Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Noblemen 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 Nobleman may update it to do so.

Noblemen

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

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

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

If a Nobleman is not listed in the Sidebar in the section “Current Active Players” or only appears there in a comment, they are Idle. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Noblemen”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Noblemen are not counted as Noblemen.

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

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

An Admin may render a Nobleman Idle if that Nobleman has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Nobleman 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 Nobleman if that Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman, known as the Louis XIV. If there is no Louis XIV, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Nobleman other than the Louis XIV casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Louis XIV. When the Louis XIV 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 Louis XIV’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 Noblemen 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.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Nobleman 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 Louis XIV may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Louis XIV casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Louis XIV 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 Noblemen actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Nobleman feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Nobleman 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 Nobleman (other than the Louis XIV) 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 Nobleman 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 Louis XIV 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman who made the DoV becomes the Louis XIV.

The new Louis XIV will make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Louis XIV’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify that the terms Nobleman and Louis XIV will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire 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 Louis XIV may pass the role of Louis XIV to another Nobleman 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 Nobleman’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. Noblemen 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 Nobleman within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Nobleman and any Idle Noblemen.
A Nobleman 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 Nobleman should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
A Nobleman should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Nobleman.
A Nobleman should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
A Nobleman should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
A Nobleman should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
A Nobleman should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

Money, Prestige and Power

Noblemen have three resources: Money, Prestige and Power.

Players have unlimited Money, so the Money that they spend is tracked as Debt. Debt is tracked privately by Louis XIV and defaults to zero. Debt must be a non-negative integer. For the purposes of all dynastic rules, “spend Money” and “increase Debt” are considered to be synonyms. No action that requires the spending of Money may be considered complete unless Louis XIV has been privately informed that it has taken place and has acknowledged that the relevant impacts upon Debt have been incorporated.

Prestige is the relative status enjoyed by each Nobleman relative to their contemporaries. It is tracked in the Noblemen page of the wiki and defaults to the median value held by other Noblemen. It must be a non-negative integer.

Power is the ability of a Nobleman to enforce their will. It is tracked on the Noblemen page of the wiki and defaults to zero. It must be an integer but may be positive, negative or zero.

The median Debt of all Noblemen who have non-zero Debt is known as the Red Line.

Appeals

As a Weekly Action, a Nobleman may Appeal by sending Louis XIV a private message requesting one of the following pieces of information:

The Nobleman's own current Debt
A secretly random number from zero to the Red Line

Louis XIV may privately reply to each such Appeal at their own discretion, but should, if replying, give the relevant factual information at the time of their response to the best of their ability.

Excess Spending

If a Nobleman spends to excess then they can expect some consequences. If a Nobleman’s Debt is greater than the median Debt of all Noblemen who have non-zero Debt, then that Nobleman is Dissolute.

A Dissolute Nobleman may not post a Declaration of Victory. If they do then Louis XIV may mark it as failed at any time. They will also have their Bid Messages treated as if they had a Money bid of zero.

As a daily communal action, any Nobleman may reduce the Prestige of any Nobleman with less than -10 Power by 1, to a minimum of zero.

A Nobleman who has at least one Item in their Estate may declare Bankruptcy by making a blog post to that effect. Upon doing so, they must set their Prestige and Power to default values and remove all the Items from their Estate. When a Nobleman declares Bankruptcy, their Debt is set to 1.

Auctions

As a Daily Action, Louis XIV may make an Auction Post detailing some items upon which Noblemen can bid and the effect that those items would have. The Auction must consistent of a random number of Items between 1 and 5, generated as per the rule Items.

While an Auction Post is open, Noblemen may privately bid upon those items by sending a Bid Message to Louis XIV with the title of the Auction Post and the amount of Money or Power they would like to spend on each item. All Money and Power quantities bid must be expressed using only the ten numerical digits of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system.

A Nobleman’s Bid Message on a specific Auction is the last message that meets the criteria set out in this paragraph that they have sent to Louis XIV during the time in which that Auction Post was open. If a Bid Message is invalid for any reason then Louis XIV should notify the sender at their first opportunity, giving that Nobleman a chance to resubmit their bid, but any revised Bid Message still needs to have been received by Louis XIV before the Auction Post closes.

If a Nobleman has made no Bid Message on an Auction by the time it closes, then they are considered to have made no Bid on any Desirable Item and a single Bid of zero Money and zero Power on any Undesirable Item contained within that Auction.

Louis XIV may close any open Auction which has been open for at least 48 hours, by performing the following Atomic Action:-

Any Item that received no Bids is a Repulsive Item. For each Repulsive Item, double the values of all Impacts, and then add Valuable to the list of Impacts.
Determining the Winner of each Item in that Auction, as follows:
- A Desirable Item’s Winner is the Nobleman who made the highest bid of Money plus Adjusted Power, which is the Power bid (plus one if the Nobleman created the inspiration which the item was created from) multiplied by the Weighted Power Factor, for it (in the event of a tie, highest Adjusted Power wins; if it is still a tie then the Item has no Winner).
- An Undesirable Item’s Winner is the Nobleman who made the lowest bid of Money plus Adjusted Power for it (in the event of a tie, lowest Adjusted Power wins; if it is still a tie then the tie is resolved in a secretly random manner by the Louis XIV).
- A Repulsive Item’s Winner is a Dissolute Nobleman chosen secretly at random by Louis XIV.
For each Desirable Item, increasing the Debt of its Winner by the Money (if any) they spent on their winning bids
For each Undesirable Item, increasing the every Debt of every Nobleman who bid on it by the Money (if any) they spent on their bids
Reducing the Power of each bidder by the Power (if any) they spent on their bids (whether they won them or not)
Updating the Estates of the Winners to list the Items that they have won and applying any relevant Impacts
Adjust the Weighted Power Factor in accordance to the Weighted Power Factor sub rule
Posting a comment on the Auction Post listing its Winners, and the Power spent by all of its bidders. This renders the Auction Post closed.

The Estate of each Nobleman is a list of Items that they possess, tracked on the Noblemen wiki page.

Weighted Power Factor

The Weighted Power Factor is an rational value tracked on the Nobleman page of the wiki with a default value of one.

To Adjust the Weighted Power Factor, Louis XIV adds the total amount of Debt bid by all Noblemen in the auction they are resolving (D) and compares it to the total Adjusted Power bid by Noblemen in the same auction (P)

If D is at least twice the value of P, the Weighted Power Factor is doubled. Otherwise, if D is at least 125% the value of P, the Weighted Power Factor is multiplied by 1.5, rounding up. If P is at least twice the value of D, the Weighted Power Factor is halved, rounding up. Otherwise, if P is at least 125% the value of D, the Weighted Power Factor is divided by 1.5, rounding up.

The Lord Privy

If no other Nobleman has Petitioned the Lord Privy on a given Auction, a Nobleman may reduce their Power by 2 and make a comment to the Auction Post for that Auction announcing their intention to Petition the Lord Privy.

As soon as possible after a Petition to the Lord Privy has been made, Louis XIV should privately correspond with the Petitioner, detailing in full all bids made on items in the relevant Auction Post.

The Palace Guard

As a Daily Action, a Nobleman may expend Power to Instruct the Palace Guard. In all cases, the Nobleman Instructing the Guard must send a private message to Louis XIV detailing what Instructions that would like to give and must then make a comment to an Auction Post stating that the Guard have been instructed (a Notice of Instruction). The Impacts of an Instruction must be limited to the Auction on whose Auction Post the Notice of Instruction was posted. The possible Instructions and their Power costs are as follows:

2 Power: Disrupt the Bursar: One specific Nobleman has one Bid on the Auction disqualified at random (treated as a bid of 0 Money).
2 Power: Blockade a Courier: On one Item in the Auction, Money bids are disregarded and the winner is determined solely on the basis of Power.
5 Power: Show of Force: Two named Noblemen, neither of whom may be the Nobleman who Instructed the Guard to carry out this effect, have their Power compared at the moment that the Auction is resolved. If the Nobleman with the lesser power wins any Item or Items in the Auction then one at random is taken by the Nobleman with the greater power.

Items

An item in an auction must have the qualities detailed in this rule, with all quality values except names being selected at random. Item Names are always flavour text.

A Name
A Type (either Physical, Favour of the King, or Military). If the result is Physical, it must also have a randomly determined subtype (Art, Furniture, Food, or Romantic Gifts)
A sequence of either one, two or three Impacts (the number selected at random, then each Impact selected at random; the same impact may be selected more than once for an item). If the Item is of the Favour of the King type, all Prestige-affecting Items are have their Prestige impact tripled; if the Item is of the Military type, all Power-affecting Impacts have their Power impact tripled
If the Item is Physical, any Characteristics relevant to that Item’s Subtype

Impacts and their effects to the winner upon being won are:

Instructive (+1 Power)
Extravagant (+1 Prestige)
Distracting (-1 Power)
Unfashionable (-1 Prestige to a minimum of zero)
Valuable (upon winning a Valuable Item at auction, Louis XIV decreases the winner’s Debt (to a minimum of zero) by a secretly random number from zero to the Red Line)

The Characteristics a Physical Item may have are as follows, with the subtype of Item to which each quality is Relevant listed in brackets after its name:

Colour (Furniture, Food): generated by making a COLOUR roll in the dice roller.
Style (Art): must be randomly selected from Mannerist, Renaissance, Byzantine and Islamic or Far Eastern.
Age (Art, Furniture): must be a randomly selected number between 1 and 2000.
Explicitness (Romantic Gift): must be randomly selected from Romantic, Lewd, Bawdy or Obscene.
Ingredients (Food): randomly selected Fruit, Meat, Candies or Wine.

Impact effects are applied in the order they are listed on the Item, when that Item is won. If an Item's Impacts are all Distracting and/or Unfashionable, then that Item is Undesirable; otherwise it is Desirable.

If a Military Item would be Extravagant, it is instead Instructive. If a Favour of the King Item would be Valuable, it is instead Extravagant.

Royal Patents

There exists a List of Patents, tracked on the Noblemen page of the wiki, which is a list of Items. As a Daily Action, a Nobleman may generate an Item, as per the rule “Items,” and add that Item to the List of Patents. When making an Auction Post, Louis XIV can opt to include one or more Items in the List of Patents as part of the Items to consist of the Auction; Louis XIV may change the name of the Items thus included. Those Items are then deleted from the List of Patents.

Ribbons

There exist five Ribbons, which are (along with their Requirements):

Ribbon of Letters: Own an Estate with Furniture from more Eras than every other Estate (the Eras are: Age between 0 and 100 years old; Age between 101 and 1000 years old; Age over 1000).
Ribbon of the Sword: Own an Estate with Romantic Gifts of more different Explicitnesses than every other Estate.
Ribbon of the Bell: Own an Estate with Food of more different Topics than every other Estate.
Ribbon of the Robe: Own an Estate with Art of more different Styles than every other Estate.
Ribbon of the Chancery: Have both the highest Prestige and the highest Power.

Each Ribbon may be held by no more than one Nobleman. By default, no Noblemen hold any Ribbons. Ribbons are tracked on the Noblemen wikipage. If all Ribbons are held, and one Nobleman has the most Ribbons, they are the Champion. If a Nobleman is the only Nobleman to meet the Requirement of a Ribbon, they may (after removing it from any Nobleman who already holds it) hold that Ribbon.

When a nobleman goes idle, they cease to hold any Ribbons they were holding.

Umbrage

As a weekly action, a Nobleman (known as the Accuser) may Take Umbrage by making a story post to the blog titled “Umbrage: *name*” where *name* is the name of another Nobleman (known as the Accused). The post should outline the offence the Accused has taken against the Accuser. Such a post is known as a Royal Complaint.

The Accused may make one reply to this post defending themselves against these accusations. The Accuser may in turn make a reply of their own, and then the Accused may make one final reply.

If neither the Accused nor the Accuser has responded in the last 24 hours, or all three replies have already been made, the Royal Complaint is said to be Awaiting Judgement

If a Royal Complaint is Awaiting Judgement, Louis XIV may issue a ruling by doing one of the follow and making a comment on the Royal Complaint declaring which option they pick:

They may side with the Accuser, in which case the Accuser gains one power and the Accused lose one power (or has their power remain at zero if its already zero)
They may side with the Accused, in which case the Accused gains one power and the Accuser lose one power (or has their power remain at zero if its already zero)
They may decide both sides are at fault, in which case the Accused and the Accuser both lose one power (or have their power remain at zero if its already zero)
They may decide both sides have merit, in which case nothing happens

In any case, the Royal Complaint then ceases to be Awaiting Judgement.

If a Royal Complaint is Awaiting Judgement for more than one week, it ceases to be Awaiting Judgement and is as if Louis XIV decided both sides have merit

Louis XIV Powers

The Louis XIV may invalidate any Bid on an open Auction at any time, or close any open Auction with no effect at any time. Bids should only be invalidated in this way if the Louis XIV feels that their bidder is abusing the bidding system in some way.

Privileges of the Nobility

The Nobility of Prestige 3 or higher shall not have life nor limb threatened by any persons. Neither can their Desirable Items be removed from their Estate by Louis XIV, in any case, nor by any Nobleman of lesser Prestige than their own.

Theft and Vagrancy

As a Weekly Action, a Nobleman may spend 2 Prestige and remove an Item from another Nobleman’s Estate to add it to their own. Impact effects of that Item are then applied to the Thief.

Victory Score

Each Nobleman has a Victory Score, which is not tracked anywhere but which can be calculated from other gamestate variables, as follows:

If a Nobleman is the Champion then they gain 100 Victory Score score points. Otherwise, a Nobleman gains 10 Victory Score points for every Ribbon that they are holding;
A Nobleman gains 5 Victory Score points for every point of Prestige that they have;
A Nobleman gains 2 VIctory Score points for every Item that they have in their Estate.

If at any time a Nobleman has the highest Victory Score, and has a Victory Score that is at least double that of the Nobleman with the next highest Victory Score, and has a Victory Score of at least 40 points, then that Nobleman is Powerful. A Powerful Nobleman may, as a weekly action, Request an Audience with the King by making a story post to that effect. Louis XIV should then respond at his earliest convenience with either a FOR vote, indicating that the Nobleman is not Dissolute, or an AGAINST vote, indicating that they are Dissolute. If Louis XIV has used a FOR vote on a Powerful Nobleman’s Request for an Audience then that Nobleman becomes Scheduled, and remains Scheduled for 48 hours from the time of Louis XIV’s vote. A Nobleman who is both Powerful and Scheduled has achieved Victory.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be active or inactive and default to active. The status of a Special Case rule is notated in the title of that rule ending in “[X]” where X is the word Active or Inactive, denoting that Rule’s status. When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may state any existing Special Case Rules that are set to inactive; any Special Case Rules not set in the Ascension Address become Active.

The text of Special Case Rules that are inactive shall be interpreted, for the purpose of play, to mean nothing.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

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

Dormancy [Active]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

If the Louis XIV has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Noblemen 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 Louis XIV is not a Nobleman.

The Traitor [Inactive]

The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be a Nobleman (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 Louis XIV, and the Louis XIV should not share this information with Noblemen other than the Traitor.

If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, and BlogNomic is not on Hiatus, the Louis XIV may secretly randomly select a Nobleman (other than the Louis XIV) 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 Noblemen, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Noblemen 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.)

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 Noblemen.

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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.

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

Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Nobleman 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. Noblemen 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 Noblemen is half the number of Noblemen in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Noblemen it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Noblemen.

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.

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.

Slack: The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Noblemen 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.

TOC: Table of Contents.

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.

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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman per week.

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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman is defined as a Nobleman who has been a Nobleman for fewer than seven days or a Nobleman 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 Nobleman’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 Nobleman may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Nobleman feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) 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 alteration, Noblemen are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead.

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 Nobleman 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.

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

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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Nobleman must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
If a Nobleman 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 Nobleman must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Nobleman 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 Nobleman 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 Nobleman can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Noblemen to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Nobleman (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Nobleman 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 no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in 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, Nobleman A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.

Time

For the purpose of all rules, time in BlogNomic is in UTC.
All references to time must be either specific or defined within the Ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. “dinnertime”, “twilight”) cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
A Nobleman 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 “Nobleman” and “Player” are synonyms.
Noblemen 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 Nobleman if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Nobleman’s name.
If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.
The names of rules are not themselves rule text and have no effect other than being rule names.
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”.

Prioritisation

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

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

Mentors

Whenever a new Nobleman joins the game, the Louis XIV should select an active Nobleman who has indicated their willingness to act as a mentor and ask them to take that new Nobleman on as a mentee. The Louis XIV should wherever possible take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor. The approached prospective mentor may decline to act as a mentor, in which case the Louis XIV should continue to approach other prospective mentors until one agrees or there are no available candidates who have not declined. If there are no available candidates then the Louis XIV may act as the new Nobleman’s mentor themselves, or the new Nobleman must go without a mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. Whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Louis XIV should announce it in a blog post.

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 Nobleman 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 should last for at least four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue 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 Noblemen.
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.

Ruleset

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