Ruleset 197

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Trippers 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 Tripper may update it to do so.

Trippers

The process of applying for access to the BlogNomic blog is outlined in the FAQ. A human with access to the blog who is not already a Tripper may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Tripper (plural form Trippers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Tripper.

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

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

If a Tripper is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Trippers in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Trippers”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Trippers are not counted as Trippers. The combined term “Idle Tripper” can be used to refer to Trippers who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Trippers.

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

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

An Admin may render a Tripper Idle if that Tripper has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Tripper has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 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 Tripper if that Tripper is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Tripper who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the past 96 hours (4 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 resolve Votable Matters as if they were not idle.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Tripper, known as the GPS. If there is no GPS, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before an Ascension Address has been posted. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Tripper may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Tripper other than the GPS casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the GPS. When the GPS 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 GPS’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. Exception: Proposals which would change the text of a Core, Special Case or Appendix rule if enacted cannot be Popular on this basis.

A Votable Matter is Unpopular if any of the following are true:

• The number of Trippers 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 have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.

A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When 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 withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.

A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.

This rule cannot be overruled by any other rule in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.

Tags

Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag). Votable Matters require the “[Core]” tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the “[Special Case]” tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules, and the “[Appendix]” tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Tripper.

If a Votable Matter would make a modification to the rules and it does not have the tag to make that modification, that Votable Matter will still be able to make that specific modification if any of the following on the following list are true:

• The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
• The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Tripper casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Withdrawn, even if the author later changes their Vote. The GPS may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the GPS casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the GPS later changes their Vote.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin 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 Withdrawn.

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 Withdrawn.

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.

When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are immediately applied in full; the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the Proposal.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Trippers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Tripper feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Tripper 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 Tripper (other than the GPS) 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 Tripper 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 GPS 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 Tripper 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, the Tripper who posted the DoV becomes GPS, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.

If the game is in an Interregnum then the new GPS must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Tripper who was not the last dynasty’s GPS, in which case the passing Tripper ceases to be the GPS and the Tripper so named becomes the GPS) or start a new dynasty by completing the following Atomic Action:

• Make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the GPS’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify new dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule "Synonyms", and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
• Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

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 Tripper’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. Trippers 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 Tripper within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Tripper and any Idle Trippers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Tripper, defined here as the controlled Tripper’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Tripper was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Tripper 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 Tripper should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Tripper should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Tripper.
• A Tripper should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Tripper should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Tripper 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 Tripper 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 Tripper must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Tripper should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Tripper should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Tripper to achieve victory.
• A Tripper should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic.

All Tripper and idle Trippers should be aware of the BlogNomic Community Guidelines. The contents of this page are not ruletext and are nonbinding as pertains to the ruleset, but Trippers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Road Map

There exists a numerically ordered list of Stops, which is publicly tracked. Each Stop has a Name, which is flavor text, and cannot contain the ‘~’ character; has a Capacity, which defaults to 1; and may have an ordered list of Types, defaulting to having no Type. Each Tripper has a Location, which is one of the Stops in that list and which is publicly tracked, defaulting to the Stop immediately before the Stop occupied by the alphabetically earliest Ready Player (or the first Stop in their numerical listed order, if this is not possible). A Stop may also be referred to as a Spot.

If a Tripper’s Location is a given Stop, then the Tripper is said to occupy that Stop. If there are X Trippers whose Location is a given Stop, where X is at least equal to the Capacity of that Stop, then that Stop is Full and no Tripper may Drive or Walk to that Stop. A Location which has the Type “Starting Point” may be referred to as a Starting Point. A Tripper’s default Location is the Starting Point with the highest Order number among all Starting Points.

Unless otherwise specified, a Tripper’s Location may not change to a Stop which is before the Stop named in their current Location.

A Stop’s number is the number of its position in the numerically ordered list of Stops. A Stop is said to be “before” all other Stops with higher numbers, and “after” all other Stops with lower numbers.

The GPS may rename a Stop named “Darkness” to a Name of their choice, at any time.

Stop Effects

Certain Types of Stop have Arrival Effects, defined in the following list. When the Location of a Tripper (the “Mover”) is changed to a different Stop, the Tripper making that change must also apply the Arrival Effect of that Stop’s Types to the Mover, in the order that they are listed for that Stop.

• Mill: The Mover gains 1 Coin.
• Spoilheap: The Mover gains 1 Coin (to a maximum of 3) for every Tripper who occupies a Stop ahead of theirs.
• Shrine: The Mover gains 1 Coin (to a maximum of 3) for every Tripper who occupies a Stop which is a Starting Point.
• Turnpike: The Mover loses 1 Coin (if they have any).
• Lair: The Mover loses an instance of their alphabetically earliest Souvenier (if they have any Souveniers).
• Tailback: The Mover’s Alliances become an empty set.
• Hazard: The Mover loses 1 Will.
• Respite: The Mover gains 1 Will.

Certain Types of stop have Parking Effects, defined in the following list. The Parking Effects of a Stop’s Types apply to every Tripper (referred to as the “Parker”) who occupies that Stop.

• Badlands: The Parker may not Drive to a Stop which is more than three positions ahead of this one.
• Mire: If the Parker has no Buddies, they may not Drive.
• Blackspot: The GPS should veto any proposal that was made by the Parker while they were here.
• Roadside Attraction - x: This stop follows the rules for Roadside Attractions. When this stop is generated, whoever generates it must change the x in the stop effect for this stop to an Attraction Name as directed by the rule Roadside Attractions.

Roadside Attractions

A Stop whose Stop Effect is ‘Roadside Attraction’ may be referred to as an Attraction Stop. When an Attraction Stop is generated, its Stop Effect must include an attraction name, which is generated as follows: ‘Hell’s x y z’, where x is a superlative from the list of superlatives, y is an adjective from the list of adjectives, and z is a noun from the list of Souveniers, each randomly selected.

Roadside Attractions are hard to find and represent a significant detour from the Road Map. A Tripper may only Drive to an Attraction Stop if all of the following are true:

• The Attraction Stop to which they wish to Drive is not more than three Stops after their current position.
• They have in their posession a Souvenier from the Attraction Stop they wish to Drive to;
• They have at least one Buddy.

When their current Location is an Attraction Stop, a Tripper may only Drive to the following Stops:

• The stop numbered exactly one higher than the Attraction Stop in question;
• Any stop that is after their current location that has a Tailback or Blackspot Stop Effect.

While at a Roadside Attraction, a Tripper may - once before moving - Take a Selfie. When a Tripper Takes a Selfie, they gain a Souvenier called ‘~Selfie of myself~ and x at y’, where x is the number of Buddies at the same location as them and y is the name of the Roadside Attraction.

Carpooling

A Tripper may only add another Tripper to their Alliances if they occupy the same Stop.

If any set of two Trippers each have the other’s name in their Alliance, those Trippers are considered each other’s Buddies. If all the members of any set of three Trippers each have the other two Trippers’ names in their Alliances (for example, if player A has the names B and C in their Alliance; player B has the names A and C in their Alliance; and player C has names A and B in their Alliance), then all three such Trippers are also considered each other’s Buddies.

If any action or effect would change the Location of a Tripper who is Buddies with another Tripper or with two other Trippers, then the Location of both (or all three) Buddies is changed to the new value.

If a given set of two or three mutual Buddies all occupy the same Stop, they only count as 1 Tripper for the purposes of the Capacity of that Stop. A Tripper who is buddies with two different trippers, and those Trippers are not also Buddies with each other is considered to be Torn. For the purposes of all dynastic rules other than this paragraph and the paragraph which defines Buddies, a Torn Tripper is not considered to be Buddies with any Tripper and no Tripper can be considered Buddies with a Torn Tripper.

Movement

A Tripper is Waiting if there exists a Stop before their current Location (ignoring all Starting Points) occupied by another Tripper, or if their current Location is occupied by a Tripper with a higher Will who is not among their Buddies; otherwise they are Ready.

If a Tripper is Ready, then they may Drive by changing their Location to any Stop which is after their current Location.

If a Tripper is Ready, they may Walk by changing their Location to the first Stop (excluding Attraction Stops) after their current Stop which is not Full.

If a Tripper has been continuously Ready for at least the past 48 hours and BlogNomic has not been in Hiatus for any of the past 48 hours, then any other Tripper may move the Ready Tripper to the Starting Point with the highest Order number among all Starting Points. If a Tripper is occupying a Starting Point, then they may not Walk, and if they would Drive, they may only Drive to a Stop if that Stop is after a Stop occupied by at least one other Tripper.

Roadside Tat

Each Tripper can be carrying up to three Souveniers, which are publicly tracked and default to blank (i.e. carrying no Souvenier).

If they do not already have a Souvenier from their current Location, a Tripper may pay 2 Coins to generate a Souvenier from their current Location and acquire it. Generating a Souvenier entails randomly selecting a Souvenier type from the Souveniers page on the wiki and adding ‘from x’ to that, where x is the name of the current Stop. If acquiring a Souvenier would cause a Tripper to have more than three Souveniers then they may freely choose one of their existing Souveniers to discard.

Trippers who occupy the same Stop may, with mutual consent, freely exchange Souveniers with each other on a one-for-one basis.

Money

Each Tripper has a publicly tracked amount of Coins, which defaults to 10.

Will

Each Tripper has a Will score, being a publicly-tracked number that defaults to 5. If a Tripper’s Will would be reduced below zero, it becomes zero.

A Tripper with a Will of zero cannot Drive.

Final Destination

Once during the current Dynasty, the GPS may privately randomly select a number between 33 and 66, inclusive, and add that number to the Order number of the most recently created Stop to yield the Final Destination Number; the GPS should then announce via a blog post that the Final Destination Number has been generated. If a Stop has the name “Final Destination” then that Stop is considered a Final Destination Stop.

If the GPS would create a Stop with an Order number that is equal to the Final Destination Number, then instead, they must create a Stop that has the Name “Final Destination,” the Type “Endpoint,” and a Capacity equal to the number of Trippers.

Scrapbook

If a Tripper is at the Final Destination stop and possesses three Souveniers that have ‘~Selfie of myself~’ and the name of a Roadside Attraction in their names then they have achieved victory.

Back to School Blues

If there is no Final Destination stop then the GPS must carry out any actions available to it to legally generate one in the shortest possible amount of time.

The Campfire at the End of Hell

All other dynastic rules (excluding subrules of this rule) are flavour text. Trippers have a value for Coins, which must be a non-negative integer and which is publicly tracked. When a Tripper unidles, their Coins are set to zero.

At any time, a Tripper may give any positive amount of their Coins to another Tripper, provided the targeted Tripper has a positive number of coins

When one Tripper has more than half of the Coins that are in the game, that Tripper has achieved Victory.

The Campfire Demon has a positive integer power, which by default is 5 and is publicly tracked.

As a daily communal action, a Tripper may carry out the following atomic action:

• Randomly select a Tripper who has a positive number of coins
• Reduce that Tripper's coins by the Campfire Demon's power, to a minimum of 0
• Increase the Campfire Demon's power by 1

A Tripper may cast themselves into the fire by performing the following atomic action: first the Campfire Demon’s power is increased by X/5, rounded up, where X is the number of coins the Tripper had when performing this action. Then the Tripper’s Coins are set to 0. Each Tripper may only perform this action once.

Scrolls

In a shattered phone booth just at the edge of the fire’s light, the wanderers find a cache of ancient and rune-laden scriptures suggesting a path back to the world above, or on to others.

Each Tripper has a Scroll, being a flavour text string of no more than 160 characters which is publicly tracked, and which describes their vision for the next dynasty of BlogNomic. A Tripper may change the contents of their own Scroll at any time.

Acoustic Guitar

Each Tripper has an acoustic guitar, which they are either strumming or not strumming; whether or not a Tripper is strumming their acoustic guitar is publicly tracked, and they are not strumming by default. A Tripper can change whether or not they are strumming at any time, if they have not changed whether or not they are strumming in the preceding 24 hours.

When a Tripper is strumming their acoustic guitar, they are not considered to be a Tripper for the purposes of any dynastic rule except this one (although they retain their value for Coins). As a daily communal action, any Tripper may reduce the Coins of all Trippers who are strumming by 1, to a minimum of zero.

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 "[Rare]", 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 core rules titled “Trippers” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

If the GPS has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Trippers have a valid FOR vote on that Proposal than have a valid AGAINST vote on it) or AGAINST (in all other cases). However, in either case, votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Trippers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the GPS is not a Tripper.

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

The GPS may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were a Tripper, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The GPS may not cast a vote of VETO on any Proposal whose effect is limited to the dynastic rules or gamestate; any such vote is disregarded for the purposes of proposal resolution.

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the The Book of Trippers page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. An GPS may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address, provided that page did not exist at the time the Ascension Address was posted and does not begin with the word “Ruleset”.

No Collaboration [Inactive] [Rare]

If “Dynastic Distance” is also active, the GPS is not considered a Tripper for the purposes of this rule.

Trippers may not privately communicate with each other about dynastic gameplay or votable matters that affect the dynastic ruleset or gamestate. Private communications are considered to be anything that any other Tripper could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Trippers (or people who are not yet Trippers) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Tripper during the course of the dynasty. The use of creative strategies to circumvent this rule may be considered to be a scam for the purposes of determining whether an infraction of Fair Play has taken place.

A mentor and mentee may still privately converse with each other, but should keep their conversations away from discussing specific gameplay strategy.

If information which was not allowed to be discussed is still privately discussed, the Trippers who were part of the conversation should make a post to the blog disclosing what information was discussed as their earliest convenience.

Mantle Limitations [Active] [Rare]

The mantle may not be passed. (Players should also not make deals based on being made Emperor of the next dynasty by other means than achieving victory or being passed the mantle.)

Alliances [Active] [Rare]

Each Tripper may have an Alliance, which is publicly tracked, and consists of the distinct names of no more than two other Trippers; a Tripper’s Alliance defaults to an empty set. A Tripper may change their Alliance as a daily action.

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if a Tripper has achieved victory in this dynasty, has posted a Declaration of Victory which has been enacted, and did not change their Alliance for at least the 48 hours immediately prior to the posting time of their Declaration of Victory: then that Tripper may pass the Mantle to a Tripper who was named in their Alliance at the posting time of their Declaration of Victory.

If “No Collaboration” is active, it does not apply to communications between players who each have the other’s names in their Alliance, nor does the prohibition on deals in “Mantle Limitations” (if it is active) apply to players who have each other’s names in their Alliance.

Event Types [Inactive]

An Event is an official post that meets a type definition in the dynastic rules, if and only if that type definition is specified as defining a type of Event; the type definition must include the following:

• A type name, such as “Auction” or “Quest”. A post with the Event type’s name as a tag is an Event of that type, provided it was (legally) posted while the type had a complete definition.
• A Response Format, the format by which a comment on that type of Event is classified as a Response for that Event. While other comments are allowed on an Event, only those comments which conform to its type’s Response Format are officially considered Responses. Whether or not a comment is currently considered a Response may change according to circumstances, but comments submitted on an Event while it is Ended can never be considered Responses.

An Event type definition may also optionally stipulate:

• Creation Condition(s). Unless they are met, an Event of that type may not be posted. They may include a format for the body of the post.
• Ending Condition(s). Unless they are met, an Open Event of that type may not be Ended.
• Ending Action(s). A Tripper must do these when they End an Open Event of that type.

An Event is either Open or Ended, defaulting to Open. Except as otherwise specified, any Tripper may post or may End an Event. To End an Event is to make it Ended by submitting a comment on that post saying it is Ended or is being Ended, and then immediately taking its Ending Action(s), if any. Once an Event has been Ended, it may not become Open again, nor may any player End it again.

Appendix

Keywords

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

Imperatives

Can

“is able to”

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Tripper 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 Tripper per day.

Day

References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.

Week

References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action

If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Tripper 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 Tripper per week.

Other

Comment

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

Core Proposal

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

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

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Tripper 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.

Discord

The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Trippers, as well as people who are not Trippers but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Discord Channel

A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Trippers who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).

Flavour Text

If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Trippers 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 (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), 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 Trippers is half the number of Trippers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Trippers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Trippers.

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal 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. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.

Rule

Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.

Story Post

A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.

Subject

The “subject” of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is “” (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A Proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a Proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that Proposal.

Table of Contents

The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.

Uphold

To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.

Wiki

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

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Tripper 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. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.

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 4 hours old and either no Tripper 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, except that a votable matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. 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 Tripper 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 Tripper is defined as a Tripper who has been a Tripper for fewer than seven days or a Tripper 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, except for a votable matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, 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, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.

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 Tripper’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 Tripper may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Tripper feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:

• Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
• Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Tripper, if doing so would not require the correcting Tripper to make any decisions on behalf of the original Tripper.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Trippers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement.

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

Orphan Variables

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

A Tripper 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.
• A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.

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

If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Tripper with such access. Only a Tripper with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Tripper with such access, that Votable Matter 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 roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Tripper making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Tripper making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Cross-Nomic Relationships

The player (or idle player) named Kevan is BlogNomic’s PodNomic Correspondent. Any player may ask the GPS to become BlogNomic’s PodNomic Correspondent; if they wish, the GPS then may, at their own discretion, change the name of the player in the first sentence of this bullet point to be that of the requestor.

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 Tripper 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.
• If a rule allows the Tripper performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Tripper 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 Tripper must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Tripper 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 Tripper 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,” “pay” 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” or “pay” 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, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Tripper can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Trippers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Tripper only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Tripper (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
• A Tripper 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.
• If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the GPS (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the GPS when the ruleset allows it. If a Tripper should already know such a piece of information (in that the GPS has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the GPS may repeat it to them.

Rules and Votable Matters

• If a new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Votable Matter would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters 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 Votable Matter reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Tripper A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Votable Matter has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
• If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Tripper may delete it from the ruleset.
• A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.

Time

• For the purpose of all rules, time in BlogNomic is in UTC.
• All references to time must be either specific or defined within the Ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. “dinnertime”, “twilight”) cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
• Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
• A Tripper 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 and formatting

• 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.
• Trippers may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.
• A Tripper may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Tripper if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Tripper’s name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) 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 Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter 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 and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
• Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
• When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, a Tripper’s (or prospective Tripper’s) new name must be between 4 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes.

Prioritisation

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

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

Mentors

A Tripper may have another Tripper as a Mentor. Trippers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Tripper who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Tripper requests a Mentor, or a new Tripper has joined the game and has no Mentor, the GPS should select a Tenured Tripper and ask them to take that Tripper on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the GPS should announce it in a blog post. The GPS should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Tripper may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

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

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

• Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
• Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
• Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki, Discord, 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 Tripper 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 Trippers.
• 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.

Synonyms

A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Tripper” and “GPS”.

Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses

• Tripper (Player)
• GPS (Emperor)

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parentheses in the above list.