Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

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

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

Captains 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”.

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

Captains

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

A Captain may cease to be a Captain at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Captain in this way may not become a Captain again within the following two weeks. A Captain may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

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

Idle Captains

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

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

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

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Captain other than the Admiral casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Admiral. When the Admiral 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 Admiral'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 Captains 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 Captain may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Captain already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When a Captain 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 Admiral may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Admiral casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Admiral 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 Captains actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Captain feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Captain 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 the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

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

If the game is not already in Hiatus and there is a pending DoV, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Captains”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

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

A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following is true:

It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Admiral 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.

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

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

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Captain who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

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

Fair Play

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

Dynastic Rules

The Chart

Dynastic data is recorded in the GNDT and in an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet consists of a 10x10 grid of squares numbered 1-100, with facings North (N) on the top, East (E) on the right, South (S) on the bottom and West (W) on the left of the grid. This grid is called the Chart.

The Chart is further divided into 4 groups of 25 squares called Quadrants. The 25 squares in the top-left corner of the Chart are called the North-West (NW) Quadrant; the 25 squares in the top-right corner are called the North-East (NE) Quadrant; the 25 squares in the bottom-right corner are called the South-East (SE) Quadrant; the 25 squares in the bottom-left corner are called the South-West (SW) Quadrant.

Recorded on the squares of the Chart are Vessels (and their Facings), Shots, Objects, Ports and Land. Vessels are recorded with an identity code in the format “[Initial of Vessel Type][Unique number](Facing){Armour Value}”. For example, B1(N){5} for a Battleship facing North with a current Armour Value of 5.

Unnamed Rule

Vessels displayed in the chart are represented by their Identity Code, followed by a space, followed by the name of the player that controls that vessel, in square brackets ([]). For example, B3(W){5} [ubq323] for the vessel with Identity Code “B3(W){5}”, which is controlled by ubq323.

The Watch

A Watch is a period of time, beginning when the Admiral makes a blog post announcing a Chart Update, and ending 48 hours later.

If they have not already done so during the current Watch, a Captain may send the Admiral a private message describing exactly one Order that they wish to give during this Watch. Valid Orders are to:-

Make a valid Move with a vessel they control.
Have a Battleship they control Shoot at up to 2 squares. (A Battleship cannot Shoot at a square adjacent to the square it is located in; a Battleship can choose to shoot at the same square twice. Battleships Shoot a Manhattan distance.)
Have a Submarine they control Shoot at up to 1 square; this square must be from a single row (if the Submarine is Facing East (E) or West (W)) or column (if the Submarine is Facing North (N) or South (S)) which is directly between the Submarine and the grid edge the Submarine is Facing.
Have a Minelayer they control Place at up to 1 square.
Add a Battleship or Submarine or Minelayer under their control to their Home Port with a facing of their choice (unless the Captain giving this Order already controls a Vessel).”
Go Diving.
Change their home port to a port with an allegiance matching their side.
Have a Transport under their control invade a Port it shares a square with.
Add a Transport under their control to their home port with a facing of their choice
Spend a number of Treasures equal to the number of Captains on their Side, to set their Side’s specialty to a valid specialty.

If an Order is Belayed, Captains cannot give that Order.

At any time not during a Watch, the Admiral may perform the following steps, which should be done in order:

Remove all Shots marked on the Chart.
Remove from the Chart all Vessels with an Armour Value of 0
Apply to the Chart all valid Orders received from Captains during the latest Watch. An Order’s validity must hold without it relying on any other Order(s) from the same Watch being applied earlier.
Update the GNDT to reflect if any Vessels have suffered Damage, changed orientation, been created, or treasure found, et cetera.
Record the Chart’s new state, clearly and in full, in the wiki page Admiral’s Log. This is called a Chart Update, and should displace any previous Chart Updates and Hotfixes.
Remove all Diminished Orders from the first bulleted list in this rule, then remove “This Order is Belayed.” from all Orders in that list.
Create a blog post announcing the Chart Update, which begins a new Watch.

If, during the new Watch, the Admiral feels the above steps resulted in incorrect representation of the dynastic gamestate, they may and should correct the Chart and GNDT, and record the Chart’s corrected state in the Admiral’s Log, but marked separately from the Chart Update as a Hotfix. (This will not affect the start time of the Watch.) The Admiral should immediately describe any such corrections in a comment on the Chart Update announcement post.

Vessels

Battleships are Vessels; Battleships are Armed with Shells; Battleships have a Range of 5 squares; Battleships are cumbersome and have 3 movement points.

Submarines are Vessels; Submarines are Armed with Torpedoes; Submarines have a Range of 10 squares. Submarines are not cumbersome and have 3 movement points

Minelayers are Vessels; Minelayers are Armed with Mines; Minelayers have a Range of 2 squares; Minelayers are cumbersome and have 3 movement points.

Transports are vessels. Transports are not armed; Transports are cumbersome and have 2 movement points.

Navigation

A vessel has a number of movement points, and is either cumbersome or not cumbersome, defaulting to not cumbersome.

Vessels have a square, which is tracked on the chart.

Vessels have a Facing; a Vessel’s Facing is either North (N), East (E), South (S) or West (W). East and West are each other’s opposites, North and South are each other’s opposites.

A valid move by a vessel consists of a list of atomic steps whose costs sum to less than, or equal to, the vessel’s movement points.

Cruising is an atomic step costing 1. Cruising moves a vessel from the square they are in to an orthogonally adjacent non-Land Square in the direction of that vessel’s facing. Cruising may be denoted with a “C”.

Rotating is an atomic step costing 1 if the vessel is cumbersome and 0 if it is not. Rotating changes the facing of a vessel to a facing that is not the opposite of its current facing. Rotating may be denoted by the First Letter of the new facing. arm

If, when the Chart is updated, two or more Vessels from different sides would occupy the same square which is not a port, and those Vessels did not do so at the time of the previous Chart update, the Chart is updated to show those Vessels occupying the same square and those Vessels each suffer 1 Damage.

If, when the Chart is updated, a Vessel would occupy the same square as Land, that Vessel has its Armour Value set to zero.

Deep-Sea Diving

When a Captain goes Diving, if they control at least one Vessel, they receive 1 treasure. Treasures are tracked in the GNDT, as a number, in a column marked “Treasures”.

Armour Value and Damage

Vessels have an Armour Value. A Vessel’s Armour Value decreases when the Vessel suffers Damage. Shots cause Damage, along with Mines.

Battleships have a default Armour Value of 6; Submarines have a default Armour Value of 3; Minelayers have a default Armour Value of 4. Transports have a default Armour Value of 2.

For a Vessel to Shoot (at a square) is for it to create a Shot at a square that is a Distance of up to that Vessel’s Range away from that Vessel’s square. For a Vessel to Place (at a square) is for it to create an Object at a square that is a Distance of up to that Vessel’s Range away from that Vessel’s square.

Distance is defined as the number of squares away, moving orthogonally, from one square’s center to another’s. (It’s a Manhattan distance.)

A Mine Placed by a Minelayer decreases the Armour value of Vessels that Cruise over it by 2, and then removes the Mine.

If, when the Admiral has updated the Chart, a Vessel is in the same square as a Shot, that Vessel suffers Damage, reducing its Armour Value by 1 for each Shot in its square, to a minimum of 0.

If a Vessel’s Armour Value is reduced to 0 it Sinks. A Vessel which Sinks is removed from the Chart at the next Chart Update. When a Battleship, Minelayer or Submarine Sinks, all Captains who control a Vessel which created a Shot or Placed an Object in the same square as the Sunk Vessel during the processing of the most recent Watch gain 10 Treasure.

Sides

Each Captain has one Side, which is either Red, Green, Blue, or None, which is tracked in the GNDT. The default value is None.

Any Captain may randomly assign a Captain with a Side of None to one of the Sides with the least members (excluding None) by assigning them to the side with the least Captains (excluding None) if there is only one, or assigning them to Red if they roll 1, Green if they roll 2, or Blue if they roll 3. If a roll would place a Captain on a Side that is not the smallest or tied for smallest (excluding None in both cases), the roll shall be rerolled until a valid Side that is the smallest (excluding None) is selected.

Each Side has one specialty for the Captains on that Side. Valid specialties are the following:

None -
Deadeye - When shooting, the range for Vessels controlled by Captains on this side is considered to be 1 greater.
Long Winded - Vessels controlled by Captains on this side are considered to have 1 extra movement point.
Melee - When taking a shot, Vessels controlled by Captains on this side can shoot at the square that their Vessel is on. Vessels shooting this way aren’t considered shot at by their own shots.
Defensive - When a Side gains this Specialty, the Armour Value of each of its Vessels is increased by one. When a Side loses this Specialty, the Armour Value of each of its Vessels is decreased by one (to a minimum of zero).
Swimmers - Captains on this side may make one extra Order to Go Diving each Watch.
Builders - Captains on this side may make one extra Order to create a Vessel each watch.

Specialties for each side are tracked in the following list:

Red: Deadeye
Blue: None
Green: None

The Red October

The Red October is a Submarine; The Red October is controlled by each Captain in turn.

At each Chart update, control of The Red October passes to the next Captain in the GNDT queue, starting initially from the top; the Captain who currently controls The Red October is recorded on the Chart; this information is updated by the Admiral at each Chart update. The Admiral privately tracks, and chooses initially, the exact location of The Red October, and will pass on this information to the controller of The Red October at each Chart update.

The position of The Red October is not marked on the Chart. The Chart will record the Quadrant The Red October is located in and its Facing; these details are recorded at each Chart update.

Fleets

The collection of Vessels that a Captain controls is called a Fleet and, other than The Red October, is tracked in the GNDT in a comma separated list of their identity codes.

In the ruleset if a Vessel is said to take an action, a Captain which controls said Vessel takes that action instead.

Ports

A port has a name (a string), a location (a square on the chart), and an allegiance (a side). Ports are tracked on the Chart.

Each captain may have a home port, which is tracked in the GNDT as Port and recorded as the Port’s name.

The admiral may create all of the following ports, then set the home port of each captain to a port with the same allegiance as that’s player’s side, and then delete this paragraph:

A port with a name of “Red Port”, a secretly random location, and an allegiance of Red
A port with a name of “Blue Port”, a secretly random location, and an allegiance of Blue
A port with the name of “Green Port”, a secretly random location, and an allegiance of Green
A port with the name of “Auld Ancorage”, a secretly random location, and an allegiance of None
A port with the name of “St. Passignano” a secretly random location, and an allegiance of None
A port with the name of “Zahndorf” a secretly random location, and an allegiance of None
A port with the name of “Mornington” a secretly random location, and an allegiance of None

If a port is invaded, it changes its allegiance to the side that invaded it the most times that watch. If there is a tie, its allegiance does not change.

Chain of Command

At any time, the Admiral may nominate a Captain to take over the role of Admiral. If the nominated Captain declines, any willing Captains may volunteer for the role and the Admiral will choose one.

When a Captain has been chosen, the Admiral shall hand over the Chart and cease all of the Admiral’s duties, and the Captain shall become the Admiral.

Treasure Victory

The first Captain to have more than 50 Treasure (while also having more Treasure than every other Captain) achieves victory.

Armistice

The Captain named TyGuy6 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.

Tags [Active]

Votable matters have zero or more tags. Tags are added by adding it to the title of a votable matter with the format “[X]” where [X] is the tag, for example “[Core] Wording Fix”. Votable Matters require the [Core] tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the [Special Case] tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules and the [Appendix] tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the [Victory] tag in order to grant victory to a Captain.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When a Captain 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 such steps are complete. All of the steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, as well as the steps of an Atomic Actions that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.

An Atomic Action may direct the performer to skip some of its steps, which the performer should do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.

If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Captain must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Captain uses any legal steps that were already completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones.

If a Captain arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps that they performed of that action and are never considered to have performed that action.

For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die in the GNDT and then doing steps based upon it’s result the Captain would have to reroll the die if they rolled the wrong one if the first place and any steps that depended upon the result of that die; however if all they did was take an illegal action later on, the die is still used in the redone action.

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.

This rule cannot be overruled by the Dynastic Rules.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

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

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Captains, then BlogNomic is Dormant. While BlogNomic is Dormant, actions defined by dynastic rules may not be taken, and proposals may not be submitted.

No Orphan Variables [Active]

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a manner in which it it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

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

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Admiral has voted DEFERENTIAL on a proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Captains 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 Admiral is not a Captain.

The Traitor [Active]

The Traitor for a particular dynasty may be a Captain (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 Admiral.

If there is no Traitor for the current dynasty, the Admiral may secretly randomly select a Captain 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 Captains, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Captains 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. (eg. A rule specifying "bananas are blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Can: "is able to"

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

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

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Captain 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 Captain 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 "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.

Dynastic 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 Captain’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Captain’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Captain’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

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

Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All GNDT columns that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention are assumed to be Gamestate, as are all Wiki Pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images contained within those Wiki Pages.

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

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 sub-rules 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. Captains 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. (For example, #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 Captain 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 Captain per week.

Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Captain 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 Captain 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 Captain 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 Captain is defined as a Captain who has been a Captain for fewer than seven days or a Captain that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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

All updates to the GNDT are logged. For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as the GNDT or a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of a Captain’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One GNDT or 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 GNDT and wiki merely represent the Gamestate, and are not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Captain may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Captain feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as the GNDT or the wiki) 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, Captains are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Captains shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Random Generators

The GNDT 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 GNDT’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 Captain 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 GNDT, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Captain making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the GNDT.

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 Captain can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Captains to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Captain (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Captain who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
If a 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 the GNDT remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)
DICEN cannot be rolled in the GNDT if N is 22 or more digits long.

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 (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
If the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Captain 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 (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
A Captain 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 "Captain" and "Player" are synonyms.

Names

Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Captain if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Captain'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 Rule;
A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
If both contradicting parts are Core Rules, or if both of them are Dynastic Rules, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Captains may Kick each other” and “Captains may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Captains may not Kick each other.)
If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Captains may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Captains may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Captains may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
Special Case Rules have equal precedence as Dynastic Rules, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule.

Ruleset 169

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