Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

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

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

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

Criminals

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

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

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

Idle Criminals

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

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

When an Criminal 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 Criminal Idled in a different dynasty), the Criminal is given the default value for new Criminals, if such a value exists.

An Idling Post is a post within which a Criminal requests to be idled or unidled.

If an Idling Post was made in the last seven days, an Idling Comment is a comment to that post within which another Criminal requests to be idled or unidled.

Any unidle Criminal may submit an Idling Post or Idling Comment requesting themselves to be idled.

Any idle Criminal, if they did not go idle within the same dynasty in the previous four days, or if their most recent idling was as a result of not posting an entry or comment for a seven-day period, may submit an Idling Post or Idling Comment requesting themselves to be unidled.

Any Admin may accordingly render a Criminal Idle or remove their Idle status (“unidling”), if that Criminal has made a valid Idling Post or Idling Comment in the last seven days. The Admin must announce the change in a comment on the relevant blog post.

If a Criminal has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days, any Admin may render that Criminal Idle. The Admin must announce the change in a new blog post.

Dynasties

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Criminal casts an explicit vote AGAINST their own Proposal, this renders the Proposal Self-Killed, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Don may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Don casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Don later changes their Vote.

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

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (and the Ruleset and/or Gamestate updated to include the specified effects of that Proposal) if either of the following is true:

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

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

It could not be Enacted without either one of the Votes AGAINST it being changed, or the set of Criminals being changed, or by awaiting the passage of time.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

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

Votable Matters

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

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

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

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

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

Calls for Judgment

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

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

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

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

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

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

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

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

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

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

It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and it could not be Enacted without either at least one of the Votes AGAINST it being changed, or the set of Criminals being changed, or by awaiting the passage of time.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

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

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

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it has a number of AGAINST Votes that exceed Quorum, the Criminal who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

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

Fair Play

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

A single person should not control more than one Criminal within BlogNomic.
A Criminal 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 Criminal should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
A Criminal should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Criminal.
A Criminal should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
A Criminal should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Criminal should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).

Seasonal Downtime

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

Dynastic Rules

Central Office

The Don does not count as a Criminal for the purposes of any other Dynastic Rule, except where that Rule specifically refers to the Don.

Working Together

Each Criminal has a Partner (the name of a Criminal or Idle Criminal other than himself, or possibly empty), and a list of Former Partners (a possibly empty list of Criminals and Idle Criminals), both tracked in the GNDT. When a Criminal joins the game, or unidles for the first time in the dynasty, their Partner and list of Former Partners are set empty.

Whenever a Criminal performs an Assisted Action defined in rule 2.3 “Swag”, they must pay M times 100 Wealth, where M is the maximum of the Culprit and the Lookout’s Heats.

A Criminal can change their Partner to empty, or to any (non-idle) Criminal who is not on their Former Partners list, at any time.

Some game actions may be defined as Assisted Actions. A Criminal (the Culprit) can only perform an Assisted Action if another Criminal (the Lookout) is their Partner, and the Lookout’s Partner is the Culprit. Performing an Assisted Action causes both the Culprit’s and the Lookout’s Partner to be set to empty, and the Culprit and Lookout added to each other’s Former Partners lists.

At any time, a Criminal may pay 100 wealth, and then transfer any positive amount of their Wealth or Firepower to a Criminal in their Former Partners list.

Swag

Criminals have Wealth and Firepower as non-negative integers tracked in the GNDT, each defaulting to 500.

Criminals have Respect as integers tracked in the GNDT which can be positive or negative and defaults to 500. Any Assisted Action that requires a Criminal to pay, spend, or lose their own respect cannot be performed if it would result in that player’s Respect valuing below 0.

Whenever a criminal does an Assisted Action defined in this rule, their Heat is increased by 1.

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal can Rob a Bank. This increases their Wealth by the square of the number of complete hours since any Criminal last Robbed a Bank (or since this rule was enacted, if no Criminal has ever Robbed a Bank).

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal can Steal a Masterpiece. This increases their Respect by the square of the number of complete hours since any Criminal last Stole a Masterpiece (or since this rule was enacted, if no Criminal has ever Stolen a Masterpiece).

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal can Smuggle Arms. This increases their Firepower by the square of the number of complete hours since any Criminal last Smuggled Arms (or since this rule was enacted, if no Criminal has ever Smuggled Arms).

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal can spend F Firepower, where F equals 20 times the Police Vigilance Number, in order to organize a Prison Break. This allows the Culprit to immediately set any number of other Criminals that are in Jail to not be in Jail anymore. For each Criminal that leaves Jail in that action, the Culprit’s Heat is increased by 2.

Heat

Criminals can end up being wanted by the police, or other similar law enforcement organisations. This is tracked in the GNDT as a non-negative integer, Heat, that defaults to 1.

There is a number, the Police Vigilance Number, initially 0, tracked in the Don’s Heat field in the GNDT.

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal can Steal Police Files. This increases the Police Vigilance Number by 1, and if it sets it to a square number, also decreases the Heat of every Criminal with positive Heat by 1.

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal with no Heat can Steal an Identity. This increases their Heat to 1, and causes the Culprit’s Former Partners list to contain only the Lookout.

As an Assisted Action, if the current Police Vigilance number is Z, a Criminal can spend Y^2 - Z^2 Firepower, Y^2 - Z^2 Wealth, and Y^2 - Z^2 Respect to increase the Police Vigilance Number to Y (Y must be greater than Z). This action may be refered to as “Aggravating the Police”

Jail

Criminals may be in Jail. This is tracked in the GNDT. When a Criminal joins the game or unidles they are not in Jail. Criminals in Jail may not be the Culprit or the Lookout of an Assisted Action. When a Criminal goes to Jail their Former Partner list is emptied.

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal can spend R Respect, where R equals 10 times the Police Vigilance Number, in order to Report any Criminal. This reduces the Culprit’s heat by 5, or to 0 if it was less than 5 before that action, and sends the reported Criminal to Jail.

Goods

Criminals can possess Goods, items listed in an eponymous GNDT column with each Good listed by a name designated by its description. By default, a criminal’s Goods are the null set.

Available Goods are listed in this rule along with a Security and Reputation, both of which are integers. As an assisted action, a Criminal can spend a Good’s Security in Firepower in order to Steal it.

When a Criminal Steals a Good, first, the Criminal lowers the Respect of any other Criminal that possesses the Good by its Reputation and removes the Good from that Criminal’s Goods. The Criminal then increases their own Respect by the Good’s Reputation and then lists the item in their Goods, at which point they possess the Good.

The following goods can be Stolen:

The Hope Diamond, listed as “hope” - 5000 Security, 10,000 Reputation. When the Criminal that Possesses the Hope Diamond gains Respect, they gain 5% more than they would have gained otherwise.’

The Fake Mustache, listed as “mustache” - 50 Security, 2000 Reputation. The Criminal that possesses the Fake Mustache may partner with any Criminal whose name does not appear twice in the possessor’s Former Partners list. Any Criminal may partner with the possessor as long as the possessor’s name doesn’t appear twice in that Criminal’s Former Partners list.

The Badge, listed as “badge” - 1500 Security 5000 Reputation. As an Assisted Action, the Criminal that possesses the Badge may Block an Assisted Action by following the Badge’s listing in the GNDT with its name contained in parentheses. While an Action is Blocked, no Criminal may perform that Assisted Action. When the Badge is Stolen, all actions cease to be Blocked. Stealing may not be Blocked. As an Assisted Action, any player may Unblock a Blocked Action, removing its name from after the Badge. That Action may then be performed as prescribed in its description. Unblocking may not be Blocked.

The License, listed as “license” - 3750 Security, 0 Reputation. At any time, the Criminal that possesses the License may at their discretion lose X Wealth and gain F Firepower, where F = X / 2.

Popular Criminals

As an Assisted Action, a Criminal with exactly 5 Criminals and idle Criminals in their Former Partners list before they perform the action may Throw a Party. This increases their Respect by 3000. If the Lookout for that action also had exactly 5 Criminals and idle Criminals in their Former Partners list, their Respect is also increased by 3000.

The New Don in Town

A Criminal’s Leadership is equal to whichever value is lowest out of their Wealth, Firepower, and Respect. When the Police Vigilance Number becomes 200 or more for the first time, whichever Criminal has the most Leadership achieves victory.

Unamed Rule

There is a time bomb with a timer, an integer that shall be tracked in a Story Post. When a day ends during which the game was never in Hiatus, if at least one proposal has been created that day, the timer is increased by 2; otherwise, it is decreased by 1. When the timer is less than or equal to zero, all dynastic rules are repealed and a new metadynasty starts.

Plea Bargain

As an assisted action, a Criminal with at least 3 Criminals in their former partner’s list may Plea Bargain. When a player Plea Bargains, first, they lose (X - 1)/X of their Wealth, Respect, and Firepower, where X is number of names in their former partner’s list, and then their Former Partner’s list becomes the null set.

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (eg. A rule specifying "bananas are blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Can: "is able to"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Effective Vote Comment (EVC): A Criminal’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Criminal’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Criminal’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

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

Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.

Idling Post: Any post within which a Criminal requests to be idled or de-idled, or which is specifically designated as an idling post and nothing else.

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

May: "is permitted to"

May not: "is not permitted to"

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

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

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

Shall: "is required to"

Should: "is recommended that"

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

Story Post: A Story Post is an Official Post that is not a member of any specific category of Official Posts mentioned or defined in a Core Rule (excluding Official Post).

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.

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

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

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

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

Weekly Communal Action: If a game action is a Weekly Communal Action, it can be performed by any Criminal, but only if it has not been performed (by any Criminal) already in the same week.

Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Gamestate Tracking

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Criminal may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. No entry may be more than one of the following official types of post: Votable Matters, and Idling Post.

If no Criminal has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status.

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

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

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

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

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

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

Rules and Proposals

If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.

Time

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

Spelling

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

Names

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

Prioritisation

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

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

Ruleset 98

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