Friday, December 30, 2022

Proposal: Secrets Coming to Light

Timed out and failed, 1-3 with 4 unresolved DEFs. Josh

Adminned at 01 Jan 2023 11:09:31 UTC

Create a new subrule of Malfeasances called Forbidden Knowledge:

Each explorer that is currently Possessed by Katastrophe or was previously possessed by Katastrophe has a list of up to 3 Rooms privately tracked by the Narrator known as their Domain. This Domain can be added to or removed from at any time by that explorer by privately messaging the narrator, and may include names of rooms that do not yet exist. A Domain without any Rooms in it is still considered to be a Domain. If a Room was requested to be added to a Domain before this rule came into existence, the Narrator should treat that request as if it was made at the moment this rule came into existence.

Whenever a Room with a Malfeasance exists but that Room is not in a Domain, then out of the Explorers without a Domain, the Narrator should privately select one of them randomly and should inform them of the name of the Room and the name of the Malfeasance but not any other details of the Malfeasance. This may only be done once for a given room.

The random selection of which Explorer is to be informed above is weighted towards Explorers who have been informed of the least amount of Malfeasances. Defining their Knowledge Count as the number of times they have been informed of a Malfeasance by this rule, for each Explorer, the Narrator should subtract their Knowledge Count from the highest Knowledge Count of all Explorers without Domains then add 1 to get the weighting that the random selection will use.

The Explorer currently Possessed by Katastrophe is not able to use room-bound Malfeasances that do not exist within their Domain, nor room-bound Malfeasances that have entered their domain after the start of the most recent Explorer Phase. This restriction does not apply on the turn that this rule comes into existence.

Here’s a possible way of spreading knowledge around. Now, each Katasrophe or ex-Katastrophe can have up to 3 secret malfeasances but the rest are shared out somewhat evenly between Explorers. From there, they can spread or trade the information freely.

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

30-12-2022 13:11:55 UTC

Per Kevan elsewhere, I think that this ups the power of the Katastrophe role significantly, as you now get to keep a lingering cloud of power after losing the role that massively differentiates you from those players who have never had it.

against

Chiiika: she/her

30-12-2022 13:15:25 UTC

imperial I believe that Katastrophe learning quite a lot is one thing - the crux might be that Katastrophe isn’t being round possessed a bit. Also I’m thinking is it possible to CfJ/Propose some rule that makes the argument point moot and stop this Josh - Kevan fuse.

SingularByte: he/him

30-12-2022 13:21:23 UTC

What cloud of power do you retain? I don’t believe I’ve given any upside to the Domain that ex-Katastrophes don’t already have in the current version of the rules.

The domain of an ex-Katastophe is a downside as not only do you lose the exclusivity of knowledge you’ve built up for yourself (other than a handful of scraps), but you also don’t get the chance to get told Malfeasances out of the blue.

The domain on a Katastrophe is also a downside as they can no longer flood the map with malfeasances on the off chance that they would come in use. They also have to give up further secrets whenever they want to use an old Malfeasance that they didn’t think they would need, and need to decide it in advance rather than only the fly.

quirck: he/him

30-12-2022 16:04:55 UTC

As soon as this proposal enacts, the second paragraph comes into effect immediately, so the Narrator should then tell about almost all Malfeasances on the map. I’d expect this to trigger on, say, possessed explorer querying the Narrator about a Malfeasance in their Room. against

The last paragraph allows the possessed explorer to use only malfeasances in the rooms that are in their domain, or only malfeasances with the same name as ones in the rooms that are in their domain?

SingularByte: he/him

30-12-2022 16:43:45 UTC

The last paragraph was intended to be only the specific rooms, but it definitely is ambiguous.

The instantaneous spreading of info is intentional, but I’d imagine that would only give something like 1 malfeasance per person so it’s not like anyone would get an information overload. Any slower than that and you have only a handful of people who randomly get info while most people get nothing.

I’m not sure how the possessed explorer checking for malfeasances would be a decent trigger? If I was the Katastrophe in that scenario, I’d probably just stick to making new rooms with new malfeasances rather than checking out any previous possessed explorer’s work.

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

30-12-2022 17:33:04 UTC

imperial

quirck: he/him

30-12-2022 17:38:21 UTC

On average, yes, 1 malfeasance per person, but random selection, however weighted, could result in a handful of people learning several malfeasances, while others would still have to search the cat.

Then the Katastrophe would accumulate information less quickly. Maybe that could be not the only trigger, I don’t insist :)

Raven1207: he/they

30-12-2022 19:34:40 UTC

against

Janet: she/her

30-12-2022 19:43:21 UTC

imperial

Darknight: he/him

30-12-2022 22:34:26 UTC

imperial