Friday, July 28, 2006

Proposal: The Casino of Time (-4005/1/1)

Self-killed and vetoed.—Kevan

Adminned at 29 Jul 2006 21:14:09 UTC

Add a new Local Rule to the Ruleset.  Call it “Gambling (-4005/1/1)” and give it the following text:

Travellers may Gamble to try to increase their Influence.  To Gamble, a Traveller takes the following steps:
1)Make a comment to the GNDT saying “I Wager N Influence” where N is a positive whole number.
2)Roll DICE10.
3)If the result is 3 or less, add 2N to eir influence.  Otherwise, subtract N from eir Influence.  This may cause Influence to be negative.

If a Traveller’s Influence is negative, eir Range contains no Game Dates.  Travellers may not Gamble after the institution of the first recorded relevant anti-gambling laws at -100/6/30.

Enjoy.  Future plans include globalizing this and creating a distinct Casino entity. And yes, this is a Local Proposal.

Comments

Thelonious:

28-07-2006 07:44:52 UTC

Hix - I’m not in range to vote on this but it contains such a big loophole that I think you need to veto it (unless Bucky SKs it).

Nothing stops a Traveller wagering more influence than they have.  Indeed the comment “This may cause Influence to be negative” implicitly assumes you can wager more than you’ve got.

Further, there’s no restriction on how often you can do this.

As a result, it’s trivial to boost your influence to cover the whole timeline (-15000 to +6000).

Thelonious:

28-07-2006 07:57:33 UTC

Just to spell it out completely.

1) Wager 21000+current influence.  If you win, you more than cover the whole timeline.  If not, you’ve got -21000 influence so continue.

2) Wager 21000.  If you win, you’ve got +21000.  If you lose you’ve got -42000 so continue.

3) Wager 42000.

4) etc. until you win one.

Bucky:

28-07-2006 15:25:40 UTC

Hey, what happened to the word “often”?

against S-K/

Thelonious:

28-07-2006 15:39:43 UTC

Even if you’d had the “often” it would still only take a few days (depending on luck) to be able to cover the whole timeline.  I’d say that this in itself would be reason for veto.

If you repropose, I suggest you only allow gambling the influence you’ve got (then you can remove the whole negative influence thing too).

Bucky:

28-07-2006 15:40:47 UTC

What about a maximum bet?

Thelonious:

28-07-2006 15:46:25 UTC

I’d prefer a maximum of the Traveller’s current Influence but if you put in a fixed (sensible) maximum, I’d imagine it wouldn’t be in danger of attracting a veto any more.

Hix:

28-07-2006 17:16:59 UTC

veto as (reasonably) requested.