Thursday, April 10, 2025

Proposal: Skillful Applications

Reached quorum, 6-1 with reduced quorum due to Imperial DEF. Enacted by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 11 Apr 2025 13:03:06 UTC

Set all Agents’ Skills and Flaws to empty.

In the rule “Skills and Flaws”, replace “Each Agent has a publicly tracked Skill and Flaw” with “Each Agent has a Skill and Flaw privately tracked by the Concierge” and replace “If an Agent has not done so since the beginning of this dynasty, they may set their Skill and Flaw to non-empty legal values as an atomic action” with “While an Agent’s Route is empty, if they have not done so since beginning of this dynasty or since the last performance of Breaking In, whichever is most recent, as a virtual action an Agent may set their Skill and Flaw to either both empty values or both non-empty legal values”.

In the same rule, remove the bullet points containing “Dexterous”, “Cunning”, “Strong”, “Clumsy”, “Dim”, and “Weak”.

In the same rule, add a subrule named “Effects” with the following text:

Each Agent’s Skill and Flaw has an Effect that applies to that Agent as described in that Effect. The Effects are detailed in the table below:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Skill/Flaw !! Effect
|-
| Quiet || The Agent's name is not revealed to Agents with the Observant skill, as described in the rule The Break-in.
|-
| Quick || When the Agent sets their Route as a virtual action, that Agent may specify up to two Extra Spots with their Route, as described in the rule Extra Spots.
|-
| Observant || The Agent learns the name and Location of each other Agent that they encounter, as described in the rule The Break-in.
|-
| Noisy || The Agent reveals their name and Location to all other Agents that they encounter, as described in the rule The Break-in.
|-
| Slow || The Agent must have at least four Spots in their Route where the next Spot in their Route is the same Letter as that Spot.
|-
| Inattentive || If the Agent is a Guard, only Burglars with the Noisy Flaw in the same Location as that Guard are considered to have Encountered that Guard. If the Agent is a Burglar, that Agent treats any Spots with Artifacts as if those Artifacts were not in those Spots.
|}

In the rule “Routes”, add a subrule named “Extra Spots” with the following text:

An Extra Spot is a Spot that is Connected to another Spot in the Route of an Agent but is not counted as part of the Route itself with respect to the length of that Route. When setting or changing their Route, if an Agent is allowed to have one or more Extra Spots in their Route, they must identify each Extra Spot and the Spot it is Connected to in order to be counted as an Extra Spot. By default, an Agent’s Route does not have any Extra Spots. Agents may not have Extra Spots in their Route unless explicitly allowed by a rule.

In the rule “The Break-In”, after the text “Set each Agent’s Location to their Letter in their Route” add the following text:

. If that position in that Agent’s Route has an Extra Spot that is Connected to it, that Agent’s Location is considered to be both the Letter of that Spot and the Letter of that Extra Spot for all rules regarding that Agent’s Location at the current Minute.

and in the same rule, add the following as the first step in Breaking In:

* Privately track a Discovered for each Agent, where Discovered is a list of pairs of Agents and Spots. Set each Agent’s Discovered to an empty list.

and in the same rule, add the following sub-bullets under the second step of Breaking In:

** For each Agent that has the Observant Skill, whenever that Agent is in the same Location as other Agents, add the names and Location of the other Agents in that same Location to that Agent’s Discovered, skipping over Agents with the Quiet Skill.
** For each Agent that has the Noisy Flaw, whenever that Agent is in the same Location as other Agents, add that Agent’s name and the Location to the Discovered of each other Agent in that same Location.

and in the same rule, add the following as the last steps in Breaking in:

* Privately inform each Agent of their Discovered
* Set all Agents’ Skills and Flaws to empty

If “Let’s go over the plan” was enacted, in the rule “Effects” replace the Effect of Observant with:

If the Agent is a Guard, that Agent learns the name and Location of each other Agent that they encounter, as described in the rule The Break-in. If the Agent is a Burglar, that Agent learns the Routes and Preparation Actions of every Guard, as described in the rule Showing the Patrols.

If “Let’s go over the plan” was enacted, in the rule “Effects” replace the Effect of Noisy with:

If the Agent is a Burglar, the Agent reveals their name and Location to all other Agents that they encounter, as described in the rule The Break-in.. If the Agent is a Guard, that Agent reveals their the Route and Preparation Actions to every Burglar, as described in the rule Showing the Patrols.

If “Let’s go over the plan” was enacted, replace the text of “Showing the Patrols” with the following text:

If every Guard has a non-blank Route and there are no Civilians, then the Concierge should perform the Show the Patrols atomic action, which has the following steps:
* For every Guard with a Flaw of Noisy, privately send every Burglar that Guard’s Route and Preparation Action
* Set the current Phase to Planning the Break-In

If the current Phase is Planning the Break-In, whenever a Burglar sets their Skill and Flaw, if that Burglar’s Skill is Observant, the Concierge should privately send every Guard’s Route and Preperation Actions to that Burglar.

Note to Kevan: if this is going to make processing Breaking In too complicated, feel free to veto, as you carry the burden for resolving all of this.

Moving Skills and Flaws to be privately tracked and set via virtual action so they can be changed at will, which helps remove last-minute timing issues and first-mover avoidance fears. I removed some Skills and Flaws because I think there were too many. We can always add some back if others can think of good uses for them.

In the theme of “the best is the enemy of the good”, I’d like to ask for people not to be against this Proposal for the little things, only serious concerns like balance and scam opportunities.

Comments

Kevan: Concierge he/him

10-04-2025 13:12:03 UTC

Complexity level looks fine from here.

JonathanDark: he/him

10-04-2025 13:23:14 UTC

Thanks! Also, I just finished reading SingularBytes’s “Let’s go over the plan” and I think I’ll revise this proposal based on that by adding some changes to fit SB’s ideas, if his proposal passes.

JonathanDark: he/him

10-04-2025 14:37:01 UTC

Ok, revisions done at the moment.

This is a huge wall of text, but I wanted to get my ideas in for each Skill and Flaw. If people feel like this is too much at once, I can break it up into separate Proposals, one for “Quick” and “Slow”, and another for “Observant” and “Noisy”, since those are mechanically separate ideas.

ais523:

10-04-2025 15:17:24 UTC

You can and probably should omit “For that Agent, the normal requirement for a Spot to be Connected to the Spot whose letter is the previous letter in the Route does not apply when both Spots are the same Letter.” – that requirement doesn’t exist anyway in that case (“Spot marks the X” adds “A Route is complete if each of its Spots after the first is Connected to the previous Spot in the Route (or is the same as that previous Spot)” to the ruleset, which already covers it).

SingularByte: he/him

10-04-2025 15:46:06 UTC

Slow is a bit weird in that it compels you to keep moving, while without it, you’re allowed as many repeated spots as you like. Inattentive is also worded a bit confusingly.

Raven1207: he/they

10-04-2025 16:07:40 UTC

Here’s a question, what at the moment is preventing everyone from setting their Skill to Quick in order to have more locations covered?

Raven1207: he/they

10-04-2025 16:15:54 UTC

I think if someone was to choose between getting 2 extra steps, invisibility or vigilance, 2 extra steps feels as though it would be more optimal for Burglars & Guards as it would make it easier for guards to be more likely to catch Burglars and more better for Burglars to be able to catch artifacts(depending how that goes).

JonathanDark: he/him

10-04-2025 16:49:44 UTC

@SB: I rewrote Slow and Inattentive.

@ais: Removed that text regarding the requirement.

Kevan: Concierge he/him

10-04-2025 16:57:45 UTC

imperial Abstaining on gameplay grounds.

Raven1207: he/they

10-04-2025 17:33:55 UTC

against

Darknight: he/him

10-04-2025 19:41:59 UTC

for

Trapdoorspyder: he/him

10-04-2025 21:32:54 UTC

for

DoomedIdeas: he/him

11-04-2025 02:57:37 UTC

for This seems unbalanced to me, but passing it now and then balancing it after noting any issues with the first Break In seems like the best route.

ais523:

11-04-2025 09:44:19 UTC

for I also think that this is unbalanced, but have submitted a follow-up balance fix.

SingularByte: he/him

11-04-2025 12:49:45 UTC

for