Sunday, March 12, 2017

Proposal: Metaphase

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 14 Mar 2017 09:44:40 UTC

In “Anatomy”, add to the list of states:

- Bud

Add a new rule, “Budding”:

At any time after 00:01:00 UTC on March 17, any Organ may, as an atomic action:
- Choose a name (which will be referred to in this rule as NEWNAME) from the list at this page (the “Page”.)
- Change the Creature of all Organs in the Bud state to NEWNAME.
- In the Map of Habitat, add a new Creature with the name NEWNAME with Hunger, Restlessness, and Curiosity all set to 3.
- In the Map of Habitat, change [EVE] to [EVE] [NEWNAME].
- Repeal this rule.

No Organ may edit the Page.

Comments

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 18:43:25 UTC

It seems like either everyone would become a Bud or no one would, since probably we all want to be part of the creature with the most organs.  I’d be more in favor of something that randomly selected six organs to be part of the new creature, and had mechnasims for rebalancing when people join and go idle, etc.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 19:16:13 UTC

NOPE

This can easily create unbalanced “factions” and thats gameplay I won’t endorse against

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 19:28:04 UTC

We might want to specify that the new creature can’t be called Eve, but since Cuddlebeam voted on it already I guess that’s out.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 19:35:28 UTC

I’m fervent about not having unbalanced faction-making mechanics like this (because it’s cheap and not interesting gameplay fmpov), and this is clearly one of them (because there is no balance, just “opting in” or not opting at all).

My “No Monopolies please” proposal is very clear at what I want to avoid, and this proposal is straight up that.

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 19:55:41 UTC

And yet you make proposals to give people unfair advantages.  Just face it, no one else here wants to make the game unfair the way you do.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 20:01:31 UTC

The Hypertrophy proposal (https://blognomic.com/archive/hypertrophy) was bait to get comments from people saying that they’re against unfairness like this. Since I’m not very popular as it is, it’s the least harm if I pull off something like this, so that unfairness in the future can be avoided from those people, by showing that they were against it in that proposal.

 

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 20:08:40 UTC

Why do you need this verified?  Proposals that are blatantly unfair pretty much always fail already.  This isn’t necessarily unfair, though I’d like some clause to prevent creation of a creature with only like one or two organs.

pokes:

12-03-2017 20:12:44 UTC

It’s not clear to me that unbalanced factions are an inherent badness in gameplay. Can you expand on why you think it’s “cheap” or “uninteresting”? Games like Werewolf where (in some variants) there’s a smaller faction with different goals and abilities aren’t “uninteresting”. It’s also not necessarily the case that immediately after a split, the game becomes competitive between the two Creatures.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 20:21:38 UTC

Werewolf is interesting because the trade-off for less vote count is more mechanical power.

And creating a voting faction for your own benefit is as interesting as calling for a bunch of people from outside the game to join and vote for what you want. It’s the same thing, except for from where the pool of people is taken from.

It CAN be interesting, but as it is laid out now, with everyone having 1 vote and no major differences in power (nutrient count is negligible), distributing that unevenly will just be unbalanced (as your proposal could do, unless heavily reworked).

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 20:32:49 UTC

I mean, it’s not the same thing, because in one case everyone in the voting bloc benefits, and in the other case only one person does.  But I don’t think anyone is going to be passing proposals that favor one creature over the other, so it’s irrelevant to the current situation.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 20:45:13 UTC

It is. Here’s a simple example:

-Eve: [-][-][-][-][-][-] <-6 voters
-Adam: [-][-][-] <-3 voters

A player from Eve proposes that all Eve players get Hypertrophied.
Potential vote outcome:

-Eve: [For][For][For][For][For][For]
-Adam: [Against][Against][Against]

Adam players are helpless against the Eve bloc (as they would be against any other sufficiently large bloc, like one spawned from external help). It’s not interesting because it kills players off from the game with a very simple and uninteresting mechanic (just getting enough people to agree). In other cases you have to dredge through the ruleset and figure out your scams and loopholes, in the other, its just a popularity contest.

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 20:46:12 UTC

No one will vote for that proposal.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 20:50:10 UTC

Well, alright. At least we can agree on that it should be balanced regardless.

pokes:

12-03-2017 21:04:40 UTC

“At least we can agree on that it should be balanced regardless.” Who’s agreeing on this? In the Eve vs. Adam scenario it’s not the case that every pro-Eve proposal passes 6-3.

Oracular rufio:

12-03-2017 21:16:06 UTC

I’m not agreeing with Cuddlebeam.  I’m saying this proposal should have stipulations to prevent there from being a creature with less than three organs.  Like “at least three organs are Buds, and at least three organs are not Buds” should do it.  Not because I think voting will be an issue, but just because a creature with less than three organs might have some trouble.

pokes:

12-03-2017 21:19:13 UTC

I agree on that point. A two-Organ Creature would be not good.

Madrid:

12-03-2017 21:23:30 UTC

What’s the purpose of dividing the Creature, pokes?

pokes:

12-03-2017 21:54:00 UTC

Fun

Madrid:

12-03-2017 22:50:01 UTC

Well.

Viv:

12-03-2017 23:24:25 UTC

against I believe the creature will divide and I am unconcerned by an imbalance in size.
This however seems slightly chaotic in execution, cataclysmic flailing may ensue in the GNDT.

Matt:

13-03-2017 02:57:51 UTC

imperial

Oracular rufio:

13-03-2017 03:00:12 UTC

imperial Maybe next time, pokes.

card:

13-03-2017 06:21:35 UTC

against

Kevan: he/him

13-03-2017 12:23:16 UTC

against Seems fine apart from using a Wikipedia page as input (which could be edited seconds prior to enactment).

Kevan: he/him

13-03-2017 12:24:57 UTC

(Or edited later by an accomplice who isn’t playing BlogNomic.)

pokes:

13-03-2017 13:07:07 UTC

against S/K. In the general case, would a link to a specific revision of a Wikipedia page becoming official gamestate be unobjectionable?

Viv:

13-03-2017 23:21:39 UTC

I guess the atomic action could work, although I’d prefer it to be triggered by a blog post and tracked after.
Lock down names and I call it balanced enough.

Kevan: he/him

14-03-2017 09:44:16 UTC

[pokes] Usual practice is to link to a specific revision, or to copy the contents of the page to the BlogNomic wiki (usually trimming it down to be a plain text list).