Difference between revisions of "Ruleset"

From BlogNomic Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
(→‎Dynastic Rules: Performing Update Rules for You Can't Hang Fame On A Wall)
 
Line 6: Line 6:
  
 
== Ruleset and Gamestate ==
 
== Ruleset and Gamestate ==
This is the '''Ruleset''' for BlogNomic; all Players shall obey it.
+
This is the '''Ruleset''' for BlogNomic; all Snails shall obey it.
  
It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which apply in special cases; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.
+
It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which set metagame parameters for the current dynasty; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.
  
The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.
+
The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset. This document is considered to be, in effect, the only Ruleset for BlogNomic, so long as it is located at at the URL https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset.
  
If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Player may update it to do so.
+
If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Snail may update it to do so.
  
== Players ==
+
The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the [[The Snail Track]] page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.
Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already a Player) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be an '''Player''' (plural form '''Players'''). An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Player.
 
  
A Player may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.
+
== Snails ==
 +
A human with access to the blog who is not already a Snail may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Snail (plural form Snails); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Snail. (See the [[FAQ#Can_I_join_in.3F|FAQ]] for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)
  
Some Players are '''Admins''', responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Players 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.
+
A Snail may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.
  
===Idle Players===
+
Some Snails are '''Admins''', responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Snails 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. Snails may be made Admins through Proposal or CFJ.
  
If a Player is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Players in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Players”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Players are not counted as Players.
+
A Snail may cease to be a Snail at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Snail in this way may not become a Snail again within the following two weeks.
  
If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Player, then that Idle Player is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision.
+
===Idle Snails ===
  
When a Player 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 Player Idled in a different Dynasty), the Player is given the default value for new Players, if such a value exists.
+
If a Snail is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Snails in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “ Snails ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Snails are not counted as Snails . The combined term “Idle Snails” can be used to refer to Snails who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Snails.
  
An Admin may render a Player Idle if that Player has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Player 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 Player if that Player is Idle and 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 Player who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current Dynasty.
+
If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Snail, then that Idle Snail is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision.
 +
 
 +
When a Snail 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 Snail Idled in a different Dynasty), the Snail is given the default value for new Snails, if such a value exists.
 +
 
 +
An Admin may render a Snail Idle if that Snail has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Snail has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Snail during the current and subsequent dynasty. 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 Snail if that Snail is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Snail who would be Unidled has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.
  
 
Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first vote following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it.
 
Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first vote following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it.
  
Idle Admins can enact and fail Votable Matters.
+
Idle admins can resolve Votable Matters as a non-idle admin would.
 +
 
 +
===Dormancy===
 +
If there are fewer than four Snails (not including the Jury), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.
  
 
== Dynasties ==
 
== Dynasties ==
BlogNomic is divided into a number of '''Dynasties'''. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Player, known as the Dealer. If there is no Dealer, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.
+
BlogNomic is divided into a number of '''Dynasties'''. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Snail, known as the Jury. If there is no Jury, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.
 +
 
 +
An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before a Dynastic Reset has been performed. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Snail may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.
  
An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before an Ascension Address has been posted. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Player may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.
+
Unless otherwise stated by a dynastic or Building Blocks rule, then for the purposes of dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Jury is not a Snail.
 +
 
 +
Each Dynasty is tracked by a number. The current Dynasty Number is 230.
  
 
== Votable Matters ==
 
== Votable Matters ==
A '''Votable Matter''' is a post which Players may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.
+
A '''Votable Matter''' is a post which Snails may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.
  
 
===Votes===
 
===Votes===
Each Player 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 Player’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-Player never has a Vote, even if they were a Player previously and had cast a valid Vote.
+
Each Snail 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 Snail‘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-Snail never has a Vote, even if they were a Snail previously and had cast a valid Vote.
  
If a Player other than the Dealer casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Dealer. When the Dealer has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Votable Matter, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Votable Matter are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Dealer’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.
+
If a Snail other than the Jury casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Jury. When the Jury has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Votable Matter, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Votable Matter are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Jury’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified. When the Jury themselves casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, it indicates an indication of confidence in the votes of the other players; please see the Rules and Votable Matters section of the Appendix for more information on how this is resolved.
  
 
A Votable Matter is '''Popular''' if any of the following are true:
 
A Votable Matter is '''Popular''' if any of the following are true:
 
* It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
 
* It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.
+
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.  
  
 
A Votable Matter is '''Unpopular''' if any of the following are true:
 
A Votable Matter is '''Unpopular''' if any of the following are true:
* The number of Players who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
+
* The number of Snails who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
 
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.
 
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.
  
 
=== Enacting and Failing ===
 
=== Enacting and Failing ===
  
Votable Matters can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.
+
Votable matters have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.
  
Whenever an Admin Resolves a Votable Matter, they should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.
+
A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When an admin resolves a votable matter they should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.
  
This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.
+
A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.
 +
 
 +
This rule cannot be overruled by any other rule in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.
  
 
===Tags===
 
===Tags===
 +
Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag).
  
Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag). Votable Matters require the “[Core]” tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the “[Special Case]” tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules and the “[Appendix]” tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than [[#Victory and Ascension|DoVs]] require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Player.
+
Votable Matters making changes to the Core Rules, the Building Blocks Rules or the Appendix Rules require any of the following to be true for each such change in order to make that specific modification to the ruleset:
 
+
* The Votable Matter has the appropriate Tag or Tags for that change: [Core] for Core Rules changes, [Building Blocks] for Building Blocks Rules changes and [Appendix] for Appendix Rules changes.
If a Votable Matter would make a modification to the rules and it does not have the tag to make that modification, that Votable Matter will still be able to make that specific modification if any of the following on the following list are true:
 
 
* The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
 
* The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
 
* The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.
 
* The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.
  
 
== Proposals ==
 
== Proposals ==
Any Player may submit a '''Proposal''' to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Player already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).
+
Any Snail may submit a '''Proposal''' to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Snail already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).
  
 
=== Special Proposal Voting ===
 
=== Special Proposal Voting ===
  
When a Player 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 Dealer may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Dealer casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Dealer later changes their Vote.
+
When a Snail casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal '''Withdrawn''', even if the author later changes their Vote. The Jury may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Jury casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Jury later changes their Vote.
  
 
=== Resolution of Proposals ===
 
=== Resolution of Proposals ===
  
The oldest Pending [[#Proposals|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 all of the following are true:
+
The oldest Pending [[#Proposals|Proposal]] may be '''Enacted''' by any Admin if all of the following are true:
  
 
* It is Popular.
 
* It is Popular.
 
* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
 
* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
* It has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
+
* It has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn.
  
 
The oldest Pending Proposal may be '''Failed''' by any Admin, if any of the following are true:
 
The oldest Pending Proposal may be '''Failed''' by any Admin, if any of the following are true:
  
 
* It is Unpopular.
 
* It is Unpopular.
* It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
+
* It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.
  
 
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.
 
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.
 +
 +
When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are applied by treating the text in the Proposal as a series of steps starting from the beginning of that Proposal’s text and performing each step until reaching the end of that Proposal’s text, except that if the Admin Enacting it reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Snail A gains 1 point”) or at all (e.g. applying to a rule which does not exist), that step is ignored for the purposes of Enactment; the Admin Enacting the Proposal shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in each step that was performed.
  
 
== Calls for Judgement ==
 
== Calls for Judgement ==
If two or more Players actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Player feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Player may raise a '''Call for Judgement''' (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.
+
If two or more Snails actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Snail feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Snail may raise a '''Call for Judgement''' (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.
  
 
A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:
 
A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:
Line 112: Line 127:
 
== Victory and Ascension ==
 
== Victory and Ascension ==
  
If a Player (other than the Dealer) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a '''Declaration of Victory''' (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.
+
If a Snail (other than the Jury) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a '''Declaration of Victory''' (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.
  
Every Player may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]].
+
A Snail’s vote on a DoV is encouraged to reflect whether or not they agree with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]], no Idle Snail may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered.
  
 
A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following are true:
 
A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following are true:
  
* It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Dealer has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
+
* It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Snails, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Jury has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
* It is Popular, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.
+
* It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Snails, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.
  
 
A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:
 
A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:
  
 
* It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
 
* It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
 +
* It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted
  
If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Player who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.
+
If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Snail who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.
  
When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Player who posted the DoV becomes Dealer, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.
+
When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Snail who posted the DoV becomes Jury, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.
  
If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Dealer must either Pass the Mantle, by making a post naming another Player - in which case the Dealer ceases to be the Dealer and the Player so named becomes the Dealer - or start a new dynasty by completing the following Atomic Action:
+
If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Jury must make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. The Ascension Address should specify the Jury’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specifiy one or more of the following:
* Make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Dealer’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify that dynasty-specific terms for “Player” and “Dealer” will be used in the Ruleset, and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
+
* New dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule “Synonyms”
* Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.
+
* A number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed)
 +
* Any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section
 +
* The name of the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”
 +
* The Jury’s Imperial Style, which if specified is a set of nonbinding guidelines that the Jury is encouraged to follow, using the terms defined on the wiki page Imperial Styles.
 +
 
 +
If it has not been done since the most recent posting of an Ascension Address, the Jury or any Snail (if it’s the latter, they must wait until at least 4 hours after that Ascension Address has been posted) may perform a Dynastic Reset, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
 +
* Create a wiki page called “Ruleset X” where X is the current Dynasty Number (replacing its contents if it already exists)
 +
* Increase the current Dynasty Number by 1
 +
* Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms as outlined in the most recent Ascension Address.
 +
* Repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept in the most recent Ascension Address.
 +
* Update the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” with the name specified in the most recent Ascension Address, if any. If no name is specified, set the gamestate tracking page to be “Gamestate Tracking X” where X is the current dynasty number
 +
* Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.
 +
* Make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset as described in the most recent Ascension Address.
  
 
Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.
 
Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.
  
 
== Fair Play ==
 
== 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 Player’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. Players should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.
+
The following are BlogNomic’s rules of '''fair play'''. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Snail’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. Snails should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.
 +
 
 +
* A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Snail within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Snail and any Idle Snails. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Snail, defined here as the controlled Snail’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Snail was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
 +
* A Snail 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 Snail should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
 +
* A Snail should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Snail.
 +
* A Snail should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
 +
* A Snail should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
 +
* A Snail should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
 +
* A Snail should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. a Snail must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
 +
* A Snail should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
 +
* A Snail should not use a Core, Building Blocks, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Snail to achieve victory.
 +
* A Snail should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic, nor trade actions or favours in one Dynasty of Blognomic for actions or favours in another Dynasty of Blognomic.
 +
*A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Snail or Snails to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
 +
**Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
 +
**A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.
 +
 
 +
All Snails and idle Snails should be aware of the BlogNomic [[Community Guidelines]]. The contents of this page are not ruletext and are nonbinding as pertains to the ruleset, but Snails are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.
  
* A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Player within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Player and any Idle Players.
 
* A Player 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 Player should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
 
* A Player should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Player.
 
* A Player should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
 
* A Player should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
 
* A Player should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
 
* A Player should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. A Player must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
 
* A Player should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
 
* A Player should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.
 
 
</div>
 
</div>
  
 
= Dynastic Rules =
 
= Dynastic Rules =
  
==Victory==
+
==Position==
 
 
No Players have achieved victory during the Twenty-Eighth Dynasty of Kevan, unless they have done so under a condition outlined in this rule.
 
 
 
===The Crown Match===
 
 
 
When the second Player to reach 30 or more Magistrelli does so, the Dealer will immediately set every Player’s Readiness to “No”, and then set the Readiness of the first and second Players to reach 30 or more Magistrelli to “Yes”.
 
 
 
If two or more Players each have a Magistrelli score of at least 30, Players may no longer change their own Readiness, the first and second Players who reached 30 or more Magistrelli are the Contenders, and all other players are Spectators and may not become Contenders. The Contenders may not participate in Games other than the Crown Match. Spectators may at any time spend six of their own pegs to give a Contender a single peg as long as neither the Spectator nor the Contender is in an Active Game.
 
  
At any point at least 24 hours after the Contenders are decided, if there are no Active Games, the Dealer may start a special set of three Games called the Crown Match. The Contenders are the Participants of these Games. These Games will have at least 12 hours (but no more than 48 hours) between the ending of one and the starting of the next. For the second and third Games in the Crown Match, instead of the Dealer performing the default atomic action to start the Game, they perform an atomic action that is identical to it, except the step which is used to determine the Starting Player instead reads “Determine that the Starting Player is the Participant who was not the Starting Player of the previous Crown Match Game”.
+
Each Snail has a publicly tracked Position, which is either in the Bucket, on the Bench, or an integer number of centimeters (known as being “on the Track”). A Snail’s position defaults to the Bucket; when a Snail unidles it is moved to the Bucket.
  
When a Player becomes Campione of at least two Games in the Crown Match, no Player who made Bets on the most recent Game of the Crown Match may increase their Pegs as a result of Bets made on that Game. In addition, when a Player becomes Campione of at least two Games in the Crown Match, the Dealer may and should perform an Atomic Action with the following steps:
+
A Snail in the Bucket or on the Bench does not count as a Snail for the purposes of dynastic rules other than this one (except where those rules refer specifically to Snails who are in the Bucket or on the Bench).
  
# Perform any yet-unperformed Communal Actions described under the rule “Gambling” which relate to increasing or reducing Pegs from the result of Bets on the Game; for the purposes of this step, the Dealer is considered a Player.
+
A Snail may move themselves to the Bench or to the Bucket at any time.
# Increase the Pegs of each Player who made a Bet on the most recent Game of the Crown Match, if that Bet named the Campione of that Game, by the Juice identified in that Player’s Bet.
 
# Double the Pegs of the Player who has become Campione of at least two Games in the Crown Match.
 
# Create a Story Post naming the Player with the most Pegs as the Capofamiglia.
 
  
Once that Atomic Action is complete, the Player named by the Dealer as the Capofamiglia achieves victory and is the victor of the Twenty-Eighth Dynasty of Kevan.
+
The Starting Line is located at 0 cm and the Finish Line at 100 cm.
  
==The Deck==
+
The conventional meanings of words such as “forward”, “at”, “between” can be used. Greater values of Position are considered to be forward/after/etc. when compared to lower ones.
  
The Deck consists of a number of Cards, each having a Rank and a Suit. The Cards (listed in descending rank order for each Suit) are:-
+
==Races==
  
* Suit of Batons: King, Queen, Knight, Knave, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Ace
+
A Race is a blog post in the story post category, titled “Race X”, where X is the current Race Number. The Race Number is a publicly tracked number and defaults to zero. A Race is by default Ongoing.
* Suit of Coins: King, Queen, Knight, Knave, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Ace
 
* Suit of Cups: King, Queen, Knight, Knave, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Ace
 
* Suit of Swords: King, Queen, Knight, Knave, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Ace
 
* Suit of Arcana: Angel, World, Sun, Moon, Star, Lightning, Devil, Death, Impostor, Magician
 
  
Each card has a heft. All cards with numbered Ranks have a heft equal to their Rank; an Ace has a heft of one, a Knave has a heft of 11, a Knight has a heft of 12, a Queen has a heft of 13 and a King has a heft of 14. All other cards have a heft of zero.
+
If there is no Ongoing Race, the Jury may perform Preparations, which is an atomic action with the following steps:
Each Game of Giolitti has its own copy of the Deck (which may be referred to as that game’s Deck), which is shuffled at the start of the game. To “Deal” a card somewhere as part of a Game means to remove a secretly random Card from that game’s Deck, and to put it in that place.
+
* Set all Snails' Items to empty. Then, for each Item that was Ordered since the last Race was created, add that Item to its orderer's Items. (If a Snail made more than 10 Orders, only consider the 10 most recent ones for that Snail)
 +
* Set the Race Number to be one higher than the current Race Number
 +
* Create a new Race
 +
* Select the Slug of Death and 3 other Slugs at random, including those in the Bucket, and set their position to the Bench. Set the Position of all other Slugs to the Bucket.
 +
* Set the Position of all Snails who are on the Track or on the Bench to zero, except in the case where a Snail is a Slug, in which case its Position should be set as described for the start of a Race in the Extra Effects for that Slug, or the Position should be set to 0 if there is no such description
 +
* Reset the Moves of every Snail to 0
 +
* Set the Status of all Snails to Healthy
 +
* Set the Danger Level to 0
  
<div style="padding:8px;background:#efe;color:#050">
+
If the Position of a Snail is after the Finish Line, they cannot Move. If there is an Ongoing Race but no non-Slug Snail can Move, any Snail or the Jury may perform the Award Ceremony.
  
==Tournament Rules of Giolitti==
+
==Moving==
===Starting a Game===
 
At any point, the Dealer may select two Players, known as the Game’s Participants, by choosing the two Available players with the highest Wait (breaking ties secretly randomly if necessary), and start a Game between them by performing the following atomic action (a reference to a Participant means only a Player who is a Participant of the game in question):
 
  
* Set both Participants Wait to 0, and increase the Wait of all other Available Players by 1
+
At any time, a Snail may Move by making a comment on the Ongoing Race (If there is one), unambigously specifying one of the actions listed below. The number of Moves each Snail has made in the Ongoing Race is publicly tracked as a number. A Snail may not Move if the number of Moves they have made in the Ongoing Race is at least three greater than every other Snail's.
* Secretly randomly determine one of the Participants as the Starting Player for the game
 
* Deal seven Cards into each Participant’s Hand (starting with the Starting Player).
 
* Privately inform both Participants of their Hand
 
* Identify the most recent legal revision of the ruleset in its wiki page’s history; this revision is the Environment for that game.
 
* Deal one Card to the table as that game’s Grand Canal. The Bersaglio of the game is equal to the Heft of the Grand Canal, plus 21.
 
* Determine which Tricks are active for the game by following the instructions in the Tricks rule.
 
* Make a post to the blog announcing the start of the game, which must in its subject declare the Participants the game is between, and must in its contents declare the starting player, the game’s Grand Canal and Bersaglio, each participants current Mask (or the fact that they are wearing no mask), and include a link to the Environment and declare which tricks are active for the game. This post is known as the game’s Table.
 
  
That Game is then considered to be Active, and remains Active until it Ends. It is played under the rules listed in the Tournament Rules of Giolitti rules held in that Game’s Environment; where there is a conflict between the version of the Tournament Rules of Giolitti found in the Ruleset and that found in a Game’s Environment then the text in the Environment takes precedence.
+
The possible Moves are:
 +
* Crawl: increase your Position by DICE10
 +
* Slipstream: If the most recent Move in the Ongoing Race was from a Snail other than you, change your Position by the same amount that Snail’s Position changed in their most recent Move.
 +
* Leapsnail: If one exists, randomly select a non-Slug Snail before the Finish Line whose Moves are within 2 of yours. Set your Position to be 1 greater than the selected Snail's. Optionally, you may add to the random selection Snails who have been directly eligible Leapsnail targets for you at some time in the past 24 hours of this Ongoing Race.
 +
* Discard: remove one Item from your Items and apply its non-Passive effects (If any Snail(s) have the Crystal of Moderateness in their Items, no other Snail may perform this action.)
  
Each Game has a Stakes, which is an integer that defaults to 1 when a Game begins.
+
A Snail may, if they wish, combine multiple Moves into one comment, as long as that comment could be unambiguously split into several comments with one Move each. The order of the combined Moves is considered the same as the order they are stated in the comment.
===Play===
 
Beginning with the Starting Player, Players of the Game take turns to make a Play, being a comment to the Game’s Table that names exactly one Card and an amount of Score claimed for the Play (defaulting to zero if not specified). If the claimed Score for a Play does not exceed the Score which could be claimed for it in that situation, this is added to the claimed scores from the Player’s previous Plays in that Game to establish a rolling score for that Player in that Game.
 
  
If they were not the last player in the game to do so, either player in a Game may offer a Sfida by posting a comment that says they are offering a Sfida (or contains only the word ‘Sfida’ and punctuation). Before either player may make their next Play or offer another Sfida, the opponent of the player offering Sfida must respond with a comment specifying whether they accept or reject the Sfida. If they accept, the stakes of the Game are increased by 1, up to a maximum of 3.
+
==Slugs==
  
A game is Closed if any of the following are true:
+
Slugs are considered to be Snails for the purposes of all Dynastic Rules. The term “Active Player” may be used to refer to “The Jury and Snails which are not Slugs”. When a dynastic rule allows a snail to perform an action, Slugs may only perform that action when the ruleset allows an Active Player perform that action on their behalf.
  
* Each Participant in the Game has made seven plays in that Game.
+
Each Slug has a Name, and a set of rules for how that Slug can move, and optionally some extra effects
* One of the Participants in the Game has Resigned by doing one of the following
 
** Making a comment to that Game’s Table that says “I resign” (and nothing else).
 
** Rejecting a Sfida.
 
** Going 48 consecutive hours without responding to a Sfida made by their Opponent (if one has been pending for the full 48 hours), or not taking their turn when it is their turn (if their turn and there have been no other rules preventing them from making a play for the full 48 hours)
 
  
If a Game is Closed because a Player has Resigned, then the other Participant is the Campione of that Game. Otherwise, the Campione of a Closed Game is the Participant in that Game with the highest score. Once a Game has been Closed, no more Plays can be made in it, nor Sfidas offered on its Table.
+
The following Slugs exist
  
A Player may not make a Play that names the same card more than once during a given Game.
+
<blockquote>
===Ending a Game===
+
* Name: Slug of Death
If any Active games can be Ended, the Dealer should End them before resolving any Proposals or Calls for Judgement. If multiple Active games can be Ended, whichever of them was Started earliest should be Ended first.
+
* Movement Rules: If it has been at least 24 hours since the Slug of Death last moved in a ongoing race, and at least 24 hours since the race began, any Active Player make a comment in that race saying “The Slug of Death Crawls” and cause the Slug of Death to perform the Crawl move for that race.
 +
* Extra Effects: The Slug of Death starts each race at a position of -10. Other Snails may not move if the Slug of Death’s position is greater than theirs
 +
</blockquote>
  
The Dealer may make a comment on a Closed game that identifies any Players of that Game who named a card in a Play despite not having that card in their Hand for the Game. This comment is known as the Fine and ends the game. If the Fine identified no players, the Game is Clean. If the Fine identified players, any player so identified becomes not a Campione of the Game, and any Participant in that Game not so identified becomes Campione of the Game. Either way, no further Plays can be made on the game. After the Fine, but not at any earlier time, the Dealer may disclose the contents of the Hands for that game to the other Players.
+
<blockquote>
 +
* Name: Slingshot Sam
 +
* Movement Rules: Slingshot Sam cannot move by normal means
 +
* Extra Effects: The Slingshot Sam starts each race at a position of DICE100. If a Snail (other than Slingshot Sam)‘s position ever exactly matches Slingshot Sam’s position, a DICE2 is rolled. On a 1, that Snail’s position is reduced by 20. On a 2, that snail’s position is increased by 20
 +
</blockquote>
  
When a Game ends, its Campione gains a number of pegs equal to the game’s stakes, and any non-Campione Players of that Game lose a number of pegs equal to the game’s stakes. For the purposes of the Magistrelli system, gaining X pegs is treated as gaining one peg X times.
+
<blockquote>
 +
* Name: Broom Barry
 +
* Movement Rules: After Broom Barry sweeps, he moves backwards by 5cm.
 +
* Extra Effects: Broom Barry starts each race at a Position of DICE50 + 50. If after a Move a Snail's Position is changed to be within 8cm of Broom Barry, he sweeps, pushing all Snails in his range away from him until they are 8cm away. Snails sharing his Position are pushed backwards.</blockquote>
 +
</blockquote>
  
===Tricks===
+
<blockquote>
 +
* Name: Friendly Fiona
 +
* Movement Rules: If a single non-Slug Snail's Position exactly matches Friendly Fiona's and has done so for the past 24 hours, then whenever that Snail's Position changes her Position changes by the same amount and her number of Moves is the same as that Snail's Moves.
 +
* Extra Effects: Friendly Fiona starts each race at a Position of DICE100. If a Snail's action causes Friendly Fiona to cross the Finish Line for the first time in a Race, that Snail captivates the crowds with a heartwarming display of friendship, gaining 2 Fame.
 +
</blockquote>
  
The most recent three Cards a Player has Played in their current game, or all the Cards they’ve Played during their current Game if that’s less than three, are referred to as that Player’s Pocket. A Player who is not currently a participant in a Game has an empty Pocket.
+
<blockquote>
 +
* Name: The Iron Slug
 +
* Movement Rules: When a Snail's Position exactly matches that of the Iron Slug and has done so for at least 24 hours, then that Snail may reverse its polarity by making a comment in the Ongoing Race saying they are doing so and setting its Position to DICE100.
 +
* Extra Effects: The Iron Slug starts each race at a position of DICE100. If after a Move a Snail's Position is changed to be within 20cm of the Iron Slug, then that Snail is pulled closer to the Iron Slug by 5cm (or, if less than 5cm away, directly on top of the Iron Slug).
 +
</blockquote>
  
If either player has taken fewer than three Plays in the current game, when a Player is claiming a Trick that requires them to compare the contents of their Pocket to that of the other Player, the defending Player should be considered to have the Grand Canal for that game in their Pocket.
+
<blockquote>
 +
* Name: Identity Crisis Ian
 +
* Movement Rules: If it has been longer than 24 hours since he has last moved or he has not Moved this Race, then any Snail may cause Identity Crisis Ian to perform the Slipstream Move.
 +
* Extra Effects: Identity Crisis Ian starts each race at a Position of 50. If a single non-Slug Snail is within 5cm of Identity Crisis Ian, that Snail may help him find himself by choosing a Slug from the Bucket, swapping its Position with Identity Crisis Ian's, and mentioning this in a comment in the Ongoing Race.
 +
</blockquote>
  
A Player’s score for a Play is based on the following patterns of cards (or “Tricks”) in their Pocket. For each Trick which has been claimed in the game in their Pocket they may score the indicated points.
+
<blockquote>
 +
* Name: Danger Daryl
 +
* Movement Rules: Danger Daryl cannot move by normal means.
 +
* Extra Effects: Danger Daryl starts each race at a position of 35 + DICE30, because she enjoys the thrill of being directly in the path of oncoming traffic. Whenever a non-Slug Snail passes her for the first time in a Race, they may immediately after choose to roll DICE20. On an 11-19, they Spot Danger. On a 20, they Spot Danger three times.
 +
</blockquote>
  
* ''L’Aria'': The Pockets of all Players in the current Game have at least two cards, and the sum of the Hefts of the cards in the Player’s Pocket is higher than the sum of the Hefts in their opponent’s pocket. Points: 1
 
* ''Il Corpo Celeste'': The Player’s Pocket contains at least one of Sun, Moon, or Star, and the Heft of their most recently-Played card is higher than the Heft of their opponent’s most recently-Played card. Points: 1
 
* ''L’Ossa'': The Player’s Pocket has at least three cards, and the least recently-Played of them has the same Suit or Rank as the Game’s Grand Canal. Points: 1
 
* ''Il Propore'': The Player’s Pocket consists of three cards with the same Suits. Points: 2
 
* ''Il Toro'': The Player’s Pocket consists of three cards whose Heft adds up to the Game’s Bersaglio. Points: 4
 
* ''Tripletta'': The Player’s Pocket has at least three cards, and each card in there has the same Rank. Points: 4
 
* ''L’Universo'': The Player’s Pocket contains at least two of Sun, Moon or Star. Points: 2
 
* ''Il Verme'': The Player’s Pocket has at least three cards, and every card in their pocket has Heft smaller than each card in their opponent’s pocket. Points: 4
 
  
Il Toro, L’Aria and Il Verme are Permanent Tricks; L’Universo and Il Corpo Celeste are Celestial Tricks; all other Tricks are Parte Tricks.
+
==The Award Ceremony==
  
When starting a game and selecting which Tricks are active, the Dealer selects all Permanent tricks, one secretly randomly selected Celestial trick, and two secretly randomly selected Parte tricks.
+
Each non-Slug Snail has a publicly tracked numeric amount of Fame, which defaults to 0. Each non-Slug Snail has four types of publicly-tracked Medals named Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Paper, each of which defaults to 0.
  
===Readiness===
+
The Award Ceremony is the following atomic action:
 +
* Increase the Fame of the Snail(s) who are past the Finish Line:
 +
** The Snail(s) who finished in the lowest number of Moves get 4 Fame.
 +
** The Snail(s) who finished in the second lowest number of Moves get 3 Fame.
 +
** The Snail(s) who finished in the third lowest number of Moves get 2 Fame.
 +
** Other finishing Snails get 1 Fame.
 +
* Halve the Fame of all Snails who are on the Track but failed to finish the Race, rounding up.
 +
* Increase the Medals of the Snail(s) who are past the Finish Line:
 +
** The Snail(s) who finished in the lowest number of Moves get 1 Gold.
 +
** The Snail(s) who finished in the second lowest number of Moves get 1 Silver.
 +
** The Snail(s) who finished in the third lowest number of Moves get 1 Bronze.
 +
** Other finishing Snails get 1 Paper.
 +
* Make a post to the blog summarizing the changes in Fame and Medals.
  
Each Player has a property called “Readiness” which is either “Yes” or “No”, and defaults to No. A Player may change their Readiness at any time.
+
If the Award Ceremony has been performed after the start of the most recent Race, that Race is no longer Ongoing.
  
Each Player has a property called “Wait”, which is a non-negative Integer which defaults to 0.
+
If there is a single Snail with the most Fame, that Snail is the Fan Favourite: their Fame gain is doubled, but upon failing to finish a Race their Fame is instead set to 0.
  
A Player is considered to be Available if their Readiness is Yes, and the Dealer has not already started a game containing that player on the current day.
+
The Snails who have a quorum of Snails with more Fame than them are Underdogs: their Fame gain is doubled.
  
===The Magistrelli System===
+
==Predators==
High-level Giolitti still uses the Magistrelli ranking system to determine the relative skills of players.
 
  
Each Player has a Magistrelli score, which is an integer that defaults to 10.
+
Each Snail has a publicly tracked Status, defaulting to “Healthy”.
 +
If a Snail is not Healthy, then they may not Move or take any dynastic action which would change their Position.
 +
If a Slug is not Healthy, then it has no effect.
 +
If a Healthy Snail ever has a Position within 2cm of a Zombified Snail, they become Zombified.
  
Every time a Player gains a peg for being the Campione of a Game they gain 1 Magistrelli, unless their opponent has a higher Magistrelli than them, in which case they gain half of the difference between their own Magistrelli and that of their opponent, rounded up.
+
The following Predators exist:
  
===Arcana===
+
{| class="wikitable"
 +
|+ Types
 +
! Name || Range || Effect
 +
|-
 +
| Haters || 1-4 || The Snails feel demoralized. Otherwise has no effect
 +
|-
 +
| Squirrel || 2-6 || Set the Status of a random Healthy Snail with the lowest Position to "Eaten"
 +
|-
 +
| Car || 3-5 || Set the Status of all Healthy Snails with Position between 35cm and 65cm inclusive to "Flattened"
 +
|-
 +
| Snail-zombifying Fungus || 4-7 || Set the Status of a random Healthy Snail with the highest Position before the Finish Line to "Zombified"
 +
|-
 +
| Hawk Flock || 6+ || Randomly select half the Healthy Snails before the Finish Line, rounded up, and set their Status to "Missing"
 +
|}
  
Cards whose suit is Arcana can have effects on the game, based on where they appear.
+
The Danger Level is a publicly tracked number that defaults to 0. Spotting Danger is the following atomic action:
 +
* Increase the Danger Level by one
 +
* Apply the effect of a random Predator whose Range contains the Danger Level
 +
* Make a comment in the Ongoing Race saying “Look out!!!” and mentioning the Predator that was chosen
  
When an Arcana is played into a Player’s Pocket, it may have an effect on either themselves (the ‘holder’) or the other Participant in the same game (the ‘opponent’). The following is a list of the effects different Arcana have when they appear in a Player’s Pocket (if an Arcana is in a Player’s Pocket because it is the grand canal, it has no effect from this list):
+
The Slug of Death is ignored for the purposes of determining Predator targets.
  
* Angel: the Heft of all Cards in the holder’s Pocket is doubled
+
==Rule Amendments==
* Devil: the Heft of all Cards in the opponent’s Pocket are reduced by 5 (to a minimum of zero each)
 
* Magician: Has a Heft of 15 whenever the holder scores Points for a Trick, but a heft of 0 whenever the opponent scores points for a Trick
 
* Lightning: Has all Suits
 
* World: The holder scores one extra Point whenever they claim a Trick
 
* Impostor: The opponent scores one fewer Points whenever they claim a Trick
 
* Death: If the opponent’s Pocket contains no Ace cards, then neither the holder or the opponent may score any points from Tricks
 
  
When an Arcana is in the Grand Canal it affects all Participants in that game. The following is a list of the effects different Arcana have when they appear in the Grand Canal:
+
The text of all subrules of this rule is considered flavour text in all other respects except that when performing the Update Rules action, the first subrule is considered to have meaning as if it was the text of a proposal.
* Angel: A Participant may consider the Bersaglio to be one higher or lower for the purposes of claiming Il Toro.
 
* World: All Arcana have a Heft of 15.
 
* Sun: All Pockets comprise of the most recent four Cards a Player has Played in their current game.
 
* Moon: All Pockets comprise of the most recent two Cards a Player has Played in their current game. Any Trick that requires that a Pocket contain three cards may be claimed as if it required only two cards instead.
 
* Star: All Arcana have all Suits.
 
* Lightning: Masks have no effect in this Game after it has started, and the Pedrolino Mask effect does not apply for this Game.
 
* Magician: The Dealer must post the contents of each of this Game’s Participant’s Hands in the Table for this game.
 
  
===Masks===
+
Unless a Proposal explicitly tells to modify the Official Rules, any instructions in it to edit the dynastic ruleset are not performed upon enactment, but instead the text containing those instructions is copied as a new subrule of this rule.
  
Each Player may wear a Mask, which is publicly tracked, and which defaults to not wearing any mask. A Player may wear, change, or remove their Mask at any time. While a Player starts a game wearing a given Mask, it affects the way the rules of that Game apply to that Player. The list of Masks and their corresponding rules alterations is as follows:
+
If there is no Ongoing Race and this rule has at least one subrule, any Admin may Update Rules, which is the following atomic action:
 +
* Perform the instructions in the first subrule in this rule, following the rules for enactment described in “Resolution of Proposals”
 +
* Remove the first subrule from this rule
  
;Pantalone
+
A new Race may not be created if this rule has one or more subrules.
:Pantalone receives a Hand of eight Cards instead of seven.
 
;Arlecchino
 
:In a given Game, Arlecchino may play one Card from their Hand a second time, if the card does not have a suit of Arcana.
 
;Tognoli
 
:Tognoli scores one additional point every time they score a Parte trick.
 
;Di Paolo
 
:Any cards Di Paolo has with a Suit of Arcana have a Heft of 4, instead of their stated value.
 
;Bonanno
 
:Bonanno receives a Hand of six Cards instead of seven. After dealing that hand, the Dealer then selects a secretly random Arcana card still present in the game’s Deck (or a random card if there are none there) and moves it to that hand.
 
;Pedrolino
 
:You begin the Game with a Score of 3.
 
;Centofanti
 
:If any Participant in a Game is wearing the Centofani Mask then the Dealer must Deal an Arcana card as this Game’s Grand Canal.
 
;Reali
 
:Once per game, at any time during that Game, name a Trick that is not active in that Game and then (if you meet that Trick’s criteria) score for that Trick.
 
;Morante
 
:Once per game, at any time during that Game provided that no Sfida has been declared or accepted, you may make a comment on the game’s table which consists of the phrase “Morante Reveal:” followed by the name of another Mask. You are considered to be wearing that Mask for the remainder of that Game.
 
;Succo
 
:The Juice in your game is increased by two. At the end any game you were a Participant in, you earn X pegs where X is half the number of Players who made a Bet in that game (rounded up)
 
  
===Moda===
+
==Equipment==
  
Each Mask has a Moda, which is a positive integer which defaults to 1 and is tracked on the proper game state tracking page for the dynasty.  
+
Each Snail has a publicly tracked Inventory, which is a list of Equipments that defaults to blank.
  
If there is no other mask which has a higher Moda than it, a Mask is considered to be Raffinato.  
+
A piece of Equipment has a name, a cost and an effect which is applied to a Snail that has that Equipment in their Inventory. A Snail may, at any time, spend the amount of Fame equal to the cost of an Equipment to add that piece of Equipment to their Inventory (if that Equipment isn't already there).
  
If there is no other mask which has a lower Moda than it, and it is not Raffinato, a Mask is considered to be Greggio.
+
Pieces of Equipment are defined as subrules of this rule, with the name of the subrule being the name of the equipment.
  
Whenever a game Ends, any Participant of the game wearing a mask at the start of that game which is not Raffinato gains 1 peg. Additionally, any Participant of the game wearing a mask at the start of that that game which is Greggio gains another peg. Then, if the game was clean and had a Campione, and the Campione was wearing a Mask at the start of the game, the Mask the Campione was wearing at the start of the game gains one Moda.
+
===Slime Lubricant===
  
===Separation of Tables===
+
<b>Cost:</b> 10
 +
<b>Effect:</b> When using the Crawl move, you may increase your position by DICE12 instead of DICE10.
  
Each Table is considered to be entirely separate. No action can be taken on any Table that relies on gamestate associated with another Table. A Player’s hand and Pocket for a Table is limited to that Table; if a Player is present in more than one Game then they have separate hands and Pockets for each Table. Tricks in a game may only be claimed in reference to cards present at that game’s Table. Arcana, once played, only affect the Game of the Table upon which they were played.
+
==Items==
  
 +
Each Snail has a publicly tracked list of Items, defaulting to an empty list. Each Item has a name, and optionally an effect that is applied when the Item is Discarded. Items may also have Passive effects, which apply to all Snails who have that Item in their Items.
  
</div>
+
The following Items have effects:
 +
* Magnet: choose to either move all Snails 5 cm towards you or move all Snails 5 cm away from you.
 +
* Magic Mirror: if your Position is negative, set it to the corresponding positive value.
 +
* Crystal of Moderateness: remove all Items from a single Snail (if such a Snail exists) who has at least as many Items than every other Snail, and then remove all Crystals of Moderateness from every Snail's Items. (Passive effect: the only Move you may make is Discard)
 +
* Shield: (Passive) Other Snails may not change your Position by more than 11-N cm at a time (where N is the number of Shields in your Items). If they would, your Position changes by only 11-N cm instead (to the same direction as the original change)
 +
* Huge Club: if a Snail (other than you) has the same positive Position as you, move that Snail 30 cm backward.
  
== Gambling ==
+
At any time, a Snail may Order an Item by privately sending to the Jury the name of that Item. The name must appear in the above list or be an English language concrete noun.
  
Each Player has a number of pegs, which is publicly tracked and which defaults to the median number of Pegs among all active Players.
+
<!-- DYNASTIC RULES GO ABOVE THIS COMMENT. DO NOT DELETE THE NEXT LINE WHEN CLEARING THE RULES FOR A NEW DYNASTY. --><br />
 
 
Each Game has a value called Juice. At any given time, a Game’s Juice is 4 minus the current stakes of the table, minus an additional one if there is currently a pending Sfida
 
 
 
Once per Game if that Game is not Closed, as a communal action, a Player who is not a participant of that Game may make a comment to that Game’s Table declaring themselves to be that Game’s Bookmaker.
 
 
 
Once per Game if that Game is not Closed, any Player who is not a participant of that Game or its Bookmaker may make a Bet on it. Making a Bet is an action that is carried out by making a comment to that Game’s Table, which names a single Player who is a participant in the game, and which identifies the Juice at the time at which the Bet was made.
 
 
 
Within 48 hours of a Game having ended with Bets made on it, the following actions may be taken with regards to that Game and its Bets:
 
* Any Player who made a Bet which named the Player that was the Campione of that Game may, once after the game in question has ended, increase their Pegs by the Juice identified in their Bet.
 
* Once per finished Game, as a communal action, any Player may reduce the Pegs of all Players who made a Bet which named the Player who was not the Campione of that Game by the Juice identified in their respective Bets.
 
* Once per finished Game, as a communal action, any Player may increase or reduce (as appropriate) the Pegs of the Bookmaker for that game by x, where x is the number of Bets placed that named the Player who was not the Campione in that game minus the number of Bets that named the Player that was the Campione in that game.
 
 
 
== Granting Favours ==
 
 
 
A Contender can at any time grant any Spectator who has given them at least one peg a Favour. Favours are resources unique to the individual who granted them (referred to as the Favour’s ‘lender’), but a given Player cannot hold more than five Favours at a time regardless of their lenders. Favours have a ripeness, which defaults to unripe. When an Ascension Address is posted, all ripe Favours disappear and then all unripe Favours become ripe.
 
 
 
A Player may at any time choose to release any or all of the Favours they hold, losing them and gaining nothing in return. If a Dealer Passes the Mantle, any existing Favour for which they are the lender is turned into a Favour for which the new Dealer is the lender.
 
 
 
== Claiming Favours ==
 
 
 
A Player who has a ripe Favour may at any time claim it to gain a benefit based on the status of that Favour’s lender:
 
* If the lender is the Dealer, the claiming Player immediately gains a single point of any resource of their choosing that is described only in the Dynastic Rules (except for a Favour). Any details the gained resource has apart from quantity are chosen by the Dealer, who should be generous if possible.
 
* If the lender is an active Player who is not the Dealer, the lender must immediately give to the claiming Player (even if it could not normally be transferred) a single point of any resource of the claiming Player’s choosing, so long as it is described only in the Dynastic Rules and the lender has at least one point of that resource to give.
 
* If the lender is idle, the claiming Player immediately gains an unripe favour with the lender as its lender.
 
Then, the claimed Favour is lost.
 
 
 
== Lasting Favours ==
 
 
 
The rules titled “Granting Favours”, “Claiming Favours”, and “Lasting Favours” cannot be repealed between Dynasties, and are automatically kept when an Ascension Address is made regardless of whether the Ascension Address lists them specifically. If the wiki page used to track the gamestate is changed, the Dealer must copy any section relating to the tracking of Favours from the old wiki page to the new wiki page.
 
 
 
<!-- DYNASTIC RULES GO ABOVE THIS COMMENT. DO NOT DELETE THE NEXT LINE WHEN CLEARING THE RULES FOR A NEW DYNASTY. --><br/>
 
 
<div style="padding:8px;background:#bbb;">
 
<div style="padding:8px;background:#bbb;">
  
= Special Case =
+
= Building Blocks =
'''Special Case Rules''' can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.
+
Building Blocks are rules that can be substituted in and out of the ruleset as needed, usually as a result of an Ascension Address. All rules in the Building Blocks section are ruletext.
  
Special Case Rules have a '''Default Status''', which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes an asterisk, (*) its Default Status is Inactive, otherwise, its Default Status is Active.
+
Potential Building Blocks rules can be found at the [[Building Blocks]] page of the wiki. That page’s contents are not rulestext. When the contents of the Building Blocks page are referred to as ‘rules’ by the ruleset or by a votable matter, it should be assumed that said contents are being referred to as potential rules rather than actual rules.
  
When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status. All other Special Case Rules are set to their respective Default Status.
+
When a Jury specifies the Building Blocks rules in use for a new dynasty in an Ascension Address, they should specify (by name) the rules from the Building Blocks page that they would like to be included in this section of the ruleset. When a Dynastic Reset is performed, the Building Blocks rules selected in the most recent Ascension Address (if any) must be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named in that Ascension Address must be removed from the Building Blocks section. Some rules on the Building Blocks page are listed as being Recommended; if the new Jury makes no statement on Building Blocks rules to be included in their Ascension Address then the Recommended Building Blocks are considered to have been selected. There are currently no Recommended Building Blocks.
  
The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.
+
==Precondition Unidling==
 +
Idle Snails may submit Proposals as if they were not idle; such proposals are known as Precondition Proposals, and should suggest terms (in the form of amendments to the ruleset and/or gamestate) on which the proposer would be willing to join the current dynasty. The proposer of a Precondition Proposal is not considered to have a vote on that Proposal while they remain idle.
  
==Seasonal Downtime [Active]==
+
If a Precondition Proposal enacts, the enacting admin must unidle its proposer before applying the proposal’s effects.
On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]]. In addition, game actions defined by the rules titled “Players” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.
 
 
 
==Dormancy [Active]==
 
If there are fewer than five Players, BlogNomic is [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]].
 
 
 
==Imperial Deferentials [Active]==
 
If the Dealer has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Players have voted FOR the Proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases). However, in either case, votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Players on the same Proposal are not considered be valid.
 
 
 
==Dynastic Distance [Active]==
 
For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Dealer is not a Player.
 
 
 
==The Traitor [Active]==
 
The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be a Player (including an idle one), or may be nobody, and it defaults to being nobody. The Traitor’s identity in the current Dynasty is tracked privately by the Dealer, and the Dealer should not share this information with Players other than the Traitor.
 
 
 
If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, and BlogNomic is not on Hiatus, the Dealer may secretly randomly select a Player (other than the Dealer) and privately inform them that they are the Traitor for the current Dynasty.
 
 
 
A Traitor is under no obligation to honour any informal promises they have made with other Players, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Players in order to achieve victory.
 
 
 
==Dynastic Tracking [Active]==
 
The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the [[The Card Table]] page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. A Dealer may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address.
 
  
 
</div>
 
</div>
Line 409: Line 400:
  
 
===Time===
 
===Time===
;Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Player able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.
+
;Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Snail able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.
;Daily Communal Action: A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Player per day.
+
;Daily Communal Action: A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Snail per day.
 
;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.
 
;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.
 
;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.
 
;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 Player able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.
+
;Weekly Action: If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Snail 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 Player per week.  
+
;Weekly Communal Action: A Weekly Communal action is a Weekly Action that can only be performed by one Snail per week.  
  
 
===Other===
 
===Other===
 
;Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com blognomic.com]
 
;Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com 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 Players.
+
;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 Snails.
 
;Dice: References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
 
;Dice: References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
 
;Dynastic Action: An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
 
;Dynastic Action: An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
 
;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.
 
;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 Player’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Player’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Player’s Vote on that Votable Matter.
+
;Effective Vote Comment (EVC): A Snail's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Snail's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Snail's Vote on that Votable Matter.
;Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Player 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.
+
;Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Snail 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.
;Flavour Text: If a part of the ruleset is defined as being “flavour text”, it is gamestate and remains part of the ruleset document, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Players are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
+
;Discord: The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Snails , as well as people who are not Snails but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.
;Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
+
;Discord Channel: A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Snails who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).
 +
;Flavour Text: If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Snails are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
 +
;Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the rules and Building Blocks explicitly mention (except for the FAQ, the dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within (or indirectly invoked by Templates contained within) those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
 
;<span id="hiatus">Hiatus</span>: If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
 
;<span id="hiatus">Hiatus</span>: If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
 
;Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com blognomic.com]
 
;Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com blognomic.com]
;Private Message: A message sent via BlogNomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.
+
;Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Snails is half the number of Snails  in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Snails it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Snails.
;Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Players is half the number of Players in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Players it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Players.
+
;Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal 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. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.
;Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “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 and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.
;Rule: Each individually numbered section of the Ruleset is a rule, including sections that are subrules of other rules.
+
;Sticky Post: A blog post where the “Make Entry Sticky” option has been enabled. Changing the state of this option is not considering altering or modifying the post with regards to the rules on Official Posts. The sticky status of posts should generally be left to the discretion of the Jury.
;Slack: The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Players may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking the button in the sidebar.
 
;Slack Channel: A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).
 
 
;Story Post: A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.
 
;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.
 
;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.
+
;Seasonal Downtime: On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]]. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Snails” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.
 +
;Subrule: A subrule is a type of rule that is hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.
 
;Table of Contents: The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.
 
;Table of Contents: The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.
 
;Uphold: To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.
 
;Uphold: To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.
Line 447: Line 439:
 
===Official Posts===
 
===Official Posts===
  
Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at [http://blognomic.com http://blognomic.com]. Any Player may [http://blognomic.com/update/index.php?C=publish post] to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the [[#Ruleset and Gamestate|Ruleset]] allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise.
+
Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at [http://blognomic.com http://blognomic.com]. Any Snail may [http://blognomic.com/update/index.php?C=publish post] to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the [[#Ruleset and Gamestate|Ruleset]] allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.
  
An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset.
+
An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and either no Snail has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; 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. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories, except that a votable matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.
An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than two hours old and either no Player has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; 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. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.
 
  
A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, 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. Secondly, if a post by a New Player is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or Ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any Admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Player is defined as a Player who has been a Player for fewer than seven days or a Player that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.
+
A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, 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. Secondly, if a post is less than six hours old and appears to the Jury to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Jury may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.
  
Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means.
+
Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule, except for a votable matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.
  
 
===Representations of the Gamestate===
 
===Representations of the Gamestate===
 +
If authorised by the rules as a result of a Snail’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Snail may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.
  
For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of a Player’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Player may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.
+
If a Snail feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:
 
 
If a Player feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:
 
  
 
* Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
 
* Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
* Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Player, if doing so would not require the correcting Player to make any decisions on behalf of the original Player.
+
* Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Snail, if doing so would not require the correcting Snail to make any decisions on behalf of the original Snail.
 
+
Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Snails are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement.
Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Players are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement.
 
 
 
 
The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page [[Gamestate Modifications]] if this is not possible.
 
The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page [[Gamestate Modifications]] if this is not possible.
  
Line 473: Line 461:
 
An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.
 
An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.
  
A Player may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.
+
A Snail may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.
  
 
=== Random Generators ===
 
=== Random Generators ===
Line 484: Line 472:
 
* A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.
 
* A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.
  
Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Proposal.
+
Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.
  
If a Proposal proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Proposal must name a Player with such access. Only a Player with such access may Enact that Proposal. If that Proposal does not name a Player with such access, that Proposal is Illegal.
+
If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Snail with such access. Only a Snail with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Snail with such access, that Votable Matter is Illegal.
  
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 roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Player making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.
+
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 roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Snail making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Snail making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.
  
 
==Atomic Actions==
 
==Atomic Actions==
Line 495: Line 483:
  
 
* All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
 
* All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
* When a Player performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
+
* When a Snail performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
* An Atomic Action may direct the Player performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Player must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
+
* If a rule allows the Snail performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
* If a Player arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
+
* If a Snail arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
* If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Player must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Player uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Player would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
+
* If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Snail must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Snail uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Snail would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
 
* For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.
 
* For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.
  
Line 507: Line 495:
 
* Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
 
* 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.
 
* 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, a Player can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Players to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Player (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
+
* Unless otherwise specified, to “spend,” “pay” 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” or “pay” 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, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Snail can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Snails to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Snail only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Snail (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
* A Player 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 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 Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
 +
* A Snail 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 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 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 game variable has a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be 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”).
+
* If a game variable has a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be 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”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Snails are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
 
* If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
 
* If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
 
* Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity 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)
 
* Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity 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)
 
* DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.
 
* DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.
 +
* If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Jury (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Jury when the ruleset allows it. If a Snail should already know such a piece of information (in that the Jury has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Jury may repeat it to them.
 +
* A range of numerical values stated to be “between” one value and another value is treated as an inclusive range unless otherwise explicitly stated.
  
===Rules and Proposals===
+
===Rules and Votable Matters===
* 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 new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, 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).
+
* If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
* Where a [[#Proposals|Proposal]] would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Proposal proposing that enacted Proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
+
* Where a [[#Votable Matters|Votable Matter]] would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters 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.
 
* 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.
 
* Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
* If the Admin enacting a Proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Proposal enacts, Player 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.
+
* If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Snail may delete it from the ruleset.
* If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Player may delete it from the ruleset.
 
 
* A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.
 
* A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.
 +
* When the ruleset calls for the use of a specific tool (such as the dice roller, or an off-domain website, or a specific piece of downloadable software), Snails may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
 +
* If the Jury has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they are not considered to be a Snail for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal. Votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Snails on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid, but the Snails who made them still contribute to quorum
  
 
===Time===
 
===Time===
Line 529: Line 521:
 
* 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.
 
* 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 (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
 
* Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
* A Player may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).
+
* A Snail may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).
  
===Spelling===
+
===Spelling and formatting===
 
* 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.
 
* 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.
* Players 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”.
+
* Snails may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset, the Building Blocks page, and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Snails with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
 +
* A Snail may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.
 +
* A Snail may change the layout or design of a gamestate wiki page if doing so would not change how any rules interpreted its content.
  
 
===Names===
 
===Names===
* Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Player if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Player’s name.
+
* Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Snail if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Snail's name.
* If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the proposal that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
+
* If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
 
* The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
 
* The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
 
* Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
 
* Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
* When referring to a Proposal, the name used in reference to a specific Proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Proposal named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
+
* When referring to a Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
* When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces, any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, and, in the case of Special Case Rules, any asterisks, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
+
* When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
* Where a proposal refers to a second proposal by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted proposal of that name which pre-dates the first proposal.
+
* Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
 +
* When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, a Snail's (or prospective Snail's ) new name must be between 3 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes.
  
===Prioritisation===
+
==Prioritisation==
 
* If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:
 
* If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:
 
# The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
 
# The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
# A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
+
# If a Core Rule explicitly says it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Core Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has precedence over that Core Rule;
# A Special Case Rule has equal precedence as a Dynastic Rule, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
+
# If a Building Blocks Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Building Blocks Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Building Blocks Rule;
# If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Players may Kick each other” and “Players may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Players may not Kick each other);
+
# If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Snails may Kick each other” and “Snails may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Snails may not Kick each other);
# If two contradicting parts have the same scope, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Players may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Players may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Players may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).
+
# If two contradicting parts have the same scope, or have scopes that only overlap where they contradict each other, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Snails may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Snails may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Snails may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).
  
 
==Mentors==
 
==Mentors==
  
A Player may have another Player as a Mentor. Players who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the [[Mentorships]] wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. A Player may add or remove their own name from this list at any time.
+
A Snail may have another Snail as a Mentor. Snails who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the [[Mentorships]] wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Snail who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a votable matter.
  
If an unmentored Player requests a Mentor, or a new Player has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Dealer should select a Tenured Player and ask them to take that Player on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The Dealer should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.
+
If an unmentored Snail requests a Mentor, or a new Snail has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Jury should select a Tenured Snail and ask them to take that Snail on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Jury should announce it in a blog post. The Jury should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.
  
A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Dealer should announce it in a blog post. A Player may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.
+
A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Snail may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.
  
If there is no Dealer, any Player who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Dealer for the purposes of this rule.
+
If there is no Jury, any Snail who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Jury for the purposes of this rule.
  
 
===Things that a mentor must do===
 
===Things that a mentor must do===
Line 568: Line 563:
 
*Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
 
*Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
 
*Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
 
*Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
*Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki, Slack, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
+
*Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki and Dice Roller, and optionally the game’s Discord and social media feeds
 
*If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
 
*If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
*If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Player or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.
+
*If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Snail or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.
  
 
===Things that a mentor should do===
 
===Things that a mentor should do===
Line 576: Line 571:
  
 
*The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
 
*The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
*The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Players.
+
*The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Snails .
 
*The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
 
*The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
 
*The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.
 
*The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.
Line 586: Line 581:
 
*The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
 
*The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
 
*A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.
 
*A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.
 +
 +
== Synonyms ==
 +
 +
A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Snail” and “Jury”.
 +
 +
Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses
 +
 +
* Snail (Player)
 +
* Jury (Emperor)
 +
 +
When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the Building Blocks page or the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parentheses in the above list.
  
 
</div>
 
</div>

Latest revision as of 16:06, 3 December 2024

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Snails shall obey it.

It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which set metagame parameters for the current dynasty; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset. This document is considered to be, in effect, the only Ruleset for BlogNomic, so long as it is located at at the URL https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset.

If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Snail may update it to do so.

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the The Snail Track page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.

Snails

A human with access to the blog who is not already a Snail may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Snail (plural form Snails); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Snail. (See the FAQ for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)

A Snail may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

Some Snails are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Snails 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. Snails may be made Admins through Proposal or CFJ.

A Snail may cease to be a Snail at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Snail in this way may not become a Snail again within the following two weeks.

Idle Snails

If a Snail is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Snails in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “ Snails ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Snails are not counted as Snails . The combined term “Idle Snails” can be used to refer to Snails who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Snails.

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

When a Snail 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 Snail Idled in a different Dynasty), the Snail is given the default value for new Snails, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Snail Idle if that Snail has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Snail has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Snail during the current and subsequent dynasty. 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 Snail if that Snail is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Snail who would be Unidled has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.

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

Idle admins can resolve Votable Matters as a non-idle admin would.

Dormancy

If there are fewer than four Snails (not including the Jury), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Dynasties

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

An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before a Dynastic Reset has been performed. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Snail may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

Unless otherwise stated by a dynastic or Building Blocks rule, then for the purposes of dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Jury is not a Snail.

Each Dynasty is tracked by a number. The current Dynasty Number is 230.

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Snail 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 Snail‘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-Snail never has a Vote, even if they were a Snail previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Snail other than the Jury casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Jury. When the Jury has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Votable Matter, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Votable Matter are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Jury’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified. When the Jury themselves casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, it indicates an indication of confidence in the votes of the other players; please see the Rules and Votable Matters section of the Appendix for more information on how this is resolved.

A Votable Matter is Popular if any of the following are true:

  • It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
  • It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.

A Votable Matter is Unpopular if any of the following are true:

  • The number of Snails who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
  • It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.

Enacting and Failing

Votable matters have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.

A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When an admin resolves a votable matter they should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.

A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.

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

Tags

Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag).

Votable Matters making changes to the Core Rules, the Building Blocks Rules or the Appendix Rules require any of the following to be true for each such change in order to make that specific modification to the ruleset:

  • The Votable Matter has the appropriate Tag or Tags for that change: [Core] for Core Rules changes, [Building Blocks] for Building Blocks Rules changes and [Appendix] for Appendix Rules changes.
  • The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
  • The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

  • It is Popular.
  • It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
  • It has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

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

  • It is Unpopular.
  • It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

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.

When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are applied by treating the text in the Proposal as a series of steps starting from the beginning of that Proposal’s text and performing each step until reaching the end of that Proposal’s text, except that if the Admin Enacting it reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Snail A gains 1 point”) or at all (e.g. applying to a rule which does not exist), that step is ignored for the purposes of Enactment; the Admin Enacting the Proposal shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in each step that was performed.

Calls for Judgement

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

A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

  • It is Popular.

A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

  • It is Unpopular.
  • It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.

When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Snail (other than the Jury) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

A Snail’s vote on a DoV is encouraged to reflect whether or not they agree with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus, no Idle Snail may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered.

A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following are true:

  • It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Snails, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Jury has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
  • It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Snails, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

  • It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
  • It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Snail who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Snail who posted the DoV becomes Jury, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.

If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Jury must make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. The Ascension Address should specify the Jury’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specifiy one or more of the following:

  • New dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule “Synonyms”
  • A number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed)
  • Any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section
  • The name of the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”
  • The Jury’s Imperial Style, which if specified is a set of nonbinding guidelines that the Jury is encouraged to follow, using the terms defined on the wiki page Imperial Styles.

If it has not been done since the most recent posting of an Ascension Address, the Jury or any Snail (if it’s the latter, they must wait until at least 4 hours after that Ascension Address has been posted) may perform a Dynastic Reset, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

  • Create a wiki page called “Ruleset X” where X is the current Dynasty Number (replacing its contents if it already exists)
  • Increase the current Dynasty Number by 1
  • Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms as outlined in the most recent Ascension Address.
  • Repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept in the most recent Ascension Address.
  • Update the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” with the name specified in the most recent Ascension Address, if any. If no name is specified, set the gamestate tracking page to be “Gamestate Tracking X” where X is the current dynasty number
  • Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.
  • Make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset as described in the most recent Ascension Address.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

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 Snail’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. Snails should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.

  • A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Snail within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Snail and any Idle Snails. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Snail, defined here as the controlled Snail’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Snail was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
  • A Snail 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 Snail should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
  • A Snail should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Snail.
  • A Snail should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
  • A Snail should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
  • A Snail should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
  • A Snail should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. a Snail must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
  • A Snail should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
  • A Snail should not use a Core, Building Blocks, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Snail to achieve victory.
  • A Snail should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic, nor trade actions or favours in one Dynasty of Blognomic for actions or favours in another Dynasty of Blognomic.
  • A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Snail or Snails to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
    • Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
    • A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

All Snails and idle Snails should be aware of the BlogNomic Community Guidelines. The contents of this page are not ruletext and are nonbinding as pertains to the ruleset, but Snails are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Position

Each Snail has a publicly tracked Position, which is either in the Bucket, on the Bench, or an integer number of centimeters (known as being “on the Track”). A Snail’s position defaults to the Bucket; when a Snail unidles it is moved to the Bucket.

A Snail in the Bucket or on the Bench does not count as a Snail for the purposes of dynastic rules other than this one (except where those rules refer specifically to Snails who are in the Bucket or on the Bench).

A Snail may move themselves to the Bench or to the Bucket at any time.

The Starting Line is located at 0 cm and the Finish Line at 100 cm.

The conventional meanings of words such as “forward”, “at”, “between” can be used. Greater values of Position are considered to be forward/after/etc. when compared to lower ones.

Races

A Race is a blog post in the story post category, titled “Race X”, where X is the current Race Number. The Race Number is a publicly tracked number and defaults to zero. A Race is by default Ongoing.

If there is no Ongoing Race, the Jury may perform Preparations, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

  • Set all Snails' Items to empty. Then, for each Item that was Ordered since the last Race was created, add that Item to its orderer's Items. (If a Snail made more than 10 Orders, only consider the 10 most recent ones for that Snail)
  • Set the Race Number to be one higher than the current Race Number
  • Create a new Race
  • Select the Slug of Death and 3 other Slugs at random, including those in the Bucket, and set their position to the Bench. Set the Position of all other Slugs to the Bucket.
  • Set the Position of all Snails who are on the Track or on the Bench to zero, except in the case where a Snail is a Slug, in which case its Position should be set as described for the start of a Race in the Extra Effects for that Slug, or the Position should be set to 0 if there is no such description
  • Reset the Moves of every Snail to 0
  • Set the Status of all Snails to Healthy
  • Set the Danger Level to 0

If the Position of a Snail is after the Finish Line, they cannot Move. If there is an Ongoing Race but no non-Slug Snail can Move, any Snail or the Jury may perform the Award Ceremony.

Moving

At any time, a Snail may Move by making a comment on the Ongoing Race (If there is one), unambigously specifying one of the actions listed below. The number of Moves each Snail has made in the Ongoing Race is publicly tracked as a number. A Snail may not Move if the number of Moves they have made in the Ongoing Race is at least three greater than every other Snail's.

The possible Moves are:

  • Crawl: increase your Position by DICE10
  • Slipstream: If the most recent Move in the Ongoing Race was from a Snail other than you, change your Position by the same amount that Snail’s Position changed in their most recent Move.
  • Leapsnail: If one exists, randomly select a non-Slug Snail before the Finish Line whose Moves are within 2 of yours. Set your Position to be 1 greater than the selected Snail's. Optionally, you may add to the random selection Snails who have been directly eligible Leapsnail targets for you at some time in the past 24 hours of this Ongoing Race.
  • Discard: remove one Item from your Items and apply its non-Passive effects (If any Snail(s) have the Crystal of Moderateness in their Items, no other Snail may perform this action.)

A Snail may, if they wish, combine multiple Moves into one comment, as long as that comment could be unambiguously split into several comments with one Move each. The order of the combined Moves is considered the same as the order they are stated in the comment.

Slugs

Slugs are considered to be Snails for the purposes of all Dynastic Rules. The term “Active Player” may be used to refer to “The Jury and Snails which are not Slugs”. When a dynastic rule allows a snail to perform an action, Slugs may only perform that action when the ruleset allows an Active Player perform that action on their behalf.

Each Slug has a Name, and a set of rules for how that Slug can move, and optionally some extra effects

The following Slugs exist

  • Name: Slug of Death
  • Movement Rules: If it has been at least 24 hours since the Slug of Death last moved in a ongoing race, and at least 24 hours since the race began, any Active Player make a comment in that race saying “The Slug of Death Crawls” and cause the Slug of Death to perform the Crawl move for that race.
  • Extra Effects: The Slug of Death starts each race at a position of -10. Other Snails may not move if the Slug of Death’s position is greater than theirs
  • Name: Slingshot Sam
  • Movement Rules: Slingshot Sam cannot move by normal means
  • Extra Effects: The Slingshot Sam starts each race at a position of DICE100. If a Snail (other than Slingshot Sam)‘s position ever exactly matches Slingshot Sam’s position, a DICE2 is rolled. On a 1, that Snail’s position is reduced by 20. On a 2, that snail’s position is increased by 20
  • Name: Broom Barry
  • Movement Rules: After Broom Barry sweeps, he moves backwards by 5cm.
  • Extra Effects: Broom Barry starts each race at a Position of DICE50 + 50. If after a Move a Snail's Position is changed to be within 8cm of Broom Barry, he sweeps, pushing all Snails in his range away from him until they are 8cm away. Snails sharing his Position are pushed backwards.
  • Name: Friendly Fiona
  • Movement Rules: If a single non-Slug Snail's Position exactly matches Friendly Fiona's and has done so for the past 24 hours, then whenever that Snail's Position changes her Position changes by the same amount and her number of Moves is the same as that Snail's Moves.
  • Extra Effects: Friendly Fiona starts each race at a Position of DICE100. If a Snail's action causes Friendly Fiona to cross the Finish Line for the first time in a Race, that Snail captivates the crowds with a heartwarming display of friendship, gaining 2 Fame.
  • Name: The Iron Slug
  • Movement Rules: When a Snail's Position exactly matches that of the Iron Slug and has done so for at least 24 hours, then that Snail may reverse its polarity by making a comment in the Ongoing Race saying they are doing so and setting its Position to DICE100.
  • Extra Effects: The Iron Slug starts each race at a position of DICE100. If after a Move a Snail's Position is changed to be within 20cm of the Iron Slug, then that Snail is pulled closer to the Iron Slug by 5cm (or, if less than 5cm away, directly on top of the Iron Slug).
  • Name: Identity Crisis Ian
  • Movement Rules: If it has been longer than 24 hours since he has last moved or he has not Moved this Race, then any Snail may cause Identity Crisis Ian to perform the Slipstream Move.
  • Extra Effects: Identity Crisis Ian starts each race at a Position of 50. If a single non-Slug Snail is within 5cm of Identity Crisis Ian, that Snail may help him find himself by choosing a Slug from the Bucket, swapping its Position with Identity Crisis Ian's, and mentioning this in a comment in the Ongoing Race.
  • Name: Danger Daryl
  • Movement Rules: Danger Daryl cannot move by normal means.
  • Extra Effects: Danger Daryl starts each race at a position of 35 + DICE30, because she enjoys the thrill of being directly in the path of oncoming traffic. Whenever a non-Slug Snail passes her for the first time in a Race, they may immediately after choose to roll DICE20. On an 11-19, they Spot Danger. On a 20, they Spot Danger three times.


The Award Ceremony

Each non-Slug Snail has a publicly tracked numeric amount of Fame, which defaults to 0. Each non-Slug Snail has four types of publicly-tracked Medals named Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Paper, each of which defaults to 0.

The Award Ceremony is the following atomic action:

  • Increase the Fame of the Snail(s) who are past the Finish Line:
    • The Snail(s) who finished in the lowest number of Moves get 4 Fame.
    • The Snail(s) who finished in the second lowest number of Moves get 3 Fame.
    • The Snail(s) who finished in the third lowest number of Moves get 2 Fame.
    • Other finishing Snails get 1 Fame.
  • Halve the Fame of all Snails who are on the Track but failed to finish the Race, rounding up.
  • Increase the Medals of the Snail(s) who are past the Finish Line:
    • The Snail(s) who finished in the lowest number of Moves get 1 Gold.
    • The Snail(s) who finished in the second lowest number of Moves get 1 Silver.
    • The Snail(s) who finished in the third lowest number of Moves get 1 Bronze.
    • Other finishing Snails get 1 Paper.
  • Make a post to the blog summarizing the changes in Fame and Medals.

If the Award Ceremony has been performed after the start of the most recent Race, that Race is no longer Ongoing.

If there is a single Snail with the most Fame, that Snail is the Fan Favourite: their Fame gain is doubled, but upon failing to finish a Race their Fame is instead set to 0.

The Snails who have a quorum of Snails with more Fame than them are Underdogs: their Fame gain is doubled.

Predators

Each Snail has a publicly tracked Status, defaulting to “Healthy”. If a Snail is not Healthy, then they may not Move or take any dynastic action which would change their Position. If a Slug is not Healthy, then it has no effect. If a Healthy Snail ever has a Position within 2cm of a Zombified Snail, they become Zombified.

The following Predators exist:

Types
Name Range Effect
Haters 1-4 The Snails feel demoralized. Otherwise has no effect
Squirrel 2-6 Set the Status of a random Healthy Snail with the lowest Position to "Eaten"
Car 3-5 Set the Status of all Healthy Snails with Position between 35cm and 65cm inclusive to "Flattened"
Snail-zombifying Fungus 4-7 Set the Status of a random Healthy Snail with the highest Position before the Finish Line to "Zombified"
Hawk Flock 6+ Randomly select half the Healthy Snails before the Finish Line, rounded up, and set their Status to "Missing"

The Danger Level is a publicly tracked number that defaults to 0. Spotting Danger is the following atomic action:

  • Increase the Danger Level by one
  • Apply the effect of a random Predator whose Range contains the Danger Level
  • Make a comment in the Ongoing Race saying “Look out!!!” and mentioning the Predator that was chosen

The Slug of Death is ignored for the purposes of determining Predator targets.

Rule Amendments

The text of all subrules of this rule is considered flavour text in all other respects except that when performing the Update Rules action, the first subrule is considered to have meaning as if it was the text of a proposal.

Unless a Proposal explicitly tells to modify the Official Rules, any instructions in it to edit the dynastic ruleset are not performed upon enactment, but instead the text containing those instructions is copied as a new subrule of this rule.

If there is no Ongoing Race and this rule has at least one subrule, any Admin may Update Rules, which is the following atomic action:

  • Perform the instructions in the first subrule in this rule, following the rules for enactment described in “Resolution of Proposals”
  • Remove the first subrule from this rule

A new Race may not be created if this rule has one or more subrules.

Equipment

Each Snail has a publicly tracked Inventory, which is a list of Equipments that defaults to blank.

A piece of Equipment has a name, a cost and an effect which is applied to a Snail that has that Equipment in their Inventory. A Snail may, at any time, spend the amount of Fame equal to the cost of an Equipment to add that piece of Equipment to their Inventory (if that Equipment isn't already there).

Pieces of Equipment are defined as subrules of this rule, with the name of the subrule being the name of the equipment.

Slime Lubricant

Cost: 10 Effect: When using the Crawl move, you may increase your position by DICE12 instead of DICE10.

Items

Each Snail has a publicly tracked list of Items, defaulting to an empty list. Each Item has a name, and optionally an effect that is applied when the Item is Discarded. Items may also have Passive effects, which apply to all Snails who have that Item in their Items.

The following Items have effects:

  • Magnet: choose to either move all Snails 5 cm towards you or move all Snails 5 cm away from you.
  • Magic Mirror: if your Position is negative, set it to the corresponding positive value.
  • Crystal of Moderateness: remove all Items from a single Snail (if such a Snail exists) who has at least as many Items than every other Snail, and then remove all Crystals of Moderateness from every Snail's Items. (Passive effect: the only Move you may make is Discard)
  • Shield: (Passive) Other Snails may not change your Position by more than 11-N cm at a time (where N is the number of Shields in your Items). If they would, your Position changes by only 11-N cm instead (to the same direction as the original change)
  • Huge Club: if a Snail (other than you) has the same positive Position as you, move that Snail 30 cm backward.

At any time, a Snail may Order an Item by privately sending to the Jury the name of that Item. The name must appear in the above list or be an English language concrete noun.


Building Blocks

Building Blocks are rules that can be substituted in and out of the ruleset as needed, usually as a result of an Ascension Address. All rules in the Building Blocks section are ruletext.

Potential Building Blocks rules can be found at the Building Blocks page of the wiki. That page’s contents are not rulestext. When the contents of the Building Blocks page are referred to as ‘rules’ by the ruleset or by a votable matter, it should be assumed that said contents are being referred to as potential rules rather than actual rules.

When a Jury specifies the Building Blocks rules in use for a new dynasty in an Ascension Address, they should specify (by name) the rules from the Building Blocks page that they would like to be included in this section of the ruleset. When a Dynastic Reset is performed, the Building Blocks rules selected in the most recent Ascension Address (if any) must be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named in that Ascension Address must be removed from the Building Blocks section. Some rules on the Building Blocks page are listed as being Recommended; if the new Jury makes no statement on Building Blocks rules to be included in their Ascension Address then the Recommended Building Blocks are considered to have been selected. There are currently no Recommended Building Blocks.

Precondition Unidling

Idle Snails may submit Proposals as if they were not idle; such proposals are known as Precondition Proposals, and should suggest terms (in the form of amendments to the ruleset and/or gamestate) on which the proposer would be willing to join the current dynasty. The proposer of a Precondition Proposal is not considered to have a vote on that Proposal while they remain idle.

If a Precondition Proposal enacts, the enacting admin must unidle its proposer before applying the proposal’s effects.

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. (e.g. 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.)

Imperatives

Can
“is able to”
Shall
“is required to”
Should
“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action
If a game action is a Daily Action, each Snail able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.
Daily Communal Action
A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Snail per day.
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.
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 Snail 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 Snail per week.

Other

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 Snails.
Dice
References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
Dynastic Action
An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
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 Snail's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Snail's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Snail's Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary
When posting a blog entry, a Snail 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.
Discord
The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Snails , as well as people who are not Snails but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.
Discord Channel
A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Snails who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).
Flavour Text
If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Snails are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
Gamestate
Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the rules and Building Blocks explicitly mention (except for the FAQ, the dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within (or indirectly invoked by Templates contained within) those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
Hiatus
If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
Post
A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Quorum
Quorum of a subset of Snails is half the number of Snails in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Snails it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Snails.
Resolve/Resolution
If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal 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. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.
Rule
Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.
Sticky Post
A blog post where the “Make Entry Sticky” option has been enabled. Changing the state of this option is not considering altering or modifying the post with regards to the rules on Official Posts. The sticky status of posts should generally be left to the discretion of the Jury.
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.
Seasonal Downtime
On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Snails” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.
Subrule
A subrule is a type of rule that is hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.
Table of Contents
The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.
Uphold
To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.
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, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.
Wiki
The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Snail 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. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.

An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and either no Snail has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; 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. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories, except that a votable matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, 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. Secondly, if a post is less than six hours old and appears to the Jury to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Jury may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule, except for a votable matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.

Representations of the Gamestate

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Snail’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Snail may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Snail feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:

  • Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
  • Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Snail, if doing so would not require the correcting Snail to make any decisions on behalf of the original Snail.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Snails are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement. The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

Orphan Variables

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

A Snail may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Random Generators

The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php 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 CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.
  • A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.

If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Snail with such access. Only a Snail with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Snail with such access, that Votable Matter is Illegal.

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 roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Snail making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Snail making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

  • All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
  • When a Snail performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
  • If a rule allows the Snail performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
  • If a Snail arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
  • If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Snail must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Snail uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Snail would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
  • For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

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,” “pay” 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” or “pay” 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, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Snail can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Snails to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Snail only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Snail (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
  • If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
  • A Snail 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 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 game variable has a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be 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”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Snails are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
  • If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
  • Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity 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)
  • DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.
  • If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Jury (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Jury when the ruleset allows it. If a Snail should already know such a piece of information (in that the Jury has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Jury may repeat it to them.
  • A range of numerical values stated to be “between” one value and another value is treated as an inclusive range unless otherwise explicitly stated.

Rules and Votable Matters

  • If a new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
  • If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
  • Where a Votable Matter would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters 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 dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Snail may delete it from the ruleset.
  • A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.
  • When the ruleset calls for the use of a specific tool (such as the dice roller, or an off-domain website, or a specific piece of downloadable software), Snails may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
  • If the Jury has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they are not considered to be a Snail for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal. Votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Snails on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid, but the Snails who made them still contribute to quorum

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 (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
  • A Snail may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).

Spelling and formatting

  • 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.
  • Snails may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset, the Building Blocks page, and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Snails with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
  • A Snail may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.
  • A Snail may change the layout or design of a gamestate wiki page if doing so would not change how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

  • Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Snail if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Snail's name.
  • If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
  • The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
  • Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
  • When referring to a Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
  • When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
  • Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
  • When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, a Snail's (or prospective Snail's ) new name must be between 3 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes.

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 other Rule;
  2. If a Core Rule explicitly says it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Core Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has precedence over that Core Rule;
  3. If a Building Blocks Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Building Blocks Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Building Blocks Rule;
  4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Snails may Kick each other” and “Snails may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Snails may not Kick each other);
  5. If two contradicting parts have the same scope, or have scopes that only overlap where they contradict each other, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Snails may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Snails may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Snails may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Snail may have another Snail as a Mentor. Snails who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Snail who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a votable matter.

If an unmentored Snail requests a Mentor, or a new Snail has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Jury should select a Tenured Snail and ask them to take that Snail on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Jury should announce it in a blog post. The Jury should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Snail may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Jury, any Snail who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Jury for the purposes of this rule.

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

  • Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
  • Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
  • Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki and Dice Roller, and optionally the game’s Discord and social media feeds
  • If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
  • If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Snail or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.

Things that a mentor should do

The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:

  • The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
  • The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Snails .
  • The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
  • The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.

Things that a mentor should not do

The following sets out a list of things that a mentor should not do in their relationship with their mentee. All of these are considered to be Fair Play rules, as per the rule Fair Play.

  • The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
  • The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
  • A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.

Synonyms

A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Snail” and “Jury”.

Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses

  • Snail (Player)
  • Jury (Emperor)

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the Building Blocks page or the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parentheses in the above list.