Saturday, February 27, 2021

Proposal: Take Me To Church

Self-killed. Failed by Kevan.

Adminned at 01 Mar 2021 10:14:36 UTC

To the end of the rule The Masquerade, add

An action that can only be undertaken once per player per Season is called a Seasonal Action.

To the end of the rule Factions, add

Each Elector’s Political Power is one higher for each other Elector in the same Secret Faction as themselves. The Doge is responsible for maintaining this modifier as information changes.

Add a new rule to the ruleset as a subrule of the rule Winnowing, called Confession:

The member of each Secret Faction with the highest Political Power is its Figurehead.

As a Seasonal Action, an Elector may Confess to the Winnower that they are a member of a Secret Faction, along with the name of that faction, and list the names of the other members of that Secret Faction. The Winnower must keep a record of Confessions that they have been party to, and should pass this list to the next Winnower upon their ascension, but is not required to record any or all pieces of information that they receive in this manner, and may remove information from the record freely, although they may not add information that they know to be false. A Winnower may Confess to themselves.

At any time, the Winnower may Disclose some of this information by making a Disclosure Post, which is a post in the Story Posts category. A Disclosure Post must name one or more Secret Factions, and for each Secret Faction give a list of two or more Electors who are allegedly members of it. So long as 48 hours have not elapsed since the posting of a Disclosure Post, any Elector may DM the Doge in response to that post, giving a mistrust score of 0 to 3 to each Secret Faction named therein.

When a Disclosure Post has been made, the Doge must evaluate for each Secret Faction named within it whether (at the time of posting) the Disclosure was correct or not (i.e. whether the name is accurate and whether the listed Electors are members of that Secret Faction). If it was, then after the 48 hour response window has concluded, he must at his earliest opportunity reduce the Political Power of that Secret Faction’s Figurehead by 3, and the mistrust of each Elector named as a member of that Secret Faction in the Disclosure Post by they cumulative total of the Mistrust responses received against that Secret Faction as a response to that Disclosure Post. The Secret Faction of all affected Electors is then set to “-”.

Secret Factioneering is, of course, highly illegal in the Court of the Doge. Overt Factioneering is fine but the secrecy is the real problem.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

27-02-2021 13:44:41 UTC

“can only be undertaken once per Season” - is this intentionally once total rather than once per player?

Josh: he/they

27-02-2021 13:54:44 UTC

Nope, thanks - edited.

Lulu: she/her

27-02-2021 14:48:25 UTC

for

Raven1207: he/they

27-02-2021 15:17:24 UTC

for

Kevan: he/him

27-02-2021 16:52:28 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

27-02-2021 16:53:44 UTC

against

There are a number of problems with this rule:

1) How does one actually confess? Presumably by private message, but I think that needs to be codified.

2) “ascension” here is poorly defined, given there is an alternative context it is used in the ruleset (wining the game), whereas I *think* the intent here is it is passed off when the Winnower transfers over

3) “may not add information that they know to be false” is also concerning. If I am the Winnower, I could add something like “Raven1207 confesses to be a member of Aglio alongside Kevan and Pokes” because while I have zero proof that any of those are a member of Aglio, I also have no way of knowing with certainty that statement is false. “do not know is true” feels like a more accurate thing to include

4) Nothing as far as I can tell stops Discloser posts from spamming the same faction over and over. Its not even clear the list of secret factions and their members has to match the information found in the winnower list.

5) I feel like a lot of this can also simply be out gamed by clever factions, but gonna keep those secrets to myself incase this thing passes

against

Clucky: he/him

27-02-2021 16:54:10 UTC

whoops not sure why I voted twice there guess it technically doesn’t matter

Lulu: she/her

27-02-2021 16:57:46 UTC

against CoV

Zack: he/him

27-02-2021 17:01:24 UTC

So, in response to the Disclosure, Electors DM a Mistrust score of 0 to 3 for the secret factions named. But, then you subtract that positive value from the Mistrust score of its members, rather than add it? So in practice, Electors are giving Mistrust scores of 0 to -3, right? The concept of Mistrust being a positive value for a lack of something is starting to really confuse me.

Clucky: he/him

27-02-2021 17:02:34 UTC

oh excellent point Zack. I think that is another bug from the intent of the rule but Josh can confirm if it was intended to reduce or increase mistrust.

Zack: he/him

27-02-2021 17:07:18 UTC

against I’m not opposed to the secret faction size/power modifier, but the Disclosure concept needs some fine tuning.

Josh: he/they

27-02-2021 18:33:17 UTC

against SK - thanks clucky - will patch and repropose