Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Call for Judgment: Slow Your Roll

Popular, 7-1 with one unresolved DEF. Josh

Adminned at 02 Mar 2021 13:16:59 UTC

The campaign Merchant Circles contains the following instructions:

Respond to the most recent Masquerade post with a comment saying “Advancing my Merchant Circles Campaign” and giving the result of a randomly selected number between 1 and 4 inclusive.

As seen here, Brendan rolled a DICE4 six consecutive times, and cherry-picked a result from that run to to advance his Merchant Circles campaign here. This violates the rules of the campaign, as the number was not selected randomly.

Thus, all Electors rolling dice with the intention of using the result to advance a campaign are hereby instructed to roll no more than once, and shall clearly label the purpose of such a roll in the comment box on the Dice Roller page. Furthermore, the Doge shall update any pending changes to Brendan’s Mistrust and/or Political Power to reflect that he advanced his Merchant Circles campaign this season with a roll of 1 (his first roll) rather than 4 (his last roll).

There is a good chance I’m way off the mark and just misunderstanding how the dice roll page works. If that’s the case then I apologize to Brendan. If I am correct and this is what happened, obviously this needs to be patched.

posted by Zack at 02 Mar 2021 00:41:00 UTC Comments (9)

Comments

Bucky:

02-03-2021 01:45:17 UTC

for

pokes:

02-03-2021 01:47:37 UTC

for Seems like pretty clear violation of

An Elector should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action.

Clucky: he/him

02-03-2021 02:54:26 UTC

Good catch. Nice try Brendan.

for

We should probably also fix the rule to prevent future problems though

Raven1207: he/they

02-03-2021 02:59:47 UTC

for

Brendan: he/him

02-03-2021 03:37:50 UTC

It was worth a shot. But for what it’s worth, I think my choice was legal: if the campaign had defined the action as “make the comment and randomly select a number” then I wouldn’t have tried this. “Giving the result of a randomly selected number” is worded so nonspecifically that I could have chosen anyone’s die result from the recent rolls list. This is the reason we created atomic actions in the first place—to make a clear association between die results and the actions that require them.

Also, as Clucky points out, the results of a CfJ are not binding if they’re not added to the ruleset. The loophole does need to be patched but this doesn’t do it.

against

Clucky: he/him

02-03-2021 03:49:43 UTC

But you still rolled dice clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset

Josh: Observer he/they

02-03-2021 08:54:49 UTC

I agree with Brendan that this is not a violation of fair play; the same scam (literally interpreting rules that omit words to create the the presumption of meaning) has been successfully used to declare victory in the recent past, and is in fact one of my favourite scams.

I do think that if Brendan can select a result that he likes without further justification, however, then he can be forced to accept one that he doesn’t like on the same basis. But as by my reckoning this is a gameplay move rather than a rules arbitration one I’m going to go imperial

Kevan: he/him

02-03-2021 09:44:41 UTC

for Per Pokes.

I think “the result of a randomly selected number” may even be meaningless. It’s neither “the result of a die roll” nor “a randomly selected number” - what is “the result of 4”?

Lulu: she/her

02-03-2021 13:07:08 UTC

for