Ruleset 125

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Townspersons shall obey it. Section One consists of the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the appendix, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

Townspersons may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.

Townspersons

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be a Townsperson. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become a Townsperson.

A Townsperson may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A Townsperson may not rejoin the game within two weeks after having left. A Townsperson may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Townspersons are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Townspersons who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

Idle Townspersons

Some Townspersons are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Townspersons”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Townspersons are not counted as Townspersons.

If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Townsperson, then that Idle Townsperson is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision

When a Townsperson is unidled, if they went Idle in the same dynasty, their personal gamestate retains the last legally endowed values it had, if they are still valid. Otherwise (including if a value is invalid, does not exist, or the Townsperson Idled in a different dynasty), the Townsperson is given the default value for new Townsperson, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Townsperson Idle if that Townsperson has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Townsperson has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days. In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Townsperson if that Townsperson has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past four days, and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Townsperson who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current dynasty.

Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first EVC following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to quorum to have come about as a result of it.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Townsperson, known as the Astrologer. If there is no Astrologer, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

A Votable Matter is a post which Townspersons may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Each Townsperson may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. A Townsperson’s Vote on a Votable Matter is the last valid voting icon that they have used in any comment on that Votable Matter. Additionally, if the author of a Votable Matter has not used a valid voting icon in a comment to the post, then the author’s Vote is FOR. A non-Townsperson never has a Vote, even if they were a Townsperson previously and had cast a valid Vote.

Votable Matters can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Whenever an Admin resolves a Votable Matter, they must also mark their name, and report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed).

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.

Proposals

Any Townsperson may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Townsperson already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When a Townsperson casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Self-Killed, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Astrologer may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Astrologer casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Astrologer later changes their Vote.

If a Townsperson other than the Astrologer casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Astrologer. When the Astrologer has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Proposal, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Astrologer's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal's status to Enacted) if either of the following is true:

• It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST, and it has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

The oldest pending Proposal may be failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:

• It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
• The number of Townspersons who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

If a proposal somehow ends up being pending for more than 7 days, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Townspersons actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Townsperson feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Townsperson may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

A Pending CFJ may be Resolved by an Admin if it has a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if it has been open for voting for more than 48 hours. When a CFJ is Resolved, it is to be Enacted if it has more FOR Votes than AGAINST Votes and Failed otherwise. When a CFJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.

Any CfJ that specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate tracking entities may be failed by any Admin.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Townsperson (other than the Astrologer) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Townspersons”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Townsperson may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty.

A Pending DoV may be enacted if any of the following is true:

• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and either the Astrologer has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and has a number of AGAINST Votes lesser than half of Quorum, rounded down.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, has a number of Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and more than half of its valid Votes are FOR.

A DoV may be failed if any of the following are true:

• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and the number of Townspersons who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

When a DoV fails and there are no pending DoVs, Hiatus ends.

When a DoV is enacted, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Townsperson who made the DoV as its Astrologer. That Townsperson may pass this role to another Townsperson at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Astrologer makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Astrologer's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Townsperson and Astrologer will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Townsperson who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules as it relates to Declarations of Victory, but can be overruled in other matters.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Townsperson's behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining.

• A single person should not control more than one Townsperson within BlogNomic.
• A Townsperson should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
• A Townsperson should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• A Townsperson should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Townsperson.
• A Townsperson should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• A Townsperson should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Townsperson should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).

Seasonal Downtime

Blognomic goes into hiatus every year on December 24th, and remains in hiatus until December 27th. During this time no game actions may be taken except those described in the rules entitled “Votable Matters,” “Gamestate Tracking” and “Call for Judgement”.

Dynastic Rules

Vocabulary

• During this dynasty the term Villager is considered to be synonymous with the term Townsperson.
• The Super Quorum is the sum of the active Townspersons and the Quorum, divided by 2, rounded up to the nearest integer.
• If an action would be taken "When the Season progresses" or "If the Season would change," the action should be taken within 24 hours of the Season progressing.
• The 48 hour period following each Day of Observance is referred to as the Seasonal Festival period.

The Almanac

At any time, a Season will be in effect. There are four possible Seasons, as listed below:

• Spring
• Summer
• Autumn / Fall
• Winter

The current Season is listed under the item “Current Season” in the sidebar template of the Blognomic blog.

Horoscopes

Each Townsperson has a Birth Sign, which is tracked in the GNDT as a space-separated list of the final words of those Constellations, in order. A Birth Sign is made up of three Constellations from the following list of all Constellations:

1. The Eel
2. The Bee
3. The Toad
4. The Crossed Swords
5. The Greater Triangle
6. The Parapet

At any time, any Townsperson who does not have a Birth Sign may allocate themselves one by rolling 3 DICE6 in the GNDT, and applying the results in the order that they are rolled in the GNDT to the numbered list in this rule.

The relative order of Constellations in Birth Signs is significant. A Constellation may occupy one of thee Sign Positions, as follows: the first Constellation in any Townsperson’s Birth Sign is their Distaff Sign, the middle Constellation is their Flax Sign and the final Constellation is their Spindle Sign.

Pace

Where contradictory, this rule supersedes any provision set out in rule 1.5.

During this dynasty, Proposals can only be resolved during a Seasonal Festival, unless one of the following is true, in which case it can be resolved at any time regardless of whether it is the oldest pending Proposal:

• The number of Townspersons who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum;
• It has been vetoed or self-killed.
• It is limited in effect to a specific Season or Seasons not including the current Season, and it is the oldest pending Proposal.

During this dynasty, a Townsperson may submit a Proposal unless the Townsperson already has 4 Proposals pending, or has already made 5 Proposals that day.

A proposal may be pending for longer than 7 days. If a proposal somehow ends up being pending on 2 or more consecutive Sundays, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.

Contingent Proposals

If a Proposal (the “Dependent Proposal”) starts with the text “Dependent on X”, where X is the name of a proposal or a list of proposals (the “Higher” proposal or proposals), then:

• The Dependent Proposal cannot be enacted if any of its Higher Proposals have not been enacted.
• If any of its Higher proposals have failed, the Dependent proposal is considered to be Self-Killed.

Weather Conditions

At any time, one Weather Condition (Weather in short) will be in effect. The current Weather is tracked in the Blognomic sidebar.

Possible Weather Conditions are as follows: 1. Hurricane 2. Snow 3. Rain 4. Sun Sun, Rain, and Snow are Typical Weather Conditions; Hurricane is a Disastrous Weather Condition.

The Incoming Weather condition is determined as follows: -if there are no Priests, it is Hurricane; -if there is exactly one Priest and the Season is Summer or Spring, it is Rain; -if there is exactly one Priest and the Season is Autumn/Fall or Winter, it is Snow; -if there are two or more Priests, it is Sun.

Homes

For the purposes of this rule, the Astrologer is considered to be a Townsperson.

Each Townsperson has a variety of Things in their Home, tracked as a text string in the GNDT under “Home”. This string is composed of a series of characters, with multiple instances of Things being represented with multiple characters. Valid things are:

• @: Human.
• A: Animal.
• v: Vegetable.
• m: Meat.
• F: Furniture.
• b: Book.
• $: Money.
• X: Plague.
• H: Hearth.
• r: Ring.

If a Townsperson’s Home has no things in it, that Townsperson may add one Human and one non-Human Thing to it.

The first two of each type of Thing in a Townsperson’s Home are natural Things; the other Things in a Townsperson’s Home are excess Things.

Thing Effects

Hearths are a fire risk. If a Townsperson has a Hearth, any Townsperson may remove an excess Thing from that Townsperson’s Home.

When a Townsperson gains a Ring through Marriage, they may gain 1 Standing. When a Townsperson loses a Ring from their Home, they lose 1 Standing and (if they have more than 1 Human in their Home) they also lose 1 Human from their Home. If a Townsperson has a Ring, they may not choose "Church" as their Workplace.

If nobody has done so during the current Season, a Townsperson may call a Day of Reading by making a blog post announcing it. Upon doing so, each Book which exists in a Home causes its owner’s Acumen to be reduced by 10 (if they have an Acumen). This reduction must be performed by the Townsperson who called the Day of Reading.

Workplaces

Each Townsperson may have one or more Workplaces, tracked in the GNDT. If a Townsperson has an Acumen and no Workplace, that Townsperson may change their Workplace to any Workplace listed in this rule. If that Townsperson has more than one Human in their Home, that Townsperson may instead select two different Workplaces. If a Townsperson has an Acumen and it is the highest (or tied highest) Acumen of all Townspeople with no Workplace, and if they have had the highest Acumen for 24 hours or more, any Townsperson may change that Townsperson’s Workplace to “Home”.

If a rule checks whether a Townsperson holds a given Workplace or "is" the occupation name for a given Workplace, and at least one of the Workplaces a Townsperson holds would make that condition true, the rule in question is considered to apply to them.

Each Townsperson without a Workplace may have an Acumen, tracked as a number in the Workplace field. If any Townsperson has neither a Workplace nor an Acumen, they are considered Feckless. If any Townspeople are Feckless, then any Townsperson may roll a separate DICE99 for each Feckless Townsperson (in the order that they are listed in the GNDT), and then set each Feckless Townperson’s Acumen to the value rolled for them. Whenever the Astrologer’s Acumen would be set to any numeric value other than 100, it is set to 100 instead.

If every Townsperson has a Workplace, then any Townsperson may call a Day of Observance. Upon doing so, he or she should go through each Workplace in sequence and - if any Townspeople have that Workplace - apply its effect. If there is no Shepherd when the Day of Observance is called, each Townsperson with at least 1 animal loses 1 animal. If there is no healer, then, for each active Townsperson, with X being 5 plus the number of Plagues of all Townpersons, roll DICEX. If the result is greater then 4, add a Plague to that Townpersons home. (The bracketed word after the name of each Workplace is the name given to any Townsperson who has that Workplace.)

• Pasture (Shepherd): If it is Spring and if at least a quarter of the Townspersons, rounded up, are Shepherds, each Townperson with at least 2 animals gains an animal.
• Quarry (Builder): Each Builder with a Hearth in their Home loses all of their Hearths, and each Builder without a Hearth in their Home gains a Hearth.
• Farm (Farmer): If it is Autumn, and if there are at least three Farmers, then each non-Farmer Townsperson gains one Vegetable and each Farmer gains 1 Standing.
• Church (Priest): Each Priest loses their Birth Sign.
• School (Teacher): Each Townsperson who has a Human in their Home gains 1 Book.
• Forge (Smith): Each Smith gains 1 Furniture.
• Hall (Clerk): For each Workplace held by only one Townsperson, that Townsperson gains 1 Money.
• Healer’s Hut (Healer): Roll XDICE2, where X is the number of Healers. If the result is greater then or equal to the number of Plagues in the homes of all Townpersons, then remove from each home that has 1 or more Plagues and 1 or more Money 1 Plague and 1 Money. If at least 1 Plague has been removed this way, each Healer who did not have a Plague removed from them this Season them gains 1 Standing.
• Home (Homemaker): No effect. “Home” is not considered to be a Workplace by the effect of the Hall.
• Trading Post (Merchant): Announce the names of all Merchants in the blog entry announcing this Day of Observance as Active Merchants until the next Day of Observance.
• Council (Councillor): Each Councillor loses 1 Money. Then, each Councillor who lost Money in this way this Season gains 1 Standing.

Then the Townsperson who called the Day of Observance shall determine the incoming Weather Condition. Then, the Townsperson who called the Day of Observance removes the Workplace and Acumen of every Townsperson. Then, the Townsperson who called the Day of Observance should post a blog entry announcing it, mentioning the end of the current Season and specifying the Incoming Weather. Such posts are Nigh by default. If a blog post of this type is Nigh, any admin may update the Season in the sidebar (changing it to the Season listed immediately below the current Season in The Almanac, or returning to Spring if the current Season is Winter), update the Weather in the sidebar (to the Incoming Weather specified in the Day of Observance post) and mention this in a comment on that blog post; upon doing so, the post ceases to be Nigh.

The Sky

The Constellations currently visible in the Sky are, from left to right: The Crossed Swords, The Bee, The Parapet

If no Townsperson has done so during the current Season, the Astrologer may examine the Sky by randomly selecting a Constellation from those not currently visible in the Sky, adding it to the above list in the rightmost position, and then removing the leftmost Constellation from that list.

Seasonal Changes

Autumn / Fall

This rule has no effect unless the current Season is Autumn / Fall.

Each Townsperson may have a Vision, which is a single Constellation, tracked in the GNDT and defaulting to nothing. If a Townsperson has no Vision, they may randomly select a Constellation and set it to be their Vision. If a Townsperson has no Vision and no Birth Sign, they may select any Constellation and set it to be their Vision.

If a Townsperson’s Vision is one of the Constellations visible in the Sky, and they have not Quested yet in the current Season, that Townsperson may Quest, and by doing so add any one Thing to their Home. A Townsperson may not Quest if they do not have a Birth Sign.

If the Season would change from Autumn / Fall to Winter, delete the Vision of every Townsperson.

Any Townsperson with no Ring and who is not a Priest may get married if they have at least three Moneys. When they get married, they add a Human and a Ring to their Home.

Winter

This rule has no effect unless the current Season is Winter.

If the Weather Condition in effect is Typical, and they have not yet made a Sacrifice in the current Season, and they have at least two Things in their Home, a Townsperson may make a Sacrifice by removing one Animal from their Home. They may then change their Acumen, if they have one, to one less than the lowest Acumen of all Townspeople, or to 0 if that value would be illegal.

If the Weather Condition in effect is Disastrous, and they have not yet made a Sacrifice in the current Season, a Townsperson may make a Sacrifice by removing one Human from their Home and gaining one Plague. They may then change their Acumen, if they have one, to one less than the lowest Acumen of all Townspeople, or to 0 if that value would be illegal.

If a Townsperson has less foodstuff (i.e. Animals, Vegetables, Meat, or any combination of them) than Humans in their Home, any Townsperson may and should reduce the number of Humans in their Home by one.

When a Townsperson dies, their Home is set to “@v”.

Spring

This rule has no effect unless the current Season is Spring.

If they have not done so during the current Spring, at any time, a Townsperson may Clean, and by doing so remove up to three non-Plague, non-Ring Things from their Home.

The following Workplace is considered to be listed after the last Workplace in the rule “Workplaces.” A Townsperson may only choose it for their Workplace if all the Constellations of their Birthsign are visible in the Sky.

• Hedge Hut (Wise One): Each Townsperson with exactly one Human in their Home gains 1 Human.

Vegetables and Meat are perishable, and may be removed from all Townspeople’s Homes.

Summer

This rule has no effect unless the current Season is Summer.

Once per Season, each Active Merchant may spend any amount of Money to gain that number of Animals in their Home.

Weather Consequences

If the Weather Conditions are Snow, a Townsperson with no Hearth may not change their Workplace to anything other than “Home”.

If a Townsperson has an Acumen and it is the highest (or tied highest) Acumen of all Townspeople with no Workplace, and if that Townsperson has no Hearth, and if the Weather Conditions are Snow, then any Townsperson may change that Townsperson’s Workplace to “Home”.

Death and Reincarnation

If a Townsperson is in a perilous condition and their Home is not empty, any Townsperson may (and should) make them die by:

• setting their Home to “@”,
• reducing their Standing by 1 (if it’s not already 0),
• setting their workplace to “Home”,
• setting all their other variables to the default values.

No Townsperson may make the Astrologer die, except the Astrologer himself.

Perilous conditions are:

• having two or more plagues in one’s Home;
• having one plague in one’s Home when the Season is Winter;
• not having any food (i.e: vegetable, meat or animals) in one’s Home when the Season is Winter;
• having no humans in one’s Home;
• Being a Farmer or Shepherd while the Weather is Disastrous and there are no Builders

Trash

Any Townsperson that has a Workplace may throw out their trash by removing X non-Human, non-Plague Things from their Home (Where X is a positive integer). If they do so, they must then roll DICE20 Y times and give themselves a number of Plagues equal to the number of 1s they rolled, where Y is 2X if the Townsperson is a Farmer, Y is 0 if the Townsperson is a Clerk, and Y is X if the Townsperson is neither a Farmer nor a Clerk.

Readings

All Townspersons have a statistic called Fate, which is tracked in the GNDT and which defaults to zero.

Once during each Seasonal Festival period, the Astrologer should make a Readings post, which should take the format of a story post. The Readings post should set out a Prediction for each Constellation in each Sign Position. The Astrologer’s method of making these Readings should not be random, but should also not be made public.

Predictions may require the change, addition or removal of any gamestate value, or may make no requirement at all.

A Townsperson is Uncanny if it would be impossible for them to meet all the Predictions of their current Birth Sign during the current Season and under the current Ruleset, if no further Proposals or CfJs were enacted. If a Townsperson feels that they are Uncanny, they may respond to the Readings Post with a comment stating this, and explaining why.

Before making each Reading, the Astrologer should evaluate their previous Reading, and adjust the Fate of each Townsperson accordingly. For each Townsperson, they should assess whether the requirements set out in the Predictions for the Constellation / Sign Position pairings in their Birth Signs have been met. For each Prediction that has been met, a Townsperson gains 1 Fate. For each Prediction that has not been met, a Townsperson loses 1 Fate. If a Townsperson has not met any of their Predictions, they neither gain nor lose Fate. If the Astrologer feels that any Townspeople were Uncanny at the time of the posting of the most recent Day of Observance, each such Townsperson gains 1 Fate.

If a Townsperson has not Prayed yet in the current Season, and at least one of the Constellations in their Birth Sign is visible in the Sky, that Townsperson may Pray, and thereby spend 1 Fate to gain 1 Standing. If a Townsperson has not Prayed yet in the current Season, and none of the Constellations in their Birth Sign are visible in the Sky, that Townsperson may Pray, and thereby spend 2 Fate to gain 1 Standing. A Townsperson may not Pray if doing so would reduce their Fate to less than 0.

Marketplaces

Any Townsperson who was announced as Active Merchants in the blog entry announcing the most recent Day of Observance and has not died since then is considered an “Active Merchant” until the next Day of Observance. Any Active Merchant may post an Offer as a comment to that blog entry. He is considered to be the Seller of that Offer. An Offer must contain a list of one or more non-Human, non-Plague things the Seller offers and a list of one or more non-Human, non-Plague things the Seller demands.

For an Offer to be valid the following conditions have all to be true:

• The Seller is an Active Merchant.
• It has not been accepted.
• The Seller has all the Things offered in his Home.
• It must be a comment in the most recent blog entry announcing a Day of Observance.
• The Seller has not made a comment in the same blog entry announcing that he retracts that Offer.

Any Townsperson who has the Things demanded in a valid Offer can accept it by posting a comment to that same blog entry announcing that they accept it. He then has to immediatly remove the Things demanded in the Offer from his own Home and add them to the Home of the Seller of the Offer. He then has to immediatly remove the Things offered in the Offer from the Seller and add them to his own Home.

Standing

If a Townsperson has a Standing of five or more, and his or her Standing was higher than every other Townspersons Standing for the last 24 hours or more, that Townsperson has achieved victory.

Appendix

Keywords

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 below.)

Can

"is able to"

Comment

A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Core Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of admin status from one or more Townspersons.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Townsperson able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.

Day

References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.

Dice

References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.

Dynastic Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

A Townsperson’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Townsperson’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Townsperson’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, a Townsperson may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.

Gamestate

Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of, including all Wiki Pages, or GNDT columns, which the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention.

IRC Channel

The Blognomic IRC channel is located at #nomic on the slashnet network (irc.slashnet.org).

May

"is permitted to"

May not

"is not permitted to"

Post

A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Private Message

A message sent via Blognomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.

Quorum

Quorum of a subset of Townspersons is half the number of Townspersons in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Townspersons it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Townspersons.

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the world “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words

Rule

Each individually numbered section of the ruleset is a rule, including sections that are sub-rules of other rules.

Shall

"is required to"

Should

"is recommended that"

Sibling Rule

Two rules are “siblings” of each other if they are both direct subrules of the same rule.

Story Post

A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.

Subject

The "subject" of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is "" (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that proposal.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.

Week

References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action

If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Townsperson able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Weekly Communal Action

A Weekly Communal action is a Weekly Action that can only be performed by one Townsperson per week.

Wiki

The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Townsperson 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. No entry may be more than one of the following official types of post: Votable Matters, and Idling Post.

If no Townsperson has commented on it, or if the only comments on it begin with “Note:” and contain no voting icons, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. 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 placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: Whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish.

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

All updates to the GNDT are logged. Actions that change gamestate directly (defined in other rules) can normally be performed simply by applying their effects to the GNDT, which updates the gamestate accordingly, unless another rule specifies some other method of performing them; one GNDT update may contain one or more actions, or one action may be split over multiple GNDT updates, as long as it’s clear what is happening and the actions are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Townsperson may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Townsperson feels that the GNDT was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed GNDT update, Townspersons are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Townspersons shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Random Generators

The GNDT can be used to generate random results.

• The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
• The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
• The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
• The VEGGIE command will return a random result from the following: Potato, Carrot, Triffid, Pumpkin.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the GNDT’s random result commands must be made by proposal; and any proposal that seeks to nominate a change to this rule must first identify an active Townsperson with server-level access to the BlogNomic site who is able to perform the changes, and must also update this rule to reflect the new potential outcomes.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

• If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the ruleset.
• Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
• All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
• Unless otherwise specified, to “spend” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, lost, gained, or transferred, and a rule that allows Townspersons to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Townsperson (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Townsperson who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
• If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
• If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the GNDT, unless otherwise specified.
• If a game variable has no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
• Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in the GNDT remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)

Rules and Proposals

• If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a proposal enacting, that page shall - unless otherwise specified - be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that proposal's submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• 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 author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
• Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules are not themselves rule text and have no effect other than being rule names.
• If the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Townsperson A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.

Time

• For the purpose of all rules, time in Blognomic is in UTC.
• All references to time must be either specific or defined within the ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. "dinnertime", "twilight") cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
• Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.

Spelling

• Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.

Names

• Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Townsperson if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Townsperson's name.

Prioritisation

• If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any Rule;
2. A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
3. If both contradicting parts are Core Rules, or if both of them are Dynastic Rules, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Townspersons may Kick each other” and “Townspersons may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Townspersons may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Townspersons may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Townspersons may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Townspersons may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)