Ruleset 21

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Families must obey it. Rules 1-10 are the "core Ruleset", covering basic Family and proposal mechanics; Rules 11 onwards are those specific to the current round.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be changed when a Rule specifically permits their being changed. ("Gamestate" is defined as any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of, such as Families' names and Thalers totals, or the blog colour scheme.)

Admin Staff may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset at any time.

Families

Anybody may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by contacting any of the Admin Staff, specifying the name they wish to use in the game and the URL or email address they want their name to link to in the Family roster. The Admin may choose to approve or reject this application; if it is approved, the applicant will be signed up as a Member of the BlogNomic weblog, and will be considered a Family from the moment that they first appear on the roster in the sidebar.

A Family may change their name or their sidebar link, or leave the game, at any time, by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such action.

Some Families are Admin Staff, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Families who wish to become Admin should sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves an Admin. Existing Admin may be removed from their post by Proposal, CfJ or voluntary resignation.

Some Families are idle, and should be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of rules other than 1 and 2, idle Families are not counted as Families. Admin may render a Family idle if that Family has failed to vote for more than a week, or if it has asked to become idle. Admins may un-idle a Family at their request - the Family's personal gamestate retains the values it had immediately prior to their idling.

A single person may not control more than one Family within BlogNomic. If anybody is suspected of controlling more than one Family, then a Proposal may be made to remove any number of such Families from the game, and to bar the perpetrator from rejoining.

Thalers

Each Family has an amount of Thalers, which may vary during the course of the game. Thalers may not fall below 0 or rise above 200. Any effect which would take Thalers beyond either of these boundaries instead sets it to that boundary, unless the change must be made as a precondition of a game action (such as paying a "cost"), in which case that action cannot be performed.

Admins gain 10 Thalers for setting up new Families. Within 24 hours of joining the game, and only once, a Family may nominate a single (other) Family as being responsible for their joining - the nominated Family gains 20 Thalers, and the new Family gains 10 as a reward for nominating.

Thalers is normalized at the beginning of each new dynasty. If a Family's Thalers was higher than 125 before the Ascension of the new Duke, it drops to 125. If it was lower than 75 before the Ascension, it rises to 75. If it was between 125 and 75, it retains its value for the new dynasty.

New Families begin the game with 200 Thalers. (If the First Dynasty of TrumanCapote has ended, this value shall be reverted to 100 Thalers and this bracketed text deleted.)

If at any time a fractional value would occur for Thalers that value is rounded down to the nearest whole number.

Proposals

Any Family may propose a change to the Ruleset or gamestate by posting an entry with the subject "Proposal : [Title]" (where [Title] is a title of their choosing), and describes the changes they wish to be made.

(A Family can state in his Proposal's title that the Proposal is Trivial, if they feel that it only makes minor changes, or is otherwise unworthy of reward.)

Proposals can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed or Expired. When a Proposal is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

No ostensible Proposal shall be legal if its posting leads to its poster having more than 4 Trivial Proposals' worth of Proposals pending. For the purpose of this rule, 1 non-Trivial Proposal is worth 2 Trivial ones. The legal maximum is, therefore, 2 non-Trivials, 4 Trivials, or 1 non-Trivial and 2 Trivials. Furthermore, no Family may post more than the worth of 6 Trivial Proposals in the same day.

Voting

Any Family may cast their vote on a Pending Proposal by declaring it in the comments of the entry. Valid votes are FOR, AGAINST, and DEFERENTIAL, which must be represented by appropriate icons. If there exists more than one Vote from a single Family on a single Proposal, only the most recent of those Votes is counted. If a Family leaves the game or goes idle, their Vote no longer counts.

A vote of DEFERENTIAL is a vote of no opinion, or of faith in the decision of the Duke. The vote will count as the same as the Duke's vote. The Duke cannot cast a vote of DEFERENTIAL. If there is no Duke, a vote of DEFERENTIAL counts as an explicit vote of abstention.

FOR votes may be marked as 'Trivial' if the voter thinks that the Proposal should have been marked Trivial. (If most of a Proposal's FOR votes are marked 'Trivial', the Proposal becomes Trivial.)

If the Family who made a Proposal has not cast an explicit Vote on it, their Vote is counted as FOR.

Enactment

Quorum is equal to half the number of Families, rounded down, plus one.

If the oldest pending Proposal's FOR votes exceed or equal Quorum, or if it is more than 48 hours old and more than half of its votes are FOR, then any Admin Staff may mark that Proposal as Enacted, then update the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal.

If the oldest pending Proposal has enough AGAINST votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those votes being changed, or if all Families have voted on it and it still cannot be Enacted, or if the Family who proposed it has voted AGAINST it, or if it is more than 48 hours old and most of its votes are AGAINST, then any Admin Staff may mark that Proposal as Failed. When the proposer votes against his or her own proposal, that vote may not be changed.

When a Proposal is enacted, its proposer gains 10 Thalers, or 2 Thalers if it was Trivial. When a Proposal fails, its proposer loses 3 Thalers.

Whenever an Admin Enacts a non-Trivial Proposal, they may claim 5 Thalers. Whenever they Enact a Trivial Proposal, they may claim 2 Thalers.

Whenever an Admin Enacts or Fails a Proposal that has been pending for more than 48 hours, he/she has the option of deducting 5 Thalers from the accounts of all active Families who did not vote on the Proposal. This deduction cannot take place if a proposal has been vetoed or self failed.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Families actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Family feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Family may raise a Call for Judgment by posting an entry which begins with the paragraph "Call for Judgment" in bold text, and goes on to describe the issue, and measures that should be taken to resolve it.

All Families may add votes of agreement or disagreement in comments to this entry, using appropriate voting icons (a Family's later votes overriding its earlier ones). CfJs continue until they reach a quorum of FOR votes, or until four days have passed. After this time, if more than half of the cast votes are in favour, the Gamestate and Ruleset should be amended as was specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails and may have no further effect.

Gamestate Tracking

Proposals, Calls for Judgement, and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.blogspot.com. Any Family may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts.

If nobody else has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed, otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the ruleset. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be formatted

[data]

, where [result] is one of enact, fail, veto, or other.

A non-official post may not through editing of the blog be changed into an official post.

Voting and comments are tracked by backblog, accessible through the link at the bottom of every post.

Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at http://kevan.org/generic?nomic=blog. Any Family may update any Family's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Family feels that an alteration goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), he or she may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment should be raised.

Families shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Rounds, referred to as Dynasties.

Each Dynasty has a single Duke and is named according to the number of times which that Family has been the Duke (or the Duke equivalent) (eg. "The First Dynasty of Myke").

The Duke has the following powers:-

• They may veto any Proposal; that Proposal immediately fails. (This veto may be contested with a CfJ if it is thought excessively unreasonable.)
• They may change the BlogNomic header, the colour scheme and the VETO icon, whenever they like.

A page of Dynasty Records are kept on a separate weblog, recording events that took place during past Dynasties, noting their themes, their Duke or equivalent, interesting rules, large arguments, the winning move, etc. A Dynasty record must accurately reflect the Dynasty it refers to. Families may submit Dynasty Records to the Duke - the Duke may award the submitter 20 Thalers for any Records it uses.

Victory and Ascension

If a Family believes that they have achieved the victory conditions for the current Dynasty, they may post a Declaration of Victory to the BlogNomic weblog. At this point, BlogNomic immediately goes into Hiatus, during which no other game actions (including other victory claims) may be taken.

Every Family may respond to the Declaration of Victory saying whether they regard it as legal or illegal (using the FOR, AGAINST and DEFERENTIAL icons). If more than half of Families consider the win legal, then the poster of the Declaration is considered to have officially won the Dynasty - the Dynasty ends. If more than half consider it illegal, however, then the Hiatus ends and the current Dynasty continues. If no clear decision is reached after 24 hours, the Duke may optionally step in and decide the win's legality.

When a Dynasty has been won, all Families' GNDT stats are reset to zero or blank. Any Families who were idle throughout that Dynasty may be removed from the game, at the Duke's discretion.

The Hiatus then continues until the new Duke posts an Ascension Address to the BlogNomic weblog - this should specify the Duke's chosen theme for the new round, and may optionally include a proclamation that any number of Rules will be repealed (excluding Rules 1-10), and/or that the words "Family", "Duke" and "Thalers" will be replaced with new theme-appropriate terms. If the new Duke chooses not to repeal a rule with number over 10, he/she may also replace any keyword in those rules with a new theme-appropriate term. The remaining rules, after the new Duke's proclamation, shall be renumbered to keep a sequential progression. The new Duke may also proclaim at the Ascension Address the veto of any Pending Proposals. The failure of said proposals shall incur no Thaler penalty for the proposer.

Upon posting this Address, and having made the Ruleset changes, the Hiatus period ends and the new Dynasty commences.

Family

Each Family may have a number of Family Members; each of them has a Forename, a Gender (Male or Female), an Birthdate (Year of Birth) and (optionally) any number of Spouses. It's Against the Law for a Family Member to have more than one Spouse.

Family Members may die - this is signified by their Birthdate being appended with a dash and the Deathdate (for example, "10-80").

Members of a family shall be stored in a GNDT field of 'Members', as a list with each Member formatted as "Forename (BirthDate/Gender, married to Spouse)", with Gender as a single letter - a typical list might be "Hans (10/M, married to Gretchen), Gretchen (20/F, married to Hans), Gustav (10/M)".

If a Family has fewer than two Family Members, it may arrange for distant relatives to arrive and settle in the Empire. This costs the Family 50 Thalers, and allows the Family to roll a DICE and create a number of Family Members equal to half that DICE result, rounded down to a minimum of 1, each one with a Forename, Birthdate and Gender of their choosing (provided that each Forename has never been used for any Family Member in the past). If more than one Family Member is created this way, they may optionally be created married to each other.

Each Family has a Surname, which is listed in the GNDT. A Family's surname is initially the same as the name of that Family; they may change their Surname from this to any other currently-unused Surname, at any time.

Death and Inheritance

If any Family Member would become older than 70 Years they die of natural causes. Any Family may mark the deceased Family Member using the current Year as the Deathdate, as specified by the Family rule. When a Family Member dies they become a Family Ancestor and are no longer counted as a Family Member.

If a Family Member dies of natural causes without ever having been married, the Family gains 15 Thalers out of pity.

Marriage

A living Family Member may propose to wed another living Family Member by having their Family post a blog entry or GNDT comment with such a request. When proposals are posted to the blog, the posts' titles should begin with the phrase "Proposed Marriage:". The Family of the Member being proposed to may accept or reject the proposal, as long as both parties remain unmarried to each other. If the proposal is accepted, any Family who has a living Priest as a Member may perform the Marriage ceremony by posting a comment to that effect. After that is done, the two Family Members become one another's Spouses, and are both moved to the Family of the proposer. If the proposal is rejected, the proposal fails immediately and no Mmarriage takes place. Once a proposal is either accepted or rejected, it may not be either accepted or rejected later.

If a married Family Member dies, their marriage is annulled.

It is Against the Law for Family Members of the same gender to be married, or for a female younger than 20 to be married.

Whenever a Family member makes a marriage proposal, that Family must include a dowry as part of the proposal. A dowry must be at least one-tenth of the proposing Family's current Thalers. If the proposal is accepted, the dowry is transferred from the Family making the proposal to the Family accepting it - if there are insufficient Thalers at this point, the wedding is called off. A dowry is not required if the members of the marriage are within the same family or if those involved in the marriage are of the same gender.

An outcast can be proposed to at half the cost of a normal dowry, this will be given to the outcast family, unless the outcast is unable to marry due to a rule (not a law) then the outcast is considered to consent upon being proposed to. All other marriage rules/laws apply.

Petition

Families may petition the Duke when allowed to do so by other rules. This must be made in the form of a post with a subject of "Petition: [Topic]". The poster is known as the Petitioner. The Duke may not be a Petitioner.

Any Family may respond to the Petition using comments, but only the Duke may vote on it. The Duke may vote FOR or AGAINST, along with response text as allowed by the rule governing the particular Topic of the Petition - this is called the Duke's Pronouncement. If the Duke posts more than one Pronouncement, only the most recent may be Enforced. A Pronouncement must be Enforced as described by the rule governing the Topic of the Petition. A Pronouncement may only be Enforced once (although the Enforcement may in some cases consist of several actions). The Duke may never Enforce a Pronouncement.

After 48 hours a Petition is considered resolved and is not subject to the Duke's consideration any longer. If the Duke has voted FOR the Petition then it is considered approved, if the Duke has voted AGAINST the Petition then it is considered rejected, and if the Duke has not voted then it is considered ignored.

Crime and Punishment

Certain activities are Against the Law, and a Family may accuse another Family of breaking a Law. This is done by petitioning the Duke with a Topic of "Accuse [Family Name]" and describing how the Law was broken. (The accusation does not have to be true, although the Law named must exist.)

In the Pronouncement on the Petition, the Duke may decree the Crime or Crimes committed by the named Family and/or the Petitioner. Either or both Families can be deemed guilty of Crimes regardless of whether the Petition was approved or rejected. A Family may be found guilty of multiple counts of the same Crime.

When a Family Enforces an imperial Pronouncement, they may punish the guilty Family as appropriate by using the list of Crimes and their associated Punishments at the end of this rule. A Family may choose to apply the Punishments in any order and at any time, but after 48 hours have passed since the Petition was resolved the mandate for Punishment has expired and can no longer be Enforced.

Something To Work Towards

If a single Family ever has more living Family Members than all other Families combined, including Outcasts, then that Family may declare Victory.

• "Insolence" or "Wasting the Duke's Time" or "Disrupting the Peace". Transfer 5 Thalers from the guilty Family to the Duke.

• "Negligence" or "Wrongful Action". Transfer 5 Thalers from the guilty Family to the other Family involved in the Petition. If the Family has fewer than 5 Thalers then all of their Thalers are transferred.

• "Gross Neglect" or "Heinous Acts". Transfer half of the Thalers from the guilty Family to the other Family involved in the Petition.

• "Disregard of the Law" or "Dereliction of Duty" or "Willful Misconduct". Reduce the guilty Family's Thalers by 5. If the Family has fewer than 5 Thalers then their Thalers is set to 0.

• "Blasphemy" or "Imperial Offence". Reduce the guilty Family's Thalers by half.

• "Heresy" or "Treason". Reduce the guilty Family's Thalers to 0.

• "Unlawful Marriage". Only appliable if the accused Family is part of a Marriage which is Against the Law. Anull all Marriages inside the guilty Family which are Against the Law.

Calendar

The Year is tracked in the Blog sidebar. It is measured in Years A.T. ("Anno Truman"). Once per day at midnight GMT the Calendar advances 10 Years.

Periodically the Calendar will advance 1 year. This has no game effect other than to indicate the time until the year increments; the Year is still considered to be what it was at midnight.

Childbirth

If, within a Family's Members, there exists a Married couple, in which the Male member is at least 20 and not yet 70 years of age, and the Female member is at least 20 not yet 60, then that Family may, once per day (for each such couple), attempt to have a child. This is done by posting a comment to the GNDT in the format "[Female Member] and [Male Member] having kids: DICE, DICE"

The first DICE roll is to determine how successful the pregnancy was. On a roll of 1, 2, or 3, the pregnancy is normal, with no ill effects. On a roll of 4 or 5, the pregnancy fails, and that couple must wait another day to try. On a roll of 6, the pregnancy succeeds, but the mother dies in childbirth (her Age is turned to X, her Marriage is annulled, and the like). If both rolls are 6, the mother does not die, but instead gives birth to twins, and an extra Twin DICE must be rolled. The results are as follows: 1-2, two male children; 3-4, two female children; 5-6 one male and one female child.

If the pregnancy succeeds, then the second roll is to determine the gender of the child. An even number makes the child Male, and an odd roll makes it Female. The Family must then add an appropriately gendered Family Member, with a Birthdate of the current year, and a Forename that has never been used for any Family Member in the past, to their GNDT entry.

Legal Guardian

When a child is born then he/she will become part of the Father's Family. In the event of the death of a child's Male parent both his spouse and any children (a child being under the age of 20) that he may have had will then be transfered to the Female's original Family. If a Family Member dies that has been trasfered over due to a marriage then thier original family has to right to reclaim their dead body and bring it back to thier Famly by doing so throught a change in the GNDT.

A bastard, while at age 0, may be left on the doorstep of any Family. When a bastard is created, if the mother so chooses she can give the baby to any Family to atempt to get rid of the responsibility.

Professions

By paying an adequate fee a Family may send one of its live Members to a School and get them taught a Profession, provided that the chosen Member fulfills all requirements for entrance on the specific School.

Each Profession shall be marked by the addition of a signal to the name of the Professional.

No School, nor the requirements for entrance in a School, nor the signals that mark the Professions shall be listed in a rule other than this one.

Currently, the Schools and their characteristics are:

The Seminary

Family Members taught at The Seminary join the ranks of the clergy. That Member becomes a Priest, which is indicated by a "+" at the end of their name. The entrance fee on The Seminary is 20 Thalers and the only requirement is that the candidate must be unmarried. It's Against the Law for a Priest to be married.

The Merchant Guild

Family Members taught at The Merchant Guild achieve the position of Merchant, which is indicated by a "$" at the end of their name. The entrance fee on The Merchant Guild is 20 Thalers and the only requirement is that the candidate's age must be greater than 10 and lower than 60.

The Hospital

Family Members taught at The Hospital become Doctors, which is indicated by a "*" at the end of their name. The entrance fee on The Hospital is 20 Thalers and the requirements are that the candidate's age must be greater than 10 and that the candidate must not have another Profession. It's Against the Law for a Doctor to achieve another Profession.

Outcasts

There exists a Family in the GNDT called Outcasts with a surname of Outcasts. When this family is created it will initially have no Family Members. If a family wants to get rid of one of their own family members for any reason without waiting until they die they may Outcast said family member."

When a Family Member is Outcast then their original Family name shall be denoted after their name within parenthesis. (For example if Jane age 40 is part of the Doe family and is outcast then she will become part of the Outcast family as the following - Jane (40/F/(Doe)).)

If a Family wishes to outcast a family member and no longer have their family name attached to the Family Member then they may reduce their Thalers by 10 to do so, and when the outcasted Family Member is added to the Outcast family there will be no original family name denoted, just an open and closed parenthesis. If the Family does not have more than 10 Thalers they may not Outcast a Family Member without their original Family name being retained. For example if Jane age 40 is part of the Doe family and is outcast AND the doe family reduces their Thalers by 10, Jane will appear in the Outcast family as Jane (40/F/())

Only live family members may be outcast and they may not be outcasted if over the age of 60.

Once a Family Member has been Outcast they are no longer considered part of their original family and their original family may no longer gain any benefits from that Family Member.

When outcasting a Family Member, a comment must be made in the GNDT as to why the outcasting is happening.

Trysts

Once per day, a Family Member may attempt to have a love affair with another Family Member by having their Family post a blog entry or GNDT comment with a request for a tryst. There is a random chance the Family Member being propositioned may accept, the poster must roll DICE: on a score of 1-5 their advances are rejected, on a score of 6 their love is requited.

If the tryst is accepted the lovers are assumed to have had many such encounters and the Family of the female Family Member may check for childbirth as if she were married to her lover (and the usual age/sex requirements). A child born out of such a union is known as a Bastard, unless the mother is married in which case her Family may choose to include the child as if it were legitimate. A Bastard is forever branded with a "!" after their name. In any case, the child stays with the mother's Family.

It is Against the Law for any Family to have members participate in such an affair out of wedlock.

An outcast can be part of a tryst, but if the female member of the tryst is the outcast, the father has the option of making the baby part of his family.

Fighting

Once per day, a Family Member may choose to get into a Fight with another Family Member, by having their Family post a GNDT comment in the format "[Name] and [name] fight: DICE vs DICE", where the dice rolls are assigned to the corresponding person.

If one Fighter is older than the other, and if they are not older than 60, an extra 1 is added to their roll.

The Fighter with the lowest roll is defeated; the Fighter with the highest roll may, any time within the next 24 hours, announce that the loser has died as a result.

Killing a Family Member in such a way, even in self defence, is Against the Law.

Gifts

Once per day, a Family may transfer a non-negative amount of Thalers from themselves to another Family as long as it is equal or less than the amount of Thalers held by the Family doing the transfer.

Something To Work Towards

If a single Family ever has more living Family Members than all other Families combined, including Outcasts, then that Family may declare Victory.

Glossary

This Rule is always at the end of the Ruleset. Its only effect can be to clarify ambiguity.

• References to "a day" (as an entity rather than a duration, eg. "Sunday") refer to that day in the timezone of the BlogNomic blog.
• References to a "week" refer to the period of time between the start of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.
• It is noted that where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their writer a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own writer, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger on Enactment or Failure of a Proposal are the responsibility of the acting Admin, who is responsible to check if Quorum is met at the moment of the Enactment.
• Appropriate Icons: For use in voting, a check box http://kevan.org/gndt/for.gif shall represent a vote FOR, an X http://kevan.org/gndt/against.gif shall represent a vote AGAINST, an I http://kevan.org/gndt/imperial.gif shall represent a vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal (currently http://kevan.org/gndt/seal.gif) shall represent the Imperial Veto.
• The "subject" of a blog entry is the first and only sentence in the Title of an entry. Any entry that does not have exactly one subject is not valid.
• "Posts" and "comments" refer only to those made to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.blogspot.com.
• A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal english usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (eg. A rule specifying "Bananas are Blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry above.)