Thursday, December 29, 2022

Proposal: Shifting halls

Timed out and enacted, 3-2 with 3 unresolved DEFs.

Adminned at 31 Dec 2022 19:41:14 UTC

Modify the effect of the Malfeasance “Dark Reordering” in the rule Malfeasances to:

The room occupied by the acting Explorer is destroyed along with all connections associated with it. All Explorers and items occupying that room (as well as the Black Cat, if present) are displaced to a connecting room at random. For each room that had a connection removed here (except, of course, the destroyed room), the Narrator may add a new connection to that room if possible. These new connections should be towards existing rooms, and should be made with the intent of both keeping the traversal around the mansion to the various rooms at approximately the same difficulty as before the malfeasance was activated, and keeping rooms within the same general region of the mansion. The Foyer is not able to be destroyed by this Malfeasance.

A nerf, but not a total one. Now, deleting rooms will no longer potentially risk entire sections becoming virtually inaccessible to make up for the fact that the malfeasance is always accessible.

Comments

JonathanDark: he/him

29-12-2022 19:12:49 UTC

I’m not sure if I can correctly interpret “keeping the traversal around the mansion to the various rooms at approximately the same difficulty”. Are the terms for traversal and difficulty understood well-enough without being more explicit about what this means?

Chiiika: she/her

29-12-2022 19:22:47 UTC

@jon average cell squared distance?

SingularByte: he/him

29-12-2022 19:30:03 UTC

I’m intentionally leaving them without formal definitions in order to allow some leeway since it’s a statement as to what intent you should have rather than a hard rule you need to follow.

My main goal though is to avoid cases where a major disconnected section of the mansion gets glued onto a previously irrelevant room to create an awkward bottleneck when a new connection could just be make between two travel hubs. Conversely, a small cupboard which is hard to reach and becomes disconnected could just be stuck onto a different room which is also hard to reach.

JonathanDark: he/him

29-12-2022 19:31:14 UTC

Sure, I can research or create a reasonable formula like that one, but my concern is that there is not such a formula spelled out in this Proposal, which leaves it up to my “whim” as to what it means. If that’s acceptable to everyone else, then that’s fine, but I thought it would be worth pointing out.

JonathanDark: he/him

29-12-2022 19:32:08 UTC

@SB: Ok, intent is fine with me. Just thought I should check.

SingularByte: he/him

29-12-2022 19:39:34 UTC

By the way, I’ve just made a tweak so rooms should also stay in the same general region too, just because I remembered that that was one of the main points of contention of the current malfeasance.

Josh: he/they

29-12-2022 23:12:15 UTC

for

Kevan: he/him

29-12-2022 23:44:34 UTC

against from the starting point of “shall we give Katastrophe more power”. I think we should just remove the mechanic.

I haven’t yet seen an argument for why it would be good to give Katastrophe - currently a role which has full discretion over who gets to pick up win-the-game tokens, as well as being able to easily set traps and jump around the map, with no downside to any of this - additional powers on top of that.

It may even be time to give the Katastrophe role some downside or jeopardy?

Raven1207: he/they

30-12-2022 03:01:05 UTC

imperial

Darknight: Elder Judge he/him

30-12-2022 03:17:20 UTC

against

quirck: he/him

30-12-2022 09:37:56 UTC

imperial

Josh: he/they

30-12-2022 14:41:05 UTC

I don’t think I’ve elaborated on this yet (as, surprisingly, despite all the discussion, no-one has asked), but: the Dark Reordering Malfeasance does actually have a purpose, and wasn’t something I slipped in for japes.

It’s intended as a characterful response to the problem of room proliferation, which seems to be growing; it already feels likely that most players will never be in the same room as another player, and that inhibits several of the mechanics that we have on the books.

It is also intended as a way for Katastrophe to out themselves; my assumption is that this is still a nomic, and that if it becomes obvious who Katastrophe is then they’d likely have the power taken from them one way or another.

I do understand the arguments against the power but feel that they overstate the risk and understate the utility of keeping the power on the books; I don’t object to this as a reasonable modification but think that the flat, immediate repeal shows somewhat of a lack of regard for the intent of the original proposal.

SingularByte: he/him

30-12-2022 14:49:49 UTC

My assumption had honestly just been that it was for getting rid of annoying malfeasances, like if a previous katastrophe sticks a problematic trap in a corridor which can slow down movement back and forth, or if a dangerous malfeasance becomes known to literally everyone to the point that destroying even at the cost of revealing is acceptable.

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

30-12-2022 17:28:02 UTC

for

Janet: she/her

30-12-2022 19:42:43 UTC

imperial