I have some reservations with this, a lot of which stem from the rule attempting to police mens rea.

For one: what about the scenario where an Emperor falls sick, or has a family emergency, or needs to step away from the game for a while - and needs to pass their role over? Does that rule previous co-operators out entirely? Because under those circumstances it seems more natural to pass over the role to someone with an aligned approach or vision.

“Their role” is vague; in this dynasty Bucky could have the role of Ball Toss Champion, and this wording would prohibit the passage of that role as well as that of Emperor. (Not wanting Ball Toss Champion passed based on previous dynasty favours is legit but it’s still outside of the ostensible scope of this proposal.

All of this becomes a much more acute problem when it starts carrying Fair Play weight - I think I find that the current prohibition is strong enough, as evidenced by no-one ever having tried to test it.

Mens rea is lessened here, isn’t it? The current rule is “don’t privately agree stuff”, the proposed amendment is “don’t publicly pass stuff”.

If this dynasty ended with an idle player bursting into the game and somehow kingmaking me, the group would have decide whether that act was pre-agreed or selfless. But if the next dynasty started with me stepping down and insisting that the kingmaker take over my role, that could be objectively called out (to the point of voting down such a proposal, which is all it needs) by this version.

“Their role” concern seems niche, but sure, clarified.

I think an unwilling Emperor proposing to pass the role directly back to their kingmaker (with praise for their cooperation, or for their aligned approach or vision), would be going strongly against the spirit of Mantle Limitations.

I don’t think an ill Emperor making some broader gesture to pass their role on (asking the group to select an heir, rolling a die, etc) would be considered as passing anything back “in return for a favour”, even if it did end up going back to a player who’d helped them in the previous dynasty.

Unconvinced that this makes the spirit or letter of the rule better.

I think the spirit all round for this rule is “You can’t pass the mantle in return for assistance during this dynasty, and don’t try to get around that!”

The current letter of the rule says that I’m not allowed to make a deal during the dynasty, but says nothing either way about whether I can try to hand off Emperorship at the start of the next one. If I have a sufficiently historical or unspoken agreement in place, I can still pretty much do the share-of-mantle thing that Mantle Limitations is trying to stop, and just propose to pass the Emperorhood after ascending. Other players might grumble about this being against the spirit of Mantle Limitations, but no rules would have been broken.

The proposed letter of the rule doesn’t try to mindread whether and when there might have been a “deal”: if I get kingmade and start the dynasty by proposing to hand it off to someone who clearly helped me win the previous dynasty, players are within their rights to throw tomatoes.

They already are! This strengthens that provision not at all, to my mind.

It’s changing the rule from “you shouldn’t pre-agree passing the Emperor role to an accomplice (but you can still pass it if you didn’t pre-agree it during that dynasty)” to “the Emperor shouldn’t pass their role to an accomplice from the previous dynasty”.

I think that would greatly affect how people voted on a “pass the Emperor role to my kingmaking accomplice, because we agreed this two dynasties ago / didn’t need to discuss it” proposal at the start of a new dynasty.

I really don’t think it would! The CfJ would not be decided on that wording of the rule under any circumstances; it would always be decided on whether the act was within the spirit of the game, as players are not compelled to vote on something just because it’s technically legal.

People vote for all kinds of reasons. There would be some golf clap applause from those who considered it a good scam, because we’re playing Nomic and that’s a huge part of it. There would be some nodding shrugs from players (including those unidling oblivious for the new dynasty) who didn’t mind either way what happened last dynasty.

That would change if the CfJ was clearly going against a Fair Play rule.

I disagree, and continue to think that it creates more problems than it solves.