Ruleset 184

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Emperors 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 Emperor may update it to do so.

Emperors

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

An Emperor may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

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

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

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

When an Emperor 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 Emperor Idled in a different Dynasty), the Emperor is given the default value for new Emperors, if such a value exists.

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If an Emperor other than the Player casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Player. When the Player 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 Player’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 Emperors 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 an Emperor.

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

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

Before an Ascension Address has been posted for a new Dynasty, the Player may pass the role of Player to another Emperor 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 an Emperor’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. Emperors 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 Emperor within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Emperor and any Idle Emperors.
• An Emperor 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.
• An Emperor should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• An Emperor should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Emperor.
• An Emperor should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• An Emperor should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• An Emperor should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
• An Emperor 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. An Emperor must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• An Emperor should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• An Emperor should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

Treaties [Universal]

Rules with [Universal] in their name are Universal, as are subrules of a Universal rule. All non-Universal Dynastic rules are Treaties.

Each Treaty has a list of Emperors and Idle Emperors as Signatories, tracked as a list of their names at the end of the rule; this list is automatically appended when the Treaty is created, replacing any such list in the Treaty’s initial text. Idle Signatories are considered to be Signatories for the purpose of this rule but not for other Dynastic rules. Treaties only bind their Signatories; an Emperor who is not a Signatory to a Treaty is not required to follow its provisions, and generally cannot take actions defined by that Treaty unless it explicitly states otherwise. When a treaty mentions to ‘Emperor’ or ‘Emperors’ it only refers to Emperors who are also Signatories of that Treaty unless it explicitly states otherwise.

When a Proposal creates or modifies a Treaty, every Emperor that voted FOR it becomes a Signatory to that Treaty; for this purpose, a DEFERENTIAL vote is never a FOR vote. Signatories to a subrule become Signatories to the parent rule. The Player is considered to be a Signatory to every Treaty.

The Player should veto any proposal that would make an Emperor a Signatory to a Treaty against his will, or that would convert a Treaty into a Universal rule without the assent of all non-Signatory Emperors. Moreover, a Proposal that creates or modifies a Universal rule is not Popular and is Unpopular while it has any AGAINST votes.

An Emperor who is not a Signatory to a given Treaty may become a Signatory to that Treaty at any time by making a post to the blog declaring which treaties they are signing.

The first line of a Treaty may consist of the word "Dependencies: " followed by a list of names of one or more other treaties. If it does, the treaty is said to be a Dependent On each of the Treaties in its list. Signatories to such a Treaty become Signatories to each Treaty it is Dependent On.

Treaty Gamestate [Universal]

Where a Treaty defines gamestate that is not ruletext, that gamestate is by default tracked in the “Treaty Appendices” wiki page under a section whose title is the treaty’s title. Subrules have their sections as subsections of their parent rule.

Alliances [Universal]

Each Emperor has a score called Reach, which is not publicly tracked. A Treaty's Breadth is the number of Signatories to that Treaty. An Emperor's Reach is the sum of the Breadths of all Treaties to which that Emperor is a Signatory.

Arms Disclosure Treaty

There are several variables of an Emperor's holdings whose composition might affect their ability to carry through on their bargains. Among those are a count of their Ships, the number of Armies in their service, and a measure of their Surplus Revenue (or just Surplus) that may be negative to indicate a Deficit.

If they have not yet done so, a Signatory may disclose the composition of their military; they set their Armies to 2DICE5, their Ships to 9+DICE90, and their Surplus to 200, then deduct ten from their Surplus for each of their Armies and one for each of their Ships. Once disclosed, this information remains public for the rest of the Dynasty.

Should the Player disclose, the previous paragraph not withstanding, their Armies and Ships shall become 0 and their Surplus shall become 1.

Once they have done so, they may Allocate their Ships, Armies and Surplus to satisfy various requirements under other Treaties, so long as this does not result in more of any resource Allocated than they have; should their Allocations of a resource already exceed what they have, they may only reduce their Allocations of that resource.

This Treaty's section of the Treaty Appendices shall track all public information defined by this rule and its subrules, including how much of each resource for disclosing Signatory has already been Allocated.

Signatories: Bucky, Darknight, Raven1207, Kevan, Coderblaze, Brendan

The Old Guard Treaty

Some among the monarchs of this land have washed up here from worlds long past, others have arrived from times and places yet to come.

Signatories of this Treaty have a Title which is tracked before their name in the list of Signatories for this treaty (eg. "Mad Prince ais523"), and which defaults to "Emperor". A Signatory whose Title is Emperor may choose a dynasty they have headed (if they have headed one), and change their Title to that dynasty's term for the person who headed it. A Signatory whose Title is not Emperor is considered an Old Guard.

Each Emperor who is a Signatory to this rule has Honor, which is an integer which defaults to ten.

If an Emperor (The Offender) who is a Signatory to this rule refers to another Emperor (The Offended) by name alone, without their Title, in any comment or blog post; then the named The Offended may once per instance reply to the same post declaring their offence provided they so within 24 hours of the offending post or comment being made. Upon doing so, the Offender’s Honor is reduced by one.

An Emperor whose Honor is at or below 0 is considered to be Dishonorable.

An Emperor whose Honor -20 or lower is considered to be Without Honor. It immediately becomes -20, and cannot be reduced lower by any means.

Signatories: Player Bucky, Emperor Kevan, UNSG Pokes, Dragonmaster Darknight, Emperor Brendan, Emperor Coderblaze, Top Banana Clucky, Emperor Raven1207

Bears

A Signatory or Signatories of this rule may be referred to as “Bear” or “Bears” respectively

Each Bear has a non-negative integer amount of Honey, which by default is 5.

Each Bear has a integer amount of Health, which by default is 10.

A Bear may Harvest Honey by announcing they are Harvesting Honey and rolling a DICE3, whose result is X, and a DICE3, whose result is Y. They then lose X-1 Health, and gain Y+1 Honey.

If a Bear’s health ever reaches 0 or below, they are considered to be Eliminated.

A single Bear may be designated Den Mother. If the Den Mother is Eliminated, or if they are Idle, they cease to be the Den Mother.

If there is no Den Mother, any Bear who has more Honey than every other Bear may become the Den Mother.

If there is Den Mother, and there is no currently active Challenge For The Den, a non-Eliminated Bear (The Challenger) who has more Honey than the Den Mother may make a Challenge For The Den by making a post to the blog declaring they are issuing such a challenge.

The challenge is then active. Each non-Eliminated Bear may make a comment in reply to the challenge, with a vote of either FOR indicating supporting the Challenger, or AGAINST indicating they are supporting the Den Mother. A Bear may change their vote by making another comment in reply to the challenge.

Once a Challenge has been open for 48 hours, it closes and no more comments can be made. If the total sum of the Honey held by all non-Eliminated Bears who voted FOR is greater than the total sum of the Honey held by all non-Eliminated Bears who voted AGAINST and the Challenger is not Eliminated, the Challenger becomes the Den Mother. Otherwise, the Challenger’s Honey is reduced to zero. In either case, the Challenge ceases to be active

A proposal that edits this rule cannot be popular if the Den Mother has voted against it, or if it has been open for less than 24 hours and the Den Mother does not have a legal vote cast on it.

Taxes and Exchanges

As a weekly action, the Den Mother may Collect Taxes by taking one Honey from each other Bear who has a positive amount of Honey

At any time, a non-eliminated Bear may transfer a positive integer amount of Honey to any other Bear, unless they already used this action to give the same Bear Honey within the last hour.

Signatories: Bucky, Pokes, Clucky, Raven1207

Signatories: Bucky, Pokes, Clucky, Raven1207, Josh

Territorial Disputes Treaty

A “Power” shall be defined as a Signatory of this rule. A “Latent Power” shall be defined as a idle Emperor who is or has previously been a Signatory of this rule.

The purpose of this treaty is to facilitate negotiation of Disputed Territories. Each Disputed Territory has a Name, a numeric Population, a Parties list that is a list of Powers and Latent Powers known or suspected to be involved in the dispute, a Holder that is either a Party or the default of nobody, and a record of which Armies and Ships are Allocated to the territory. Disputed Territories’ information is recorded in this Treaty’s section of the Treaty Appendices.

There are initially no Disputed Territories. As an atomic Weekly Action, a Power may Serve Notice of a Disputed Territory. When they do, they take the following steps in order:

• He generates the Population by first rolling dividing 10 Million by DICE1000, rounding down, to determine a Magnitude, then rolling 2DICEX where X is that Magnitude, to determine the Population.
• He generates the Name, by choosing a random word from the list {"City", "Plains", "Island", "Province", "Colony", "Mount", "Port"}, choosing a word neither from that list, nor from “Town Valley” nor from the name of an existing Disputed Territory, and placing the random word before the other chosen word if it’s “Mount” or “Port” and after them otherwise. If the random word was “Province” or “City” and the Population is under 10,000, replace it with “Valley” or “Town”, respectively.
• He adds himself to the Parties list and randomly selects two other Powers to add to the Parties List.

A new Power who is not a Latent Power, and who Signed this Treaty after at least one Disputed Territory existed, shall, at his earliest convenience, roll a DICE3 for each Disputed Territory and add himself to its Parties List if the result is a 1. If that process would result in him not being a Party to any Disputes, he becomes a Party to a random Dispute. If he does not do so within 48 hours, any Signatory may do so on his behalf.

If a Power is also a Signatory to the Arms Disclosure Treaty, he may Allocate up to one Army to each Disputed Territory he is a Party to, plus an additional Army for each hundred thousand Population of that Territory. He may also Allocate Ships to any Disputed Territory with the word “Island” or “Port” in its Name, or unallocate any Ships that have been thus Allocated for more than a week.

A Latent Power’s Armies and Ships remain allocated to a Disputed Territory, although a non-idle former Signatory may unallocate their Ships as though they were still a Power.

Signatories: Bucky, Raven1207, Darknight, Brendan

Map Exercises

A Takeover Attempt is a Votable Matter Story Post, created in accordance with this rule, that claims to be a Takeover Attempt and names a single Disputed Territory as its Theatre.

A Party to a Disputed Territory, other than its Holder, may make a Takeover Attempt with that Territory as its Theatre if there are no pending Takeover Attempts with the same author or Theatre, and no Takeover Attempts with both the same author and the same Theatre have been resolved in the last 48 hours.

A Takeover Attempt may be Enacted by any Admin if it is at least 36 hours old and more than half the Armies currently Allocated to its Theatre belong to Emperors who voted FOR the Takeover Attempt. A Takeover Attempt is may be Failed by any Admin if it is at least 36 hours old and they cannot Enact it.

When a Takeover Attempt is Enacted, its author becomes the Theatre's Holder. For 24 hours after a Takeover Attempt's Enactment, any Party that neither voted FOR the Takeover Attempt, nor Allocated any additional Armies to the Theatre while the Takeover Attempt was pending, may deallocate their Armies from that Disputed Territory.

Signatories: Bucky, Darknight, Brendan, Raven1207

Song Requests

There is a list of song requests in this Treaty’s section of the Treaty Appendices, each song request being the name of a song and optionally the songwriter of that song, composer of that song, or arranger of that song for a keyboard instrument, in parentheses. The contents of these song requests have no meaning other than to identify a song or a version thereof. The first item in that list, if any, is the song that is currently playing.

Each Emperor may, as a daily action, add a song to the end of the list of song requests. The Player may remove songs from the list of song requests at any time, while maintaining the order of the remaining song requests.

Signatories: Brendan, Bucky, pokes, Raven1207

Treaty of Versailles

If an Emperor other than the Player isnt the sole Signatory (besides the Player) to this Treaty, and is Signatory to two other Treaties, then that Emperor achieves victory.

Signatories: Brendan, Clucky, Jumble, Josh, Kevan, Raven1207

The Civil Service

Each player has an Influence score, which is an integer and which defaults to their Reach; whenever their Reach changes their Influence is set to its new value.

As a weekly action, an Emperor may spend ten Influence to add, remove or change one character (a single letter, number or punctuation mark), that is not part of the Signatory list, in any Treaty to which they are a Signatory in the ruleset.

Signatories: Bucky, Brendan, Clucky, Josh, Jumble, pokes

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 [Inactive]

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

Dormancy [Inactive]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

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

Dynastic Distance [Inactive]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Player is not an Emperor.

The Traitor [Inactive]

The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be an Emperor (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 Player, and the Player should not share this information with Emperors other than the Traitor.

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

Dynastic Tracking [Inactive]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Placeholder page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. A Player 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 Emperor 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 Emperor 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 Emperor 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 Emperor 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 Emperors.

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)

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

Commentary

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

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

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

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

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

Random Generators

The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.

• The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
• The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
• The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
• The CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.

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

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

If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Emperor 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 an Emperor 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 Emperor performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Emperor must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
• If an Emperor 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 Emperor must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Emperor 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 Emperor 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, an Emperor can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Emperors to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Emperor (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• An Emperor 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, Emperor 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 Emperor 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.
• An Emperor 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.
• Emperors 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 an Emperor if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Emperor’s name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the proposal that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules are flavour text.
• Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
• When referring to a Proposal, the name used in reference to a specific Proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Proposal named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
• When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces, any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, and, in the case of Special Case Rules, any asterisks, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
• Where a proposal refers to a second proposal by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted proposal of that name which pre-dates the first proposal.

Prioritisation

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

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

Mentors

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

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

If there is no Player, any Emperor who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Player 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 Emperor 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 Emperors.
• 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.