Fast Nomic: Round 2

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset; all players shall obey it. The Gamestate is defined as any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.

The ruleset consists of two sections: the core rules, which govern the game as a persistent whole, and the House's rules, which cover the specific rules of gameplay for the current House.

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

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

Players

The game has two roles: players and observers. Any person may become a player by announcing their intent to do so in a gamestate channel. If a player wishes to become an observer, or vice-versa, they may do so after making an announcement in a gamestate channel to that effect. If a player has not created a voteable matter for at least 2 days or cast a vote on a voteable matter created in the last 2 days, any player may make them an observer. After someone has been made an observer, they cannot become a player again until one day has passed.

When an observer becomes a player, if they had been a player in the same House, their personal gamestate retains the last legally endowed values it had, if they are still valid. Otherwise (including if a value is invalid, does not exist, or the player has not been a player during this game), the player is given the default value for new players, if such a value exists.

Ruletext does not refer to a player unless it specifically indicates that it is referring to them by name, eg The Player called Eric.

Emperors and Houses

At any time, the game has one player who is the Emperor. The Emperor is responsible for resolving votable matters, ensuring that the ruleset and gamestate are accurate and updated, and setting any theme that the game might have. The Emperor is also a player for all core rules, but is not a player for all House rules, unless otherwise stated.

The process by which the role of Emperor changes is detailed in the rule Victory and Ascension. The period of an individual player's occupancy of the Emperorship is called a House. A House begins with the submission of a new Emperor's Ascension Address and ends with the enactment of a Declaration of Victory.

If the Emperor becomes an observer, it is only possible to resolve Declarations of Victory.

Expanded Powers

The Emperor is considered a Player for all House Rules, but may not declare victory.

Any Player may resolve pending Proposals and CfJs, not just the Emperor.

When a Player resolves a pending Votable Matter, they should make a reply to the message indicating what the resolution was, and send that message to the entire channel.

Official Entries and Votable Matters

An official entry is any communication whose content or format is determined by the ruleset. Unless otherwise stated, official entries must be made in the Channel, the #fast-nomic channel of the BlogNomic Discord server.

A Votable Matter is an official entry which players may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

A Proposal is a kind of Votable Matter used to make changes to the ruleset or gamestate. Any player may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate by making an official entry that starts with the text "PROPOSAL:", and which describes those changes, unless the player already has 2 Proposals pending.

A Call for Judgement (or CfJ) is a Votable Matter used if two or more players actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a player feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention. A player may raise a CfJ at any time by making an official entry that starts with the text "CALL FOR JUDGEMENT:", and which contains a Grievance, a Remedy, and a Rationale. A Grievance can be either an ambiguity or ambiguities in the interpretation of the rules, or a specific aspect or aspects of the Ruleset/Gamestate that the player wishes to change. A Remedy describes the interpretation that resolves the ambiguity or the proposed new state of the Ruleset/Gamestate after the Grievance is resolved. The Rationale describes why the Grievance is a problem, how the Remedy resolves it, and why the issue warrants a CfJ rather than some other means of resolution

A Declaration of Victory (or “DoV”) is a type of Votable Matter used when a player believes that they have won the House. If a player (other than the Emperor) believes that they have achieved victory in the current House, they may make a DOV detailing this, by making an official entry that starts with the text "DECLARATION OF VICTORY:". Every player may cast votes in response to that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the submitter has achieved victory in the current House. While any DoV is open for voting, no game actions except submitting and voting on CfJs or DoVs may be taken.

Votes

Each player may cast one vote on a Votable Matter by making a response to the official entry that comprises that Votable Matter, indicating FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL, or VETO if the player is the Emperor. A player may change their vote while the Votable Matter has not been resolved.

If a player other than the Emperor casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Emperor. When the Emperor 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 Emperor’s vote, unless otherwise specified.

When a player casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Withdrawn. The Emperor may VETO a Proposal; when the Emperor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed. Withdrawing or vetoing a proposal cannot be reversed; once cast, such a vote cannot be changed.

Resolution

Proposals and CfJs may only be resolved by the Emperor. DoVs may be resolved by any player. Votable matters must be resolved based on the following criteria:

A votable matter can be enacted if more than half the players have voted FOR it, or if it's been open for voting for 18 hours and has more votes FOR than AGAINST. (Proposals which have been Vetoed or Withdrawn can never be enacted.)

A votable matter can be failed if half or more of the players have voted AGAINST it, or if it's been open for 18 hours and cannot otherwise be enacted, or if it is a proposal and has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

Proposals must be resolved in chronological order, from oldest to newest.

CfJs and DoVs do not need to be resolved in chronological order and Vetoing or Withdrawing them has no effect. If a DoV is failed, the player who submitted it cannot make another DoV for 48 hours (2 days).

Whenever a proposal or CfJ is enacted, the Emperor must make the prescribed changes to the ruleset or gamestate. Whenever a DoV is enacted then the procedure described in the rule Victory and Ascension takes place. Any votable matter ceases to be a votable matter once resolved.

Victory and Ascension

During the course of play, a mechanic should be established that specifies under what circumstances a player has achieved Victory in a House. When a player posts a DoV, and that DoV is Enacted, the player who submitted it has won, and if all players wish to continue, a new House can begin in which all then-existing House rules are repealed and the player who made the DoV becomes the Emperor. The new Emperor must make an Ascension Address, which is an official entry submitted in which they set out the theme for the new House.

Legitimation

Game actions are by definition Legitimate, meaning that they are legally authorised by the rules. An Illegitimate action is an action that is intended to be a game action or which has the appearance of being a game action but which is not Legitimate.

Game actions can be Legitimate on two bases:

• Explicit Legitimacy: A game action is explicitly Legitimate if the rules explicitly allow for that type of action. For example, casting a valid vote on a proposal is explicitly Legitimate.
• Implicit Legitimacy: A game action is implicitly Legitimate if it is authorised by the rules, but no rule clearly and specifically permits that type of action. For example, a combination of rules together might indicate that a certain type of action is permissible without clearly stating so, or ambiguities in the rules might lead to some actions not being explicitly defined while still being the most sensible interpretation of the rules.

Actions

There may be Actions of different kind.

• A Tick Action is an action that can be undertaken once every 6 hour period and not less than 3 hours apart.
• A Collective Tick Action is a Tick Action that can only be undertaken by a single Freeholder per every 6 hour period.

House Rules

Terminology

For the purposes of all House Rules, the terms player and Freeholder are synonyms, and the terms Emperor and Crown are synonyms. The Crown is also the head of the Church.

Land Management

Each Freeholder has a 4x4 patch of land, represented by a 16-block table on the page https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Fast_Nomic:_Round_2/Gamestate. Each block in each Freeholder's Patch may include up to 1 feature, defaulting to empty.

Features available are Shops(S), Pathway(P), Arborea(A), Gardens(G), Housing(H), , Plastic Flamingos(F) and Chest(C#). Features are represented by their symbol in parentheses.

Shops and Housing are placed as single features but function in sets of two. Each set of two adjacent Shops and Housing features functions as a single Shop or House, respectively, with each feature belonging to no more than one set.

A freeholder may freely add a feature to an empty block in their patch or change one block in their patch to a different feature as a tick action.

Money in the Bank

A Chest feature can contain up to 9 Pesos, signified by a number (0-9) next to its letter, and defaulting to 0 Pesos. A Freeholder owns and may spend the Pesos in all Chests on their Patch.

A Freeholder's Profit, in Pesos, is equal to the total number of Shops features on their Patch. As a Collective Tick Action, any Freeholder may distribute Pesos to each Freeholder according to their respective Profits, by assigning those Pesos to their respective Chests, up to whatever can fit, skipping Freeholders without any non-full Chests.

A freeholder may, as a tick action, remove two pesos from any chest on their patch and add a feature to any single block on their patch.

Visibility

The Crown has arranged a passthrough of traveling dignitaries from the nearby kingdom of BlogNomic, during the annual Fall Festival. This could be an important moment for our foreign relations, and the Crown has announced that he will appoint as Regent whichever Freeholder whose Patch most impresses our visitors.

Each Freeholder's Patch has a Placard, a string of text freely editable by that Freeholder, which is merely flavor text, but may be used to describe or explain their Patch for visitors.

Any Freeholder appointed to the role of Regent has achieved Victory.

Impressiveness

A Patch has an Impressiveness score, which may be explicitly tracked alongside each Patch on the gamestate tracking page. A Patch's Impressiveness is zero by default. Each Feature on a Patch adds 1 to its Impressiveness; any Patch with a Garden Gnome gains 20 Impressiveness.

The Cloister Bell

As a Tick Action, a Freeholder may Ring the Cloister Bell by making a post to the #fast-nomic channel of the Discord consisting only of the word DONG; the Cloister Bell is then Run for the following ten minutes. When the Cloister Bell is Rung, no Freeholder other than the Freeholder who rang it may undertake any game action, including resolving votable matters, except raising and resolving CfJs.