Ruleset 170

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Castaways 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.

Castaways 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 Castaway may update it to do so.

Castaways

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

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

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

Some Castaways 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”, “Castaways”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Castaways are not counted as Castaways.

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

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

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Castaway 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 Weatherman may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Weatherman casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Weatherman 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 Castaways actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Castaway feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Castaway 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 Castaway (other than the Weatherman) 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 “Castaways”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Castaway 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 Weatherman 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 Castaway who made the DoV as its Weatherman. That Castaway may pass this role to another Castaway at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Weatherman makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Weatherman's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Castaway and Weatherman 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 Castaway 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 Castaway'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. Castaways 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 Castaway within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Castaway and any Idle Castaways.
• A Castaway 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 Castaway should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• A Castaway should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Castaway.
• A Castaway should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• A Castaway should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Castaway should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory

Dynastic Rules

Hallucinations

Each Castaway has a Hallucination Severity Rating, which is an integer value ranging from 0 to 7 (inclusive), and which defaults to 1. This is tracked in the GNDT as “HSR,” and references to “HSR” in the Dynastic Rules are understood to mean Hallucination Severity Rating. When a Castaway is unidled, if their HSR is the lowest among that of all Castaways, it is increased to the lowest HSR among other Castaways.

If there is a Traitor, the Traitor may choose to use their recorded GNDT score for HSR, or use an HSR of 7, when they take actions under the Dynastic Rules. Exactly once this Dynasty, the Traitor may set their HSR to 0; doing so is permitted for the Traitor regardless of the Complexity of this rule.

The Island

The Island, named Cspe Key by the Castaways, is a strange and largely unexplored place. Each subrule of this rule is a Location that the Castaways have found, or believe that they have found.

A Castaway is at a Location if their name is listed in the last paragraph of that subrule. As a Date Action, a Castaway may remove their name from a list in a Location to add their name to a list in the last paragraph of a different Location. (For this purpose, such lists must be bulleted lists if not empty.)

The motto of Cspe Key is “You gotta go tell the world”.

The Beach

A sweeping expanse of flat, pale sand, broken up by jagged black rocks on the southern side. A small campfire has been built from a few shattered planks and spars of The Windfall.

If a Castaway has no Location, a Castaway at the Beach may add them to the list of Castaways who are at the Beach.

Castaways here:

• Quincunx
• ubq323
• pokes
• Kevan
• Farsight
• Thunder

The Wreck

The crashing waves rapidly reduce the once-proud Windfall to flotsam. The contents are scattered, but a few parts of the ship might still be salvageable.

Castaways here:

Mac’s Cave

Little Mac was separated from the other explorers during the shipwreck, and has been hiding out in a well-concealed cave on the island. He refuses to rejoin the group, but will assist those who visit him.

A Castaway may only add their name to the list in this rule if they have found Little Mac.

A Castaway in Mac’s Cave may take Date Actions as if their own Location was any Location on the Island. When performing a Date Action in this way they may choose to ignore any increase in Hunger or HSR from it. (This does not apply to Exerted actions.)

If this rule is Epiphanised, then Mac either never survived the wreck, or has now taken somebody’s place: all Castaways located at Mac’s Cave have their Motivation changed to Paranoia.

Castaways here:

The Mountain

A strange and greenish glow can be seen on its higher slopes, in the depths of the night.

Castaways here:

The Clearing

A rocky patch of ground some way back from the beach, where the trees thin out.

The following Plants grow in the Clearing, with effects as described:-

• Purple Fruit: Effect unknown.
• Yellow Berry: Effect unknown.
• Blue Flower: Gain 2 SP and set Date to Today.
• Orange Leaf: Effect unknown.
• Red Cap: Lose 1 Hunger.
• Silver Bark: Effect unknown.

A Castaway in the Clearing may take a Date Action to Forage a Plant that grows there, applying its effect to themselves. (If the effect of a Plant is defined as unknown at the time of Foraging, the Castaway must choose a random effect from the list of effects below, apply it to themselves, and update this rule replacing “Effect unknown.” for the Foraged Plant with the randomly chosen effect.) Any Plant Effect that reduces Hunger reduces it to a minimum of zero.

A Castaway in the Clearing may take a Date Action to Uproot a Plant that grows there, removing it from the list above. If only one Plant remains on the list it may not be Uprooted.

Effects are:-

• Gain 2 SP and gain 1 HSR.
• Gain 2 SP and set Date to Today.
• Gain 2 SP and set Motivation to Paranoia.
• Gain 2 SP and set Motivation to None.
• No effect.

Castaways here:

• Astimageon

The Cessna

A Cessna 150 hangs at a dangerous angle in the tree canopy, one wing splintered, its fuselage wrapped in flowering vines.

A Castaway at the Cessna with an HSR of zero may take a Date Action to try to fix the radio, rolling DICE20: on a roll of 20, the Castaways are Rescued.

Castaways here:

The Outpost

A ruined stone building stands on the edge of a low cliff, a mouldering logpile stacked against an outside wall.

A Castaway at the Outpost may take a Date Action to gain 2 Wood.

Castaways here:

Workdays

‘Today’ is defined as the number of days the current date is beyond August 31, 2019. (For example, on September 12, Today would be 12.)

Each Castaway has a Date value, a number tracked in the GNDT, which defaults to the current value of Today minus 1.

A Date Action is an action that a Castaway may only perform by first increasing their Date by 1, and which may only be performed if their Date is less than Today, prior to that increase. Some Date Actions a Castaway may perform include:

• Gather an amount of wood, randomly determined between 1 and 4, inclusive.
• Construct, spending the appropriate amount of wood. (See Construction)
• Search for Little Mac by making a DICE20 search in the GNDT. On a result of 1-19 the search fails; a result of 20 means that Little Mac has been found.
• Rest at the Beach to reset their HSR to 5. A Castaway may only take this action while at the Beach.

As a Daily Action, a Castaway with an HSR of less than 7 may exert themselves, taking a Date Action as described above, but increasing their HSR by 1 instead of increasing their Date. A Castaway may not exert themselves if the result of the Date Action they take would reduce their HSR.

If a Castaway’s Date is lower than Today by more than 5, then they are Exhausted. An Exhausted Castaway cannot take Date Actions, but can raise their HSR by 1 to set their Date to the current value of Today minus 5. Any Castaway may set an Exhausted Castaway’s Date to zero.

Construction

A Castaway has a number of wood, tracked in the GNDT as Wood.

To Construct is to spend wood to create one of the following:

• A level X shelter, costing X wood, where X is (10 - the Castaway’s HSR). Constructing a shelter reduces the Castaway’s HSR by 1.
• A part of the Message in the Sand. This costs any positive amount of wood, and the message is completed (and can’t be added to) once 50 or more Wood is spent in total by the Castaways. Castaways receive 1 Story Point per 2 wood they spend (at once) on this project. Total spent is recorded here: 60.
• A part of the Giant Bonfire. This costs any positive amount of wood, and the Giant Bonfire is completed (and can’t be added to) once 100 or more Wood is spent in total by the Castaways. Castaways receive 1 Story Point per 5 wood they spend (at once) on this project. Total spent is recorded here: 15

Complexity

The Complexity of a Dynastic Rule is equal to the number of bullet points in that rule; if the rule has no bullet points, its Complexity is instead 1.

If a Castaway’s HSR is greater than than the Complexity of a Dynastic Rule, they may not take any dynastic actions defined by that rule.

Story Points

Each Castaway has a number of Story Points, tracked in the GNDT as SP, and defaulting to zero. They represent your potential for book-selling fame and fortune upon your unlikely return to civilization.

When the Castaways are rescued, each Castaway with 1 or more Story Points gains a randomly selected number of Story Points, between 1 and their total, inclusive. (Some can tell it, some can’t.) Once this has happened for each Castaway, the single Castaway with the most Story Points has achieved victory. (If tied, ties are broken by lowest HSR, then lowest Hunger, then lowest Date, then most Wood, in that order. If still tied after that, nobody has achieved victory.)

A Ship has Arrived!

If all of the following conditions are concurrently met, a ship has spotted signs of the Castaways and arrived to safely rescue them:

• The Message in the Sand is completed.
• At least a quorum of Castaways are at The Beach.

The Weatherman may remove one of these conditions, selected at random, as a weekly action (once each week). If the list would be empty after removing the chosen condition, it is not removed and the Castaways are rescued instead.

This subrule cannot be repealed by a Hallucinations Proposal. But just in case, when this subrule is Epiphanized, a copy of it is created under it’s parent rule, with an extra ‘!’ added to the name.

Motivation

Each Castaway has a Motivation, defaulting to None and tracked in the GNDT. At any point, a Castaway may change their goal from any Motivation to a different Motivation. This causes their HSR to raise by one. Each goal gives some benefits while the Castaway has that goal, as listed below:

• None - You may ignore the HSR increase when changing a Motivation from None to a different Motivation.
• Survivalist - Your primary goal is to survive on the island. You require one less Wood to construct a shelter.
• Signaler - Your primary goal is to escape the island. Every time you spend Wood on the Message in the Sand or the Giant Bonfire, it counts as 50% more wood (rounded down) for gaining Story Points and for gaining progress towards completing the Message in the Sand or Giant Bonfire.
• Worship - Your primary goal is to praise the glowing thing on the mountain. A Castaway may only adopt this Motivation if they are at The Mountain and have an HSR of 3 or higher. A Castaway with the Motivation of Worship may consider all dynastic rules to have a Complexity of 7.
• Paranoia - Your primary goal is to avoid the rest of the group. A Castaway with this Motivation may not change their Location to a Location which contains another Castaway.

Revelation

The Weatherman must, at their earliest opportunity after the passage of the proposal “I don’t wanna waaaste my time,” create a new Story Post stating unambiguously whether there is a Traitor currently active among the Castaways.

If there are no EVCs on that proposal that are AGAINST or DEFERENTIAL, this Story Post should also include the identity of the Traitor, if there is one.

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 Castaway.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When a Castaway 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 Castaway must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Castaway uses any legal steps that were already completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones.

If a Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaways, 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 Castaway may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

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

The Traitor [Active]

The Traitor for a particular dynasty may be a Castaway (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 Weatherman.

If there is no Traitor for the current dynasty, the Weatherman may secretly randomly select a Castaway 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 Castaways, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Castaways 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 Castaways.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Castaway’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Castaway’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

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

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. Castaways 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 Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway is defined as a Castaway who has been a Castaway for fewer than seven days or a Castaway 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 Castaway may update any Castaway'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 Castaway’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 Castaway may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Castaway 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, Castaways are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Castaways 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 Castaway 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 Castaway 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 Castaway can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Castaways to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Castaway (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Castaway 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, Castaway 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 Castaway 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 "Castaway" and "Player" are synonyms.

Names

• Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Castaway if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Castaway'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:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any 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. 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 “Castaways may Kick each other” and “Castaways may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Castaways may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Castaways may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Castaways may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Castaways may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
5. 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.