Proposal: Once More Unto
Timed out, 1-2. Failed by JonathanDark.
Adminned at 21 Mar 2024 16:55:35 UTC
Add the following as a subrule to the Appendix rule Clarifications, called Imperatives:
An action is ‘’‘optional’‘’ when it may be performed at the Seeker’s discretion, although it may be subject to other restrctions around time and circumstance. A move is optional when it uses the terms ‘may’, ‘is permitted to’, ‘can’ etc.
An action is ‘’‘obligatory’‘’ when the Seeker is compelled to perform it. When a Seeker is required by the ruleset to take an obligatory move then they may not undertake any other action, dynastic or core, except for voting, carrying out admin duties like resolving votable matters or rendering players idle or unidle, or other obligatory actions, until they have carried out that obligatory move. Rules that define obligatory moves use langauge like “should” or “is required to”. If it is discovered that a Seeker took an obligatory move out of order (i.e. after an optional move that they should not have been able to take due to an obligatory move having been outstanding), but it is also found that the outcome would not have varied had the moves been taken in the correct order, then it may be considered that no infraction has taken place.
An ‘’‘obligatory restriction’‘’ is a rule that sets out something that a Seeker may not do. It uses language like “should not”, “may not”, “cannot” or “is not permitted”. It violates the rules to knowingly carry out any action that carries an obligatory restriction. An obligatory restriction takes precidence over an obligatory action (i.e. where an obligatory restriction makes an obligatory action impossible to perform, the obligatory action must not be performed and may be considered not to be obligatory for the purposes of restricting other actions from being performed).
An action is ‘’‘mandatory’‘’ when a Seeker is required to perform it ‘‘and the game, to some extent, cannot continue until they have done so’‘. A mandatory action uses terms like “must” or “shall”. A rule that defines a mandatory action should set out what happens when that action is not carried out, but as a baseline, if a mandatory action is required to occur then no subsequent action that is dependent on that mandatory action occurring (i.e. an action whose conduct or effect would vary based on the performance of the mandatory action) may be carried out.
Repeal the subrule Imperatives, from the Keywords rule in the Appendix.
I hate dumping this many words into the ruleset for something that should be intuitive, but we repeatedly see that it isn’t - that the term “should” in particular is frequently used to compel a player when what it actually means - both in common English usage and as defined by the BlogNomic glossary - is that it is an optional recommendation. This attempts to collapse that ambigity by codifying what I perceive as the natural use of the terms in the game context.
Kevan: he/him
If players are sometimes using “should” to mean “optional recommendation” and sometimes using it to mean “compulsory”, that’s probably going to continue whichever way we define it - the current fail state is at least the safer one, that it results in minor scams rather than accidentally illegal gamestates.
The existing ruleset also needs a pass where it’s still using “should” in the recommended optional sense.
But it would be good to have a clear obligatory-action mechanic by some name! My feedback on the actual mechanics of that here would be:
* The paradox when being tasked with two obligatory actions at the same time, and both being illegal to perform first. (You can perform the first one illegally and seek forgiveness, but only by breaking Rule 1.1 to get there.)
* “may not undertake any other action, dynastic or core” might be too broad on core, for fully invalidating votes and admin actions. In practice I suspect the only core action we’d care about blocking is declaring victory. Maybe enactment for the sake of admin advantage, but I doubt there’s much advantage there, and it does risk a knock-on effect from proposals being illegally enacted.
* The “no subsequent action that is dependent on that mandatory action” line reads as redundant to me - isn’t this already true for any dependent action? Perhaps I’m just missing the type of use case you have in mind here. It also looks like this rule shouldn’t have the “not” in “may not be carried out”.