just encouraging people to get 12 sockets styles…

Kevan: he/him

19-07-2013 18:04:38 UTC

This proposal is intended to make Eyes a telltale sign of what a Player’s Style might be, rather than a pseudorandom number. (If you’ve got a Technology Image and 23 Eyes, then we’ll all know you picked a Mathematics Style.) This is meant to nudge the game very slightly in the direction of “Eyes: good; people knowing what your secret Style is: bad”.

Clucky: he/him

19-07-2013 19:21:58 UTC

But doesn’t that mean it is currently better to have a Mathematics image/style? Eyes wouldn’t be any more pseduodrandom, it would just remove the idea that you want to choose a Mathematics style if you are maximizing your game opportunities

kikar:

19-07-2013 19:54:12 UTC

for

Tavros:

19-07-2013 20:36:23 UTC

for

redtara: they/them

20-07-2013 01:29:55 UTC

against

Skju:

20-07-2013 04:00:50 UTC

against I see this as more over-restrictive than strategic. It needlessly and artificially boils down 1000 items to 12 and punishes certain subjective choices while privileging others. We don’t even know what to do with Images and Styles yet, so making some objectively preferable to others reduces the matter to the point of triviality going forward.

Spitemaster:

20-07-2013 04:56:00 UTC

against

redtara: they/them

20-07-2013 06:00:37 UTC

Basically per Skju, except I was lazier. Also the ordering of the choices on the page seems pretty arbitrary.

redtara: they/them

20-07-2013 06:01:39 UTC

Also this could punish players whose Images and Styles are changed against their will.

Purplebeard:

20-07-2013 07:02:50 UTC

Tactical for .

quirck: he/him

20-07-2013 08:14:43 UTC

against

Sphinx:

20-07-2013 12:44:39 UTC

against per Skju

RaichuKFM: she/her

20-07-2013 13:47:55 UTC

against CoV

Larrytheturtle:

21-07-2013 05:52:21 UTC

against

Kevan: he/him

21-07-2013 07:31:34 UTC

[Ienpw] Saying “my Image is the Great Pyramid of Gaza, but my Style is Capital Punishment; also, I have one Eye!” seemed kind of arbitrary to begin with. There was a small joke in that the entries in the People category all have two Eyes, but that was it.

If the Impossibility clause would punish players under a not-yet-existing mechanic, then that’s really an issue for the proposal that creates the not-yet-existing mechanic, if it’s ever made.

[Skju] If we want to play a game we’re going to have do something to differentiate choices from a list of 1000 things, otherwise it’s not going to matter which things we pick. It’s not boiling it down to twelve (that would be if I’d proposed that an Image/Style was a heading, rather than an item), it’s just making it more likely that players will pick things from the high end of the list. (Although this assumes that “more Eyes” is a good thing; it may not be.)

The “<><” rule already makes some Images objectively better or worse than others by defining how they’re changed - if you pick “X-Ray” as your Image, that will stop you from switching to one that shares its first letter. Your poetry proposal encourages players to pick Styles which can be easily concealed in poems, a quality which isn’t entirely subjective.