Yeah, the glossary does actually say that “a keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word”, and I’d vote against any DoV from Bucky on that basis.

Well, if things break, we simply increase the level of rigor involved in writing rules. I think that Bucky’s name change is a little more subtle than what you have proposed.

“If a Swashbuckler other than Elias IX has been Captain for 3 full days, then e may declare victory at any time.”

The omission of the article is important here. I can easily grasp the logic behind Bucky’s latest ploy—the distinction between a title and a proper noun.

Of course, we have “Each Dynasty has a single Captain and is named according to the number of times which that” in some law or another,  so I need to see some persuasive argument before I would vote for eir DoV, should e make it that long.

I get the point, although your examples are sarcastic (and I really don’t think that they work as well). This Dynasty hasn’t been all that rigorous—perhaps you think we should make the next one a little more so?

Not at all. I am perfectly comfortable with ‘Captain’, ‘the Captain’, ‘The Captain’, ‘the role of Captain’ all signifying the same thing.

I’m saying it is impossible to stop naming scams by rule text alone. We can only use our collective judgment when there is a keyword conflict.

But doesn’t that defeat half the purpose of a nomic—being inventive and tricky in finding loopholes in the rules?  If we start going by their spirit rather than their letter half the fun will leave.

But doesn’t that defeat half the purpose of a nomic—being inventive and tricky in finding loopholes in the rules?  If we start going by their spirit rather than their letter half the fun will leave.

I know, I don’t want to be a kill-joy. I’m not anti-scamming, and I think there is still a lot of territory left open. Bucky/Captain has been doing a great job with it. I thought the pre-enactment Weevil-buying was cool!

There really shouldn’t be too much Ruleset clutter involved in patching up these “conflict in identifying game objects” sort of loopholes.  I can only think of three places in the curren ruleset which give a Swashbuckler direct control over identifying game objects (as opposed to going through a process such as Proposal, CfJ, etc.):  Naming emself, buying motley, and naming a weevil.  Concerning the only one which is not Dynasty-specific, we might as well fix it so we don’t have to worry about it all the time.

Does anyone think it might be a good idea to put something into the glossary like: “The Ruleset only refers to a specific Swashbuckler by name if that Swashbuckler’s name is surrounded by asterisks.  (e.g. If a Swashbuckler other than *Elias IX* has been Captain for three days…)”

I have an idea of how to fix this problem for good.  I’ll propose it in a few days after I get all the details worked out if I have a chance.

Oh, and for the record, I was also thinking of assuming veto power and a bunch of other stuff by renaming myself E.

Maybe just allow the Captain (or captain equivalent) to veto name changes if they try to exploit this.

Hix might have something there with the asterisks…

If you think this is bad, I’ve spotted a more powerful scam.  It could be used for an unstoppable instant win(as in, takes less than the 12 hours normally required) idling all other players, repealing all laws and rules… but I’m probably not going to use it for “ethical” reasons.  That and because if I used it, it would rend the fabric of Blognomic and scatter its players to the four winds, and ultimately make the game “not fun.”

I find this proposition of yours to be, eh, mildly dubious, to say the least. ;)

Maybe I ought to demonstrate part of it… that is, if I can find a way to do it which would not ruin the game.

I feel sorry for whoever writes the history for this…

I see that histories have been written (or at least sketched) for Dynasties since The Switch, what a pleasant surprise.

i like this captain fellow, although i do agree with smith on some points, blognomic seem to have a strict ‘if a loophole is found that is destructive CFJ and erase the fact that it happened’ policy, at least when i’ve broken the gamestate

Come back and break the gamestate more often!

Quazie:  When did you break the gamestate?  Has it happened before?  What dynasty?

i have done it at least once in a zombie dynasty, deffinatly broke my own a few times, someone else might remeber another if there was one.

To me the obvious solution is to state that unless specifically indicated in some way, a word in the ruleset never refers to the something of that name defined in the gamestate, but outside of the ruleset.  Another option would be to add a rule barring players from ever naming something with a string that currently exists in the ruleset.

You could also just rigorously define every aspect of the ruleset, removing the posibility of confusion, but my one attempt at doing so tripled the size of the core rules alone, and significantly hurt the readability.

Isn’t the ruleset part of the gamestate?  I say we just develop a distinct protocol to refer to proper nouns and anything that doesn’t follow it isn’t a proper noun.