I believe that it feels “unfair” because it’s not an intuitive use of the mechanic (which could be said for all scams but oh well).

I think this is an incomplete solution to the problem because the Timeout scam would still be doable - but with just <em>one<em> iteration instead of ad nauseum. (There is no repetition or frequency if its just one, I believe). Which in the case of a “roll a 1d2” step for example, it could be decisive.

I’ll suggest another mechanics-based fix instead of a subjective one. I think that could be more robust that the ‘feeling’ of it being fair or not (because it can’t be outmaneuvered).

It was shown in Viv’s dynasty that no one considers that rule to actually be binding.  I’ll vote for the one that makes it impossible to do the action for the next week if it timed out.

“because it’s not an intuitive use of the mechanic”
More like it was not the intent of whoever first drafted Atomic Actions (Viv I think) for them to be used as a way of manipulating dice rolls or preforming actions and then not having them count.

That’s why the sentence “In addition, the Manager performing an Atomic Action should perform its steps as quickly as they are able.” exists in that rule.

Timing out atomic actions by itself doesn’t seem like intrinsically unfair play to me. The problems we had were a combination of not using dice rolls expeditiously (like listed in [1]) and not doing things that the ruleset says you “should” do, both of which seem more fundamentally like fair play.

[1] https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Laundry_list

Voting now that a bunch of time has passed.

per pokes