Saturday, January 21, 2012

Proposal: You can’t lose what you don’t have

Self-killed. Josh

Adminned at 23 Jan 2012 23:29:01 UTC

Clucky seems to be under the mistaken impression that he can lose something he doesn’t have - or somehow lose the inverse of that object with respect to posession, thereby gaining it. (despite the rules not saying he has such a object in the first place).

The disputed passage in question is “At any time, the Criminal that possesses the License may at their discretion lose X Wealth and gain F Firepower, where F = X / 2.”

For reference, here is the appropriate definition of “Lose”: “(v) to cease to have or possess”
and Wealth and Firepower are “non-negative integers”.

Under my interpretation of the rule, and the reasonable and intended interpretations, it is simply impossible to lose a negative amount of Wealth based on the definition of ‘lose’.  Any action that loses a negative amount of Wealth thus CANNOT be performed.  The fact that ‘lose’ is defined in a dictionary rather than a rule does not make it mean whatever the actor wants it to (e.g. interpret “change” to mean “cause to achieve victory” with respect to partners.)

Therefore, Clucky’s GNDT stats need to be corrected for the fact that he failed at gaining massive amounts of Wealth and as a result also failed to purchase most of his Firepower.

Comments

Bucky:

21-01-2012 22:35:06 UTC

for

Clucky: he/him

21-01-2012 23:14:21 UTC

against

“lose” like you said means “to cease to have”. It is certainly possible to “cease to have” a negative amount of something just like it is possible to “have” a negative amount of something. If it is possible to “gain (3 - DICE6) bits” it is also possible to “lose (3 - DICE6) bits”. All “lose” does is mean “gain the negative of”. If it is possible to lose 10% of your debt, and your debt is 500 money than you just lost -50 money.

If you want to challenge this based on “Wealth” being non-negative and thus the concept of “-1 Wealth” not existing I’d understand. But I properly used the definition of the word ‘lose’.

Also you didn’t have any flavor text here. Enacted CFJs are still gamestate.

Josh: Observer he/they

22-01-2012 00:08:00 UTC

What does this proposal actually do? “Clucky’s GNDT stats need to be corrected” is hopelessly vague, as an enacting admin I would have no idea how to even start going about doing that. Without wanting to even start on the issue itself, a proposal needs some kind of firm outcome to be worth enacting.

against

Cpt_Koen:

22-01-2012 00:10:29 UTC

“It is certainly possible to “cease to have” a negative amount of something just like it is possible to “have” a negative amount of something.”

Except it’s not possible to have a negative amount of Wealth.

for

omd:

22-01-2012 00:11:36 UTC

against I agree, but this should be a CFJ and is too vague.

Bucky:

22-01-2012 02:58:16 UTC

against This was supposed to have been a CfJ, not a proposal.