Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Monks 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.

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

If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Monk may update it to do so.

Monks

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already a Monk) 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 Monk (plural form Monks). An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Monk.

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

Some Monks are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Monks 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.

Idle Monks

If a Monk is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Monks in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Monks”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Monks are not counted as Monks.

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

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

An Admin may render a Monk Idle if that Monk has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Monk 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 Monk if that Monk 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 Monk who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current Dynasty.

Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first 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.

Dynasties

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Monk other than the Abbot casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Abbot. When the Abbot 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 Abbot’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

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

Whenever an Admin Resolves a Votable Matter, they 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.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules 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 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 DoVs require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Monk.

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 specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Monk 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 Abbot may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Abbot casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Abbot later changes their Vote.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal’s status to Enacted) if 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 Self-Killed.

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 Self-Killed.

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

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Monks actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Monk feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Monk 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 Monk (other than the Abbot) 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 Monk 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 on Hiatus.

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 Abbot has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It is Popular, 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.

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Monk 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, and a new Dynasty begins in which the Monk who made the DoV becomes the Abbot.

The new Abbot will make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Abbot’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify that the terms “Monk” and “Abbot” will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire Ruleset (where the replacement terms are different, and neither includes any words in a form in which they already appear in the non-dynastic Ruleset), and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep. When such an Ascension Address is posted, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed. Between the enactment of the DoV and the posting of the Ascension Address, no new DoV may be made and BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Before an Ascension Address has been posted for a new Dynasty, the Abbot may pass the role of Abbot to another Monk by making a post to that effect.

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

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Monk’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. Monks 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 Monk within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Monk and any Idle Monks.
• A Monk 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 Monk should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Monk should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Monk.
• A Monk should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Monk should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Monk 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 Monk 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 Monk must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Monk should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Monk should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

The Mosaic

The Mosaic is a 20 by 20 grid of Tiles which is tracked on the “Mosaic” page on the Wiki

A Tile consists of the following components:

• Its Row, corresponding to which row of the grid it is on (with the topmost row being row 1, and the bottom row being row 20)
• Its Column, corresponding to which column of the grid it is on (with the leftmost column being column 1, and the rightmost column being column 20)
• Its Color, which can be any of the color names listed in the rule Pigments and which defaults to white. A tile may be described by its color (i.e. a tile whose color is white may be referred to as a white Tile)
• Its Material, which can be any of the Materials listed in the rule Materials and by default is stone
• Optionally, its Inlay, which can be any ascii character. By default a tile has no inlay
• Its Content, which consists of the character of its Material followed by the character of its Inlay (if it has one). A White Stone Tile with no Inlay is known as Backing, and its Content is always an empty string.

The Row and the Column of a Tile may not change. A Tile may be referred as “Tile R,C” where R is the row of the tile, and C is the column of the tile.

Two Tiles are Adjacent if they either share the same Column and their Row differs by only 1, or they share the same Row and their Column differs by only 1.

The Distance between two Tiles is the absolute value of the difference between their rows plus the absolute value of the difference between their columns

For each 3x3 square of Tiles, the centre Tile is said to be surrounded by the other eight. Tiles on the edge of the Mosaic are never considered surrounded.

Materials

The following is a list of materials that a Tile can be made out of. Presented in the form “{character}: {name}. {rarity}. ‘’{description}’’ ” where {character} is the letter used for the material in a Tile, {name} is the longform name of the material. {rarity} is the rarity of the material (either Common, Uncommon, or Scarce) and {description} is flavor text. A Tile may be described by its Material as in a “Glass Tile”.

• s: Stone. Common. “simple stones collected from the local river beds”
• f: Fine Sand. Uncommon. “colored sand imported from merchant ships or collected on the beach.”
• p: Paint. Uncommon. ‘‘locally crafted paint that the monks make from the surrounding area.’‘
• w: Wood. Uncommon. ‘‘stained wood from the nearby forest.’‘
• g: Glass. Uncommon. ‘‘see through or opaque, this stained glass is beautiful but requires a chain of processes to craft properly.’‘
• i: Ink. Scarce. ‘‘created from various materials, usually charcoal is the easiest to make while colors other than black are harder to create.’‘
• m: Precious Metal. Scarce. ‘‘Metals that are traded or smelted locally. Commonly the ones used in jewelry are used.’‘
• j: Jewel. Scarce. ‘‘Rare minerals that are found or traded for. Cut with specific tools by the monks, opals, jade, diamond, agate and emeralds among others are used in the mosaic.’‘

Each Material has a Stockpile which is a non-negative integer and is tracked in the “Mosaic” wiki page. By default, the stockpile of Common materials is 1000, Uncommon materials is 5 and Scarce materials is 0.

Natural Colors

Some materials have Natural Colours associated with them. These colours are as follows:

Stone: brown, orange

Fine Sand: white

Wood: brown

Ink: Black

Precious Metal: Gold, Silver

Turns

Each Monk has a non-negative integer number of Turns, which is tracked on the “Mosaic” page on the Wiki and by default is 5 and has a maximum value of 20. Any attempts to set a Monks turns higher than 20 instead set it to 20. As a weekly action, a Monk may increase their Turns by 8.

In order to perform a Tile Action, a Monk must spend 1 Turn plus 1 additional Turn for every other Tile Action they have performed over the last 12 hours

As a Tile Action, a Monk may do one of the following:

• Copy: Change the Color of a white Tile to match the Color of a tile which is adjacent to it
• Retool: Cease holding any tool. Start holding a random Tool. The Monk performing this action may spend additional Turns when performing it. For each additional Turn they spent, they may remove one Tool from the list of possible choices when performing the random selection.
• Improve a Tile: Spend the cost of an available Pigment and choose a Tile with a color that has a lower Pigment cost, to change the Tile’s color to the color of the first Pigment.
• Develop a new market: make a rumoured pigment available, with a Guilder cost of 10
• Develop an existing market: reduce the Guilder cost of an available pigment by 1, to a minimum of 1
• Rework: Reduce the Stockpile of a material by one. Pick a stone tile and set its material to that material.
• Provision: Increase the stockpile of an uncommon material by 5
• Procure: Spend up to 10 Guilders. Increase the stockpile of a scarce material by half the number of Guilders spent (rounded down)

Motifs

Immediately after taking a Tile Action, a Monk may claim a single Motif to perform its Benediction, if an instance of that Motif is now present on the Mosaic and the same instance was not present immediately before the Tile Action. Motifs and their Benedictions are:-

• A Stem is horizontal or vertical line of three green Tiles. Its Benediction is: change a white Tile adjacent to any Tile in the Stem, to any available color.
• A Pennant is 2x2 square of Tiles where the top left and top right Tiles are two different colors, and the bottom left and bottom right tiles are those same two colors reversed. Its Benediction is: gain 5 Guilders minus one Guilder for each other Instance of a Pennant which that uses the same set of colors which appears on the Mosaic, to a minimum of 1 Guilder.
• A Flower is a gold Tile where all Tiles that surround it (its petals) are the same color, and that color is not Green or Gold. Its Benediction is: gain 10 Guilders minus two guilders for each other Instance of a Flower whose petals the same color are the same color as the given instance which appears on the Mosaic, to a minimum of 2 Guilders.

A white Tile may never be part of a Motif. A Tile whose Inlay is X never be part of a Motif.

Tools

Each Monk can be holding up to one tool. The tools tracked by each Monk is tracked in the Mosaic page of the wiki, and defaults to -, which denotes that no tool is held.

The Turn Cost of a tool may be a non-negative integer or the word “Action”. If it is an integer, A Monk may use a tool that they are holding at any time by spending its turn cost in turns and applying its effect. If it is Action, a Monk may do a Tile Action to use a tool and apply its effect.

Currently known tools are:

Grinding stone.

Turn cost: Action

Change the colour of a white tile to match that of a tile which is which is distance 2 from it. This action is known as Grinding.

Lump of Clay

Turn Cost: 2

The Monk using this tool may replace their tool with any other tool.

Hourglass

Turn Cost 2

For the purposes of calculating the cost of future Tile Actions, All Tile Actions taken by the Monk using this tool in the last 12 hours prior to their usage of this tool are not counted

Supply Bag

Turn Cost 1

Increase the stockpile of a random material by one

Devil’s Brush

Turn Cost 1

Pick a tile without an Inlay and set its Inlay to X, or pick a tile with Inlay X remove its Inlay

Energy Bar

Turn Cost 0

The monk using this tool immediately ceases holding this tool and gains 3 turns

Guilders

Each Monk has an quantity of Guilders, which is a non-negative integer tracked in the Mosaic page of the wiki and which defaults to 0.

Pigments

A tile may only have a colour for which the pigment is available or which is a Natural Colour of the tile’s Material. Each Pigment has a Guilder cost in brackets after its name. Some pigments are rumoured; these may not be used for anything until they have become available.

The following pigments are available: white (0), red (4), blue (5), gold (5), green (5).

The following pigments are rumoured: purple, pink, cyan, orange, lime, black, brown, silver

Creeds

Each Monk is devoted to a Creed, which is tracked in the Mosaic and defaults to -. Each Creed has a description (which is flavortext) and an effect. The following Creeds exist:

• life: a Monk knows existence is preferred - Effect: Whenever a Monk with this creed increases the stockpile of a resource by the result of a dynasty action, they increase it by an additional 1
• balance: a Monk knows there can’t be one without another - Effect: Whenever a Monk with this creed performs a type of Tile Action which they have not already performed this week, its turn cost is reduced by 1 turn to a minimum of 1
• peace: a Monk knows harmony - Effect: Whenever a Monk with this creed completes a Motif, they earn 1 additional guilder
• truth: a Monk knows where to go - Effect: Whenever a Monk with this creed spends three or more turns during a single Tile Action, they earn 1 guilder
• resolve: a Monk knows how to get there - Effect: Whenever a Monk with this creed performs the action to increase their turns, they earn 10 turns instead of 8.

As a Weekly Action, a Monk may change their Creed.

Special Case

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.

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.

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.

The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the rules titled “Monks” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Monks, BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

If the Abbot has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Monks have voted FOR the Proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases).

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Abbot is not a Monk.

The Traitor [Active]

The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be a Monk (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 Abbot, and the Abbot should not share this information with Monks other than the Traitor.

If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, and BlogNomic is not on Hiatus, the Abbot may secretly randomly select a Monk (other than the Abbot) 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 Monks, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Monks in order to achieve victory.

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (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 Monk 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 Monk 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 Monk 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 Monk 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 Monks.

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 Monk’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Monk’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Monk’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Monk 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. Monks 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 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.

Hiatus

If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken, 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

Private Message

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

Quorum

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

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 section of the Ruleset is a rule, including sections that are subrules of other rules.

Slack

The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Monks 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.

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.

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 Monk 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.

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 two hours old and either no Monk 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 Monk 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 Monk is defined as a Monk who has been a Monk for fewer than seven days or a Monk that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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.

Representations of 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 Monk’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 Monk may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Monk 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 Monk, if doing so would not require the correcting Monk to make any decisions on behalf of the original Monk.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Monks 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 Monk 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.

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

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 Monk with such access. Only a Monk with such access may Enact that Proposal. If that Proposal does not name a Monk with such access, that Proposal 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 DICE roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Monk 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 Monk 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 Monk performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Monk must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
• If a Monk 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 Monk must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Monk 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 Monk 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” 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 Monk can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Monks to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Monk (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Monk 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”).
• 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.

Rules and Proposals

• If a new rule is created by a Proposal and its location is not noted in that Proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Proposal enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Proposal’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (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).
• 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 the Admin enacting a Proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Proposal enacts, Monk 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 Monk 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.

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 Monk 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

• 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.
• The terms “Monk” and “Player” are synonyms.
• Monks 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”.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Monk if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Monk’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”.
• The names of rules 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 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 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.
• 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.

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. A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
3. 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;
4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Monks may Kick each other” and “Monks may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Monks may not Kick each other);
5. If two contradicting parts have the same scope, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Monks may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Monks may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Monks may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Monk may have another Monk as a Mentor. Monks who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. A Monk may add or remove their own name from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Monk requests a Mentor, or a new Monk has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Abbot should select a Tenured Monk and ask them to take that Monk on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The Abbot 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 Abbot should announce it in a blog post. A Monk may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Abbot, any Monk who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Abbot 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, Slack, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
• 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 Monk 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 Monks.
• 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.