Tuesday, May 08, 2018

Proposal: Mute-ny

Timed out 1 vote to 5. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 10 May 2018 09:16:57 UTC

Add a new rule called “Hashes” to the end of the dynastic ruleset with the following text:

A string of 32 hexademical characters is known as a Hash. The Hash of a piece of text is the MD5 Hash generated for it at http://www.miraclesalad.com/webtools/md5.php.

Change the rule “Mutiny” to the following:

At any time, if there is a Captain, a Sailor that is not the Captain or a Prisoner may attempt a Mutiny by creating a story post to that effect. A Sailor may respond to the mutiny (if they have not already done so) by commenting with a single Hash. This comment is known as a Choice of Side.
After the 48 hours have passed, and no more than 24 hours after it passing, a Sailor may Sign a Choice of Side he or she has made by posting a follow-up comment on the same Mutiny which specifies a piece of text whose Hash is the same as the Hash in their Choice of Side. Upon doing so: if that piece of text contains the word “overthrow” (with any capitalisation) then the Sailor who wrote the Choice of Side has Supported that Mutiny, otherwise they have Opposed it. The captain always Opposes the Mutiny and can not make a Choice of Side. The Narrator can not make a Choice of Side.
After those 24 hours have also passed, so 72 hours after the original post, any admin may resolve the mutiny by making the necessary changes in the GNDT.
If, at resolution, a quorom of Sailors Supported the Mutiny, the mutiny has succeeded. The Captain becomes a Prisoner, and the chief mate, second mate and third mate become a Prisoner if they did not Support the mutiny.
Otherwise, every sailor who Supported the mutiny becomes a Prisoner, and the chief mate, second mate and third mate become a Prisoner if they did not Oppose the mutiny.
In both cases, any Sailor who made a Choice of Side but did not sign it within the time limit becomes a prisoner. This is known as the “Lily-livered Clause”.

I stole… err, found a secret voting system!
Also added some pressure on the mates to choose sides. And made it so the Captain can’t plot to overthrow himself, this isn’t Crusader Kings.
I might refine Quorum later to something less for this rule, because there are 2 non-votes already, but let’s get the important part fixed first.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

08-05-2018 09:16:39 UTC

You’ve written it so that only the hashes of Prisoners are counted (“the Prisoner who wrote the Choice of Side has Supported that Mutiny”).

I’m not sure how much this is something that players would want to be secretive about, though - if you’re a Mutineer, you’d want to show other Sailors that it was safe for them to support a popular Mutiny; if you’re loyal to your Captain, you’d want to demonstrate that. It seems like both sides would rather post a straight announcement than a hash. The whole thing of a Mutiny being a nasty surprise is already there in that it can be coordinated in private and declared when it has enough people behind it.

ElMarko:

08-05-2018 09:25:31 UTC

This allows for backstabbing though - getting the mutineers to reveal themselves by pretending to support them, for instance. It would also lessen the amount of safe but boring play: supporting a mutiny that is going to succeed anyway, just to show your loyalty, or waiting till the last moment to add your support because you want to avoid jail.

ElMarko:

08-05-2018 09:26:11 UTC

Also, fixed. It’s not because I copied this from a text about prisoners or something, oh no…

Kevan: he/him

08-05-2018 09:37:51 UTC

It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure works with publicly-posted hashes. If someone doubts the honesty of an accomplice’s hash, they can privately ask them what’s inside it, and a backstabber would give themselves away. (An organised group of mutineers would probably all agree their hashes in advance; a careful Captain would threaten prison for anyone who dared post any kind of hash during a Mutiny.)

It’d work better if it was private messages to the Passenger (with a clause to stop conspirators insisting on having the messages cc’d to them to prove that they were sent).

ElMarko:

08-05-2018 09:46:00 UTC

That’s true, I guess. Well, I know what my next proposal is going to be :p but in the meantime, I’ll leave this up, as I think it’s still an improvement over For-Against Voting

Lulu: she/her

08-05-2018 23:56:37 UTC

Shouldn’t hashes be in the Appendix?

card:

09-05-2018 00:51:55 UTC

against seems too wordy and doesn’t have any apparent advantages over the current Mutiny rule

Kevan: he/him

09-05-2018 08:23:12 UTC

against As above, I don’t think this would work as intended - everyone who would be concerned about double-crossing could easily avoid it by insisting players reveal (or use pre-written) hashes.

Brendan: he/him

09-05-2018 14:28:28 UTC

against

derrick: he/him

09-05-2018 18:34:10 UTC

against

Corona:

09-05-2018 19:47:34 UTC

against