Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Racers 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 set metagame parameters for the current dynasty; 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 text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Racer may update it to do so.

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Race Log page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.

Racers

A human with access to the blog who is not already a Racer may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Racer (plural form Racers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Racer. (See the FAQ for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)

Some Racers are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Racers who wish to become Admins should submit a Proposal or CfJ to that effect. An Admin may make a blog post clearly stating their wish to resign under this rule. In response, any Admin may remove them from their post as Admin.

A Racer may cease to be a Racer at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Racer in this way may not become a Racer again within the following two weeks.

Idle Racers

A Racer may be either Active or Idle. A Racer is only Active if their name is on the list of currently active Racers in the Sidebar; otherwise they are Idle.

A Racer may request to become Idle at any time by making a post or comment to that effect. An Admin may render a Racer Idle if that Racer has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Racer has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so.

For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Racers”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, “Imperial Tracking”, “Mentors” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Racers are not counted as Racers. The combined term “Idle Racers” can be used to refer to Racers who are Idle even in Proposals or rules that do not treat them as Racers, and any Votable Matter that specifically refers to a named Idle Racer can affect them as if they were Active. Idle admins may act as Admins as if they were Active.

An Admin may make a Racer Active if that Racer is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may make themselves Active at any time, unless the Racer who would become Active has become Idle within the past 48 hours (2 days), and within the current Dynasty. Admins who are making any Racer Active should highlight the changed status of the relevant Racer and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it as a comment to the entry requesting the change, or as part of their next vote comment if making themselves Active.

When a Racer is made Active, 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 Racer Idled in a different Dynasty), the Racer is given the default value for new Racers, if such a value exists.

When a Racer becomes idle due to inactivity, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Racer during the current and subsequent dynasty.

Dormancy

If there are fewer than four Active Racers (not including the Announcer), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Recusants

An Idle Racer may post or vote on a Votable Matter provided that its effect does not include, even conditionally, the creation, deletion or amendment of dynastic rules or gamestate defined by dynastic rules. An Idle Racer who makes or votes upon such a Votable Matter is, for the purposes of that Votable Matter, a Recusant. When resolving a Votable Matter, all Idle Racers who are Recusants on that matter are considered to be Active solely for the purposes of determining whether it was legally posted, and for determining Quorum on that matter; and all otherwise valid votes cast by Recusants are considered to be valid votes cast by Active Racers.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Racer, 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 a Dynastic Reset has been performed. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Racer may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

If the game is in an Interregnum and the Announcer has posted an Ascension Address during this Interregnum, then Proposals may be submitted as if the game was not in Hiatus. If the game is in an Interregnum, Proposals may be submitted and resolved as if the game was not in Hiatus provided they do not change the Dynastic Rules or Gamestate defined by Dynastic Rules.

Unless otherwise stated by a dynastic or Building Blocks rule, then for the purposes of dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Announcer is not a Racer.

Each Dynasty is tracked by a number. The current Dynasty Number is 241.

The following Racer is the Announcer: "Clucky".

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Racer 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. When the Announcer themselves casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, it indicates an indication of confidence in the votes of the other players; please see the Rules and Votable Matters section of the Appendix for more information on how this is resolved.

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

It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.

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

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Racer 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 24 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 applied by treating the text in the Proposal as a series of steps starting from the beginning of that Proposal’s text and performing each step until reaching the end of that Proposal’s text, except that if the Admin Enacting it reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Racer A gains 1 point”) or at all (e.g. applying to a rule which does not exist), that step is ignored for the purposes of Enactment; the Admin Enacting the Proposal shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in each step that was performed.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Racers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Racer feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Racer may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category. A vote of DEFERENTIAL on a CfJ is never considered a valid vote.

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 does not specify changes to the gamestate nor ruleset, does not specify that any attempt to perform an action should be upheld or rejected, and does not specify 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 Racer (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.

A Racer’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. A vote of DEFERENTIAL on a DoV is never considered a valid vote. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus, no Idle Racer may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered.

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

It has a FOR Vote from every Racer.
It has been open for at least 24 hours and it has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.

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 Racer who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 72 hours (3 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Racer who posted the DoV becomes Announcer, and the game enters an Interregnum. The player who Enacted it updates the rule “Dynasties” as specified in “Imperial Tracking”. 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 make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. The Ascension Address may be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and the Dynastic Reset action has not yet been performed since the initial posting of that Ascension Address. The Ascension Address should specify the Announcer’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specifiy one or more of the following:

New dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule “Synonyms”
A number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed)
Any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section
The name of the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”
The Announcer’s Imperial Style, which if specified is a set of nonbinding guidelines that the Announcer is encouraged to follow, using the terms defined on the wiki page Imperial Styles.

If it has not been done since the most recent posting of an Ascension Address, the Announcer or any Racer (if it’s the latter, they must wait until at least 4 hours after that Ascension Address has been posted) may perform a Dynastic Reset, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

Create a wiki page called “Ruleset X” where X is the current Dynasty Number (replacing its contents if it already exists)
Increase the current Dynasty Number by 1
Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms as outlined in the most recent Ascension Address.
Repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept in the most recent Ascension Address.
Update the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” with the name specified in the most recent Ascension Address, if any. If no name is specified, set the gamestate tracking page to be “Gamestate Tracking X” where X is the current dynasty number
Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.
Make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset as described in the most recent Ascension Address.

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 Racer’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. Racers 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 Racer within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Racer and any Idle Racers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Racer, defined here as the controlled Racer’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Racer was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
A Racer 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 Racer should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
A Racer should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Racer.
A Racer should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post, except as permitted by the rule Date and Time Tracking in the Appendix.
A Racer should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Racer 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 Racer 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 Racer must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
A Racer should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
A Racer should not use a Core, Building Blocks, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Racer to achieve victory.
A Racer should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic, nor trade actions or favours in one Dynasty of Blognomic for actions or favours in another Dynasty of Blognomic.
A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Racer or Racers to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
- Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
- A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

All Racers and idle Racers 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 Racers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Phases

There is a publicly tracked Phase which is either Building or Racing, and by default is Building.

A Dynastic Rule with [Building] in its title is a Building Rule.
A Dynastic Rules with [Racing] in its title is a Racing Rule.
A Dynastic Rule that is neither a Racing Rule or a Building Rule is a Standard Rule.

If the Phase is Racing, then actions defined by a Building Rule may not be taken unless the rule explicitly permits it. If the Phase is Building, then actions defined by a Racing Rule may not be taken unless the rule explicitly permits it.

If the current Phase is building, 12 or more Auctions have been created since the start of the current Building Phase began, and all Auctions are Closed, then the Announcer may set the phase to be Racing by making a post to the blog announcing the change.

The first Racing Phase in the dynasty spans 3 Legs, the second spans 4 Legs, the third spans 5 Legs, which is also considered the Finale.

If it is not the Finale, at least as many Legs have passed in the current Racing Phase as dictated in the above paragraph, and there are no Legs which have not yet Ended then the Announcer may set the phase to be Building by making a post to the blog announcing the change.

If the current Phase is Racing, Idle Racers may not be made unidle.

Regulations

There is a publicly tracked Regulations which is either empty or a link, defaulting to empty. When performing an action that would change the Phase from Building to Racing, Regulations must be set to the link to the most recent revision of the Ruleset in its wiki page’s history as part of performing that action. When Regulations is not empty, the revision of the Ruleset contained at the link in Regulations is called the Racing Regulations.

A dynastic rule with a name that ends with the text “[Racing]” is known as a Racing Rule. When the Phase is Racing, all Racing Rules in the Racing Regulations are considered to be the current versions of those rules for the purposes of taking dynastic actions and tracking gamestate (but not when modifying the rules themselves). In case of a conflict, the Racing Rules in the Racing Regulations take precedence when the Phase is Racing.

Stats

Each Racer has a Vehicle which has a publicly tracked Name that is a flavour-text string which can be changed by the Racer at any time, as long as it doesn’t match the Name of another Racer’s Vehicle (including idle Racers), and defaults to a string that starts with that Racer’s name and has the text “‘s Vehicle” appended to it.

Each Vehicle has five numerical stats, each of which is publicly tracked defaults to 1 (for Crew) and 10 (for all others). The collection of these stats is known as a Vehicle’s WACKY and they are

Whimsy (The style and je ne sais quoi which the Vehicle embodies)
Armor (how tough and sturdy the Vehicle is)
Crew (how many people are in the Vehicle)
Kinetics (how fast the Vehicle is)
Yare (how easy it is to maneuver the Vehicle)

Any references to a Racer’s WACKY stats are to be considered to be referring to the Racer’s Vehicle’s WACKY stats.

Each Racer has a Distance, being a publicly tracked number. When an Idle Racer is unidled, their Distance is set to 0, regardless of what their Distance was whenever that Racer was idled.

Each Racer has a Damage which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. Any action that would set their Damage below 0 instead sets it to 0. A Racer whose Damage is higher than their Armor is considered to be Inoperable. A Racer’s Armor Adjustment is equal to their damage minus half their armor, or zero whichever is higher.

WACKY stats are permitted to be negative, which results in those stats being treated as zero for any calculations involving them outside of this paragraph, its bullet points, or any effect which would increase that stat. However, Racers cannot take actions which would result in both of the following being true:

One or more of their stats is negative at the end of the action.
Any of those stats is lower than it was immediately before the action.

The shorthand “+/-X [Stat]” may be used in the effect of an Item to mean that while that Item is in a Racer’s Loadout, their Vehicle’s respective stat is increased or decreased by X. For example, if an Item says “+2 Kinetics” in its Effect, then it gives 2 Kinetics to a Racer who has it in their Loadout.

If it is currently the Building Phase, then the Announcer may rewrite the Effect of every Item by replacing any stat modifiers with the equivalent shorthand where applicable. After doing so, they must repeal this paragraph.

Each Racer has a publicly tracked Fuel which defaults to 10, as well as a publicly tracked Tank Size which also defaults to 10.

Dastardliness

Each Racer may be Dastardly or Not Dastardly, defaulting to Not Dastardly; this is publicly tracked. During the Building Phase, a Racer may declare themselves to be Dastardly in the next Leg by making a post to the blog declaring their villainy; at the end of each Leg, all Racers are set to being Not Dastardly.

While Dastardly, a Racer’s Whimsy is considered to be zero, but all vehicles and terrains are considered to be within Range of them.

Items

Items consist of

a name, which is flavour text
a type, which can be Chassis, Wheels, Engine, Weapon, Decal, Consumable or Trash
an effect

Each Racer has a publicly tracked Inventory which consists of zero or more items, and defaults to no items.

Each Racer also has a publicly tracked Loadout, which consists of zero or more items, and defaults to the Standard Stock. A Racer’s Loadout may only contain at most one item whose type is Chassis, at most one item whose type is Engine, at most one item whose type is Wheels, and most at two items whose type is Weapon. A Racer’s Loadout may contain any number of Decals or Consumables.

Standard Stock is the following list of Items

Name: Basic Chassis; Type: Chassis; Effect: While this item is in a Racer’s Loadout, their Armor is increased by 2
Name: Basic Wheels; Type: Wheels; Effect: While this item is in a Racer’s Loadout, their Yare is increased by 2
Name: Basic Engine; Type: Engine; Effect: While this item is in a Racer’s Loadout, their Kinetics is increased by 2
Name: Basic Racing Stripe; Type: Decal; Effect: +0 Whimsy, +0 Armor, +0 Kinetics, +0 Yare, +0 Crew

If the Phase is Building, a Racer may remove an Item from their Loadout and add it to their Inventory or remove an item from their Inventory and add it to their Loadout at any time.

A Terrain is said to be In Range of a Vehicle if the Vehicle’s Distance is either in that Terrain, or if its Distance plus its Kinetics (or portion of its Kinetics) is in that Terrain.

A Vehicle (the Victim) is In Range of another Vehicle (the Aggressor) if the Victim’s Distance is between the Aggressor’s Distance minus two and the Aggressor’s Distance plus two plus the Aggressor’s Kinetics.

When a Racer uses an Item to target a Vehicle other than their own, if there are multiple possible Vehicles that are eligible for that Racer to target with that Item, they must choose among the Vehicles whose Whimsy is less than or equal to the mean Whimsy of all Vehicles in that eligible group.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the effects of items in the Junkyard or the Bank is flavor text.

The Bank

The Bank is a publicly tracked collection of Items.

A Bank Offering is a kind of Votable Matter. Up to three times per week as a Daily Action, a Racer or the Announcer may create a Bank Offering by posting a Story Post (Voteable Matter) whose title begins with “Bank Offering:”. The contents of this story post must be exactly one item. When a Racer does so, they may increase their Money by $50. If the Announcer feels that the Bank Offering was created specifically to fail, they may remove that $50 from that Racer.

Racers and Announcers may vote on Bank Offerings as if they were a Proposal

When a Bank Offering is Enacted, the item described in the Bank Offering is added to the Bank.

If A Bank Offering is Popular and has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn, it may be Enacted by any Admin. If A Bank Offering is Unpopular or it has been Vetoed or Withdrawn, it may be Failed by any Admin.

Whenever a Racer is made Idle in this dynasty, a copy of each Item in that Idle Racer’s Inventory or Loadout that is not a Standard Stock item is added to The Bank.

Each Item in the Bank has a numerical Weight, which defaults to 1 and is privately tracked by the Announcer. A Racer may initiate a Virtual Action to increase the Weight of any Item in the Bank by 2 if they have not done so since they last created a Bank Offering. If they have not already done so this dynasty, a Racer may initiate a Virtual Action to increase the Weight of any set of Items in the Bank by a total of 10 (weight on the same item may be increased multiple times in the same instance of this action).

If during this dynasty the Announcer has received any Virtual Action requests to increase the Weight of an Item that would have been resolved as legal according to the current ruleset but were either left pending or resolved as illegal due to prior versions of the ruleset, those requests are instead considered unresolved, and the Announcer should resolve all such unresolved requests at their earliest convenience, then repeal this paragraph.

In the case of a Bank Offering has been vetoed or withdrawn and was posted more than 24 hours ago, that Bank Offering is not considered to be pending for the purposes of its author posting other Bank Offerings.

The Junkyard

The Junkyard is a publicly tracked list of Items defaulting to no Items. Whenever an Item is destroyed, a copy of it is added to the Junkyard unless the Junkyard already contains an instance of that Item or that item is in an Item Catalog rule.

If the Phase is Building, as an atomic action a Racer may remove a non-Trash Item from their Loadout or Inventory that is not a Standard Stock Item and put that Item in the Junkyard, then increase their Money by 50.

Item Catalog

The subrules of this rule are all items that may be referenced by name by other items or rules

Snapping Turtle

Name: Snapping Turtle
Type: Trash
Effect: While this item is in a Racer’s Loadout, their Whimsy is increased by 1, but their Yare and Kinetics are decreased by 3. A Racer with this item in their Loadout can use the Fend Off Turtle stunt action and choose a Vehicle In Range. This transfers the Snapping Turtle to that Vehicle. This action cannot be used during the Leg that the Snapping Turtle is added to that Racer’s Loadout, and it cannot Target the Vehicle of the Racer whose Stunt Action caused it to be added to their Loadout.

Fowl Vengeance

Name: Fowl Vengeance
Type: Trash
Effect: A Racer that has Fowl Vengeance in their Loadout is unable to use Consumables and takes 1 damage each time their Distance increases by any amount. This item may be destroyed by the Racer with it in their loadout at any time so long as the most recently resolved Leg was resolved while their Pitting was true.

Auctions [Building]

Each Racer has a publicly tracked amount of Money which by default is $1000

When otherwise instructed by the rules, the Announcer may create an Auction by making a story post to the blog whose title begins with “Auction N:” where N is one more than the number of Auctions the Announcer has already created this dynasty and whose body describes a prize which is an item. Upon doing so, the Auction becomes Open and remains Open until the earliest instance of 15:00 UTC which is at least 40 hours since the Auction was posted at which point it becomes Pending.

Each Racer has a Bid on an Open Auction which is a non-negative integer that defaults to 0 and which is privately tracked by the Announcer. A Racers Unresolved Debts are equal to the sum of all of their Bids on all Open Auctions. Actions which would cause a Racer’s Unresolved Debts to become greater than their Money fail.

Racers may change their Bid on an Open Auction as a Virtual Action. The Announcer may process changes to bids made on Pending Auctions, provided the change to the bid was submitted while the Auction was still open.

If An Auction is Pending, and is the oldest pending Auction, the Announcer may Resolve the Auction by performing the following atomic action:

If no Racers made a bid higher than 0 for that Auction, make a comment on the Auction post declaring the Auction a Bust and skip to the “The Auction is now Closed” step
Determine the Racer with the Highest Bid for that Auction and make them the Auction’s Winner. If their is a tie for highest, privately randomly select a Racer amongst those tied.
Determine the Bid by the Racer with the second Highest Bid for that Auction (if there was a tie for the highest bid, this is the value of the highest bid). This is the Cost
Reduce the Winner’s Money by the Cost, and add the item to the Winner’s inventory
Unless the Racer who placed the Winning Bid explicitly requested the item to not be equipped as part of the atomic action in which they made their bid do the following:
- If the type of the prize is Chassis, Wheels, or Engine first move the item with the same type as the prize from the Loadout of the Racer who made the Winning Bid (if there is one) to their Inventory, then move the prize to their Loadout
- If the type of the prize is Decal or Consumable, move the prize to the Winner’s Loadout
- If the type of the prize is Weapon, and the Winner has fewer than two Weapons in their Loadout, move the prize to their Loadout
Add a comment on the Auction Post declaring the winner and the cost, as well as each bid (but not the name of the Racer that placed that bid) that was placed on that auction that is not higher than the Cost.
The auction is now closed

New Auctions

Up to three times per day, provided there are no Bank Offerings which could be Enacted, the Announcer may randomly select one Item from The Bank using each Item’s weight for the random distribution (so an item with a weight of 3 would be three times as likely as an item with a weight of 1 to be selected), remove it from the Bank, and create an Auction with that Item as its Prize.

Whenever an Auction is created, if it is the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, or 21st Auction created since the start of the current Building Phase, the Weight of every Item in the Bank is increased by 1.

Track [Racing]

The Track is a publicly tracked list of Terrains. Each Terrain has a Terrain Type, which is a valid Terrain Type (defaulting to Wide Open Stretch), and a Length, which is a number, defaulting to two more than the Length of the Terrain’s Terrain Type. The Track has a Length equal to the sum of Lengths of each of its Terrains. It is permitted for the list to have repeated entries and in that case, each one is considered to be a unique instance of that Terrain. A Terrain is considered X, where X is a valid Terrain Type, if that Terrain’s Terrain Type is X.

If it is not the Finale, any Racer or the Announcer may choose a number N, where N is both equal to or lower than the Distance of the Racer with the lowest Distance and equal to or lower than the Length of the first terrain in the track, decrease the Distances of all Racers by N, and decrease the Length of the first terrain on the track by N. If the first Terrain in the Track has a distance of 0 or lower, any Racer or the Announcer may remove it from the Track.

If there are less than 10 Terrains in the track or a Racer’s Distance plus their Kinetics plus their Boost is greater than the sum of lengths of all Terrains in the Track, any Racer or the Announcer may Plan Race as an atomic action, by following the following steps:

Add a new Terrain to the end of the Track, with a random valid Terrain Type.
Set that Terrain’s Length to the Length of that Terrain’s Terrain Type plus the result of a DICE6.

Terrain Types

Each Terrain Type has a Length, defaulting to 10. The list of possible Terrain Types and their lengths are: Wide Open Stretch (13), Claustrophobic Canyons (5), Flooded Marshes (7), Unpredictable Geyser Territory (9), and Literally Airborne (1).

A given Distance is said to be in a Terrain (designated T here) in the Track if it is greater than the cumulative sum of Lengths of all Terrains in the list prior to T, but less than or equal to the cumulative sum of Lengths of Terrains up to and including T. A Distance of 0 is considered to be in the first Terrain, and distances which greater than the sum of the Lengths of all Terrains in the Track are considered to be in The Void.

A Racer’s Adjustment Penalty is either 0 or (14 - that Racer’s Yare), whichever is higher.

The Void

The Void is a special terrain. It cannot be added to the track by any normal means. It has infinite length and a Terrain Types of Void, which is itself a special terrain type with infinite length.

Legs [Racing]

If there are no Legs which have not yet Ended and they cannot currently change the Phase to Building then the Announcer may create a new leg. They do so by making a story post to the blog whose title begins with “Leg N:” where N is one more than the number of Legs the Announcer has already created this dynasty and where the body of that post contains the name of each Racer.

A Racer may perform the atomic action of Maneuvering, for any Leg which hasn’t yet been Ended and where they haven’t already Maneuvered, as follows:

Optionally declare in a comment to the Leg that they are Pitting this Leg, and skip the rest of this action.
If they are Inoperable, skip the rest of this action.
Optionally perform a Fuel Action.
For each point of Crew their Vehicle has, optionally perform up to one Stunt Action. (The same Stunt Action may not be performed more than once during a single Maneuvering action.)
Post a comment on the Leg’s post summarising this action’s outcome.

A Racer who declared as part of their Maneuvering that they were Pitting in a non-Ended Leg is known as a Pitting Racer.

If every Racer has Maneuvered on a Leg which has not been Ended, then the Announcer or any Racer may perform the following atomic action of Ending the Leg:

Increase the Distance of each non-Pitting non-Inoperable Racer by their Vehicle’s Speed (equal to its Whimsy, minus its Armor Adjustment, plus the Racer’s Boost, to a minimum of zero)
Reduce each non-Pitting Racer’s Distance by their Adjustment Penalty if they are now in a different Terrain, to a minimum of 0
Set each Pitting Racer’s Damage to 0 and their Fuel to their Tank Size
Set each Racer’s Boost to 0
Post a comment on the Leg’s post summarising this action’s outcome

For each Leg that hasn’t Ended and was created at least 48 hours ago, if there are 1 or 2 Racers that have not performed Maneuvering for that Leg, the Announcer should privately message each of those Racers with a reminder to perform Maneuvering for that Leg if the Announcer has not done so in the past 24 hours.

Underdog Sponsorships [Building]

If no one has performed it during the current Building Phase, any Racer or Announcer can take the Sponsorships atomic action which has the following steps:

Create an list of Racers and their vehicles’ distances, ordered by their distances in descending order and breaking ties as you wish.
Privately track a Sponsors count for the rest of this action, starting at 2.
For each racer on the list, starting at the first entry and working through the list in order:
- If they are the first entry, or if they have a different distance than the entry above them, increase their money by 50 multiplied by the Sponsors count.
- If they have the same distance as the entry before them, instead increase their money by the same amount that the racer before them had their money increased by.
- In either case, increase the Sponsors count by 1.

Fueled Up!

Each Racer has a publicly tracked Boost which defaults to 0. Each Fuel Action has a name, which is flavor text, a cost in Fuel which must be paid in order to perform that action — if a racer does not have enough fuel to perform a fuel action they cannot perform that action — and an effect. To perform a Fuel Action a racer must spend the cost in Fuel and then perform the action as described, all as an atomic action. The valid fuel actions are below (though item effects may allow racers to perform additional fuel actions)

Name: No Boost. Cost: 0. Effect: Set your Boost to 0
Name: Standard Boost. Cost: 1. Effect: Set your Boost to 2
Name: Risky Boost: Cost 2. Effect: Set your Boost to the result of a DICE5
Name: Extended Boost. Cost: 3. Effect: Set your Boost to 5
Name: Extreme Boost: Cost: 5. Effect: Set your Boost to 10

The Finish Line

For the purposes of this rule, any Racer who is Dastardly, Pitting, or Inoperable is considered to have a Distance of 0.

If it is the Finale and at least five legs have passed during the current Racing Phase, and there are no Legs which have not yet Ended then the Announcer may not create another leg unless other wise specified and the Racer with the greatest Distance has achieved victory. If there is no Racer with the greatest Distance (but the rest of the specifications outlined at the start of this rule still hold), the Announcer may create a new leg—immediately upon this leg’s creation, all Racers who do not have the greatest Distance are set to pitting and are considered to have already performed their Maneuvering action for the leg.

Upgrades [Building]

If they have not already done so since the current Building Phase began, a Racer may Get Wacky. When performing Get Wacky, the Racer performing it chooses from one of the following options and performs it as an atomic action, applying the change in WACKY stats to their copy of the “Basic Racing Stripe” Item in their Inventory or Loadout:

Roll {Whimsy,Armor,Kinetics,Yare} and increase the WACKY stat corresponding to the result of that roll by 4, then roll {Whimsy,Armor,Kinetics,Yare} and increase the WACKY stat corresponding to the result of that roll by 3, then roll {Whimsy,Armor,Crew,Kinetics,Yare} and increase the WACKY stat corresponding to the result of that roll by 1.
Increase each of Whimsy, Armor, Kinetics, and Yare by 1, and then increase one of Whimsy, Armor, Kinetics, or Yare by 1 more.

Concessions

Each Racer has a publicly tracked “Conceded” value which can be “true” or “false” and defaults to “false”

A Racer may change their Conceded value to true at any time.

If there is only one Racer whose Conceded value is false, that Racer has achieved victory.

For the purposes of the Ending the Leg action in Legs [Racing], Conceded racers that have not Maneuvered are considered to have Maneuvered. This does not affect their ability to Maneuver before the leg has ended.

The Chunkening

The Racer named Habanero has achieved Victory.

Building Blocks

Building Blocks are rules that can be substituted in and out of the ruleset as needed, usually as a result of an Ascension Address. All rules in the Building Blocks section are ruletext.

Potential Building Blocks rules can be found at the Building Blocks page of the wiki. That page’s contents are not rulestext. When the contents of the Building Blocks page are referred to as ‘rules’ by the ruleset or by a Votable Matter, it should be assumed that said contents are being referred to as potential rules rather than actual rules.

When a Announcer specifies the Building Blocks rules in use for a new dynasty in an Ascension Address, they should specify (by name) the rules from the Building Blocks page that they would like to be included in this section of the ruleset. When a Dynastic Reset is performed, the Building Blocks rules selected in the most recent Ascension Address (if any) must be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named in that Ascension Address must be removed from the Building Blocks section.

Whenever the text of a Building Block rule is changed in the ruleset, or a new Building Block rule is added to the ruleset, those changes are also made to the Building Blocks page of the wiki.

No Private Communication

Racers 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 Racer could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and the #current-dynasty, #blognomic-general and #new-player-questions-and-mentorships Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Racers (or people who are not yet Racers) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Racer 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 privately converse with each other as if this rule were not in effect, but should not collaborate to secure Victory for either party.

The restrictions on communication due to the Rule No Private Communication do not apply during an Interregnum.

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

Reinitialisation

If they have not already done so in the current dynasty, A Racer may make a post to the blog announcing that they are Reinitialising; if they do so then they must immediately set all of their gamestate tracked values to their defaults for new players, and if the Announcer is privately tracking any information about them then they should do likewise at their first opportunity. If a Racer has Reinitialised during the current dynasty, then, for the purposes of determining the validity of limited actions, they are considered to have undertaken no actions in this dynasty prior to their most recent Reinitialisation.

Virtual Actions

A Virtual Action is a type of action that the Announcer performs on behalf of a Racer. A Racer may initiate a virtual action by privately communicating to the Announcer their request to do so, along with any additional information needed to carry it out. The Announcer shall resolve the Virtual Action by performing the following Atomic Action:

Determine whether the Virtual Action fails (if it does not fail, it is successful).
If the action is successful, apply any specified effects on the gamestate and/or perform any specified actions on behalf of the Racer, and indicate to the Racer that their action has succeeded.

If a Virtual Action fails, the Announcer should tell the Racer why. A virtual action may fail for any of these reasons:

Some requirements/prerequisites to perform the action are not met.
The request does not contain all the information needed to resolve the action.
The request is unintelligible, or too vague to interpret unambiguously.
It would require the Announcer to do something they cannot do.
Any other reason specified by the action itself.
Except where otherwise stated by the ruleset, the Announcer must resolve all virtual actions in the order that they are received. A virtual action is considered to have occurred at the time it was resolved.

Until a virtual action is resolved, it is pending. A Racer may cancel a pending Virtual Action by privately communicating to the Announcer their request to do so.

When the performance of a Virtual Action causes the modification of publicly tracked gamestate, the Announcer should publicly track the historical fact of the occurrence of that Virtual Action on behalf of the Racer who initiated that Virtual Action, using the Announcer’s own name in that public tracking, and privately track the historical fact of the occurrence of that Virtual Action using the name of the Racer who initiated that Virtual Action.

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 Racer 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 Racer 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 Racer 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 Racer 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 Racers.
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 only 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.
Dynastic Variable: A gamestate variable that exists only due to a dynastic rule and is not mentioned in a non-dynastic rule. (In particular, the identity of the Announcer is not a dynastic variable.)
Effective Vote Comment (EVC): A Racer's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Racer's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Racer's Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Racer 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. Racers , as well as people who are not Racers 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 Racers 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. Racers 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 rules and Building Blocks explicitly mention (except for the FAQ, the dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within (or indirectly invoked by 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 unless a core rule permits doing so for that type of Hiatus. 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
Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Racers is half the number of Racers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Racers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Racers.
Reject: To reject an attempt to take an action is to retroactively declare the attempt to have been unsuccessful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after that attempt were attempted as though the rejected attempt had been unsuccessful. An attempt to take an action can be rejected even if it were originally legal. The opposite of rejecting an attempt to take an action is upholding it.
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.
Revert: To Revert an action or change is both to fully reverse the effects of that change having occurred, and also to consider that change to have not occurred at all. To Revert a document or piece of tracked gamestate to a specific prior state means to return that item to that state, considering the actions that may have changed it since the time of that state to have not occurred. Reverting the gamestate to a specific state does not imply upholding that state.
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.
Sticky Post: A blog post where the “Make Entry Sticky” option has been enabled. Changing the state of this option is not considering altering or modifying the post with regards to the rules on Official Posts. The sticky status of posts should generally be left to the discretion of the Announcer.
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.
Seasonal Downtime: On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Racers” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.
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.
Title: The title of a post is never considered to include, for the purposes of any rule, any text that was automatically generated by the blog software as a result of the author putting it into the appropriate category.
Uphold: To uphold an attempt to take an action is to retroactively declare the attempt to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after that attempt were attempted as though the upheld attempt had been successful. An attempt to take an action can be upheld even if it were originally illegal (in which case the retroactive change is made by pretending, for the purpose of calculating the results of that change, that the action was legal). The opposite of upholding an attempt to take an action is rejecting it.
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 Racer 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 only be altered by its author 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.

An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than 30 minutes old and either no Racer has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icon; this provision may be overruled by dynastic or Building Blocks rules.

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 voting icons in any of its comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post is less than six hours old and appears to the Announcer to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Announcer may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.

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.

Date and Time Tracking

The Entry Date field of an Official Post may be modified by its author, an Admin, or the Announcer, only under the following conditions and only in the following ways:

If an Official Post is older than 7 days but needs to remain Sticky on the front page of the Blog then its Entry Date may be edited to the time of the edit, to within a minute, with the original date and time at which it was posted added to the Commentary or flavour text field of that post, in which case the original time of posting remains the time at which it was posted.
If an Official Post has been made visible on the blog within the preceding 6 hours, then the Entry Date field may be amended to match the timestamp for the first revision of the post (i.e. the timestamp for the initially posted version).

Representations of the Gamestate

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Racer’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. 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 Racer may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Racers 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. Unless the rule defining the action specifies otherwise, this occurrence is 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 Racer may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Imperial Tracking

The identity of the current dynasty’s Announcer is tracked in the last sentence of the Core Rule “Dynasties”. Whenever a Racer becomes the Announcer, that sentence changes to “The following Racer is the Announcer: ” followed by that Racer’s name in quotes. Whenever a Metadynasty starts, that sentence changes to “There is no Announcer this Dynasty.”.

All names after the colon in the last sentence of “Dynasties” are considered to be references to Racers, and are flavour text for all purposes other than referencing Racers. If the Announcer changes their name by proposal, the sentence in question is updated to reflect the new name of the Announcer.

The identity of the Announcer is considered to be a gamestate variable that belongs to the game of BlogNomic as a whole, rather than belonging to the Announcer personally.

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 Racer with such access. Only a Racer with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Racer 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 Racer making the roll before or while making the roll. The Dice Roller is considered to fulfill the uniform probability distribution requirements to meet the purposes of the game. Additionally, when using a private random generation method, it is enough that the Racer performing the selection holds a genuine belief that their random selection method is uniform. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Racer 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 Racer 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 or 72 hours have passed.
If a rule allows the Racer performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
If a Racer 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 Racer must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Racer 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 Racer 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 Racer can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Racers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Racer only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Racer (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 Racer 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), false (for variables or states that may only be either true or false), 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”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Racers are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
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 a Racer 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. Additionally; if a piece of private information is described as being Sealed; the Racer or Announcer who tracked that information may reveal it during an Interregnum or during any later dynasty.
A range of numerical values stated to be “between” one value and another value is treated as an inclusive range unless otherwise explicitly stated.

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 (or image or Template) becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that content shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the new gamestate 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 a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Racer 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 may not be treated as containing ruletext, and may not be considered to possess any meaning other than that given to it by ruletext, 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), Racers may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
If the Announcer has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they (and any other Racers who have voted DEFERENTIAL on it) are not considered to be a Racer for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal.

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 Racer 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.
Racers may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, typographical, and/or formatting mistakes in the Ruleset, the Building Blocks page, and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Racers with the corresponding forms of the singular ‘they’.
A Racer 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.
A Racer may change the layout or design of a gamestate wiki page if doing so would not change how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Racer if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Racer'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 Racer's (or prospective Racer's ) new name must be between 3 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes. A Racer’s name may only be changed as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

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 Building Blocks Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Building Blocks Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Building Blocks Rule;
If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Racers may Kick each other” and “Racers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Racers 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 “Racers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Racers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Racers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

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 Racer may have another Racer as a Mentor. Racers who are willing to act as a Mentor, and who meet the criteria set out in the Tenured Players section of the aftermentioned page, 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 Racer who has requested a change on their own behalf, or may remove the name of any Tenured Player who no longer meets the criteria set out in the Tenured Players section of the Mentorships page, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a Votable Matter.

If an unmentored Racer requests a Mentor, or a new Racer has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Announcer should select a Tenured Racer and ask them to take that Racer 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. A Racer may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Announcer, any Racer 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 and Dice Roller, and optionally the game’s Discord and social media feeds
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 Racer 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 Racers .
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 “Racer” and “Announcer”.

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

Racer (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 Building Blocks page or 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 241

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

Racers

Idle Racers

Dormancy

Recusants

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

Phases

Regulations

Stats

Dastardliness

Items

The Bank

The Junkyard

Item Catalog

Snapping Turtle

Fowl Vengeance

Auctions [Building]

New Auctions

Track [Racing]

Terrain Types

The Void

Legs [Racing]

Underdog Sponsorships [Building]

Fueled Up!

The Finish Line

Upgrades [Building]

Concessions

The Chunkening

Building Blocks

No Private Communication

Reinitialisation

Virtual Actions

Appendix

Keywords

Imperatives

Time

Other

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Date and Time Tracking

Representations of the Gamestate

Orphan Variables

Imperial Tracking

Random Generators

Atomic Actions

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Rules and Votable Matters

Time

Spelling and formatting

Names

Prioritisation

Mentors

Things that a mentor must do

Things that a mentor should do

Things that a mentor should not do

Synonyms

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