BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

  I guess, since someone needs to keep this thing moving.

Reasons I believe we need a RNG:
1) someone will eventually have to create new encounters
more pressingly: 2) if the Victory Condition proposal passes before we have a non-idle RNG, the amulet won’t exist because it won’t have a place to be tracked in the gndt.

Wow.  Way to remove the quoted conversation from the surrounding context.  I’m okay with Bucky as RNG, but certainly not because DC thought it was a good idea.

Though can someone tell me how DC sees BN as no longer being a nomic?

Darknight: It’s a nomic in the loosest sense of the word, but it doesn’t have the spirit of a nomic anymore.

I must admit, I’m still very new to nomics in general (this is my first one and I’ve been playing for less than a week) but could you clarify how you feel this doesn’t have the spirit of a nomic?

I mean, we propose changes to the rules and then abide by the ones we enact, right? What more “nomic-ness” is there that isn’t here?

@Kyre: A game isn’t a nomic if there are rules changes that can’t be made, even with everyone wanting them to happen. Darth’s claiming it effectively isn’t a nomic because, from his point of view, the players in general didn’t acknowledge a rule change he made. I can sort-of understand his grievance; if you follow Darth’s beliefs about the operation of the scam rather than, say, Bucky’s, BlogNomic as a whole is completely ignoring a legal rule change and arbitrarily reverted a legal closing of a CFJ. Of course, from Bucky’s point of view, it’s Darth who’s unilaterally making changes against the rules…

On the other hand, it’s also generally acknowledged that a nomic can put arbitrarily odious constraints on how complicated it is to make rule changes, as long as it’s possible somehow. (/me vaguely mentions the Vladivostok telephone directory and wonders who will get the reference.) Neither “No dictatorships without agreement from every other player in advance” and “No rules changes by Darth Cliche” would prevent a game from being a nomic, although we don’t have the first rule (it would be pretty much unenforceable anyway…) and added the second only very recently (in response to the scam).

The issue of whether a rule change can happen despite everyone believing it fails, or fail to happen despite everyone thinking it works, is a tricky one and much debated among Nomic philosophers; I subscribe to the view that it can, but I suspect I may be in a minority among BlogNomickers as a whole. Other nomics, particularly B Nomic, subscribe to such a philosophy a lot more seriously. It’s also the case in most nomics that scams are held to a much higher standard than “legitimate” gameplay; mistakes can be tolerated in most cases, and maybe even glossed over (I feel that doing so is dangerous, but may again be outnumbered on this), but in the case of scams in particular, even a tiny and seemingly unimportant mistake can and will be held against you, even if doing so would be unsustainable for normal game play. (This is known as “counter-scamming”, and can be a lot of fun when an opportunity comes up, but is best saved for other nomics rather than BlogNomic, which frowns upon that sort of gameplay generally, except maybe in a dynasty dedicated to the subject; I may run a “core rules scams” dynasty someday, but not within the next several months (I’ll pick a different theme if I get a dynasty in the near future).) In B Nomic, incidentally, normal game actions often are held to that level of scrutiny, and as a result things rarely ever happen; the nomic unfortunately moved away from that attitude relatively recently, and has been in a slump ever since.

So all in all, BlogNomic is rather unusual as nomics go; it’s one of the reasons it’s successful (a bad clone of something like Agora or B would fail due to being in the shadow of its more successful rival, just like a bad clone of BlogNomic would probably be abandoned in favour of BlogNomic itself). We can make arbitrary rules changes, but we rarely do; large controversial changes have a tendency to fail just due to the typical attitudes of those who vote on proposals, and scamming anything other than dynastic gameplay is frowned upon, as are scams perpetrated by the RNG/Emperor. Perhaps this leads to BlogNomic’s occasional problems with finding admins; after all, there’s basically no ingame reward for being an admin, and using admin or Emperor powers for a scam would be considered a breach of trust (just watch the community backlash to Darth’s scam attempt). In many other nomics, admin-equivalents (like Agora’s officers) get substantial perks, and the ability to scam the office is normally considered one of them, although it can be constructive to watch the aftermath of attempts to scam (they’re generally accepted, yet the office is normally removed from the Scamster as a result - scams thus cost you resources and/or political power, and even effectively ended up linked to the economy for a while as a result; it’s a pity that Agora doesn’t really have an economy at the moment due to having no or few assets worth trading). Still, I don’t think this means that BlogNomic is not a nomic; even Nomic 217 was a nomic IMO despite not actually having any traditional-style rules (although there were a major unspoken rules “if most players agree something is true, it probably is” and “players can’t make major changes to the way we do things without unanimity”, and most RFCs were judged on those bases). We still have rules, and we can still change them; and if we suddenly bring out core rules loopholes or incredibly nitpicky-seeming technicalities that people wouldn’t have dreamt of using in the absence of a scam just to defeat it, well, such is the fate of a scamster.

I hope that clears things up; I’d be curious to here any responses (especially from Hix, who IIRC has almost the opposite point of view to me wrt nomic philosophy).

Some reactions to ais523’s post, in order:
One major part of Blognomic’s resiliency is that almost all rules disputes are eventually resolved by DoV; even if mistakes were made, the DoV is valid and repeals the rule responsible for the dispute.

Adminship has a few perks: the ability to idle or unidle immediately (rather than waiting) and the limited ability to control the pace of the game by passing timed out proposals and strategic idlings. 

Admin-only scams are also acceptable, and (with the core rules in their current state) usually involve either being the first to act after a critical proposal passes, or poorly worded proposals that give too much power to the enacting admin.  There has only been one case where an abuse of Admin powers got the Admin in trouble, and that involved looking up another player’s GNDT password.

Hmm, yes; I consider admin-only scams acceptable mostly because non-admins can pull them off so easily as well, just by recruiting a friendly admin as a coconspirator (there are enough to go around, after all); I’ve done admin-requiring scams with both Wakukee and Ienpw_III in the past, for instance. That’s a good point. I suspect admin-only scams would be a lot more controversial if they somehow involved things only a few players could legally do; for instance, if a badly worded dynastic rule some time in the future allowed a scam that needed server admin access to pull something off, and 75th Trombone decided to fiddle with BlogNomic’s infrastructure to exploit it, I’m sure there’d be an absolute outcry. (Hard to see how such a scam could exist yet its execution not violate the fair play rules, though; yet stranger things have happened in nomic!)

(sorry if this is hard to follow)

In reply to ais523’s point about things taking place if the rules say, even if everyone disagrees:

I certainly agree that they can. However, it is an extremely common point of procedure (to the point where I know of no rules of procedure that disallow it) that a body can take any action in disregard for its internal rules (not necessarily those imposed from outside) with unanimous consent among its members. The reasons for this are obvious. Since any body, by tradition and often by law, governs its own affairs, if every member of the body agreed that the body took some action, then there would be no valid avenue for complaint against the body’s internal rules because the body’s adjudication system would disregard them just as every member did.

This also extends from the fact that no rules (not even the laws of nations) have any extant power. They derive their power from the fact that people follow them, either by choice (as in Nomic) or by force (the police service and the courts give muscle to statue law). As a result, the interpretation of a rule is really up to how people choose to interpret it. It is a common notion that each rule has a platonically correct interpretation, and it it is the job of the people interpreting the rules (be it the playerbase of a Nomic or a Supreme Court) to find it. I think, however, it would be more accurate to say that whatever people agree to be the correct interpretation ought to be (and this can change retroactively), and a judicial body’s job is to decide this in case of conflict.

Importantly, though, if everyone chooses an incorrect representation and implicitly agrees to follow it, then the rules do not collapse, they are merely being misinterpreted. If this is ever discovered, it is very rarely the case that the misinterpretation is ignored going back, or platonically reevaluated (and whether it is or is not depends on tradition, which is as vitally important to the interpretation of rules as are the rules themselves).

Most Nomics (B Nomic being a notable exception) would simply choose to ignore an issue with the rules that invalidated all their actions once the act of repairing the misunderstanding is too onerous to bear. This is an implicit granting of unanimous consent to simply ignore the rules issues and proceed with the game - fun, after all, is the purpose of Nomic.

Now, in the context of this specific case, it is my view that the CfJ was unreasonable, hence my negative vote. However, it is also my view that, regardless of the legality of Darth Cliche’s scam prior to the adoption of the CfJ, the scam definitely failed because the CfJ fulfilled its duty as the judicial body in deciding the interpretation of the rules - namely, in this case, that Darth Cliche did not successfully insert a dictatorship rule.

Oh, also and won’t this make this a dynasty of Bucky? Would anyone want to keep the name around?

The last time we had a change of emperor, we kept the old name.

Wak’s dynasty as a matter of history. He had to leave for awhile so he asked me to take over, since I, or rather a rule that permitted changing up my GNDT stats in the rune magic(or what ever name it is lol) dynasty, ended up unknowingly helping him win lol

My two zorkmids:

One: As with coppro, I agree that, regardless of the actual “reality” of the scam, the CfJ killed it off. In fact, it went back in time and killed it before it ever existed.

BlogNomic has always had an amount of rule-bending. The final actions of AngryGrasshopper in the Surfing Dynasty were illegal, but his DoV still passed. It turned out that no one had made a single valid Motion (psuedo-proposal thing) in ChronosPhaeron’s second dynasty, but Hix still achieved victory.

If there is a single, platonic, ideal of the game, it’s whatever DoVs and CfJs say it is. The CfJ said the scam didn’t happen, so it didn’t happen.

Aside: Or it could said be that every individual interpretation of the game is a separate platonic game, in which case there are two BlogNomics going on: one where the Bucky-Logic worked and one where it didn’t. Either way, things should be set back to normal soon with ais523’s proposal.

Two: What can I say? It was near bed-time (for me), the fate of the game was at stake, and DC’s actions had spooked the herd. What I would decided in a sane situation might have been different, but it wasn’t a sane situation.

I was going to have a discussion on the nature of rule-text, but I found this in the old BN wiki:

“Consider your assumptions. The rules of logic always apply, but the underlying assumptions are subject to the whim of the players, so it is a good idea to assess what the current game environment will permit. Is the game simulationist or purely abstract? Generally, assumptions about a concrete concept are slightly safer than assumptions about a fantastical concept.”

Some of us had the assumption that rule-text instantly “executes” the moment it was in the rule-text. Some of us had the assumption that ‘special effects’ texts doesn’t work until there’s a monster for it to work on. Bucky’s CfJ established it was the latter.

Which one ought, in a sane situation, we to have picked? I would agree with Bucky’s choice for the precedent it sets, even if the ruleset is a little dinged in the process.

Consider the following two sets of two monsters:

Imp: Attacks with 1DICE6
Demon: Attacks with 6DICE6. If an imp rolls a 6, a demon automatically joins the battle.

versus

Imp: Attacks with 1DICE6. On a roll of 6, a demon joins the battle.
Demon: Attacks with 6DICE6.

The latter is definitely better style. 

Furthermore, consider Proposals and CfJs. Neither of them are “read” until they pass, and they shouldn’t be.

Yes, it may have been an iffy ruling. But the original text was more iffy. When giving rule-level power to things, we need to be more explicit than “ruletext associated with the monster” and “special effects”.

Bonus third zorkmid:

Both sides made dubious moves, but even if each had been carefully considered, how would the end differ? DC could have at best hoped for a AngryGrasshoper-style GM-power. No matter how the exact actions would fall out, the Nomic would still not stand for a dictatorship.

Bonus bonus fourth zorkmid:

A player on IRC last night was saying how they were idle as long as DC was playing. Any player that unfun to play with is a serious issue.

Everyone joining a Nomic has some level of culture-clash, and may, to put it bluntly, end up acting like a jerk. I was no exception. I don’t think we should need permanently ban any player who is more than a pure troll. But we needn’t tolerate players who are acting childish, and are continuing to do so.

DC’s sudden exit makes things easier. I was going to propose some period of exile for him, but since he has self-imposed one I needn’t bother. Hopefully, he will be more reasonable when he comes back.

But for clarity, let’s be absolutely sure about the name thing. We’re leaving this the 2nd of DC?

I’m afraid I can’t read all those 5-paragaph-long comments, but I’ll say this: BlogNomic is a nomic, but it just doesn’t have that nomic “feel” to it, nor does it have the feel of the BlogNomic I know and love, from back in the first two dynasties I played in - The Second Dynasty of Yoda and the First Metadynasty of Rodlen (IT’S NOT THE FOURTH METADYNASTY, DAMMIT!). It seems the First Dynasty of Arthexis ruined everything for me - particularly the ban against spamming, which made even slight spam such as joke proposals and CfJs be considered spam in the eyes of the players.

I miss the days when we thought I had glitch admin powers, when the Rogue Admin was tormenting the game, when Yoda and Bucky made a scam using encryption and nomics within nomics within BlogNomic to make me win.

*sigh*

Rodlen’s Meta was awesome. I actually liked arth’s 1st, it wasn’t until yuri’s 1st that things started to get tick-tacky. Not that it was his fault; but things went a bit downhill since then, with a few exceptions.

Yeah, it wasn’t really arth’s, but it paved the path. I agree with you that yuri’s was the first really bad one. I also liked the Fifth Metadynasty, and Kevan’s most recent one.

Maybe I’m cursed…

Note to self and others: if this passes then the “Darth Cliche cannot edit the ruleset” term in the previous CfJ expires immediately.