BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

The intention was always to attempt to discourage no-brainer “I unidle and do the thing I’ve been told to do” kingmaking, and the boringest alpha-player “now you take these seven actions in sequence, then I’ll take these three, then our third colleague will take ten actions exactly as I say” victories, which are potentially there every dynasty. It’s not a question of dynastic theme or mood.

If we don’t think it’s been significantly discouraging them, or we don’t actually want to discourage them, let’s repeal or try something else. A soft-repeal Rare tag would just add to the confusion that the Traitor rule is only for special Werewolf dynasties.

I just don’t believe that the Traitor rule actually works (for myself, personally). There will be other people that do ‘believe’ in it, thought. And I feel like that’s a problem.

Overall, I believe that No Collab is a better measure at holding back Pools/cabals than Traitor is.

No Collaboration is a good one. We wouldn’t want it active every dynasty, as it stands, but maybe there is a tighter version of it that only shuts down shady backroom deals.

I thought Pokes’ Medallions seemed promising for ruling out kingmaking and possibly breaking up cabals.

Or rather, bringing cabals out into the light - mantle passing is only necessary if a group’s plan was so subtle (or last-minute) that they had no control over who among the group would actually achieve victory.

[abstention]

I also think The Traitor is mostly ineffective at stopping pooling, and in fact expect most Emperors to not use it.

There’s a difference between “don’t use it” and “don’t turn it on”, though; the threat of The Traitor probably has some effect, and even though I hope the rule itself never ends up triggering again (and believe that it’s correct play to not betray players even if you are The Traitor), having it on by default makes sense, because I believe that the gamestate of “The Traitor is active but (secretly) unused” is preferable to “The Traitor is inactive, and thus obviously unused”.

if the dynasty runner wants it, they can turn it on. It also takes active work from the dynasty running, so makes sense to only have it if they want it.

[Clucky] As Ais says, it still does its job of sowing a little doubt into the minds of poolers and kingmakers if the Emperor leaves it active but declines to pick a Traitor.

actually per kevan