BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

Hmm, I see no reason that would make for more interesting gameplay, and it is rather anti-thematic to know when a ship would come. If you want to control it, just go to the beach and wave one down!

The theme still stands, I think. Perhaps we’re on a shipping lane and there’s an increasing chance that the ship that passes us every Monday will notice us.

I’m getting the sense that you’d rather have the dynasty end at a narratively interesting moment, or in a way that helps a player who you think deserves some help. I’m generally less keen on that kind of dungeonmastering gameplay, seeing BlogNomic more as a boardgame than a roleplaying game.

Boardgame vs role playing game? I suppose we may differ in that regard, (though not as much when I’m playing it myself). As the leader I tend toward semi-chaotic, non-favoritistic plays. I think the game is made more interesting when there were more of them, vs strictly self-interested decisions.

I believe that I have been eminently fair for most, if not all, of my votes. I have disregarded my inclinations on several proposals for the sake of fairness, and recently voted not to rescind a traitor ability only because I thought it spoilsportish to do so.

I do hope you win this round, if only so you can bring us into another era of board gaming I think we all would enjoy.

Interesting discussion could be had about this, so I bring it up in Slack.

Better to have these discussions on the blog, I think, so that more voices can join in, both players and lurkers, and so that it gets archived somewhere solid - Slack hides everything but the newest X-thousand messages unless we give them money, so anything we say there is probably never going to be read again.

Fairness always seems very tough, from the Emperor’s seat, which is why I generally don’t like being asked to give it or receive it. When is the “fair” time to make the ship check in any given week? For this week, would it be fairer to roll it at 12:01am on Monday so that (if the quorum bullet was lost) the victory would go to one of the two high-SP players, or would it be fairer to roll it at 11:59pm at the end of the week so that other players would have a chance to complete any catch-up plans?

I think there’s still huge amounts of scope for fun, chaotic storytelling within a deterministic system. It’s the thing where a rule of “when a monster appears, the Emperor describes it and assigns it stats of their choice” makes some players uneasy because they don’t know what the Emperor will do (will monsters be balanced to player ability levels, will the Emperor ever generate a monster which only one player can defeat, etc), but “when a monster appears, it has DICE10 Strength and DICE10 Toughness and a 5% chance of being Undead” lets the players know what range of things might be coming, and makes it their own stupid fault for voting that rule through, if a 10/10 Undead monster massacres them. And the Emperor can still write whatever wild blog entries they like, to describe all this.

Lot of talk for a comment. Who goes back to read these once the issue has passed/failed? I’m not excited to use this space for a group discussion.

I get that players could be (and usually are) bothered when a dm/emperor sends a too-tough monster at them. But I’m not bothered by that when I’m playing, for two reasons:
*The DM is there to create interest, and that usually means a range of difficulties. If you want lower challenge ratings, you can give that feedback.
*I value fairness, but only vs the other players. I know I’m not really there to compete with the dm or the challenge, but rather the puzzle is to get ahead relative to others meeting the same challenge.

These can be hard to internalize for some. Human nature usually means the crazier non-deterministic ideas gets voted down, even if it might have turned out both fun and fair. I was working on some such ideas this dynasty that didn’t get drafted into proposals for that very reason.

Always knowing what is coming doesn’t equate to fun.

Looking back, I see that I didn’t do justice to your conversation points. Fair IS hard sometimes. It’s probable that the crazy decision a dm might make would benefit some more than others. I guess I just feel like not every fun, non-deterministic idea should be forced to be based on a DICE roll, and if there’s anyone to trust to be fair (or fair enough) it would be the emperor.

I don’t know who goes back to read these, but it’s more people than go back to read old Slack discussions. Blog comments are public, (mostly) googleable and visible in the archive forever; Slack discussions are none of these.

True fairness feels very difficult to reach once a dynasty has started and players have jockeyed into various positions, where any gamestate change will impact them in different ways. Perhaps the only way to be truly fair is through a unanimous proposal agreement, or a well-meaning Emperor who only takes an action if they feel certain that every player would approve of it. (You say “If you want lower challenge ratings, you can give that feedback.”, but what do you do if half the players like the 10/10 Undead Wild Pig and half the players object?)

*slices*