Monday, February 13, 2023

Proposal: The first rule of Fight Club

Withdrawn and therefore failed -SingularByte

Adminned at 15 Feb 2023 18:59:41 UTC

If “Make Capacity Count” was not enacted, in the Rule “Location”, replace the sentence that begins with:

At any time, Villager at a Location may select one of its Routes

with this paragraph:

At any time, a Villager at a Location may select one of its Routes and spend that Route’s Length in Time to set their Location to the Location named in that Route. If the resulting number of Villagers who have that Location exceeds the Location’s Capacity after this action, the Villager performing this action must either set their Location to “Village Square” or post a Fight event as described in the “Fights” section.

If “Make Capacity Count” was not enacted, in the Rule “Location”, replace this text:

When a Villager’s Location is Outside,

with this text:

When a Villager’s Location is Outside or in a Location where the number of Villagers with that Location exceeds the Capacity of that Location,

Regardless of whether “Make Capacity Count” was enacted or not, add a new rule titled “Fights” and give it the following text:

A Fight is a type of Event. The author of the post is the Instigator, the Villager who is named in the body of the post is the Target, and the Location named in the body of the post is the Destination.

There are two non-negative integer variables specific to the instance of this Event named “Attacker Time” and “Defender Time”. Attacker Time defaults to 20 and Defender Time defaults to 0.

The Creation Conditions for a Fight are all of the following:
* The Instigator’s Location must not be “Village Square” and must contain at least one Location in its Routes
* The Instigator’s Time must be greater than or equal to 20
* The body of the post contains the phrase “I pick a fight to move X to Y”, where X is the name of another Villager with the same Location as the Instigator, and Y is the name of one of the Locations in the Routes of the Instigator’s Location. The Villager “X” becomes the Target, and the Location “Y” becomes the Destination.
* No Villager’s name other than the Target is contained in the body of the post
* No Location other than the Destination is contained in the body of the post
* Neither the Instigator nor the Target are the Instigator or Target in any other Fight event at the date and time that the post is created

The Response Format for a Fight is a comment containing one of the following, but not both:
* “I spend Z Time fighting”, where Z is an integer greater than the current Attacker Time if posted by the Instigator or greater than the current Defender Time if posted by the Target, and less than or equal to the comment author’s current value of Time at the date and time of the comment. If posted by the Instigator, the Attacker Time is set to this value of Z. If posted by the Target, the Defender Time is set to this value of Z.
* “I yield”

The Ending Condition for a Fight is one of the following:
* The most recent comment from either the Instigator or the Target is “I yield”
* The Attacker Time equals the Instigator’s current Time at the date and time of the most recent Response by the Instigator
* The Defender Time equals the Target’s current Time at the date and time of the most recent Response by the Target
* It has been at least 24 hours since this Fight event was posted and none of the other conditions have been met

The Ending Action for a Fight may only be performed by either the Blizzard, the Instigator, or the Target. It is an atomic action with the following steps:
* If the Attacker Time is greater than the Instigator’s Time at the time of this action, set the Attacker Time equal to the Instigator’s Time
* If the Defender Time is greater than the Target’s Time at the time of this action, set the Defender Time equal to the Target’s Time
* Subtract the Attacker Time from the Instigator’s Time
* Subtract 10% of the Attacker Time from the Instigator’s Heat
* Subtract the Defender Time from the Target’s Time
* Subtract 10% of the Defender Time from the Target’s Heat
* If the Instigator has a Cudgel in their Items, multiply the Attacker Time by 2
* If the Target has a Cudgel in their Items, multiply the Defender Time by 2
* If the Attacker Time is greater than the Defender Time, the Target has their Location set to the Destination and loses 25 Time, to a minimum of 0. Otherwise, the Instigator has their Location set to the Destination and loses 25 Time, to a minimum of 0

Any action, except for the Ending Action of the Fight event itself, that would change the Location of the Instigator or the Target while the Fight event is Open instead does not change the Location of the Instigator or the Target.

I think this is a more interesting and participatory way to resolve the Capacity issue, but if “Make Capacity Count” is enacted, we can still have fights, Thematically, overcrowding leads to allowing cold air into a Location, which then leads to fighting. If the Capacity issue isn’t part of it, then it’s still valuable and distinct from Shove in that the Instigator is hoping to move the Target out of the Location to a specific other connected Location, with less Time and Heat cost, the trade-off being that the Target can fight back and turn the tables.

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

13-02-2023 13:53:19 UTC

Could this not be rolled into the existing Roughousing framework? Seems duplicative.

JonathanDark: he/him

13-02-2023 14:58:53 UTC

It certainly could be rolled into Roughhousing, but I wanted something more interactive. This event allows both combatants to raise the stakes for the fight in a bet-placement sort of way.

Habanero:

13-02-2023 17:23:49 UTC

Is there anything stopping the instigator from just fighting for 1 time, immediately yielding, then ending the fight?

Habanero:

13-02-2023 17:24:18 UTC

Ah, attacker time defaults to 20.

Josh: Observer he/they

13-02-2023 21:20:29 UTC

against bit too many words for my taste.

Darknight: he/him

14-02-2023 02:09:00 UTC

against

Habanero:

14-02-2023 03:00:17 UTC

against I think this is a bit too complicated for what it does, not to mention how you can still move around in the middle of a fight and there’s nothing stopping the instigator from just ending the fight immediately before the defender has a chance to react, winning with the minimum time cost.

Habanero:

14-02-2023 03:01:51 UTC

Ah wait, I really should read these things clearer, you actually cannot move around in the middle of a fight.

JonathanDark: he/him

14-02-2023 03:50:13 UTC

Does anyone think it’s worth reworking this idea? I realize we already have Shove and Grapple in Roughhousing, but what I was aiming for was some sort of mechanism where the attacker and defender could each “commit” some sort of Time to spend, and the side with the larger commitment wins the battle and sends the loser to a connected Location of their choice.

I suppose I could just add another entry to the Roughhousing with this sort of idea, but right now the Roughhousing rules are pretty much a one-way action. Maybe it could involve a combo of two Roughhousing actions, “Fight” and “Fight Back”?

I’ll think on it, but if no one else is interested, I might just let it go too.

Brendan: he/him

14-02-2023 04:52:54 UTC

against Fight and Fight Back as independent, non-Event actions that can be used to bid Time back and forth until someone caves seems like a reasonable idea.

JonathanDark: he/him

14-02-2023 07:04:31 UTC

against Withdrawn

Kevan: he/him

14-02-2023 09:11:56 UTC

It’s complex and the back-and-forth seems a bit much if we end up with a fight across two timezones, or with a player who only checks in once every four days.

Maybe there’s some scope in being able to set a “Vigilance” score (either public or hashed in a Secret) that determines how much time a player is willing to spend if challenged.