Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Players 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 Player may update it to do so.

Players

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.

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.

Idle Players

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Player, known as the Dealer. If there is no Dealer, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

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.

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.

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.

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 Players 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 Player.

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 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).

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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 Dealer 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 Player 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 Player who made the DoV becomes the Dealer.

The new Dealer will 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 the terms “Player” and “Dealer” 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 completion of any changes to the ruleset and gamestate mandated in 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 Dealer may pass the role of Dealer to another Player by making a post to that effect.

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.

• 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.

Dynastic Rules

Victory

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 Deck

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:-

• Suit of Batons: King, Queen, Knight, Knave, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, Ace
• 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.

Tournament Rules of Giolitti

At any point, the Dealer may select two Players, known as the Game’s Participants, at secretly random from those whose Readiness is set to “Yes”, 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 each Participants’ Readiness to “No”
• Secretly randomly determine one of the Participants as the Starting Player for the game
• Generate a secretly random Hand for the Game for each Participant. These Hands each have seven Cards, as if both those sets of Cards had been taken from the same shuffled version of the Deck.
• 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.
• Secretly randomly generate one card that is in neither players’ hands, 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 secretly randomly selecting six of the tricks (or all tricks if there are fewer than six tricks) to be active for the game.
• 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, 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.

Each Game has a Stakes, which is an integer that defaults to 1 when a Game begins.

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 post a Sfida, which a comment that says it is a Sfida. Before either player may make their next Play or post another Sfida, the opponent of the player posting 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. If they reject, the Game is Closed, and the player posting the Sfida is the Game’s Campione.

When each Player of a Game has made seven Plays in that Game, that Game is Closed, and the Campione of the Game is the player with the highest score.

The Dealer may, and should at their earliest convenience, 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; or may make a comment on a non-Closed Game that identifies any Players of that Game who have not posted a comment on its Table in the last 48 hours, when it was that Player’s turn to make a Play or respond to a Sfida. This comment, known as the Fine, ends the Game and makes it Closed if it was not Closed already. 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 player not so identified becomes Campione of the Game.

Each Player has a number of pegs, which is publicly tracked and which defaults to 30. 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.

A Player may not make a Play that names the same card more than once during a given Game.

Tricks

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.

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.

A Player’s score for a Play is based on the following patterns of cards (or “Tricks”) in their Pocket. For each Trick which is active in the game in their Pocket they score the indicated points.

• Il Toro: The Player’s Pocket consists of three cards whose Heft adds up to the Game’s Bersaglio. Points: 4
• Il Propore: The Player’s Pocket consists of three cards with the same Suits. Points: 2
• L’Aria: The sum of the Hefts of the cards your Pocket is higher than the sum of the Hefts in your opponent’s Pocket; can only be claimed when the Pockets of all players in the current game contain at least two cards. Points: 1
• L’Universo: The Player’s Pocket contains at least two of Sun, Moon or Star. Points: 2
• Tripletta: The Player’s Pocket has at least three cards, and each card in there has the same Rank. Points: 4
• 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

Readiness

Each Player has a property called “Readiness” which is either “Yes” or “No”, and defaults to No. If a Player is not currently a Player in an Active Game, they may change their Readiness at any time.

The Magistrelli System

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. Every time a Player gains a peg they gain 1 Magistrelli, unless their opponent had a higher Magistrelli than them at the start of the game, in which case they gain half of the difference between their own Magistrelli and that of their opponent at the start of the game, rounded up.

Arcana

Cards whose suit is Arcana can have effects on the game, based on where they appear. The following is a list of the effects different Arcana have when they appear in a Player’s Pocket:

If a Player’s Pocket contains an Angel, the Heft of all Cards in their Pocket is doubled

If a Player’s Pocket contains a Devil, the Heft of all Cards in their Opponents Pocket are reduced by 5 (to a minimum of zero each)

If a Player’s Pocket contains a Magician, it has a Heft of 15 whenever they score Points for a Trick, but a heft of 0 whenever their Opponent scores points for a Trick

If a Player’s Pocket contains Lightning, then for the purposes of scoring Tricks, it is considered to have all Suits

If a Player’s Pocket contains a World, whenever they score Points for a Trick, the number of Points they gain is increased by one

If a Player’s Pocket contains an Impostor, whenever their Opponent scores Points for a Trick, the number of Points their opponent gains is reduced by one

If a Player’s Pocket contains a Death, neither the Player or their Opponent may score any points from Tricks

The following is a list of the effects different Arcana have when they appear in the Grand Canal:

Masks

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, unless they are one of the Players of a Game in progress. While a Player wears a given Mask, it affects the way the rules of a Game apply to that Player. The list of Masks and their corresponding rules alterations is as follows:

Pantalone

The Dealer should randomly generate a Hand of eight Cards for Pantalone, instead of seven Cards.

Arlecchino

In a given Game, Arlecchino may play one Card from their Hand a second time.

Tognoli

Tognoli gains 1 extra point whenever they score Il Propore.

Di Paolo

Any cards Di Paolo has with a Suit of Arcana have a Heft of 4, instead of their stated value.

Bonanno

The Dealer must generate one random card with an Arcana suit, or a random card if not possible, then generate six more cards for Bonanno instead of generating a normal Hand.

Pedrolino

You begin the Game with a Score of 3.

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 “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 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.

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 Player 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.

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 Player 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.

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 Players.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus or after a DoV's creation or enactment), 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 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 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. 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.

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 Player 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 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.

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 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 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.
• 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.

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.

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 Player 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 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 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 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.

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 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.
• 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 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 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.)
• 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 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).
• 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 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, 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 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.

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 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).

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.
• 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”.

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.
• 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 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 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 “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);
5. 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Player 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 Players.
• 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.