Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Proposal: Nomich IV: a new hope

Self-killed.—Brendan

Adminned at 11 Nov 2010 10:54:25 UTC

Replace rule 2.3 (“Nomich”) by

Nomich is a sport played by Students. Students who belong to the same Dormitory are always on the same team.

Nomich is played with an ordinary deck of 52 cards. At all times when not playing a game of Nomich, each Dormitory should be holding seven cards. The cards held by each Dormitory should be kept a secret to all other Dormitories and should be tracked by the Headmaster. If, any any time, a Dormitory is holding less than seven cards and is not playing a Nomich, the Headmaster should randomly assign them enough cards that they have a hand of seven, and should then send a private message to all members of that Dormitory telling them the composition of their new hand. The Headmaster must ensure that the same card is not being held by more than one Dormitory at any given time.

Any member of a Dormitory may challenge another Dormitory to a match of Nomich by making a post to that effect. This Student is known as the “Challenger”. His dormitory is known as the “Challenging team”.
A challenge can only be levelled:
- On a Saturday;
- By a Student whose condition is “Alive”
- By a Student who is not in Detention;
- By a member of a Dormitory that has not already played a match of Nomich that day and that is not already playing a match of Nomich;
- Against a Dormitory that contains at least one Student that could possibly answer at the time of the challenge, and;
- Against a Dormitory that has not already played a match of Nomich that day and that is not already playing a match of Nomich.


The challenge shall be immediately followed by a comment in the same thread, made by the Challenger, containing his play. A play is a sequence of cards, of any size or composition, from the Dormitory’s hand.

A Dormitory is obliged to accept the first such challenge levelled against it on a Saturday. This dormitory is known as the “Defending team”. One of the members of the Defending team should post a play in the 24 hours after the challenge is posted, as a comment in the Challenge thread. This Student is known as the “Defender”. The first play posted by the Defending team in a challenge thread is the one that is scored for that match. If the Defending team does not post a play on a Challenge, the Challenger will choose the Defender among the students that could have posted a play at the time of the challenge, and this Student counts has having posted an empty play (a play that contains no cards) for the Defending Team.
A challenge can only be accepted:
- By a Student whose condition is “Alive”.
- By a Student who is not in Detention.

Once a legal play has been made by both Dormitories, all cards in those plays are removed from the hands of the Dormitories involved. The Headmaster will them refill both hands randomly, as described in the beginning of this rule.

The Dormitory whose play scores highest wins the match. It becomes the “Winning team”, and the other dormitory becomes the “Losing team”. The Student who posted the scoring play for the Winning Team is the Winner, and the Student who posted the scoring play for the Losing team is the Loser. If both Dormitories in a match have the same score, the Headmaster shall randomly choose one of them as the winner of the match.

The score value of any play is adjudged according to the Nomich Ruleset. The Nomich Ruleset is secret and should be known in its entirety only to the Headmaster. The only public rules are listed as subrules to this one.

At the end of each Sunday, or as soon as possible thereafter, the Headmaster should indicate in the Challenge thread which Dormitory won and what each play scored.
A Dormitory who wins a game of Nomich may perform one of the two following actions:
- Add a new rule to the Nomich ruleset by PMing it to the Headmaster; or
- Change the Condition of one Student of the Losing Team to Ghost or Zombie; or
- Choose a Teacher and a Student and, if that Teacher has a Grudge against that Student, remove that Grudge; or
- Choose two Teachers and if any or both these teachers have a Grudge against the Winner, remove that/those Grudge(s).

If the first action is undertaken, the Headmaster must appraise the new rule, and may reject it if it contradicts another rule or if it offers an unfair and destabilising advantage to any Dormitory at the expense of any other Dormitory. The Headmaster’s judgement on this matter is final. Any rule thus rejected is lost and the Dormitory who proposed it may not undertake another winners’ action.

Add a subrule to rule 2.3(“Nomich”):

The play with the largest cumulative face value scores 5 points. For the prupose of this rule, an Ace is considered have a face value of 1, a Jack to have a face value of 11, a Queen to have a face value of 12, and a King to have a face value of 13.

I reworded controversial parts, and removed the cheese. =)

Comments

Darknight: he/him

10-11-2010 21:25:00 UTC

imperial

Ambisinister:

10-11-2010 21:45:11 UTC

imperial

William:

10-11-2010 22:01:02 UTC

imperial

macgeorge:

10-11-2010 22:11:42 UTC

imperial

Roujo: he/him

10-11-2010 22:58:13 UTC

imperial =P

Bucky:

11-11-2010 01:48:32 UTC

against

Blacky:

11-11-2010 09:15:02 UTC

imperial However, the proposal reads: ...“may perform one of the two following actions:” while four actions are specified. Maybe this should be taken care of.

Roujo: he/him

11-11-2010 13:24:16 UTC

1-1-5 =P

Well, enough: for

Kevan: he/him

11-11-2010 15:39:41 UTC

This overwrites the introduction of Prefects, and we could use a more watertight explanation of “The Headmaster must ensure that the same card is not being held by more than one Dormitory at any given time”, in case future spells mess around with that.

“Against a Dormitory that contains at least one Student that could possibly answer at the time of the challenge” is worded a bit subjectively; I assume you’re intending to stop challenges against all-Zombie or all-Detention dorms, but you’re also stopping challenges against Dorms whose members are all offline at the time of the challenge.

“If the Defending team does not post a play on a Challenge” probably needs to clarify “within the 24 hours” rather than “at any point”.

And I think we may as well cut “if it offers an unfair and destabilising advantage to any Dormitory at the expense of any other Dormitory” (as Bucky says, any rule is an advantage to the one team that knows it) and just say that the Head can reject a rule he doesn’t like.

against

Kevan: he/him

11-11-2010 15:50:41 UTC

That was just a list of issues, reading through - “could possibly answer at the time of the challenge” (especially as “answer” is undefined) and “does not post a play on a Challenge” are the only real deal-breakers.

Roujo: he/him

11-11-2010 16:55:38 UTC

Drat. CoV against

Greytyphoon:

11-11-2010 17:20:36 UTC

against Self-kill. See the Protosal.