Ruleset 207
Core Rules
Ruleset and Gamestate
This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Partygoers 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 Partygoer may update it to do so.
Partygoers
The process of applying for access to the BlogNomic blog is outlined in the FAQ. A human with access to the blog who is not already a Partygoer may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Partygoer (plural form Partygoers ); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Partygoer.
A Partygoer may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.
Some Partygoers are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Partygoers 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 Partygoers
If a Partygoer is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Partygoers in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Partygoers ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Partygoers are not counted as Partygoers . The combined term “Idle Partygoer” can be used to refer to Partygoers who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Partygoers.
If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Partygoer, then that Idle Partygoer is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision.
When a Partygoer 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 Partygoer Idled in a different Dynasty), the Partygoer is given the default value for new Partygoers, if such a value exists.
An Admin may render a Partygoer Idle if that Partygoer has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Partygoer has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Partygoer if that Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer, known as the Host. If there is no Host, 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.
Votes
Each Partygoer may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. A Partygoer'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-Partygoer never has a Vote, even if they were a Partygoer previously and had cast a valid Vote.
If a Partygoer other than the Host casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Host. When the Host 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 Host'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 Partygoers who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
- It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.
Enacting and Failing
Votable matters have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.
A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When an admin resolves a votable matter they should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.
A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.
This rule cannot be overruled by any other rule in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.
Tags
Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag). Votable Matters require the “[Core]” tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the “[Special Case]” tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules, and the “[Appendix]” tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the “[Victory]” tag in order to grant victory to a Partygoer.
If a Votable Matter would make a modification to the rules and it does not have the tag to make that modification, that Votable Matter will still be able to make that specific modification if any of the following on the following list are true:
- The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
- The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.
Proposals
Any Partygoer may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Partygoer already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).
Special Proposal Voting
When a Partygoer 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 Host may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Host casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Host 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 Partygoers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Partygoer feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Partygoer may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.
A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:
- It is Popular.
A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:
- It is Unpopular.
- It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.
When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.
This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.
Victory and Ascension
If a Partygoer (other than the Host) 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.
A Partygoer'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 Partygoers, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Host 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 Partygoers, 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer who posted the DoV becomes Host, 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 Host must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Partygoer who was not the last dynasty’s Host, in which case the passing Partygoer ceases to be the Host and the Partygoer so named becomes the Host) 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 Host's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify new dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule "Synonyms", and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
- Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.
Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.
Fair Play
The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Partygoer'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. Partygoers 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 Partygoer within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Partygoer and any Idle Partygoers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Partygoer, defined here as the controlled Partygoer's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Partygoer was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
- A Partygoer should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
- A Partygoer should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
- A Partygoer should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Partygoer .
- A Partygoer should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
- A Partygoer should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
- A Partygoer should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
- A Partygoer should not roll dice that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action. A Partygoer must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
- A Partygoer should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
- A Partygoer should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Partygoer to achieve victory.
- A Partygoer 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 Partygoesrs and idle Partygoers 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 Partygoers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.
Dynastic Rules
24 Hour Party People
Each Partygoer has a set amount of Energy, which is a non-negative integer value that defaults to 10. Each Partygoer has a publicly tracked quantity of Medals, which is an integer value that defaults to 0. Additionally, every Partygoer has a publicly tracked Party score, which is an integer value defaulting to 0. After a Party or Grand Party is resolved, all Partygoers have their Party score set to 0 and their Energy set to 10.
Party Time
At any point as a daily action, as long as there is not an ongoing Party or Grand Party and it is neither at least 72 hours prior to Wednesday or Wednesday itself, a player may begin a Party. If there is an ongoing Party, that fact is publicly tracked, along with when it was started and all Partygoers that have joined it. Parties may consist of any number of partygoers. A Partygoer may join the current party at any time, and the Holder of the Rubber Ducky (if there is one) is automatically assumed to be in any ongoing parties. A Partygoer who is in the current Party or Grand Party may be said to be Partying as long as that Party or Grand Party is ongoing.
If it has been over 72 hours since the current Party was started, partygoers can no longer join the current Party and the Host should resolve that party as soon as possible as long as they have not already done so, using the following atomic action:
- All Partying Partygoers gain 1 Medal.
- Close the Pool
- The Partygoer with the highest Party score, excluding the Host, wins the party. If there is a tie, the winner is decided secretly randomly among all non-Host partygoers that are tied for the highest Party Score and Partying.
- If that Partygoer is the current Holder of the Rubber Ducky, they gain 15 Medals, otherwise possession of the Rubber Ducky is transferred to them and they gain 10 Medals.
- The current Party ceases to be ongoing, and may not become ongoing again.
- The Host publishes a story post summarizing the events of that party and who won that party.
If a Partying Partygoer is holding an Acoustic Guitar, other Partygoers in the same Location may not start a new Activity.
The Grand Party
Once each week, on the Wednesday or as soon as possible thereafter of that week, the Host shall start a Grand Party. If there is already an ongoing Party or Grand Party at the time the Grand Party would be started, the Host shall resolve it before starting the Grand Party, even if the existing Party's or Grand Party's start was less than 48 hours previously. If there is an ongoing Grand Party, that fact is publicly tracked, along with when it was started and all Partygoers who have joined the current Grand Party. Partygoers may join the Grand Party at any time.
If it has been 48 hours since the current Grand Party was started, then Partygoers may no longer join the current Grand Party, and the Host should resolve it at their earliest convenience as long as they have not already done so, using the following atomic action:
- All Partying Partygoers gain 1 Medal.
- The current Holder of the Rubber Ducky gains 5 Medals, and then possession of the Rubber Ducky is Transferred to the Host.
- The Partygoer with the highest Party score, excluding the Host, wins the Grand Party. If there is a tie, the winner is decided secretly randomly among all non-Host partygoers that are tied for the highest Party Score and Partying.
- That Partygoer gains 30 Medals and possession of the Rubber Ducky.
- The current Party ceases to be ongoing, and may not become ongoing again.
- The Host publishes a story post summarizing the events of that Grand Party, and the Partygoer that won it.
Fun and Games
Activities are a type of Event.
An Activity has a Game associated with it.
Any Partygoer who is Partying can start an Activity by spending the amount of Energy specified in the Cost of the Game of the Activity and making a post which defines the Game of the Activity. The post’s title must include the tag [Activity]. A Partygoer can only start an Activity if the Location of that Activity’s Game is the same as their Location.
Responses to the Activity can either be “Join” or “Move: [Response]”, where [Response] is a value defined by the rules of the Game of the Activity.
If an Activity is neither Ongoing nor Over as defined by the Rules of the Game of that Activity, a Partying Partygoer may join that Activity by commenting a “Join” Response to the activity post and spending an amount of Energy defined by the Cost of the Game of that Activity. A Partygoer can only join an Activity if the Location of that Activity’s Game is the same as their own Location. When a Partygoer joins an Activity, they may begin holding the Activity's Game's Associated Object.
A Partygoer that starts an Activity is considered to be the Captain of that Activity. A Partygoer that joins or is the Captain of an Activity is considered to be a Member of that Activity. While an Activity is Open, all of its Members must abide by the Rules of its Game. When an Activity is Ongoing or Over, only Responses in the format “Move: [Response]” can be Responded with to it.
The Captain of an Activity may end that Activity, but only when the Activity is Over as defined by the Rules of the Game of the Activity. The Host may end the Activity under the same circumstances, and should do so before resolving the party. If the Party or Grand Party ceases to be Ongoing before the Activity is Over, the Activity ends without a winner. An activity cannot end except by one of the causes from this paragraph or by CfJ.
When an Activity is ended, the Party Score of the Winner of the Activity (as defined by the Rules of the Game of the Activity) is increased by the amount defined by the Reward of the Game of the Activity.
A Game consists of a Name, Rules, a Location, a Cost and a Reward, and optionally an Associated Object. The following is a list of Games:
Name | Rules | Location | Cost | Associated Object | Reward |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pogs | When this Activity has 4 Members, it is Ongoing. Each Member of this Activity may choose to bet any amount of Energy that is equal to or lower than their current amount of Energy. Within 24 hours of the Activity becoming Ongoing, they must post a Response to the Activity post, where [Response] is a SHA-1 hash whose contents start with the amount of Energy spent as a bet. After this Response has been posted, the bet cannot be changed. Every hash must include a salt which consists of the word ‘salt:’ followed by any number of characters; all text including and following the word ‘salt’ is considered to have no effect on the contents of the hash. When all Members of this Activity have posted a Response, they must then post a Response within 24 hours where [Response] is the contents of the hash they responded with previously to this Activity post. When all Members of this Activity have posted said Response, the Activity is Over. When the Activity is Over, the Member of this Activity that bet the highest amount of Energy in this Activity is the Winner of this Activity. When this Activity is Over, every Member of it loses the amount of Energy they bet. If this would reduce a Member’s Energy to below 0, it is instead set to 0. If this would reduce the Energy of the Winner of this Activity to below 0, the Activity ends with no Winner and their Energy is set to 0. When 2 or more Members are tied for the highest bet, this Activity has no Winner. When a Member fails to respond with their hash or the contents of their hash within the allotted time, then their bet is considered to be 0 and they are considered to have posted a Response. | Garden | 1 | 30 | |
Darts | When this activity has 3 members, it is ongoing and no new Members may join this Activity. Within 24 hours of the Activity becoming ongoing, each member of this Activity must post a response to the activity post, where [Response] is the word “Throw” followed by an integer between 1 and 10, inclusive (a throw response). Then within 12 hours of all 3 throw responses being received, one member must post a Response to this Activity where [Response] is the word “Bullseye”, followed by a randomly chosen number between 1 and 10, inclusive (a bullseye response). If the bullseye response does not contain the same number as either throw response, a new bullseye response must be made, repeating until it matches any throw response. When the bullseye response has the same number as any throw response, the Activity is over and the Member who posted the matching throw response is the Winner of this Activity. If any member fails to post a throw response, if all members fail to post a bullseye response, or if more than one member posts the same throw response, then this Activity is over and there is no Winner of this Activity. | Kitchen | 3 | Dart | 18 |
Cook Off | The Cook Off Activity is Ongoing between 12 hours after its start and 28 hours after its start, and Over after 28 hours after its start. A valid Response to a Cook Off Activity is a single link to a Proposal authored by the responding Member since the start of the Cook Off. The winner is the Member whose first valid Response links to the proposal with the most FOR votes from non-Members, with ties broken in favor of the earlier Response. If there are no valid Responses, there is no Winner. | Barbeque | 5 | Meat | 10 times the number of members |
A new game's Reward should generally be assigned so that the expected (average) value of the Party Score gained by each participant of an associated Activity played to completion is roughly equal to twice the energy it cost them.
Closing the Pool
The effects of Closing the Pool are as follows: If no Partygoer in the Pool has any Energy, each Partygoer in the Pool (if any) gains 1 Party Score. Otherwise, the one Closing the Pool shall select a random Energy unit held by a Partygoer in the Pool and award the Partygoer with that Energy unit an amount of Party Score equal to the number of Partygoers in the Pool. After these changes in Party Score, everyone in the Pool moves to the Garden.
Publicity
Whenever a player starts a Party or Grand Party, they should make a story post announcement detailing that they have done so.
Carrying
A Partygoer may hold up to four Objects at a time, defaulting to nothing. If a Partygoer holds four Objects, any attempt to make them hold more will fail. The Rubber Ducky is an Object held by whoever possesses it. Objects have one- or two-word names that are flavor text and are not necessarily unique. The Objects held by each Partygoer are publicly tracked.
There exists a single Rubber Ducky, which is in the possession of a single Partygoer, defaulting to the Host. If the Rubber Ducky is held by a Partygoer, that Partygoer is known as the Holder of the Rubber Ducky. If the rule “Party Time” or one of its subrules would transfer possession of the Rubber Ducky to a Partygoer who already holds four Objects, that Partygoer first drops their first-listed held Object to make room for the Rubber Ducky.
While not at a Party or Grand Party, a Partygoer may drop any Objects they're holding other than the Rubber Ducky.
While a Partygoer at a Party or Grand Party is holding more than two Objects, any other Partying Partygoer at the same Location who is holding one or fewer Objects may steal one of their Objects.
While the Host is the Holder of the Rubber Ducky during a Grand Party, the Host should make reasonable attempts to allow or cause other Partygoers to possess the Rubber Ducky instead.
Pot Luck
While not at a Party or Grand Party, a Partygoer may start holding the Objects “Soda”, “Meat”, “Chips” or “Brownies”, which are categorized as Food, or “Acoustic Guitar” which is categorized as an Instrument.
Locations
Each Partygoer has a publicly tracked Location, which may be Pool, Garden, Barbecue, Kitchen or Toilet, and which defaults to Garden. A Partygoer's Location has no effect unless a Party or Grand Party is currently taking place. At any time, a Partygoer may spend 1 Energy to change their Location.
Local Objects
This rule only applies to Partying Partygoers except where it explicitly says otherwise.
A Partygoer who enters the Pool with a Food Object ceases to be holding that Object.
A Partygoer who enters the Pool while holding the Rubber Ducky chooses a random Partygoer in the Pool and, if they didn’t choose themselves, transfer the Rubber Ducky to that Partygoer.
The Bathroom has a Stash, a publicly tracked list of Objects. Partygoers alone in the Bathroom may transfer Objects they’re holding to the Stash or remove Objects from the Stash to start holding them. While the Rubber Ducky is in the Stash, the last Partygoer (whether Partying or not) to be Holder of the Rubber Ducky remains Holder of the Rubber Ducky. The Bathroom Stash empties after each Party is resolved.
A Partygoer who is in the Kitchen and not holding any Objects may start holding “Soda”.
As a communal action, once per Party or Grand Party, a Partygoer at the Barbecue may either give every Partygoer whose location is the Barbecue the object Meat, or may lose one Meat to give every Partygoer at the Barbecue 2 Party Points.
Grillin'
Barbecue, Barbeque, BBQ, Barbie, Braai and Grill are all considered to be synonyms as per the rule Spelling and Formatting.
Party Tricks
Certain actions are Party Tricks. Party Tricks are always atomic. A Partygoer may only perform a Party Trick if they are Partying and they haven’t already performed it during the current Party or Grand Party.
As a Party Trick called Chugging, a Partygoer may remove two “Soda” from being held by themselves, and increase their energy by 1.
As a Party Trick called Feasting, a Partygoer may remove one each of “Soda”, “Meat”, “Chips” and “Brownies” from being held by four different Partying Partygoers including themselves, and increase the Party score of each of those Partygoers by four.
As a Party Trick called Balloon Popping, a Partygoer holding a Dart in the Garden may cease to hold that Dart to gain DICE3 minus one Party Score.
As a Party Trick called Cannonball, a Partygoer in the Garden may spend 2 Energy drop all their held objects (except for the Rubber Ducky, if they have it), change their location to the Pool, and gain one Party Score.
Medal Shower
During a Grand Party, the Holder of the Rubber Ducky may spend 100 Medals to achieve victory.
Special Case
Special Case Rules can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.
Special Case Rules have a Default Status, which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[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 “Partygoers” 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 Partygoers; or
- That of the Partygoers, 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 [Active]
If the Host has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Partygoers 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 Partygoers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.
Dynastic Distance [Inactive]
For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Host is not a Partygoer.
Malign Emperors [Inactive] [Rare]
The Host may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were a Partygoer, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Host 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 Partygoer may set it to Inactive. (The combo is too strong.)
Dynastic Tracking [Active]
The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Party Central page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. Host 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 Host is not considered a Partygoer for the purposes of this rule.
Partygoers 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoers (or people who are not yet Partygoers) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Partygoer 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 Partygoers 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]
The mantle may not be passed. (Partygoers 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.) This limitation does not apply to proposals that would explicitly award Victory.
Alliances [Inactive] [Rare]
Each Partygoer may have an Alliance, which is publicly tracked, and consists of the distinct names of no more than two other Partygoers; a Partygoer's Alliance defaults to an empty set. A Partygoer may change their Alliance as a daily action.
If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if a Partygoer 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 Partygoer may pass the Mantle to a Partygoer 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 Partygoers 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 Partygoers 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). A Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer End it again.
Bounties [Rare][Active]
A Bounty Notice is a post in the Story Posts - Votable Matter category which broadly requests a single mechanical or ruleset change. Despite its category, it is not a votable matter and any votes on it are ignored. A Bounty Notice may be Open or Closed being Open by default and being Closed when set to the ‘Enacted’ or ‘Failed’ status in the post backend. The Enacted Status should be used for successfully completed Bounty Notices, while Failed should be used for ones that were closed for any other reason
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: Royal Gift
The Host may post a Bounty Notice, close an open Bounty Notice, or change the Bounty Reward Variable in this rule at any time.
If the Host believes that one or more enacted votable matters satisfy the demand of an open Bounty Notice, then they may iterate the Bounty Reward Variable of each Partygoer (other than the Host) who authored at least one of those votable matters 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoers.
- Dice
- References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
- Dynastic Action
- An action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.
- Dynastic Proposal
- A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.
- Effective Vote Comment (EVC)
- A Partygoer's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Partygoer's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Partygoer's Vote on that Votable Matter.
- Commentary
- When posting a blog entry, a Partygoer 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. Partygoers , as well as people who are not Partygoers 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 Partygoers 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. Partygoers 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 Partygoers is half the number of Partygoers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Partygoers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Partygoers.
- 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoer is defined as a Partygoer who has been a Partygoer for fewer than seven days or a Partygoer that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.
Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule, except for a votable matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.
Representations of the Gamestate
For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of a Partygoer'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 Partygoer may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.
If a Partygoer 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 Partygoer, if doing so would not require the correcting Partygoer to make any decisions on behalf of the original Partygoer .
Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Partygoers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement. The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.
Orphan Variables
An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a reasonable manner in which it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.
A Partygoer may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.
Random Generators
The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.
- The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
- The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
- The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
- The CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.
- A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.
Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.
If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Partygoer with such access. Only a Partygoer with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Partygoer 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 Partygoer making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Partygoer making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.
Atomic Actions
An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.
- All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
- When a Partygoer 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 Partygoer performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
- If a Partygoer 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 Partygoer must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Partygoer 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 Partygoer would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
- For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions, the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.
Clarifications
Numbers and Variables
- If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.
- Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
- All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
- Unless otherwise specified, to “spend,” “pay” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” or “pay” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Partygoer can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Partygoers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Partygoer only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Partygoer (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
- If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
- A Partygoer 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 Host (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Host when the ruleset allows it. If a Partygoer should already know such a piece of information (in that the Host has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Host 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, Partygoer 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 Partygoer 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 softwsare), Partygoers 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.
- A Partygoer 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.
- Partygoers may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.
- A Partygoer may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.
Names
- Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Partygoer if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Partygoer's name.
- If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
- The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
- Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
- When referring to a Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
- When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
- Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
- When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, a Partygoer's (or prospective Partygoer'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 “Partygoers may Kick each other” and “Partygoers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Partygoers 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 “Partygoers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Partygoers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Partygoers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).
Archives
This document is considered to be, in effect, the only Ruleset for BlogNomic, so long as it is located at at the URL https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset.
Mentors
A Partygoer may have another Partygoer as a Mentor. Partygoers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Partygoer who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.
If an unmentored Partygoer requests a Mentor, or a new Partygoer has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Host should select a Tenured Partygoer and ask them to take that Partygoer 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 Host should announce it in a blog post. The Host should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.
A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Partygoer may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.
If there is no Host, any Partygoer who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Host 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 Partygoer 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 Partygoers .
- 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 “Partygoer” and “Host”.
Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses
- Partygoer (Player)
- Host (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.