Thursday, November 07, 2019

Proposal: GNDT RIP [Core] [Special Case] [Appendix]

Reached quorum 5 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.

Adminned at 08 Nov 2019 11:23:06 UTC

Replace “An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT” with “An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar”.

Remove the sentence “New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.”

Replace “and correct the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities” with “and correct any gamestate tracking entities”.

Replace “unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT)” with “unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts)”.

In “Fair Play”, replace “An Adventurer should not roll dice in the GNDT that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action.” with:-

An Adventurer should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. An Adventurer must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.

Replace “For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die in the GNDT” with “For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die”.

Replace “References to “YDICEX” refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll. ” with:-

References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.

Replace “All GNDT columns that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention are assumed to be Gamestate, as are all Wiki Pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images contained within those Wiki Pages.” with:-

All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.

Replace the final three paragraphs of “Gamestate Tracking” with:-

For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of an Adventurer’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Adventurer may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Adventurer feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules as they were at the time of the alteration, or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, Adventurers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead.

Replace “The GNDT can be used to generate random results.” with “The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.”

Replace “GNDT” with “Dice Roller” throughout the rule “Random Generators”.

Replace “changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page)” with “changing values tracked in gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page)”.

Replace “even if the values stored in the GNDT remain valid” with “even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity remain valid”.

Replace “DICEN cannot be rolled in the GNDT if N is 22 or more digits long.” with “DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.”

Reformat the page at https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Jerez to use the same table layout as https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=User:Kevan/Gamedata&oldid=7822, while retaining the same data.

This has been on the cards for a while, and I’ve finally gotten around to setting up the scripts required. I wrote the GNDT 18 years ago for another Nomic and we’ve been using it since BlogNomic began, but it’s always had its problems: the clunkiness of a game needing three separate passwords to play, the extra step to player registration, the fiddliness of multiple updates, the lack of freedom to do much other than a rectangular grid of player/variables, and - maybe the biggest deal - the fact that we lose the record of a lot of each dynasty’s game actions when it ends.

This proposal retires the GNDT and leaves us with the (existing) ability to use a wiki page to track gamestate, as we’re already doing at the moment - luckily there’s no data to move over, as there’s nothing in the GNDT right now. I’ve written a script at https://blognomic.com/sidebar/gamedata.php which will let us embed any wiki page in the sidebar (eg. https://blognomic.com/sidebar/gamedata.php?page=Jerez), which, as per the current GNDT sidebar, isn’t mandated by the ruleset.

I’ve also written a dice roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php. I’ve not been able to connect it to the ExpressionEngine logins to confirm player identity, but I think it’s probably sufficient to ask players for their names and to use a hash of their IP to colour their name to deter easy fakery. (Fair Play already frowns on rolling dice but not using them; this proposal also adds a clause about using misleading names when rolling.) Any die result is usually going to be immediately used for something elsewhere in the gamestate anyway.

Comments

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

07-11-2019 16:32:22 UTC

(Quick note: “The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked tehre” has a typo, though I realise it can also be fixed after enactment.)

Clearly I cannot speak as to the implications of such a change, not being familiar with the old system, but at the very least I can agree that it makes registration more complicated, and that it can be hard to form a clear picture of how old games unfolded without archives of what the GNDT tracked. This looks like an improvement.

Madrid:

07-11-2019 17:30:35 UTC

Will take some getting used to but I’m up for trying it out.

My last rites for our good old GNDT for

The Duke of Waltham: he/him

07-11-2019 17:40:24 UTC

imperial

card:

07-11-2019 21:22:12 UTC

Newer players note that I doubt anyone will care if you are rolling dice for fun our testing and don’t use your own name.

[Kevan] this looks good. As I’m on mobile right now I can’t think of anything glaring from my memory of the ruleset aside from having the taking entities embedded in the sidebar like the gndt is currently.

Now we just need a script to log all of the gndt history in a way where you can see the relevant variables and perhaps split it up by dynasty to put in the history pages.

for

TyGuy6:

07-11-2019 22:07:32 UTC

imperial Go for it!