Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Gamblers shall obey it.

It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which apply in special cases; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

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

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

Gamblers

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

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

Some Gamblers are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Gamblers who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation.

Idle Gamblers

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

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

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

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Gambler 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 Emperor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Emperor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Emperor 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 Gamblers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Gambler feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Gambler may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

It is Popular.

A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular.
It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.

When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Gambler (other than the Emperor) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

Every Gambler may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

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

It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Emperor has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
It is Popular, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Gambler who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, and a new Dynasty begins in which the Gambler who made the DoV becomes the Emperor.

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

Before an Ascension Address has been posted for a new Dynasty, the Emperor may pass the role of Emperor to another Gambler by making a post to that effect.

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

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Gambler’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. Gamblers 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 Gambler within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Gambler and any Idle Gamblers.
A Gambler 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 Gambler should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
A Gambler should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Gambler.
A Gambler should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
A Gambler should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Gambler 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 Gambler should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. A Gambler must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
A Gambler should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
A Gambler should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

The Wheel

The Wheel is tracked on “The Wheel” wiki page. The Wheel consists of an ordered list of the Segments which are on it. Each Segment has a Name, a Payout, and a Global Effect.

The Name of a Segment is flavor text and no two Segments may have the same Name. Gamblers are strongly encouraged to generate Segment Names at random, when creating new ones.

The Payout and Global Effect of a Segment may not award a player Victory, and is only applied when the rules state its applied.

When a new Segment is created and does not specify a particular value for that segment, use the following default values for the unspecified values:

Name: Roll five DICE6, concatenate the results into a five digit number, find the corresponding entry on this list pick word in that entry (with its first letter capitalized). Repeat this process until it generates a Name that is not already the Name of another Segment
Payout:
Global Effect:

Points

Each Gambler has an integer number of points, tracked on “The Wheel” wiki page, defaulting to 0.

Wagers

Each Gambler has a Wager, which is an unordered list of Segments of no more than five segments, and defaults to empty. Each Gambler also has a boolean value named Locked-in, which defaults to Off. The Wager and the Locked-in value are tracked on “The Wheel” wiki page. If a Gambler’s Locked-in value is On, they are said to be Locked-in. A Gambler may change their Locked-in value to On at any time. A Gambler who is neither Locked-in nor Stunned may change their wager at any time. (A Gambler is Stunned if they have changed their Wager at least three times since the Wheel was last Spun.) The Size of a Wager is the number of Segments in the list.

If no Gambler has changed their own Wager, changed their own Hustle, or Spun or otherwise modified the Wheel within the past 12 hours, a Gambler may Spin The Wheel by performing the following atomic action:

Roll a DICEN where N is the number of Segments on the Wheel: the Segment in that position on the Wheel’s list becomes the Marker.
Apply the Payout of the Marker, to every Gambler for each time that Segment appears in their Wager. (Such Gamblers are known as the Payout’s Winners.)
If any Gambler has the Marker in their Wager, apply the Global Effect of the Marker.
If any Gamblers are visiting the High-Stakes Table, select a random Segment that is not on the Wheel to be the Orphelin; then, if any Gambler has the Orphelin in their Wager, give each such Gambler (excluding those who have no Plaques) as many Plaques as there are Segments on the Wheel, and apply the Global Effect of the Orphelin. Then remove 1 Plaque from each Gambler who has at least one Plaque and is visiting the High-Stakes Table.
For each Primed Spare Segment, in alphabetical order according to the Segment’s Name, add it to end of the list of Segments on the Wheel.
If the Wheel has more than 8 Segments on it: repeatedly Detach a random Segment on the Wheel until the Wheel has 8 or fewer Segments on it.
If the Wheel has fewer than 4 Segments on it: repeatedly select a random Segment not on the Wheel and change it to being on the Wheel, until the Wheel has 4 or more Segments on it, or until all Segments are on the Wheel.
Set the Locked-in value of all Gamblers to Off.
For each Gambler who has 3 or more Annoyingness and a Segment on the Wheel as their Hustle, reduce their Annoyingness by 3 and apply the Payout of that Segment to them.
Prime a random Spare Segment

If the Payout of a Segment is that it “Pays Segments”, this means that a Gambler it is applied to gains a number of points equal to the number of Segments in the Wheel.

To Detach a Segment is to set it to being not on the Wheel, and to being not Primed.

Plaques

Each Gambler has a number of Plaques, tracked on “The Wheel” wiki page.

A Gambler is a High Roller if they have more than 50 Points, and at least 20 Points more than each other Gambler. If there is only one High Roller, then any Gambler may (as a daily communal action) Sweep the Board by increasing the High Roller’s Plaques by 1, and setting all Gamblers’ Points to zero.

If there is only one High Roller, then Gamblers cannot take dynastic actions outside of this rule.

Annoyingness

Each Gambler has a non-negative integer amount of Annoyingness, tracked in a column called “Annoyingness” on “The Wheel” wiki page. Annoyingness defaults to 2.

Each Gambler has a positive integer amount of Focus, tracked in a column called “Focus” on “The Wheel” wiki page. Focus defaults to 1.

A Gambler (the Distractor) may Attempt a Distraction. This is an atomic action with the following steps:

Select another Gambler (the Distractee).
Spend an amount (1 or more) of Annoyingness, known as the Force.
Roll DICEX, where X is the Force.
If the result of the die roll is greater than the Focus of the Distractee, transfer up to 10 Points from the Distractee to the Distractor

If a Gambler’s Focus is D, they may spend 2*D annoyingness to increase their Focus by 1.

A Gambler who has a least three points may spend three points to gain one Annoyingness.

As a Daily Action, a Gambler with the least amount of Points (or tied for the least amount of Points) may spend 4 Annoyingness to steal 10 Points from a Gambler with the next least amount of points if that Gambler has at least 20 more Points than them.

Spare Segments

Spare Segments are segments that are not on the wheel. The list of Spare Segments is tracked on “The Wheel” wikipage.

A Spare Segment may be Primed. By default it is Primed. Whether a Spare Segment is Primed or not is tracked on “The Wheel” wiki page.

If a Segment of the Wheel is not included in the Wager of a Gambler who is Locked In and is not the only segment on the wheel, it is considered Available.

If it has been at least one hour since a Gambler last spinned the wheel, a Gambler may spend 1 annoyingness to move an Available Segment from the Wheel to the Spare Segment list. It is Primed.

A Gambler may spend 1 annoyingness to make a Segment which is not on the Wheel become Primed.

Hustles

Each Gambler may have a Segment as their Hustle, tracked on the Wheel wiki page. If they haven’t done so since the Wheel was last Spun, a Gambler may change their own Hustle.

High-Stakes Table

If a Gambler has at least one Plaque, has a single Segment in their Wager, and is Locked In, they may visit the High-Stakes Table. This is tracked by appending an exclamation mark immediately after their Wager.

A Gambler who is visiting the High-Stakes table may cease doing so at any time by removing the exclamation mark from after their Wager.

The Switch

The Dynasty of the Second Switch is a game being played at wp.blognomic.com. It is regarded by BlogNomic as a test dynasty where any winner would not ascend to Emperor. Players of that game are encouraged to repeal or otherwise disable the rule “Victory and Ascension” within that game.

Plaque Victory

If a Gambler has at least three Plaques, and more Plaques than each other Gambler, then they have achieved victory.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.

Special Case Rules have a Default Status, which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes an asterisk, (*) its Default Status is Inactive, otherwise, its Default Status is Active.

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status. All other Special Case Rules are set to their respective Default Status.

The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

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

Dormancy [Active]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Emperor has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Gamblers 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 Emperor is not a Gambler.

The Traitor [Active]

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

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

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (e.g. A rule specifying “bananas are blue” cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying “every day is Sunday” will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Can: “is able to”
Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Core Proposal: A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of Admin status from one or more Gamblers.
Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Gambler 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 Gambler per day.
Day: References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.
Dice: References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
Dynastic Action: An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
Dynastic Proposal: A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.
Effective Vote Comment (EVC): A Gambler’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Gambler’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Gambler’s Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Gambler may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.
Flavour Text: If a part of the ruleset is defined as being “flavour text”, it is gamestate and remains part of the ruleset document, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Gamblers are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
Hiatus: If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken, and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Private Message: A message sent via BlogNomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.
Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Gamblers is half the number of Gamblers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Gamblers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Gamblers.
Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words.
Rule: Each individually numbered section of the Ruleset is a rule, including sections that are subrules of other rules.
Shall: “is required to”
Should: “is recommended that”
Sibling Rule: Two rules are “siblings” of each other if they are both direct subrules of the same rule.
Slack: The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Gamblers may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking the button in the sidebar.
Slack Channel: A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).
Story Post: A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.
Subject: The “subject” of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is “” (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.
Subrule: A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A Proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a Proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that Proposal.
Table of Contents: The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.
TOC: Table of Contents.
Uphold: To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.
Vote: The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.
Voting Icons: For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.
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 Gambler 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 Gambler per week.
Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

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

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means.

Representations of the Gamestate

For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of a Gambler’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Gambler may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Gambler feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules as they were at the time of the alteration, or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, Gamblers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead.

The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

Orphan Variables

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

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

Random Generators

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

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

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

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

If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Gambler making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
When a Gambler performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
An Atomic Action may direct the Gambler performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Gambler must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
If a Gambler arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Gambler must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Gambler uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Gambler would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.
Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
Unless otherwise specified, to “spend” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, lost, gained, or transferred, a Gambler can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Gamblers to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Gambler (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Gambler who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action’s effects are limited to changing values tracked in gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
If a game variable has a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)
DICEN cannot be rolled in the Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.

Rules and Proposals

If a new rule is created by a Proposal and its location is not noted in that Proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Proposal enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Proposal’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Proposal proposing that enacted Proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
If the Admin enacting a Proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Proposal enacts, Gambler A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Gambler may delete it from the ruleset.

Time

For the purpose of all rules, time in BlogNomic is in UTC.
All references to time must be either specific or defined within the Ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. “dinnertime”, “twilight”) cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
A Gambler 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 “Gambler” and “Player” are synonyms.
Gamblers may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.

Names

Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Gambler if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Gambler’s name.
If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the proposal that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
The names of rules are flavour text.
Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
When referring to a Proposal, the name used in reference to a specific Proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Proposal named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces, any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, and, in the case of Special Case Rules, any asterisks, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
Where a proposal refers to a second proposal by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted proposal of that name which pre-dates the first proposal.

Prioritisation

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

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

Mentors

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

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. The Gamblers and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Emperor should announce it in a blog post.

If there is no Emperor, any Gambler who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Emperor for the purposes of this rule.

Gamblers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page. A Gambler may add or remove their own name from this list at any time.

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki, Slack, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Gambler or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.

Things that a mentor should do

The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:

The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Gamblers.
The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.

Things that a mentor should not do

The following sets out a list of things that a mentor should not do in their relationship with their mentee. All of these are considered to be Fair Play rules, as per the rule Fair Play.

The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.

Ruleset 179

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