Thursday, December 15, 2005

Proposal: Logical Antecedent

s-killed

adminned by cayvie

Adminned at 16 Dec 2005 12:04:50 UTC

First a quick meta-statement: The goal of this Rule is to let us get to the fun part: writing colaborative fiction, playing a text adventure, whatever; coming up with awesome game mechanics that lead to interesting story lines and funny anecdotes without getting bogged down in the details of “But what Command was entered to _cause_ the exploding sword to get stuck in the rock? There’s no mechanic for that have even occured!”. In essence it’s a default mechanic. If something is stated to occur by a Rule, and a Protagonist can’t show whether it is occuring or not, then it does occur.


Add a new rule called “Prerequisite” that reads as follows:

If there is an action that is required to be performed in the game world, but there currently is no Rule indicating how such an action is to be officially shown to have been performed, it is assumed to have been performed. All subsequent statements that rely on this action to have be performed will be carried out.


In order to demonstrate what effect this Rule would have, I am going to walk through a couple Example Situations. Each of these have a setup in terms of a set of outstanding Proposals that it assumes enacted (which may or may not be enacted, that isn’t the point: the goal is to just have some game going in the Example Situation so there is something to demonstrate with) and whatever other game state information is required to completely understand what is occuring. I then show how it plays out with this Rule in effect.

Example Situation #1: Location, Location, Location and Disco Inferno were to pass, there was some way for Protagonists to move between Locations, and Maximum Occupancy was violated. Accourding to Location, Location, Location, a Fire Marshal is Summoned. The English definition of Summon is “call in an official matter, such as to attend court”. There is no way in this game world to send the message to show that this Summoning took place. The Fire Marshal is then _assumed_ to have been Summoned. Accourding to Disco Inferno he must then go to this location, which would be showable (as he would have to travel to that location, and I assumed in the setup Protagonists can move between Locations) and give his speech. When he gets there, there is no way to show that he gave his speech, so it is assumed that he gave his speech, and he may continue to the question and answer session, as indicated in the Rule text. If, at some later time, a mechanic is added that allows Protagonists to speak to each other, and the same set of events were to occur, then the Fire Marshal _would_ have to type out his speech, as now there is a way to show that he did it, and thereby a way to prove that he didn’t.

Example Situation #2: Grue Tag (draft II) were to pass, there was some way for Protagonists to move between Locations, another Rule was inserted that stated: if a Protagonist with Role other than Grue enters a Location where there already exists a Grue, the entering Protagonist slays that Grue, Angry Grasshopper (the Grue) is Located at The Ominous Forest, Cayvie has a Role other than Grue, and Cayvie were to enter this Location. As he has entered this Location where there is a Grue, the aforementioned Rule indicates that he slays said Grue. Currently, there is no way to show that Caylie is slaying the Grue. Therefor, we should assume that it has occured, and perform any actions that were reliant on that event. Namely, Caylie’s Role becomes Grue, Angry Grasshopper’s Role becomes Unemployed, Angry Grasshopper’s Location is set to “The Ruins of the Fortress of Cheese”, and further, he must stay there until he obtains a new Role.

Example Situation #2 Addendum: It should be noted that the logical _consequences_ of such an action have not occured. If there’s nothing in the game play that indicates that Protaganists that are slain are unable to, for instance, move around the game world, the fact that Angry Grasshopper is now slain _doesn’t_ itself imply that. This information can only be used for Prerequisites on other rule texts. Angry Grasshopper was slain. It _is_ true that this will never not be the case unless another Rule, for example, indicates that after a Protagonist has been in the state of having been slain for some period of time is then considered to no longer have been slain (kind of a Respawn, if you will). I consider it a feature that such situations might be interesting, and we might have Protagonists who are, for all rights and considerations, dead, walking around the world talking to other Protagonists, and only later does some new Rule indicate that Protagonists who have been slain are unable to enter The Holy Temple or something, and Protagonists then start scrambling to Propose Rules to remove these Prerequisites.

Comments

Saurik:

15-12-2005 10:06:25 UTC

And with that, I _finally_ go to bed, hehe. (And given Moonwryn’s comment on “Death shouldn’t be drawn out.” I don’t neccessarily expect anyone to bother reading that, but I’m actually used to that and don’t mind in the slightest. ;P)

Moonwryn:

15-12-2005 10:31:27 UTC

those are a lot of words…

now, some folks might be tempted to draw a parallel with joranj, however, there is an unsubtle difference between the styles of the two.  for joranj, the great bulk of his text was actually the body of his proposed rules.

Salamander:

15-12-2005 10:35:23 UTC

I really like the direction you’re headed in. Great wording on the rule—I can’t find any way to make it shorter. Anyway, way to shoot for the fence!

Saurik:

15-12-2005 10:58:50 UTC

I so need to be sleeping now :(. But, lying in bed, I just thought of something: Example Situation #2 Addendum really is just restating something that is already a fundamental premise of dealing with the Rules of the nomic. I’m just indicating that this new Rule doesn’t change that. So if anyone reads it, and gets confused and thinks “But wait, why did he feel the need to say that?”, the answer is that I don’t think I really needed to say it, but I figured it shouldn’t hurt, so ignore it. ;P

ChronosPhaenon:

15-12-2005 13:47:27 UTC

for

Angry Grasshopper:

15-12-2005 14:00:39 UTC

I would vote   this if Quazie were idle, but since he is here I have to vote   .

Quazie:

15-12-2005 14:34:22 UTC

wait, so mr AG why single me out?  Hmm?

Angry Grasshopper:

15-12-2005 15:14:17 UTC

The proposed text is pretty vague, and I feel that as it reads it is abusable. Who better to abuse it than… you, of course. ;)

Quazie:

15-12-2005 15:26:06 UTC

i thank you sir for

Quazie:

15-12-2005 15:29:58 UTC

oh wow, i wish all dynasties had this rule, it allows for total internal destruction COV against the explotation that this will lead to on my part will make everyone sad, including myself, simply because i wont be able to exploit it to the fullest as i don’t have the time to do so.

Cayvie:

15-12-2005 15:31:36 UTC

against

hooray now anyone can do anything this is horrible

notafraud:

15-12-2005 17:14:17 UTC

for

Hix:

15-12-2005 17:52:06 UTC

against

Rodney:

15-12-2005 18:01:27 UTC

against What Quazie said. Also, some of this is assumed.

AgentHH:

15-12-2005 19:00:20 UTC

against

I’m not sure I like how easily this can be exploited.

Saurik:

15-12-2005 20:27:49 UTC

So, is there some unspoken Rule that if someone votes something down because it is exploitable that they never say how it is exploitable? This doesn’t let you win unless there is a Rule that states that you can win if something occurs. This doesn’t state that that thing occurs unless another Rule states that thing has occured. I don’t see how this can make things that Rules haven’t explicitely stated to have happened to have happened.

So, because people hardly ever say why they are against something other than “I didn’t like it” or “this is easily exploited”, I’m left sitting here guessing at what people mean.

My only guess is I can see how I might need a “by a Rule” in the first half of the first sentence:

If there is an action that is required to be performed _by a Rule_ in the game world..

Maybe:

If there is an action that is _stated to be performed_ in the game world _by a Rule_…

?

Saurik:

15-12-2005 20:29:26 UTC

Rodnie: Frankly, I think all of this Rule should be assumed ;P, but I’ve now seen many people argue that things that are written into other Proposals can’t work because such a Rule isn’t explicitely in place. (See the quote in my first explanatory paragraph that reads like most of the arguments do.)

Saurik:

15-12-2005 20:32:58 UTC

(Thinking about it more I don’t see why I would need a “by a Rule” as that should be caused implicitely by using the word “required”, as the only way to truly require something is if a Rule causes it to be required.)

Seventy-Fifth Trombone:

15-12-2005 21:17:17 UTC

I’m not sure this is exploitable, but I still vote against .

The Ruleset really doesn’t prohibit random actions that aren’t recorded anywhere.  But they’re very undesirable, because then you have people just trying to remember big chunks of gamestate, and then you have controversy about whether stuff that isn’t written down anywhere except an old Proposal is actually part of gamestate at all.

What I would vote for is something that created a “Homeless Gamestate” section of the Ruleset.  Then resubmit this Proposal, replacing

“it is assumed to have been performed”

with

“the text describing that action will be inserted into a new subsection of the Homeless Gamestate section.

If an action’s home is made in a later Proposal, that Proposal should attempt to move the action’s results to the appropriate place.

This gets it written down in the Ruleset, so it’s binding, but still allows stuff to happen before it’s completely structured.

(If someone does this, try to find a better name than “Homeless Actions,” unless you really like it.  :P )

Saurik:

15-12-2005 22:14:06 UTC

Ok, fair enough ;P. I also like the fact that this constructs, in a sense, an explicit event log for implicit events. (I generally like logs and history and the such.) I’ll probably try to Propose something like that later today.

The Lone Amigo:

16-12-2005 02:58:36 UTC

against

My reasons for voting against this have pretty much already been stated.

Excalabur:

16-12-2005 04:17:23 UTC

I repeat again: nomic is largely about using the rules currently in place to greatest advantage. 

This allows quazie to do so, becuase he’s, well, cwazy, and thus has the most imagination :) against

Saurik:

16-12-2005 04:50:54 UTC

Excalibur: you can say that about every single rule. There is nothing specific about a problem in _this_ rule in your description of voting against it. All rules allow Quazie to use them to their greatest advantage. Is there a hole you see in this rule? Even though I intend to resubmit it for 75ths comments, it isn’t going to be drastically changed. I want to hear someone defend the idea that this Rule is so inherently exploitable before claiming that it is.

Saurik:

16-12-2005 07:38:06 UTC

There are only three votes missing on Proposal’s that come before this one before this one blocks, so I’m going to against this one right now and work on the newer version.

Saurik:

16-12-2005 07:43:03 UTC

In the mean time, if people read this, I still would like someone to actually craft an exploit mechanic.

Seventy-Fifth Trombone:

16-12-2005 12:32:09 UTC

Ditto Saurik’s last comment.

Cayvie:

16-12-2005 17:52:03 UTC

here’s my exploit:
as soon as this rule passes, I declare victory.

In order for a declaration of victory to be legal, a player is required to have won the dynasty.  as there is no way defined to win this dynasty yet, but it is required that I do so, I am assumed to have won the dynasty.