Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Operators 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 Operator may update it to do so.

Operators

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 an Operator may make a blog post making clear their wish to be an Operator (plural form Operators); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become an Operator.

An Operator may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

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

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

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

When an Operator 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 Operator Idled in a different Dynasty), the Operator is given the default value for new Operators, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render an Operator Idle if that Operator has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Operator 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 an Operator if that Operator 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 Operator 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 Operator, known as the Announcer. If there is no Announcer, 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 Operator 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 Operators may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Votes

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

If an Operator other than the Announcer casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Announcer. When the Announcer 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 Announcer'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 Operators 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.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When an Operator 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 Announcer may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Announcer casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Announcer 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 Operators actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Operator feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Operator 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 an Operator (other than the Announcer) 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.

An Operator’s vote on a DoV is encouraged to reflect whether or not they agree 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 has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Operators, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Announcer has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Operators, 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.
It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Operator 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 Operator who posted the DoV becomes Announcer, 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 Announcer must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming an Operator who was not the last dynasty’s Announcer, in which case the passing Operator ceases to be the Announcer and the Operator so named becomes the Announcer) 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 Announcer'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 an Operator’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. Operators 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 Operator within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Operator and any Idle Operators. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Operator, defined here as the controlled Operator’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Operator was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
An Operator 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.
An Operator should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
An Operator should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Operator.
An Operator should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
An Operator should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Operator should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
An Operator 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. An Operator must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
An Operator should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
An Operator should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause an Operator to achieve victory.
An Operator 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 Operators and idle Operators 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 Operators are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Standardised Rule Books

This rule is to be followed irrespective of anything else stated in this rule. The link to the governing ruleset is: https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset&oldid=20704

When this rule enters the ruleset, and whenever a Round is completed (where Round is defined by Winners at War), the link to the governing ruleset above should be updated by the announcer to be a link to the most recent legal revision of the ruleset from its wiki history page as it exists at the time of that event occuring.

With the exception of the rule Standardised Rule Books, all players are to follow the dynastic rules of the governing ruleset as if they are the current dynastic rules, rather than following the dynastic rules of the current ruleset. If no link to the governing ruleset exists, the current dynastic rules are to be followed instead.

Bot Loadout

Each Operator has an amount of Money, which is publicly tracked and which defaults to ₩20,000. An Operator’s Money can not surpass ₩20,000.

Each Operator possesses exactly one Bot, whose characteristics are publicly tracked. The characteristics that each Bot must have are as follows:

A name, which may be freely selected by the Bot’s Operator and which is flavour text;
An Engine, which is by default an Petrol motor
A Chassis, which is by default an Apex Systems X1500
An ordered list of Systems, of which a single Bot may have between none and a number equal to the number of hardpoints on the Bot’s Chassis, defaulting into none

The Engine, Chassis and each System of each Bot have a publicly tracked Condition rating, being a percentage from 0% to 100%. If a rule refers to the “Effective” quality of any of these items, and that value is numerical, then the value has the item’s Condition percentage applied to it, rounded down (eg. the Effective Cost of a ₩5,000 Engine in 50% Condition is ₩2,500).

If a Bot has Systems and a Chassis whose combined Consumption exceeds its Engine’s Effective Power Output, the Bot is considered to be Defunct. The Script of a Defunct Bot is always considered to be blank.

If the Condition of an Engine or Chassis of a Bot is 0%, or if that Bot has multiple Systems with the same Name, then that Bot is said to be Trashed. (If the Condition of an Engine, Chassis or System would ever be reduced below 0%, it instead becomes 0%.)

Engines

A Bot’s Engine has the following characteristics: a fuel type (which also acts as its name), a one-off cost, and a power output. The characteristics of each type of engine can be found below.

Engines
Type	One-off Cost	Power Output
Electric	₩2,500	240
Petrol	₩4,000	550
Nitrogen	₩5,500	900
Hydraulic	₩7,300	1,100
Nuclear	₩9,700	1,450

At any time as an atomic action, an Operator whose Readiness is Workshop may:

Either increase their money by the effective one-off cost of their engine or add their engine and its condition to their Spare Parts Bin.
Replace the Engine of their Bot with another of any Condition by paying the Effective One-off Cost of the new Engine. If the new Engine is present in their Spare Parts Bin, they may instead remove it from their Spare Parts Bin.

Chassises

A Bot’s Chassis has the following characteristics: a model (which also acts as its name), a cost, a number of hardpoints, and a consumption. The characteristics of each type of chassis can be found below.

Chassises
Model	Cost	Hardpoints	Consumption
Frictionless Inquisitor	₩1,900	1	110
Apex Systems X1500	₩2,500	2	200
Tundra Industries #9	₩3,350	2	170
Echelon Hardcast	₩3,900	3	440
Incisor TRN9P	₩4,210	3	410
Numenatics Featherlight 44714	₩9,110	3	305
Camelot CG3 Rampart	₩5,890	4	630
Titanium Holdfast	₩8,870	4	480

At any time as an atomic action, an Operator whose Readiness is Workshop may:

Either increase their money by the effective one-off cost of their Chassis or add their Chassis and its condition to their Spare Parts Bin.
Replace the Chassis of their Bot with another of any Condition by paying the Effective One-off Cost of the new Chassis. If the new Chassis is present in their Spare Parts Bin, they may instead choose to remove it from their Spare Parts Bin rather than paying the Effective One-off Cost.

Systems

A Bot’s Systems can each have the following characteristics: a name, a cost, a consumption, and an effect. The characteristics of each type of System can be found below. The Effect of a System may only be applied to, or on behalf of, a Bot if it is equipped on that Bot (unless it is used against that Bot, by an Opponent using it during a Bout).

Systems
Name	Cost	Consumption	Effect
Ram	₩1,100	85	Passive: Scratch Damage dealt to opponents by this Bot as a result of Shoving or Bumping is multiplied by ten. This scratch damage increases tally as if it isn’t scratch damage.
Flipper	₩1,600	185	If the Actor is Flipped, it ceases to be Flipped. Otherwise, this counts as a Melee System and the Opponent becomes Flipped.
Axe	₩2,200	250	Melee System. The Condition of the Opponent’s Chassis has 25% subtracted, and the Condition of the Opponent’s Engine has 10% subtracted.
Grinder	₩300	100	Melee System. The Condition of the Opponent’s Exposed System (if it has one) has 25% subtracted.
Plate	₩200	0	No effect.
Taser	₩1,500	290	If the opponent is within six spaces, they take Scratch Damage and the system that loses condition from this scratch damage (or the engine if the chassis loses condition) is affected by Shock damage: it is treated as if it had a condition of 33 fewer percentage points than it actually has (to a minimum of 0) until the end of the Bout. Shock Damage is permitted to stack with itself. Scratch Damage from the Taser increases Tally as if it wasn’t Scratch Damage.
Mound-Shaped Body	₩800	30	Passive: If a bot with this system would gain the Flipped status, they do not. Due to being a larger target, any condition loss that any systems of the bot with this system would recieve is also recieved by its chassis.
Spikes	₩1,100	30	Passive: Scratch Damage opponents take which is caused by Bumping that involves this bot is multiplied by 15, and increases Tally as if it wasn’t Scratch Damage. This has no effect on damage from shoving.
Cow Catcher	₩1,200	30	Passive: When moving into or past an opponents space from any distance away, the excess move beyond the amount that it would take to move adjacent to the opponent is treated as a shove. This effect cannot cause the actor to move futher than their script declared that they would move.
Hookshot	₩800	110	If the opponent is within ten spaces, move the Actor to the square that is immediately adjacent to the Opponent; this System is not affected by Evasion and a Bot that is Evading is still affected by this System.
Grapple	₩1,400	160	Melee System: If the target Opponent has the status Anchored then this system has no effect. Otherwise, give them the status Anchored [x], where [x] is the name of the Bot using this system.
Targeting Module	₩320	75	Passive: Whenever another System Effect refers to the Exposed System of a Bot, it refers to the frontmost System with the lowest Condition instead (if it is facing the Bot using the Effect) or the rearmost System with the lowest Condition (if it is not).
Lead Weight	₩1300	30	Passive: If a bot with this system would be Shoved more than three spaces in one turn, it is instead only Shoved three spaces. This Bot cannot be Shoved by a Bot that started its turn adjacent to this Bot due to the lack of momentum.
Back-up Battery	₩260	0	Passive: The Condition of the Engine on this Bot is instead calculated as the Condition of the Engine plus 25% of the Condition of this system, up to a maximum of 100%.
LED Banner	₩3,200	120	Passive: Displays the name of every distinct Operator that Bot has defeated in a Bout while using this System; these names are publicly tracked and persist when the LED Banner is either equipped on the Bot or in its Operator’s Spare Parts bin; if the Operator loses the LED Banner through any means then their LED Banner name tracking is blanked (set to “-”) and is considered to hold no names. Has no other effect.
Nox Tank	₩800	88	Passive: At the start of a Bout this System’s Condition drops to 0%. If no other Bot in the Bout has this System and this Bot does not have Ablative Plating equipped then this Bot always starts a Bout on the left.
Inverter Driver	₩2,700	310	Passive: A Bot with this system that is flipped automatically ceases to be flipped at the start of its turn, before its script is run
Flamethrower	₩1,900	200	Melee System: The Opponent takes 15% Chassis condition reduction and 5% condition reduction to all Systems, and becomes Scorched
Pincers	₩1,100	190	Melee System: The Opponent becomes Loose
Signal Jammer	₩900	270	The Opponent becomes Scrambled
Giant Mitt	₩900	0	Passive: This bot is always blocking.
Modular Breakpoint	₩3,100	170	Passive: The Operator of the Actor may privately message the Announcer to add a System from their Spare Parts Bin to their Bot while their Readiness is Staging, if they have enough spare Hardpoints to do so and Modular Breakpoint is present on the Bot at the time the chosen System would be added. The Announcer should add that System to the Actor once its Operator’s Readiness is Set, but before processing the Bout. Only one System may be added to a Bot in this way in a given Bout.
Howitzer	₩2,600	260	If no Opponent is less than eight spaces away from the Actor then the Condition of all Opponents’ Chassises is reduced by 50% and the Opponents gains the Status Loose
Ablative Plating	₩3,700	120	Passive: All Condition loss incurred by other Components on the Actor is reduced by 25% and is incurred to this System instead of any other Component that it might be incurred to. Regardless of Statuses or the effects of other Systems on this Bot, no damage incurred to this System as a result of this Effect may cause damage to be incurred to other Components on this Bot. This Bot is not particularly agile and always starts a Bout on the right if it is the only Bot in the Bout with this System equipped.
Advanced Logic Module	₩4,500	290	Passive: Enables all Advanced Triggers and Reactions in the rule BotScript. The Script of a bot with this system may be a list of up to 25 Triggers rather than its normal limit.
Springloaded Treads	₩3,000	250	When this System is used, the Actor loads up its springs and the next move or bypass reaction it performs becomes a mighty leap: the Actor immediately moves to the square it would have had it carried out its movement reaction in full, ignoring all obstacles. If this would cause the Actor to occupy the same square as another Bot, that Bot takes 2% Engine condition damage for every square the Actor moved on its turn, becomes Scrambled for two turns from the rattling impact, and the Actor instead moves to the empty square closest to the point of impact, prioritizing squares this Bot would be facing towards if it moved to the point of impact.

At any time, an Operator whose Readiness is Workshop may add a System of a desired Condition to their Bot by spending its Effective Cost or removing that system from their Spare Parts Bin as long as that system is present in their Spare Parts Bin at that condition. An Operator whose Readiness is not Set may remove a System from their Bot at any time by either increasing their money by the Effective Cost of the system being removed or adding that system at the appropriate condition to their Spare Parts Bin.

The list of a Bot’s Systems represent the mounted positions of those systems, listed from front to back. When a System Effect refers to the Exposed System of a Bot, it means its frontmost System (if the Bot is facing the Bot using the Effect) or its rearmost System (if it is not). While a Bot is Flipped, none of its Systems are Exposed.

While a System has a Condition of 0%, then its Effect is considered to be “No effect.”, and it is skipped when determining the frontmost or rearmost System of a Bot.

If a System effect is preceded by “Passive:”, then it has no effect when used, and instead applies to a Bot with that System at all times. If a System does not have the "Passive:" tag then its effect is only applied when it is activated by a line of BotScript.

Spare Parts Bin

Each Operator has a Spare Parts Bin, which is a publicly tracked list of Chassisses, Engines, and Systems as well as their conditions.

Scratch Damage

When rules state that a Bot takes Scratch Damage, this is interpreted as losing 1 condition percentage point from its frontmost system, or its chassis if it has no frontmost system. A Bot that would take Scratch Damage more than once in a given turn only takes Scratch Damage once in that turn instead. (This does not affect how Scratch Damage is multiplied.)

Statuses

Statuses are states of being that a Bot may have during a bout. Each Status has a name, which is flavor text, and an effect. The following are all statuses that a bot may have:

Flipped: When an Actor is Flipped, any step in its Script that results in it moving or using a System is ignored, unless that step would also result in them ceasing to be Flipped. If a Bot is Flipped, it will cease to be Flipped after 5 turns have passed. When a Bot ceases to be Flipped, it can not be Flipped again for one turn. A Bot cannot become Flipped while it is Flipped. While a bot is Flipped, its Shove Power is considered to be multiplied by 0.5 for the purposes of resolving Shoves.
Scorched: When a Bot is Scorched, any Scratch Damage it would take is multiplied by 5 and it takes Scratch Damage whenever it uses a System.
Loose: When an Actor is Loose, half (rounded up) of any Condition loss incurred by the Chassis or System of that Bot is also applied to that Bot’s Engine.
Scrambled: Each round a Bot is Scrambled, before running its turn, the Announcer separately randomises the order of its Script’s Triggers and Reactions. When it ceases to be Scrambled its Triggers and Reactions regain their standard order. A Bot may only become Scrambled once per Bout and ceases to be Scrambled after three rounds have elapsed.
Anchored [x] (where [x] is the name of another Bot): Whenever this Bot moves or bypasses, any Bot in the same Bout whose name is [x] (‘the Anchorer’) moves to the closest square to its current position that is in bounds, not occupied by another Bot, and within three squares of the Bot with this Status; if this isn’t possible then the Anchorer retains its position and the Bot with this Status loses this Status. If this Bot has multiple iterations of this Status attributed to multiple named Bots then this impact resolves for those Bots in turn order. A Bot with this Status takes an additional 10 percentage points of Chassis condition damage from any melee System which does Chassis damage. For the purposes of BotScript triggers or System effects, ‘Anchored’ refers to this status in any of its variations.

Bouts

Operators pit their Bots against each other in Bouts. At any time, each Operator may be engaged in at most one Bout. The number of bouts an Operator’s bot has been engaged in is publicly tracked, and includes announced bouts that include the bot that are yet to be resolved. This publicly tracked value may be referred to as the Bout Count.

Operators have a Readiness, which is publicly tracked, which may be either Workshop, Ready, Staging, or Set, and which defaults to Workshop.

When an Operator’s Readiness is Workshop and their Bot is not Trashed, they may set their Readiness to Ready at any time
When an Operator’s Readiness has been set to Ready for the past 48 hours, they may set it to Workshop
When an Operator’s Readiness is Ready and they are named in an Announcement Post then the Announcer should set their Readiness to Staging
When an Operator’s Readiness is Staging then they may set it to Set at any time
When an Operator’s Readiness is Set and they are participating in a Bout then the Announcer should set their Readiness to Workshop

Operator changes to any of a Bot’s physical hardware components (i.e. anything defined in the rule Bot Loadout) may only be made when the Operator’s Readiness is Workshop. Operator changes to a Bot’s software (i.e. anything defined in the rule BotScript) can only be made when the Operator’s Readiness is Workshop, Ready or Staging.

If, at any point during a Bout, one of the participating Operators has had their Readiness set to Set for the last 48 hours and the other has not changed their Readiness from Staging since the Announcement Post for that Bout, then the Operator whose Readiness is Staging forfeits the match and the other Operator is the Winner for that Bout.

As a Daily Action, the Announcer may Announce any number of upcoming Bouts, by randomly select two Operators using the Selection Criteria in this rule for each Bout and making a post Announcing their names.

The Selection Criteria for selecting bots to engage in a bout is:

If an Operator has a higher Bout Count than any other Operator, they may not be selected by the Announcer, except if there are no other available Operators to select.
If an Operator has a Readiness that is not Ready, it may not be selected by the Announcer.
The random selection of eligible Operators is weighted towards Operators with a smaller Bout Count - for each eligible Operator, subtract the current Bout Count for that Operator from the highest Bout Count of all eligible Operators then add 1 to get the weighting that the random selection will use.

Whenever the Announcer is required to randomly generate an outcome as part of administering a Bout they may do so privately.

The Arena

Bouts take place in the Arena, which is mapped as an infinite row of spaces from left (i.e. from minus infinity) to right (i.e. to infinity). The spaces 1 to 19 are considered In Bounds. Each Bot in the Arena may face either left or right. When a Bout begins, the bots are randomly assigned to one of two starting locations: one bot is placed in space 4 and the other bot in space 16, both facing each other. All of this is tracked privately by the Announcer.

The Arena for each individual Bout may have differences in configuration, as set out in the rule Configuration. The specific Arena configuration for each Bout must be detailed in the Announcement for that Bout.

During a Bout, the Announcer runs the Script of each Bot in turn, starting with the Bot on the left. and announcing its final Tallies and the Winner (if any). The current turn of a bout increases each time a bot’s script is run to completion (even if the result is no action). Each time X turns have passed since the last time the current round increased or was set to 1, where X is equal to the number of bots in the bout, the current round increases by 1. Both turns and rounds start at 1 in a bout.

Relative to each Bot’s Script, the Bot who is performing the Script may be referred to as the Actor, and any other Bot participating in a Bout with the Actor may be referred to as an Opponent.

Ending a Bout

A Bout can be Ended by any of the following conditions being met:

TKO: One or more of the Bots participating in that Bout are Trashed
Domination: Sixty turns have elapsed without a TKO taking place, and one Bot has a Tally that is higher than its Opponent by at least 10%
Ring-out: One of more of the Bots participating in the Bout are not In Bounds

After it has ended, each Bout must have a Winner. The Winner of a Bout is determined based on how the Bout ended, as follows:

TKO or Ring-out: If, at the end of a turn, every Bot in the Bout except one is either Trashed or not In Bounds, then that one Bot is the Winner. If all Bots in the Bout are Trashed or not In Bounds then the average Condition of its components is used as a tiebreaker, with the highest result being the Winner. If this still results in a tie then the Winner is determined secretly-randomly.
Domination: Each Bot in a Bout has a Tally, which is privately tracked by the Announcer and which starts the Bout at zero. Whenever an action by a Bot in a Bout causes the Condition of another Bot’s Engine, Chassis or System to be reduced by any means other than Scratch Damage, the Tally of the Bot that took the action, for that Bout, increases by the same amount. If, after sixty turns, one Bot has a Tally that is higher than its Opponent by at least 10% then that Bot is the Winner. If sixty turns have elapsed without a Bot Winning through Tally then Sudden Death occurs instead.
Sudden Death: In Sudden Death, the Announcer continues to process turns as normal until the Bout ends due to TKO, with the following changes: all Condition losses are doubled, and each turn, every square has a chance to Detonate, with its chance to Detonate being defined as follows: (x+y)*y%, where x is the square’s proximity to the middle of the arena (with square 10 having an x of 1 and squares 1 and 19 having proximities of 10) and where y is how much time has elapsed in Sudden Death (i.e. the current turn number minus 60). Any Bot who is on a square when it Detonates takes 100% Chassis damage.

When a Bout has Ended, the Announcer posts an entry to the blog summarising the events of the Bout and its Winner. All Operators who had Bots in the Bout gain ₩1,000, plus ₩500 for each Opponent; when these values are awarded, the Readiness of all Operators to have participated in that Bout are set to Workshop if they are not already at that value. Once this summary post has been posted, that Bout is considered to be fully concluded and may have no further impact on the gamestate.

Configuration

Prior to Announcing a Bout, the Announcer must generate the Configuration for that Bout. This is an atomic action with the following steps:

Set the Configuration for that Bout to be is a single row of infinite squares, with those numbered from 1 on the left to 19 at the right being in bounds and all others being out of bounds.
Randomly determine between zero and two Configuration Variations.
For each Configuration Variation thus selected, follow its instructions and add them to the Configuration.

Potential Configuration Variations are as follows:

Physical Obstacles: Add between 2 and 6 squares above or below existing squares in the Configuration. Label them with letters in alphabetical order from left to right, starting with A; all such squares are In Bounds. A Bot can only be shoved from a Square on the same row as itself. If a Shove is taking place and, during the resolution of that Shove, the Opponent passes through a square that has another square above or below it, instead of being moved backwards, it is moved into one of the squares above or below it (at random if both are present) and is flipped, and then the Shove immediately ends. When a Bot is in a square that is labelled with a letter and moves forwards or backwards, and there isn’t another lettered square that it can move into, it instead moves into the next numbered square in the direction of travel.
Trap panels: Add between 1 and 3 trap panels on random squares, each of which may randomly be one of: flip panel, flame panel, explosion panel, shock panel. When a Bot ends its turn on a trap panel it subtracts 5% from its Chassis and Engine, and gains a Status as follows: flip panels give Flipped, flame panels give Scorched, explosion panel gives Loose, and shock panel gives Scrambled. Trap panels are not considered when a Script tests whether a square is empty.
Bumper sides: When a Bot would go out of bounds, it is instead set to a random empty square, subtracts 20% Chassis condition, and becomes flipped.
House bot: Randomly select one House Bot and set the Condition of all of its components to 80%. The selected House Bot starts in square 10, facing in a random direction. The House Bot takes its turn second in each Round (i.e. between the moves of the first and second Operator-controlled Bot).

BotScript

Each Bot has a Script, being a list of up to ten Triggers, each Trigger having a corresponding Reaction. Up to two Triggers may also be optionally combined into a single Trigger. This is formatted as “A and B”, where A is the first Trigger being combined and B is the second one. Combined triggers are accompanied by a single Reaction as normal. Combinable Reactions may be combined with one other other Reaction in the same manner as Triggers; however, a Combinable Reaction must be the first in the combined Reaction. Bots’ Scripts are tracked privately by the Announcer. All legal Triggers and Reactions can be found in lists in this rule.

An Operator may change their Bot’s Script at any time by privately informing the Announcer of this.

Triggers are:-

“If the X space(s) [in front of / behind the] Actor are empty…”, where X is a positive integer.
“If [the space / any of the X spaces] [in front of / behind the] Actor are occupied by an Opponent…”, where X is a positive integer.
“If the Actor [has / does not have] Y…”, where Y is any Status.
"If the [first / second / third / [...]] closest Opponent [has / does not have] Y…” where Y is any Status.
“If the current [turn / round] is X [or [less / more]]..”, where X is any positive integer.
"If the [first / second / third / [...]] closest Opponent [has / does not have] Z…”, where Z is any system.
"If [the space / any of the X spaces] [in front of / behind the] Actor are occupied by a House Bot…”, where X is a positive integer.
"If [the space / any of the X spaces] [in front of / behind the] Actor are occupied by an Bot that is not a House Bot…”, where X is a positive integer.
"If the [first / second / third / [...]] closest Opponent is evading…"
"If the current [turn / round] number is [odd / even]..."
“If the Actor is in the space numbered X [or [higher / lower]]...”, where X is a positive integer.
“If the Actor is in the space lettered X [or [earlier / later]]...”, where X is a letter from A to F.
Advanced: “If the value of Token X is [greater than / less than / equal to] Y”, where X is any string of one five characters in length and Y is any integer
Advanced: “If [the Actor’s / Y’s] [chassis / engine / exposed System] has a Condition that is [greater than / less than / equal to] X”, where x is any positive percentage value and Y is the name of a single Opponent that is a current participant in the same Bout as the Actor
Advanced: “If line #X of this script was the trigger that took effect in the Actor’s most recent round preceding this one”, where X is an integer between 1 and 25 (inclusive)
Advanced: “If on the Opponent’s last turn they uses system X” where X is the name of any System

Possible Reactions are:-

“...move forwards X times”, where X is a positive integer
“...move backwards X times”, where X is a positive integer
“...turn to face the other way”
"...use the following System [on the [first / second / third / [...]] closest Opponent]:” followed by the name of a System that the Actor has.
"...evade"
“...bypass forwards X times”, where X is a positive integer
“...bypass backwards X times”, where X is a positive integer
"...block"
"...then [Use system Y / Move X spaces [toward / away from]] the bot that inflicted Z status." Where Y is a valid system on the bot, X is a positive integer, and Z is a status
Advanced, Combinable: “...[increase / decrease] Token X by Y”, where X is any string of one five characters in length and Y is any integer
Advanced: “... then move X times towards opponent Y”, where X is a positive integer and Y is the name of a single Opponent that is a current participant in the same Bout as the Actor

All otherwise-legal Reactions are Resolvable, except if that Reaction:

attempts to use a System the Actor has and the System’s Effect is “No effect.”
is marked Advanced (or has its Trigger marked as Advanced), but the Actor has no Advanced Logic Module with a Condition of greater than 0% in its Systems.

If the system being used is a Melee System and the Opponent’s Bot is not in any of the three spaces immediately in front of the reacting Bot, then the System’s Effect is instead not used.

To run a Script, the Announcer reads through its list from top to bottom until they find a Trigger which is true for the Bot in question and its corresponding Reaction is Resolvable: upon finding one, they apply the corresponding effect, and this ends the run of the Script. If they reach the end of the Script and no Triggers are true, nothing happens as a result.

A Bot can only move into an empty space: if a move reaction would take the Bot into an occupied space, the Bot remains in its position instead and takes Scratch Damage. If the occupied space was occupied by a Bot, that Bot also takes Scratch Damage. This act of moving into a bot in this way, or being moved into in this way, is referred to as Bumping. If a Bot ever ends its turn in a space that is not In Bounds, they are said to have Fallen Out of Bounds and take Scratch Damage.

When a System is used as part of a Script then, provided that any criteria specified in that System’s Effect or elsewhere in the ruleset are all met, its Effect is applied to the Opponent in its current Bout.

If a line in a script is not a legal entry but may be clearly assessed (without context) as having the same meaning as a single, specific instance of legally compliant wording, without changing the meaning that that line had at the time of being provided to the announcer, the announcer should strive to treat it as if it had that legal wording if possible. If an illegal entry cannot be treated as if it was legal in that way, it should be ignored. In either case, the operator who submitted the script should be informed at the earliest convenience.

If an opponent is being referred to with an ordinal by a trigger or reaction but that opponent is not valid (either due to not enough opponents being in range or otherwise), then the closest valid ordinal to that ordinal is used (rounding down where there is a tie). If no such opponents exist, then the Reaction in that reaction/trigger pair is not considered resolvable. If an ordinal would be required but none is provided (such as if multiple enemies are within range of a system), the ordinal defaults to “first” and the appropriate snippet is implicitly assumed to be in that script entry for the purposes of resolving that instance of that trigger/reaction pair.

When a Bot Bypasses, it moves in the allocated direction the set number of times, without interacting (bumping/shoving etc) with any non-blocking Bots in the intervening squares. If a Bypass would result in a Bot ending its movement in a Square that is Occupied then it instead ends it turn in the empty square between its origin point and its destination point that is closest to the destination point.

When Push Comes to Shove

When an actor has an opponent in a space adjacent to it and and its reaction is to move into or beyond that opponent’s space, the existing reaction ceases to take effect and instead a Shove occurs.

A Shove is resolved as follows:

The Shove Power of the actor and opponent is calculated, where Shove Power is Effective Power Output minus 50% of the consumption of the chassis and every system on the bot.
For every 50 that the Shove Power of the Actor exceeds the Shove Power of the Opponent, both the Actor and Opponent move in the direction that the Actor stated they were moving in by 1 space, up to the number of spaces the Actor’s script stated they were moving.
Scratch Damage is taken by both the Actor and the Opponent.

The Shove Power of a bot is halved if they are shoving (or being shoved by) a bot they are facing away from.

Evasion

When a Bot evades, it moves out of the direct line of attack, requiring its opponent to compensate. If the evading bot did not evade on its previous turn this bout, the evading Bot is not considered to be present in any space until the start of its next Turn; except for the purposes of BotScript Triggers, Sudden Death detonations and being In Bounds.

If multiple Bots occupy the same space, they both take Scratch Damage and the bot that moved most recently bypasses forwards to the first empty space it reaches.

Tokens

Some BotScript Triggers or Reactions may refer to Tokens being tracked or modified. Tokens only exist relative to the BotScript that created them; the Announcer may distinguish between Tokens of the same name generated by different scripts as they please; and Token names are flavour text. A Token is created for a BotScript whenever its value is modified by a Reaction in that script, if that token does not already exist for that script; each Token may only hold numeric values, defaults to a value of zero, has its value privately tracked by the Announcer, and is reset to zero and then destroyed at the end of the Bout in which is was created.

Income

As a Weekly Communal Action, any Operator or Announcer may increase all Operator’s Money by 3,000.

Once in between each Bout in which they participate, while their Readiness is Workshop, an Operator may add 5% condition to each component in their Bot. If the game is in Tournament Mode then that increase is instead 20%.

If the game is in Tournament Mode then each Operator may, once after each Bout, award themselves ₩1,000.

Showboating

If a Bot wins a Bout while using an LED Banner that displays the name of more than four Operators then the operator of that Bot has achieved Victory.

House Bots

At any time, there may be up to three House Bots, which are publicly tracked. House Bots are Bots that are controlled by the Announcer.

If there are less than three House Bots then the Announcer may create a new House Bot at any time. A House Bot must have a name, an engine, chassis and at least one system (a House Bot may have any of the components that are available to any other kind of Bot), and a script, all of which is publicly tracked. One House Bot may have a Bot Value of up to ₩15,000; the other two must have Bot Values that do not exceed ₩12,000. Once created, the Announcer may amend or remove the House Bots at any time, unless the House Bot in question has been drawn as a Configuration in an Announcement for a Bout that has not yet taken place.

A House Bot may not the the Winner of the Bout and is not considered for the purposes of any clause in the rule Ending a Bout.

A trashed or defunct house bot is immediately removed from the bout, and if its current space does not have a physical obstacles (as defined in the configuration physical obstacles), then it gains a physical obstacle and is handled as per that configuration.

Taunt

Each Operator has a value for Red Mist, which is a publicly tracked integer that defaults to zero.

An Operator may Taunt another Operator (the Taunt Target) at any time provided that any of the following are true:

They have not Taunted that Taunt target in the past 48 hours
Both the acting Operator and the Taunt Target have their Readiness set to Workshop or Ready
The acting Operator and the Taunt Target are Announced to be participants in the same upcoming Bout, and at least one of those Operators has a Readiness of Staging

If all three of the previous conditions are true, the operator taunting the Taunt target may add one the amount of red mist given to the Taunt Target additionally.

When an Operator Taunts a Taunt Target they increase the Taunt Target’s Red Mist to any value up to two higher than their own Red Mist.

When a Bout concludes, the Winner gains additional Money equal to one hundred times their own Red Mist, and any non-winning participants lose percentage points of Condition to their chassis and exposed system equal to five times their Red Mist, to minimums of zero; then, the Red Mist of all participants in that Bout is set to zero.

Winners at War

If the date is on or after August 22 2022 then the game has entered Tournament Mode. If no Operator have had their readiness changed in the last 96 hours, and no bouts are currently pending resolution, then the game has entered Tournament Mode. If the game is not in Tournament Mode then the rest of this rule is flavour text.

The rules Showboating and Taunt have no effect and are flavour text; any Operator or Announcer may remove them from the ruleset.

On the day that Tournament Mode begins or as soon as possible thereafter, the Announcer should post a Provisional Seed List. The Provisional Seed List is the Announcer’s subjective opinion of which Operators in the Dynasty have the best Bots, ordered from 1 being the best to the highest number being the weakest. The Operator is allowed to use whatever private metrics they please to assess this, with the single exception that they cannot consider the number of names on any Bot’s LED Banner.

Three days after Tournament Mode begins or as soon as possible thereafter, the Announcer should post the Final Seed List. The Final Seed list is the same in form, purpose and rules for composition as the Provisional Seed List, updated to take into account any changes between the posting of the two documents. Once the Final Seed List has been posted, all Operators have their Readiness set to Workshop, Operators may not change their Readiness, and unidling Operators are considered not to be Operators for the purposes of the remainder of this rule for the remainder of the Dynasty.

When the Final Seed List has been posted, the Announcer should at their earliest opportunity post a Bracket. The Bracket is the organised list of Bouts that will comprise the Final Tournament, and the Announcer may organise those Bouts as they determine best, following where possible the following principles:

In tier 1 of the Bracket, all Operators with no LED Banner or no names on their LED Banner should participate in a Bout
In tier 1 of the Bracket, Bouts should be organised with the top seed Operators (the top n/2 names on the Final Seed List, where n is the number of Operators participating in tier 1) being matched with the non-top-seed Operators
If there are an uneven or otherwise unmanageable number of Operators in tier 1 then the top-most seeded Operators may be deferred into tier 2
Whenever an Operator loses a Bout in the Tournament, they are eliminated from the Tournament and cannot be scheduled in a future Tournament Bout, cannot win the Tournament, and cannot achieve Victory in this dynasty
In tier 2 of the Bracket, all Operators to have won their tier 1 Bout should progress, alongside any Operators deferred into tier 2 (due to having populated LED banners or being too high-seeded for tier 1). Tier 2 Bouts are then organised similarly to tier 1 Bouts, with the top seed Operators being matched with the non-top-seed Operators
If there are an uneven or otherwise unmanageable number of Operators in tier 2 then the Operator with the most names in their LED Banner (using top-most seededness as a tiebreaker) may be deferred into tier 3
Tiers then proceed with winning Operators proceding into further tiers, until a final Bout of 2 Operators is due to take place
In any tier after tier 2 (i.e. tier 3 or above), if there are uneven number of Operators in the tier, then before any of the Bouts in that tier take place an elimination bout is held between the two bottom seeded Operators in that tier; the loser of an elimination bout is eliminated
All Bouts in the Bracket should have their Configurations detailed in the Bracket document

Once the Bracket has been posted, the following schedule takes effect:

24 hours after the Bracket has been posted, all Operators have their Readiness set to Staging
12 hours after that, all Operators have their Readiness set to Set; as soon as possible thereafter, the Announcer should run the first tier Bouts in the Tournament Bracket,
24 hours after the result of the final tier 1 Bout has been posted, all Operators due to participate in a tier 2 Bout have their Readiness set to Staging
12 hours after that, all tier 2 participant Operators have their Readiness set to Set; as soon as possible thereafter, the Announcer should run the second tier Bouts in the Tournament Bracket
If the Announcer has received a clear, positive statement from all participants in a tier that they have completed the activities that the needed to complete in their current Readiness setting then they may bring forward the relevant deadline on a one-off basis for that tier, by announcing that they are doing so on the #current-dynasty channel of the BlogNomic Discord.

...continuing in the same pattern until the single Bout in the last tier of the Tournament Bracket has concluded.

While the game is in Tournament Mode, any Operator whose Readiness is Workshop or Ready may privately message the Announcer with a list of Systems they wish to be added to their Bot for their upcoming tournament Bout. Once an Operator’s Readiness is set to Staging, the Announcer should remove all the Systems in their list from their Spare Parts Bin and add the Systems to their Bot, given their Bot has enough spare hardpoints to accommodate all the Systems in their list and all the Systems in the list exist in their Spare Parts Bin.

The winner of the final Bout in the Tournament has achieved Victory.

Formalised Disputes

This rule is flavour text if the game is not in Tournament Mode.

If the events of a bout in tournament mode are ever being challenged by a call for judgement and that call for judgement’s text requests a pause in the tournament, the schedule in Winners at War is paused for as long as that call for judgement is not resolved; time spent with the tournament being paused is not counted towards the 12 hour and 24 hour thresholds in the schedule. Only the Announcer is permitted to enact calls for judgement that request that the tournament be paused.

Where multiple open calls for judgement each request a pause, that pause lasts until all of them have been resolved.

In cases where a rule has been unambiguously applied incorrectly by the Announcer in a bout in tournament mode in the opinion of the Announcer, the Announcer is permitted to recalculate the results of that bout without the use of a proposal or call for judgement so long as less than 24 hours have passed since the end of that bout. The new ending time for a recalculated bout is considered to be the ending time of that bout’s tier, with the most recent ending time being used in the case of multiple recalculated bouts in the same tier. This ending time recalculation applies whether the bout was recalculated as a result of the enactment of votable matter, or as a result of the Announcer choosing to recalculate without the use of a votable matter.

In the case of a declaration of victory existing while a call for judgement requests a pause in the tournament, all Operators are encouraged to vote against that declaration of victory if they believe that the revelation of new or secret information as a result of the possible enactment of that call for judgement could change their vote. There is no 120 hour cooldown on the use of a Declaration of Victory while the game is in Tournament Mode, though fair play rules still apply.

Where this rule refers to a tier, it uses tier in the context implied in Winners at War rather than the context in The Arena.

Practice Bouts

Any Bouts fought between the start of Tournament Mode and the posting of the Final Bracket are Practice Bouts; at the conclusion of a Practice Bout the Conditions of all Components on any Bot to participate in that Bout is restored to the value it had immediately prior to that Bout taking place.

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 “Operators” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

While BlogNomic is Dormant, this fact is tracked in the sidebar of the blog. If BlogNomic is Dormant, then it is on Hiatus.

The criteria for Dormancy are:

That there are four or fewer Operators; or
That of the Operators, two or fewer of them have posted an Official Post or made an edit to the gamestate tracking page as part of a defined dynastic action during the past seven days.

If either criterion is met and BlogNomic is not Dormant, any admin may make BlogNomic Dormant by updating the sidebar to that effect. If neither criterion is met and BlogNomic is Dormant, any admin may remove BlogNomic’s Dormant status by updating the sidebar to that effect.

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

If the Announcer has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Operators 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 Operators 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 Announcer is not an Operator.

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

The Announcer may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were an Operator, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Announcer 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.

If the Special Case rule “No Collaboration” is Active, any Operator may set it to Inactive. (The combo is too strong.)

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Workshop page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. An Announcer 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 Announcer is not considered an Operator for the purposes of this rule.

Operators 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 Operator 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 Operators (or people who are not yet Operators) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Operator 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 Operators 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. (Operators 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 [Inactive] [Rare]

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

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if an Operator 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 Operator may pass the Mantle to an Operator 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 Operators 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 Operators who have each other’s names in their Alliance.

Event Types [Active]

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). An Operator 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 Operator 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 Operator End it again.

Bounties [Rare][Inactive]

A Bounty Notice is a post in the Story Posts category which broadly requests a single mechanical or ruleset change. A Bounty Notice may be Open or Closed, being Open by default and being when set to the ‘Closed’ category in the post backend.

This sentence names, at the end of this sentence after a colon, a single dynastic resource or variable, which is the Bounty Reward Variable for this dynasty: Qubits

The Announcer may post a Bounty Notice, close an open Bounty Notice, or change the Bounty Reward Variable in this rule at any time.

If the Announcer believes that an enacted votable matter satisfies the demand of an open Bounty Notice then they may iterate the Bounty Reward Variable of that votable matter’s author by a single step (unless that author was themselves) and set that Bounty Notice to closed.

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 Operator 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 Operator 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 Operator 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 Operator 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 Operators.
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): An Operator’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Operator’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Operator’s Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, an Operator 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. Operators, as well as people who are not Operators 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 Operators 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. Operators 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 Operators is half the number of Operators in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Operators it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Operators.
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 hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.
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 Operator 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 Operator 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 Operator 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 Operator is defined as an Operator who has been an Operator for fewer than seven days or an Operator 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 an Operator’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 Operator may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Operator 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 Operator, if doing so would not require the correcting Operator to make any decisions on behalf of the original Operator.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Operators 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.

An Operator 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 an Operator with such access. Only an Operator with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name an Operator 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 Operator making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Operator 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 an Operator 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 Operator performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
If an Operator 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 Operator must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Operator 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 Operator 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, an Operator can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Operators to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Operator only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Operator (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.
An Operator 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 Announcer (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Announcer when the ruleset allows it. If an Operator should already know such a piece of information (in that the Announcer has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Announcer 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, Operator 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 Operator 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.
When the ruleset calls for the use of a specific tool (such as the dice roller, or an off-domain website, or a specific piece of downloadable software), Operators may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by 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.
An Operator 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.
Operators 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”.
An Operator 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 an Operator if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Operator’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, an Operator’s (or prospective Operator’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:

The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
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;
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;
If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Operators may Kick each other” and “Operators may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Operators may not Kick each other);
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 “Operators may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Operators may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Operators may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

An Operator may have another Operator as a Mentor. Operators 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 an Operator who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Operator requests a Mentor, or a new Operator has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Announcer should select a Tenured Operator and ask them to take that Operator 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 Announcer should announce it in a blog post. The Announcer should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

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

If there is no Announcer, any Operator who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Announcer 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 Operator 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 Operators.
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 “Operator” and “Announcer”.

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

Operator (Player)
Announcer (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.

Ruleset 205

Contents

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

Operators

Idle Operators

Dynasties

Votable Matters

Votes

Enacting and Failing

Tags

Proposals

Special Proposal Voting

Resolution of Proposals

Calls for Judgement

Victory and Ascension

Fair Play

Dynastic Rules

Standardised Rule Books

Bot Loadout

Engines

Chassises

Systems

Spare Parts Bin

Scratch Damage

Statuses

Bouts

The Arena

Ending a Bout

Configuration

BotScript

When Push Comes to Shove

Evasion

Tokens

Income

Showboating

House Bots

Taunt

Winners at War

Formalised Disputes

Practice Bouts

Special Case

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

Dormancy [Active]

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

Dynastic Distance [Active]

Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

No Collaboration [Inactive] [Rare]

Mantle Limitations [Active] [Rare]

Alliances [Inactive] [Rare]

Event Types [Active]

Bounties [Rare][Inactive]

Appendix

Keywords

Imperatives

Time

Other

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Representations of the Gamestate

Orphan Variables

Random Generators

Atomic Actions

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Rules and Votable Matters

Time

Spelling and formatting

Names

Prioritisation

Archives

Mentors

Things that a mentor must do

Things that a mentor should do

Things that a mentor should not do

Synonyms

Navigation menu

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