Tuesday, January 09, 2024

Proposal: Standard Incantations [Building Blocks]

Timed out, 1-2 with 1 DEF. Failed by JonathanDark.

Adminned at 11 Jan 2024 17:13:40 UTC

If the proposal “Virtual Actions” failed, the rest of this proposal has no effect.

Copy the “Virtual Actions” rule from the Building Blocks page to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset.

If the rule “Locations” exists, replace

At any time, a Necromancer may privately communicate to the Grim Reaper a Location and their desire to do one of the following:
Travel to the chosen Location (the chosen Location must be Tower or its Area must be the same as the Necromancer’s current Location’s)
Possess a Corpse in the chosen Location (the chosen Location must have a number of Corpses greater than zero)

with:

As a virtual action, a Necromancer may Travel to a Location of their choosing with the same Area as their current Location, or the Tower. If the Location is the Tower, the Corpses of their original Location increase by 1.

As a virtual action, a Necromancer may spend 1 mana to Possess a Corpse in a Location of their choosing, as long as it has more than 0 corpses. Their Location will be set to that Location, the number of Corpses in that Location decreases by 1, and the number of corpses in their original location (except the Tower) increases by 1.

Traveling and possessing corpses are resolved during the Sands of the Hourglass.

If the rule “Knowledge” exists, replace the effect of Necrotic Redirection with:

You may use this knowledge as a virtual action.
* Input: Either Skeletons, Zombies, or Ghouls, and a Dimension of your choosing.
* You spend 3 of the chosen Cohort type and your Dimension will be set to the chosen Dimension.
* If the chosen Dimension is the Material Plane your location will be set to the Tower, otherwise it will be set to Another Dimension.

If the rule “Knowledge” exists, replace the effect of Planar Portal with:

If you are at the Ancient Portal, or you are not in the Material Plane, you may use this knowledge as a virtual action.
* Input: A Dimension of your choosing.
* You spend 15 Mana and your Dimension will be set to the chosen Dimension.
* If the chosen Dimension is the Material Plane your location will be set to the Tower, otherwise it will be set to Another Dimension.

Replace the bullet of “The Hourglass” beginning “For each Necromancer, find their latest valid private request” (including sub-bullets) with

* In a random order, resolve each Necromancer’s most recent pending virtual action to Travel to a Location or Possess a Corpse. All other pending virtual actions to do so fail.
* In a random order, resolve each Necromancer’s most recent pending virtual action to use a Knowledge of an Ultimate Truth. All other pending virtual actions to do so fail.

If the rules Locations and/or Knowledge don’t exist, remove the first and/or second of those two bullets, respectively.

If the rule “The Horde” exists, replace

At any time, a Necromancer may privately communicate to the Grim Reaper a Card from the Horde that they wish to place a Bid on using its number in the Horde list, but only if they have fewer than 3 Cards in their Menagerie. The Bid must be a number between 0 and that Necromancer’s Power, inclusive.
At any time, a Necromancer may privately communicate to the Grim Reaper a Card from their Menagerie that they wish to play, and any choices that the Card allows the Necromancer to make as described in that Card’s Effects.

with:

As a virtual action, a Necromancer with fewer than 3 cards in their Menagerie may Place a Bid on a Card in the Horde list by specifying the number of a Card on the Horde List. The Bid must be a number between 0 and their Power, inclusive. The Grim Reaper will privately record their bid for that card on a list of all bids for that card, replacing their previous bid for that card if they’ve already bid on it.

As a virtual action, a Necromancer may Play a Card from their Menagerie, specifying any inputs/choices required by the particular card. The Grim Reaper will resolve the Effects of that Card.

Placing bids and playing cards are resolved during the Sands of the Hourglass.

If the rule “The Horde” exists, then in “The Hourglass”, replace the bullets beginning “Among the Necromancers that requested to play a Card” and “For each Necromancer that requested to place a Bid on a Card” with:

* In a random order, resolve each pending virtual action to Play a Card. Then remove each played Card from the Menagerie of the Necromancer who selected it.
* Resolve each pending virtual action to place a Bid on a Card. For each Bid, subtract the Bid amount from the Necromancer’s Power. For each Card in the Horde List, select the Necromancer whose Bid for that card was higher than any other Necromancer’s Bid for that same card and add the card to their Menagerie; If there is a tie, no one receives the Card.

If the rule “The Horde” doesn’t exist, remove those two bullets.

This implements Virtual Actions to streamline the definition of actions which involve privately communicating with the Grim Reaper. It makes it much clearer to Necromancers what actions are available to them and what the consequences are, and simplifies the Sands of the Hourglass action. This shouldn’t change anything about how we actually play, except that you can travel/possess a corpse in the same turn as you use an ultimate truth. If I accidentally changed anything else, let me know.

Comments

Zack: he/him

09-01-2024 16:41:26 UTC

Note that there’s nothing special about the “Input:” syntax or having them be in a bullet point format, I could have written them all in prose but the actions (even as they are now) are complex enough that I just thought this way would be easier to parse.

Clucky: he/him

09-01-2024 16:55:22 UTC

I think this would break several mechanisms

“Traveling and possessing corpses are resolved during the Sands of the Hourglass.”

“the Grim Reaper may resolve a virtual action as soon as they receive it and must resolve all virtual actions in the order that they are received”

“* In a random order, resolve each Necromancer’s most recent pending virtual action to Travel to a Location or Possess a Corpse. All other pending virtual actions to do so fail.”

So the game gets totally stuck as actions need to be resolved in the order they are received, but now also are being told to resolve in a different order

Zack: he/him

09-01-2024 16:59:38 UTC

“Except where otherwise stated by the ruleset, the Grim Reaper may resolve a virtual action as soon as they receive it and must resolve all virtual actions in the order that they are received.”

Key phrase here being “Except where otherwise stated by the ruleset”.

naught:

09-01-2024 17:02:24 UTC

This would fall under “unless otherwise stated in the Ruleset” of Zack’s proposed rule, I believe, so no conflict. And if not, it would fall under “If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies,” so still no conflict

Josh: he/they

09-01-2024 20:54:16 UTC

makes it much clearer to Necromancers what actions are available to them and what the consequences are, and simplifies the Sands of the Hourglass action

Gotta disagree, there.

against

Clucky: he/him

10-01-2024 00:25:03 UTC

After further analysis, it appears that this lets you make multiple bids. “The Grim Reaper will privately record their bid for that card on a list of all bids for that card, replacing their previous bid for that card if they’ve already bid on it.” just makes JonathanDark keep a list of things, but you’re still doing “For each Bid, subtract the Bid amount from the Necromancer’s Power.” regardless of what is on that list

Clucky: he/him

10-01-2024 00:25:24 UTC

against

Zack: he/him

10-01-2024 00:40:06 UTC

@Clucky the action of placing a bid does not constitute itself a bid.

Clucky: he/him

10-01-2024 16:38:01 UTC

“Resolve each pending virtual action to place a Bid on a Card. For each Bid, subtract the Bid amount from the Necromancer’s Power”

Yeah I’m disagreeing with you there. Seems pretty clear to me that bid refers to the bid made on a card and that JonathanDark’s list of bids doesn’t actually do anything.

Desertfrog:

11-01-2024 10:12:06 UTC

imperial