I’m still amazed that everyone voted to allow the Emperor to win as part of a team, but here we are.

Maybe we thought that you wouldn’t actively undermine your own dynasty’s premise for the sake of… what ? Another dynasty whose purpose you will also undermine? idk

@redtara Kevan could not have been more clear about what was being enabled, here.

I’ll also use this opportunity to offer a gentle tap on the community guidelines:

BlogNomic is specifically a social game that occasionally involves deceit. It is important to separate the player from the play. Individual opinions on what constitutes the parameters for acceptable underhandedness will vary by player and time, but it is important to remember that critiques on the basis of game culture should be aimed at plays, not players.

@Kevan There is a very big leap between allowing a player to pass the mantle back to the emperor, and the emperor actively disallowing other players from winning. This is just bad sportsmanship.

Is it?

I mean, it’s clearly untested, and therefore leaves us in an ambiguous position, etiquette-wise. I don’t know about bad sportsmanship. We were given so many opportunities to predict and prevent this outcome! And we didn’t, and that’s nomic.

I really want to resist a situation where this situation remains rules-legal but becomes unacceptable due to a snarling social agreement that some things are just not okay. This manoeuvre is clearly legal; how we respond to that is up to us but this emotional reaction that some players seem to be having is baffling to me.

@Josh This is a game that we play for fun, not a court of law. From my POV, what Kevan’s done is no different from stealing Monopoly money from the bank when no one is looking. Yeah, there’s no rule that explicitly says you shouldn’t, but no one wants to play with you if you do.

@Josh The fact that someone points out that a thing is being enabled does not ipso facto justify that thing actually occurring. Well, I think you think it does. We’ll just have to beg to differ.

Also my critique IS aimed at his play. The play, executed by the player, undermines the dynasty.

I agree wholly with Zack’s summation and my interest in this episode has been exhausted so that will be the last word as far as I’m concerned.

@Zack I feel like this is more like if at the start of the game someone said “hey, let’s have a houserule that allows you to take a loan from the bank once per game!” And Kevan said “Should we have a limit on that? Seems like it could get abused and really swing the game if someone gets a giant pile of money near the end of the game”. And everyone was like “Nah, it’ll be fine” So Kevan goes and takes a 1 million dollar loan on the last turn to prevent himself from running out of money and take the win away from another player. It wouldn’t really be fair to then turn around and say “Kevan cheated! He just took money from the bank!” He’s pretty clearly following the established rules, and not in a “hur dur, the rules don’t say you can’t cheat” way.