Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Proposal: We Are Stardust

Self-killed. Failed by Brendan.

Adminned at 12 Feb 2020 16:45:29 UTC

If Proposal: The Road Not Taken has failed, this proposal does nothing.

Add a new sub-rule to the rule Star Signs, entitled Horoscopes:

Each Star Sign has an Alpha Horoscope and a Prime Horoscope. These are tracked on the Scientists page of the wiki, along with the date upon which that Horoscope was set. Scientists are affected by the Horoscope that matches their Star Sign and their Orientation (i.e. a Prime-Oriented Scientist is affected by the Prime Horoscope for their sign, and vice-versa).

Horoscopes can have three Flavours: actions, benefits and penalties. Horoscopes must exclusively have the impacts set out by their Flavour as described below.

A Horoscope with an Action Flavour provides those affected by it with an action that they may carry out, as well as the requirements and timings of that action.
A Horoscope with a Benefit flavour provides those affected by it with a concrete benefit. This benefit may be claimed by any Scientist affected by that Horoscope as a weekly action.
A Horoscope with a Penalty flavour inflicts a one-off disbenefit upon those afflicted with it. Any Scientist may inflict any appropriate Penalties on afflicted Scientists as a weekly communal action.

A list of potential horoscopes can be found below.

Boon Horoscopes:
* Efficacy (Action): As a daily action, spend 100 Budget to reduce the Crisis amount by 500.
* Wealth (Benefit): Gain 1 Turboencabulator.
* Luck (Benefit): Gain 20 Putty.
* Charisma (Action): As a weekly communal action, reduce the Buy prices for one Research Material of your choice in the Universe of your Orientation by 5%, with final values rounded up.
* Will to Power (Action): As a weekly action, slect a random other Scientist. Move your Polarity by 2 points in any direction, and theirs by 1 in the same direction.
* Charity (Action): As a weekly action, select another Scientist with the same Horoscope as you but the opposite Orientation, and increase both of your Budgets by 500.

Bane Horoscopes:
* Accident (Penalty): Lose, at random, 10 Putty, 200 Budget or 1 Turboencabulator.
* Parting of Ways (Action): As a daily action, select a random other Scientist. Set your Polarity to theirs multiplied by -1.
* Market crash (Penalty): Reduce the Sell prices for all Research Materials in the Universe of your Orientation by 5%, with final values rounded up.
* Unlucky in Love (Action): As a weekly action, select a random Scientist with a Polarity of zero, or, if there is no such Scientist, the Scientist with the value closest to zero. Move your Polarity 2 points closer to zero, and theirs 1 point in the opposite direction.
* Envy (Action): As a weekly action, you may spend 1 Turboencabulator to be affected by the Horoscope of the Universe other than your Orientation for 24 hours.

Add another subrule to the same rule, entitled Star Charts:

As a weekly atomic action, any Scientist may Consult a Star Chart. To do so, they should carry out the following steps:

* Select a Star Sign whose recorded date is at least a week in the past;
* Randomly select two Horoscopes from the list of potential Horoscopes, one from the Boon list and one from the Bane list. As a Discrepant Action, apply the Boon Horoscope to the Horoscope of the Universe of their Orientation as its Upsider, and its Bane Horoscope to the other as its Downsider.
* Amend the information held in the Scientists page on the wiki, including changing the date held against the affected Star Sign and its Horoscopes to the date of edit.

Set the Horoscope of all Star Signs in all Orientations to “None”, with a date of 1 January 1900.

Clumsy first pass. Discussion welcome.

Comments

Tantusar: he/they

11-02-2020 11:48:42 UTC

Star Charts feels very slow.

Josh: Observer he/they

11-02-2020 11:51:36 UTC

Note that it’s a weekly action, not a weekly communal action. So we can all do one star sign each a week.

Tantusar: he/they

11-02-2020 11:54:40 UTC

Right, yes.

derrick: he/him

11-02-2020 14:12:40 UTC

We can always speed it up as well.

Kevan: he/him

11-02-2020 14:23:45 UTC

Some confusion with you using “Upsider” as an adjective, here, when Discrepant Actions use it as a noun.

“As a Discrepant Action, apply the Upsider Horoscope to the Horoscope of the Universe of their Orientation as its Upsider effect, and its Downsider Horoscope to the other as its Downsider effect.” doesn’t mesh with Discrepant Action’s instruction to “apply [a Discrepang Action’s] effects with the Prime version of themselves as its Upsider” - there is no “Upsider” person in your action.

Josh: Observer he/they

11-02-2020 14:32:28 UTC

I have edited it per Kevan’s comments but, arg, illegally as it’s older than 2 hours old. So against s/k but with an invitation to further comment as I’ll probably resubmit.

Kevan - does the boon/bane wording and some tightening around the discrepant action in question help?

Kevan: he/him

11-02-2020 14:58:04 UTC

Pretty much. I’d maybe clarify how “the Horoscope that matches their Star Sign and their Orientation” applies to a Balanced Scientist. And the Benefits could be reframed as Actions of “As a weekly action…”, I think?

“As a weekly communal action, reduce the Buy prices for one Research Material of your choice in the Universe of your Orientation…” has some ambiguity - what is the action? If I perform the action for Putty in Alpha Universe, can I also perform it for Turboencapulators in the same Universe? Can someone else perform it for Putty in the Prime Universe?

Brendan: he/him

11-02-2020 17:03:16 UTC

Not to blow up your spot, but “Any Scientist may inflict any appropriate Penalties on afflicted Scientists as a weekly communal action” seems like a classic any/all Josh loophole—eg, I can apply the penalties to only my afflicted enemies, ignoring my allies, and nobody else can come in and apply them afterward because it’s communal. And if a non-baned Scientist is applying the bane to other people, who does “you” mean in those bullets? (“Unlucky in Love” is particularly confusing here—it’s applied as a weekly communal action to create a weekly action opportunity for the afflicted?)

Josh: Observer he/they

11-02-2020 18:00:35 UTC

Not intentional I promise, but I will try to strengthen the wording.

With regards to Unlucky in Love, it has the action flavour rather than the penalty flavour, so it isn’t triggered by the weekly communal action in that way.

Any Scientist may once inflict all appropriate Penalties on afflicted Scientists as a weekly communal action. - does that do it? I’m looking for the wording that catches all Scientists affected by a bane.

Brendan: he/him

11-02-2020 18:19:29 UTC

That makes more sense to me, yes. In general this seems like the kind of mechanic that hopes for an active emperor, but it seems like the Duke doesn’t have a ton of spare time to devote to it right now.

Josh: Observer he/they

11-02-2020 18:21:03 UTC

I tried to make this as independent of the emperor as possible, for exactly that reason.

Kevan: he/him

12-02-2020 09:54:24 UTC

Looking over the queue again, I think this is maybe a big enough mechanic (and one at odds with “different types of scientists do science”) that it deserves to be explored its own full dynasty in a more everyday setting.