Moving forwards
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to dedicate enough time to BlogNomic in the near future to properly run a dynasty (especially as the main theme I have in mind requires a Casual level of Imperial tracking, which I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to provide).
Normally in this situation I’d pass the mantle (it was the original purpose of the mantle-pass rule), but due to anti-pooling measures, mantle-passing isn’t available at the moment. Additionally, some people have (weirdly) started valuing player success via dynasty-as-Emperor count rather than win count (e.g. all the various “mantle roll” agreements we’ve historically seen don’t make sense unless you do that), which gives a perverse incentive to start a dynasty and immediately abandon it, rather than letting someone else start a presumably better dynasty. Finally, as far as I can tell, the core rules actually mandate that I must post an Ascension Address and don’t give any option not to (the rule says “If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Concierge must make an Ascension Address” which, according to our usual precedents, allows players to treat the Ascension Address as having been posted even if I don’t actually make one).
As such, I can see four main lines forwards:
1. a proposal for a core rules change, or a dynastic rule to override the core rules, to allow for a mantle pass and let someone else run a dynasty (but, it might be hard to decide who to pass to, given that this was a purely solo win with no agreements other than temporary single-Break-In agreements with my randomly selected team);
2. I start a dynasty and try to muddle through it as best I can, but it’s at risk of collapsing due to a disengaged Emperor possibly failing to do tracking properly or to guide enough of the gameplay for the other players to build a ruleset (but this is not hopeless – I may be able to devote enough time to at least keep the dynasty going, although it’s unlikely that anything spectacular would happen);
3. I start a dynasty but, early in the dynasty, let someone else take over as Emperor via dynastic rule (I think I can create gameplay compatible with doing that);
4. “BlogNomic has a perfectly good way to determine who should run a dynasty – it’s called a dynasty” – start a new short dynasty whose purpose is to decide how to continue, in the style of ais523 III
I am also not convinced by my theme idea; it falls into the area of “I’m envisioning a particular sort of gameplay but we might not be able to implement it correctly” that has plagued most of the dynasties recently (since I unidled, there have been many dynasties where I clearly understood the Imperial vision, but actually translating it into rules was much harder and the ruleset ended up not matching the vision at all).
Do people have suggestions on what the best option to move forwards might be (any of the above, or perhaps an option I’m missing?).
JonathanDark: he/him
I’d go for option #4. You state a very simple theme in your AA with Imperial styles of “Onlooker, Libertarian, Hands Off, Scam Neutral, Oblivious” and maybe a single Proposal to start things off in your given theme. Then, stay out of it unless you want to occasionally dip in, and let the players determine where the dynasty ends up. It’s the most fair thing that makes sense to me.
We could even consider a dynasty-long “Emperor always votes DEF” proposal if vote totals are a concern when the Emperor plans to be absent most of the time.