Players are finding marginal reasons to give bad scores regardless, often linked to how hard they’re trying to win. At least the rivals system offers the recipient some sense of mechanical justification for receiving a bad score.

[Josh] Players having a mechanical reason to pretend not to like other people’s ideas and jokes (you gave out four 1-point reviews last round) seems like a big mood killer on a social voting game. If somebody wants to go down that route anyway for the victory, they can, but I think they should have to own that.

@Kevan I’m a little unclear on your posture, here; are you arguing that anyone giving low scores for tactical reasons “should own” their gameplay overtly, or are you arguing that giving other players low scores on grounds of taste is personally unpleasant and should be discouraged? Under what circumstances do you think giving another player a low score is a positive behaviour, then? Would you prefer that all scoring was done in the 3-5 range exclusively?

Perhaps it would be helpful to give an example.  Last round you gave me a 1 on pretty spurious grounds. Could you tell me whether it was tactical (“owning it”) or a genuine assessment of my entry, so I can know whether it’s supposed to feel bad or not? I’d happily assumed the former but if you actually intended it to have some sting then I suppose this proposal gets you slightly closer to it.

You are correct that I have out several 1s last round. I also have out a generous selection of 4s and 5s, while you seem most comfortable in the 2 to 3 range. Interestingly, the average score you have given to a post made by another player over the last two rounds of play is 2.5, the same as me and Bucky, and lower than Darknight (2.9), JonathanDark (2.9), DoomedIdeas (3.2) and Raven (3.5). Do you also identify as a mood-killer? Is your tendency towards flat 2-3 point voting likely to result in a breezier game? Or is it also a tactical choice that you should have to own, without the figleaf of a mechanical cover?

My posture is the first thing. Giving a fake thumbs down for tactical reasons is fine, in any social voting type game (like Nomic itself!), it just comes with the consequence that the group might take some view on it if they notice it happening a lot - perhaps giving thumbs down in open retaliation (as Clucky did here) to the point where the tactical player regrets starting it. That’s a full and nuanced social game mechanic already.

I’m thinking that we don’t need these “you must pretend not to enjoy other people’s ideas” cards in play to alter the dynamics of that, especially not when they have the side effect of lowering the apparent enjoyment happening in the room.

I’m not seeing the lowered enjoyment that you are - my argument is that being nickel-and-dimed with a bunch of mealy-mouthed 2s is far less fun than getting a mix of 1s and 4s - and I am also directly suggesting that preferring to hide a 2s-and-3s scoring strategy while, incidentally, winning is not quite pro-fun gameplay.

Don’t get me wrong, if this passes I will shift to the new optimal, but having been on the recieving end I will inform you that it’s not necessarily more fun.

(Explicit tone note: none of this has any vinegar, for me; I’ve not found any aspect of the game to be particularly un-fun, and am enjoying the complexity of the incentives around different scoring approaches. My incentive here is twofold: to preserve a diversity of optimal strategies, to maintain the tension of weird voting incentives, and to point out what I think is a deliberate play on the part of Kevan to put pressure on strategies other than the one that he is legitimately pursuing.)

Thank you for the tone note. I really do want to keep this light and fun for everyone if possible, while still allowing for strategic behaviors and rule changes.

Same tone here. Happy to say that I am not consciously pursuing, or trying to hide, a strategy of “2s-and-3s”.

I would quite strongly prefer vestigial tracking of rivalries even if the scoring effects go away.