BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

The main changes here are in the “Divergence” rule, now renamed “Multiverse Mechanics” and restructured: I’ve added “Portals” and “Cataclysm” to the Para Ruleset; I’ve added the “Self” term for in-universe versions of Scientists, and introduced some other terms (like “Universe Rulesets”, Universe of origin” and “associated Universe”) that might be useful in proposals; I’ve changed wording that no longer makes much sense; I’ve clarified that each Scientist has one vote per proposal; I’ve added gamestate to things you need a tag to amend in a Universe; and I’ve added a ban on combining Universe proposals with Para or Core proposals, mostly so that the extra level of bureaucracy doesn’t get too confusing (and crossing Scientists cannot bypass voting restrictions this way).

As to the other changes:

– I renamed “Portal” to the clearer “First Connection”.
– I moved the temporary, portal-related “Similarity” high up and improved its structure.
– I removed from “Cataclysm” the restatement of extreme Polarities; since this is set elsewhere, and the Para set has precedence, it would only complicate things to keep the numbers in both places.
– I rearranged some of the other rules (though it’s still a somewhat loose set): “Portals” is close to its Para brethren, “Budget” and “Research Material” have been unified under “University Resources”, “Star Signs” is the second rule in the Universe Rulesets after that, and “Mindflaying” is now a subrule of “Polarity”.
– Some tweaks in “Polarity” (clarifying that each Scientists throws their own dice), “Discrepant Actions”, “Portal Procedure” (including another blockquote and removal of the now-redundant “flavour text” note there) and “Star Signs” (to ensure that the Scientist is interpreted as the player and not a Self, and thus the Star Sign is the same for both Selves).

I’m sure there’s enough here to raise objections on something or other from most quarters, but in the interest of convenience, these could be dealt with in supplementary proposals. (Same thing for previous proposals that look set to pass: I’ve incorporated their effects, but if one of these ends up being failed for whatever reason, this can be corrected afterwards.)

I still haven’t got to satisfactorily resolve the matter of rules dealing with both Universes; the ruleset seems to work as it is, but not necessarily as well as it should. On the other hand, if we put too many rules in the Paradynastic Ruleset, there might be so little left in the Universe Rulesets that would defeat the point of diverging Universes, so… I don’t know.