Friday, August 14, 2020

Proposal: The Geology Game

Fewer than a quorum not voting against. Failed 1 vote to 6 by Kevan.

Adminned at 15 Aug 2020 07:34:22 UTC

Change the rule Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals to read:

A Thing has a Thing Type and a Location. It may be referred to as the [Location] [Thing Type]. If a Thing Type has or is an attribute, a thing with that Thing Type also has or is that attribute. Things may be said to be instances of their thing type. Things are tracked on the mission control wiki page. 
Thing Types have a name, a description, a classification, and rules notes. These may be written [name] ([classification]): [description] | [rules notes]. The name and description are flavor text. 

Possible Thing Type classifications are Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral.

The discovered Thing Types so far are:
*Delarite (mineral): a powdery orange mineral
*Sudorite (mineral):  a faintly glowing silver mineral
*Vertorite (mineral): a glittering dark grey mineral
*Rock (mineral): a boring mineral | harmless when applied with any equipment. Anchored

A Pathfinder can Drag a thing at their location by spending 2 stamina and moving that thing and themselves to a Linked Location

Anchored Things cannot be dragged

Add  a subrule named “Prospecting” to the rule “Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral”

a pathfinder may prospect if they are in a location that does not have a Thing with a Thing Type of Rock by spending 1 stamina and Rolling DICE4.
*If the result is less or equal to the number of Mineral Things with that location, add a Thing with a Thing Type of Rock and a location of the pathfinder’s current location.
*If the result is greater than the number of minerals in that location, add a Thing with the pathfinder’s location as its location and a Thing Type randomly selected from among all Thing Types with a classification of mineral not at that location.

In the rule “Application “,  change “on that thing” to “effect on that thing’s thing type”.

Comments

Kevan: he/him

14-08-2020 19:30:30 UTC

I think we’re going to end up confusing ourselves again if the ruleset starts referring to all this alien stuff as both singular instances and general classes, and we have to be careful about saying (or failing to say) whether a rule is referring to a “Thing”, a “Thing Type” or a “Thing Type classification”.

What long term gameplay are we looking to here? When we find life on New Ganymede, are we likely to want to track it as “Tyrannosaurs exist and there are three of them in the Monotreme Lake and one of them in the Carpet Desert, and they will move around”, or (as Josh was suggesting in Thingalings) would it be enough to have something like “Tyrannosaurs exist and are common in the Monotreme Lake and rare in the Carpet Desert”?

Josh: Observer he/they

14-08-2020 19:49:28 UTC

Yeah, I appreciate that your version is more technically precise than mine, but it obfuscates too much, I think, when what is needed is something that abstractly gets at the dispersal of populations.

I’m going to take another stab.

derrick: he/him

14-08-2020 19:59:00 UTC

We at least need to differentiate between the dinosaurs at the lake and at the desert while keeping them as the same type in some way

derrick: he/him

14-08-2020 20:00:31 UTC

Though really what I want is the Prospecting part. The types is just me trying to get to that.

Josh: Observer he/they

14-08-2020 20:25:31 UTC

Proposal: This Thing Is My Thing is my attempt at this, and it co-exists with this proposal, so imperial

Kevan: he/him

14-08-2020 20:25:56 UTC

The prospecting would work with either approach, I’d have thought - you can roll a die and compare it to “the number of Mineral Things with that location”, or (under Josh’s system) something like “3 if the Mineral is Common, 2 if it’s Uncommon, 3 if it’s Rare”.

Raven1207: he/they

14-08-2020 20:30:06 UTC

imperial

Darknight: he/him

14-08-2020 21:13:07 UTC

imperial

Madrid:

14-08-2020 21:33:23 UTC

imperial

Zyborg:

15-08-2020 00:27:35 UTC

against

Kevan: he/him

15-08-2020 07:33:38 UTC

against in favour of This Thing Is My Thing.