Proposal: Initialising, Phase One
Reached quorum 4 votes to 0. Enacted by Kevan.
Adminned at 07 Jul 2023 11:01:57 UTC
Add the following as a new dynastic rule, called “Initialisation”:
Every dynastic rule except for this rule and its subrules is flavour text. After Initialisation Phase One and Initialisation Phase Two have been repealed, any Machinist may rename this rule to “Machinist Agendas” and then remove this paragraph from the ruleset.
An Agenda is a text string describing a particular condition pertaining to a potential dynastic gamestate, which can belong to a Machinist. An Agenda can only be owned by one Machinist at a time, and one Machinist can own no more than three Agendas at a time. An Agenda’s condition and ownership are privately tracked by the Great Machine. Agendas that are not owned by any Machinist can be referred to as Reserve Agendas.
An Initialisation Key is a term that appears with bold formatting in the dynastic rules at least one time. The text string of an Agenda must include exactly 2 different Initialisation Keys.
Machinists who do not each have the other’s names in their Alliance may not privately communicate about their own Agendas to each other; such communications are subject to the definitions, restrictions, and recommendations outlined in the special case rule “No Collaboration”.
When an owned Agenda’s condition is a true statement about the current gamestate, that Agenda is Fulfilled. If two or more of a Machinist’s own Agendas have been Fulfilled for the last 24 hours, that Machinist has achieved victory. A Declaration of Victory based on this rule should include the text of each of the Agendas that contributed to the victory.
Add the following as a subrule of “Initialisation”, called “Initialisation Phase One”:
The purpose of Phase One is to establish a basic set of mechanical concepts to serve as inspiration for Agendas in Phase Two.
Machinists should Propose stub rules which contain potential Initialisation Keys until there are at least twice as many Initialisation Keys as there are active Machinists. Proposed Initialisation Keys should be the names of resources, actions, or other interactable game constructs. Multiple Initialisation Keys referring to the exact same game mechanic should be avoided.
If there are at least twice as many Initialisation Keys as there are active Machinists, the Great Machine can and should repeal this subrule.
the way that i want to start this dynasty is a bit complicated, so i’ve broken it into two proposals.
to put it simply: i want to do a hidden objective mechanic! i’m aiming for something a bit like Veiled Fate (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/315695/veiled-fate), where every piece on the board is neutral and controllable by everyone, so players are incentivised to keep their objectives secret and bluff by pushing objectives that aren’t their own. that idea of neutral pieces and bluff moves should apply both to expanding the stub dynamics and, eventually, to messing with the Machine itself.
in Phase One, we’ll all be making a series of stub keywords for the game. then later on we’ll write those nouns into various hidden objectives!
I do think that the Alliance / collaboration side of things is probably a mistake while there are only ~3 active players; as we saw at the end of the last dynasty, even a hint that it’s been a 2v1 can tarnish an otherwise unimpeachable win. I might propose to stick that side of things below a minimum participation cap.
JonathanDark: he/him
“An Agenda can only be owned by one Machinist at a time”
So, if a Machinist sends a private message to the Great Machine to set their Agenda, and another Machinist already has that Agenda, is the Great Machine required to reply to the message indicating that the Agenda is already taken, or will it be silently ignored?
There’s consequences either way. If it’s the former, a Machinist could learn what Agendas other Machinists might have if their submission is rejected. If it’s the latter, a Machinist might attempt to proceed all the way to victory only to find that their Agenda was invalid from the start.