Ruleset 60

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Characters shall obey it. Section One consists of the "core rules" of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the glossary, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset. Rules may be referred to by their type, entire number and name or type and name. (e.g. This Rule may be referred to as Rule 1.1 Ruleset and Gamestate or the Rule entitled “Ruleset and Gamestate").

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

Admins may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset at any time, including replacing Spivak pronouns with the singular "they". A typographical mistake is defined as “A mistake in printing, typesetting, or typing, especially one caused by striking an incorrect key on a keyboard.”

Characters

Anybody may apply to join BlogNomic (if he is not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post announcing her arrival. An Admin shall add her to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment he becomes a Character.

An Character may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A Character may only change her name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Characters are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Characters who wish to become Admins shall 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. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

Some Characters are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of the Ruleset, excluding Rules 1.1, 1.2 and 1.8, Idle Characters are not counted as Characters. Admins may render a Character Idle if that Character has asked to become Idle or if that Character has not posted a entry or comment for more than 7 days. Admins may de-Idle a Character at her request - the Character's personal gamestate retains the values it had immediately prior to her going Idle. If one or more values would be undefined, it is set to the value new Characters receive, if such a value exists.

A single person may not control more than one Characters within BlogNomic. If anybody is suspected of controlling more than one Character, then a Proposal may be made to remove any number of such Character from the game, and to bar the perpetrator from rejoining.

Proposals

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

Proposals can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Proposal is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Voting

Any Character may cast his Vote on a Pending Proposal by making a comment on that entry using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST or DEFERENTIAL.

If the Character who made a Proposal has not cast a Vote on it, his Vote is counted as FOR. If a Character uses more than one Voting Icon in comments on a Pending Proposal, his Vote is the last voting icon he uses. If a Character leaves the game or goes Idle, his Vote is no longer valid. If a Character votes against his own proposal, that vote may not be changed. This is referred to as a Self-Kill.

A vote of DEFERENTIAL is a vote of no opinion, or of faith in the decision of the Narrator. The vote will count as the same as the Narrator’s vote. The Narrator cannot cast a vote of DEFERENTIAL. If there is no Narrator, a vote of DEFERENTIAL counts as an explicit vote of abstention.

If no Narrator has voted on a proposal, a vote of DEFERENTIAL on that proposal does not count as a vote for the purposes of rule 1.5.

Enactment

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (and the Ruleset and/or Gamestate updated to include the specified effects of that Proposal) if either of the following is true:-

• It has a number of FOR votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been vetoed or self-killed.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid vote, more than half of its votes are FOR, and it has not been vetoed or self-killed.

The oldest pending Proposal may be failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:-

• It has enough AGAINST votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those votes being changed.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and half or fewer of its votes are FOR.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and has fewer than 2 valid votes.
• The Character who proposed it has voted AGAINST it.

Whenever an Admin marks a proposal as enacted or failed, he must also mark his name, and report the final tally of votes (or the fact that the proposal was self-killed or vetoed).

Proposals the Narrator has voted to VETO are considered vetoed. Proposals the author has voted against are considered self-killed unless the Narrator has voted VETO on them, or they have fulfilled one of the other requirements to fail a proposal before the author’s self-kill vote is placed.

When Narrator votes to VETO a Proposal, any Admin may fail that Proposal from that moment on, even if it is not the oldest Pending proposal.

Calls for Judgment

If two or more Characters actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Character feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Character may raise a Call for Judgment (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgment” category. If the Character wishes, he may post anonymously by choosing "Call for Judgment" from the Author drop-down menu on the OPTIONS tab. The post shall go on to describe the issue, and measures that shall be taken to resolve it.

All Characters may add votes of agreement or disagreement in comments to this entry, using appropriate voting icons (a Character's later votes overriding their earlier ones). Unfailed CfJs continue until they reach a quorum of FOR votes, a quorum of AGAINST votes, or if there is no hiatus going on, until four days have passed, and if there is a hiatus going on until two days have passed. After this time, if more than half of the cast votes are in favour, the Gamestate and Ruleset shall be amended as was specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails. A Failed CfJ has no further effect.

Gamestate Tracking

Proposals, Calls for Judgment, and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Character 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.

If no Character has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. 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 changed to reflect its status.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: Whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than five minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish.

Voting and comments are accessible through the link at the bottom of every post.

Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog. Any Character may update any Character's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Character feels that an alteration goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), he may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment shall be raised.

Characters shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty is headed by a single Character, known as the Narrator, and is named according to the number of Dynasties he has headed (eg. "The First Dynasty of Myke").

The Narrator may vote to VETO any Proposal.

Metadynasties

Some Dynasties (called Metadynasties) have no Narrator and are named according to the number of Metadynasties of Blognomic (eg. First Metadynasty). Metadynasties may only be started by a successful Proposal, CfJ, or as allowed by another rule.

When a Metadynasty begins, the previous Dynasty ends and all Dynastic rules are repealed. The theme (and appropriate substitution of keywords) may be chosen by any method deemed necessary.

Because there is no Narrator, DEFERENTIAL votes are counted as explicit votes of abstention and no one may VETO a Proposal.

Victory and Ascension

If a Character (other than the Narrator) believes that he has achieved victory in the current Dynasty, he may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Characters”, “Calls for Judgment”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Character may respond to an active DoV saying whether or not he believes the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty (using the FOR and AGAINST icons).

The Declaration of Victory may be resolved after 24 hours, or after 12 hours if the Narrator has voted on it. Upon resolution, if a Quorum of Characters have voted on the DoV and more than half of those votes were in favour, then the DoV passes - otherwise the DoV fails, and if no other DoVs are still pending, the Hiatus ends.

When a DoV passes, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Character who made the DoV as its Narrator. (That Character may pass this role to another Character at this point, if he wishes.) The Hiatus continues until the new Narrator posts an Ascension Address to the BlogNomic weblog - this shall specify the Narrator’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally include a proclamation that any number of Dynastic Rules will be repealed, and that any keywords will be replaced with new theme-appropriate terms.

A DoV may not be started in the period between a passing DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it has a number of AGAINST votes that exceed Quorum, the Character who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

A Declaration of Victory may not also be any other type of Official Post unless the rules concerning that type of Official Post explicitly state otherwise.

Dynastic Rules

The Plot

There exists a non-playable entity called “Jason Smith” (or the Protagonist). The Protagonist is not considered a Character, but certain actions of Characters can affect the Protagonist.

The Plot is defined as the events that have ocurred thus far in this Dynasty.

Plot Summary

There exists a wiki document called the Plot Summary whose contents have no direct effect on gamestate. However, the Plot Summary page may only be altered in manners specified by the ruleset. Any entries in the Plot Summary document should be kept as concise as possible.

The Plot Summary page shall be divided into two main sections, “Present Time” and “Foresight”. The “Present Time” section shall include all events up to the current date. Under the “Present Time” section, there shall be a sub-section for every date starting at 15/11/2008 and ending with the current date. At the beginning of each day, any Character may add the section for the current day under the “Present Time” section; however, he shall not add any text when he does this. The “Foresight” section shall include the events leading up to the death of Jason Smith. Only the Narrator may alter the “Foresight” section.

The Plot Summary page may be edited by the Narrator at any time.

Each Character other than the Narrator may, no more than three times per week, Seed the Plot by adding a sub-sub-section with any title and text (the Plot Seed) to the “Present Time” section of the Plot Summary page under the sub-section that corresponds to the current date. The Narrator may, within 72 hours, reward that Character’s Plot Seed by adding 1 to that Character’s PP.

Plot Points

Each Character has a statistic called “Plot Points” (abbreviated PP) to be tracked in the GNDT. Plot Points represent the extent of each Character’s role in the Plot. New Characters start with 0 PP.

The Narrator may, at any time, Develop a Character by adding 1 to that Character’s PP. The Narrator may not Develop himself. The Narrator may not Develop a Character if he already Developed that Character in the previous 24 hours (in other words, one PP per Character per day).

Indirect Influence

Whenever a Proposal becomes enacted, the enacting admin shall note the number of comments containing votes on that proposal which also contain the word “Epic” (if any). If that number is greater than or equal to two-thirds of Quorum, the Character who made that Proposal gains 1 PP.

Locations

There exists a wiki document titled “Locations”. It is a gamestate document and may only be changed as the ruleset or gamestate documents permit.

Each location has a separate heading on the “Locations” page. There exist a number of Locations, each of which has its own entry on the locations page. Each such entry may describe any pertinent information about such Location, such as it’s proximity to other Locations, any Objects or Characters located there, or any other information.

Each Character tracks their current location in a GNDT column called Location. A Character’s location may be any one which exists in the wiki document Locations, or the special value “Nowhere”. A Character whose location is “Nowhere” may change their location to any of those valid values except Smith Apartment at any time.

A new Character’s Location starts at “Nowhere".

Walking

Two Locations are considered Adjacent if their entries on the Locations page contain each others’ names. A Location Exits to another Location if it is Adjacent to that Location or if its entry in the Locations page explicitly states that it Exits to that other Location.

A Character may, if he has not done so in the last 2 hours, change their Location to any Location that their current Location Exits to.

Hosts

If the text or name of a location contains the name of a Character, that Character is the Host of that Location (a Location may have multiple hosts if all of their names appear in that Location). The Narrator is always the Host of Nowhere. If a Character’s current location is one for which they are Host, that Character is said to be Home. Characters who are not at Home, are said to be Guests of the Location they are currently in.

Bus Stops

A Location is a Bus Stop if its description on the Locations page contains the phrase “bus stop”. A character at a Bus Stop whose Location has not changed in the last four hours may spend 10 Bucks to change their Location to any other Bus Stop.

Weather

The weather, at any given date time, will be the weather for Greenwich, UK for the same date and time as reported at the website weather.com. The sunrise and sunset on any given date will occur on at the times stated at weather.com for Greenwich, UK on that date.

Relationship

There exists a GNDT-tracked variable for each character entitled relationship, which can be negative. New Characters start with a relationship of 0. The narrator always has a relationship of 0.

Whenever a Character other than the Narrator Seeds the Plot, that character may spend 50 Bucks to increase or decrease their Relationship by 1.

Random Occurrences

Any Character may, as a weekly action, generate a Random Occurrence by rolling “DICEX DICEX” in the GNDT, where X is the number of Locations in the “Locations” wiki page. If the rolls are the same, he shall roll again. Otherwise, the Location corresponding to the first roll (counting down in the list of Locations on the “Locations” wiki page) is called the Location of Positive Impact whereas the Location corresponding to the second roll (counting down in the list of Locations on the “Locations” wiki page) is called the Location of Negative Impact. He shall then add 1 to the Relationship of all Characters located at the Location of Positive Impact, subtract 1 from the Relationship of all Characters located at the Location of Negative Impact, and add 1 to his PP and the PP of all the Characters whose Relationship was changed in this way. He shall then post an entry to the main blog detailing this.

Occupations

There exists a wiki document called “Occupations”, which can only be edited as the ruleset permits.

Each Character has exactly one Occupation, which may be one listed in the “Occupations” wiki page or any other string of no more than 2 words. Each Character’s initial Occupation is “Unemployed”.

Each Occupation has a Pay Rate. Occupations listed in the “Occupations” wiki page shall have a Pay Rate included in the listing, which may include a DICE roll. If an Occupation other than “Unemployed” is not listed in the “Occupations” wiki page, its Pay Rate is 2DICE15 + 25; otherwise, it is as specified in the “Occupations” wiki page. The Occupation “Unemployed” has a Pay Rate of 0. If a Pay Rate includes a DICE roll, the DICE roll shall be evaluated each time that Pay Rate is used.

Any Character may, if his Occupation is not one of the ones listed in the Occupations wiki page, as a weekly action, change his Occupation to any valid Occupation for which he meets the requirements (if the Occupation has any requirements).

Any Occupation listed in the “Occupations” wiki page may have requirements which may include but are not limited to number of Bucks. When a new Occupation is added to the “Occupations” wiki page, any Characters whose Occupation is that of the new Occupation have their Occupation set to “Unemployed”.

Cash

Each Character has a GNDT-tracked statistic called “Bucks” which is an integer that can be negative. No Character may take an action that would set their Bucks to less than zero. New Characters start with 100 Bucks. As a weekly action, any Character who has an Occupation other than “Unemployed” may cash in the money from their job and add that Occupation’s Pay Rate to their Bucks.

At any time, any Character may subtract any positive amount from their Bucks, and add it to another Characters bucks.

The End

After 23:59:00 on 18/12/08, no Character may take any actions described by any other dynastic rule; however, the Narrator may still, at any time, edit the “Plot Summary” wiki page. Any time after 23:59:00 on 18/12/08 has passed, the Narrator shall multiply the Relationship of each Active Character by their PP and add the results. If this sum is less than or equal to 0, the Protagonist dies and a new metadynasty begins. If the Protagonist has not died, the Character with the most PP (of the Characters with a Relationship greater than 0) achieves victory. If two or more of those Characters tie for the most plot points then the Character in the tie with the higher Relationship achieves victory. In the event that causes another tie the players who tied for both shall roll DICEX, where X is relationship + PP for each player. The character who rolls the highest may declare victory. In the event of another tie, repeat the roll until there is a single highest roll. The roller of that roll may declare victory.

No Character may declare victory before 23:59:00 on 18/12/08. If a character does declare victory before this time then the declaration fails automatically regardless of how the voting goes.

Plot Twist Enabler

There is a hidden subrule to this Rule, called “Plot Twist”, whose MD5 checksum is “64b0ae5b13b7ed6bdb34c1bb60e1af53”. (For Blognomic purposes, the MD5 implementation at found at http://pajhome.org.uk/crypt/md5/ shall be considered authoritative.) The rule’s text shall be held by the Narrator rather than included in the Ruleset; however, it is still considered part of the Ruleset. On December 19, 2008, the Narrator shall publish the contents of the rule called “Plot Twist” to the Blognomic weblog.

Subrules of this Rule cannot modify the Ruleset.

Plot Twist

The contents of this sub-rule were hidden until the end of the dynasty.

At exactly 23:58:00 on 18/12/08, each Character shall replace his Relationship with 0 minus his Relationship.

Christmas

December 18, 2008 is considered to be Christmas Day for the purposes of Blognomic.

Glossary

This is always at the end of the Ruleset. Its only effect can be to clarify ambiguity.

• It is noted that where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their writer a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own writer, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger upon the Enactment or Failure of a Proposal are the responsibility of the Admin who Enacts or Fails it.

• Appropriate 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, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal (currently http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif) shall represent the Imperial Veto.
• 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.
• "Posts" and "comments" refer only to those made to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
• 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. (eg. 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.)
• Unless otherwise specified, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers, and any action that would set those values below zero instead sets them to zero. Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
• Unless otherwise specified: When "X" is a number, to spend X of a numeric value "V" means to subtract X from V (i.e. replace V with V-X); no action may be taken which requires spending X of a numeric value when the subtraction would result in a number which is illegal as a replacement for that value (e.g. if the value represents a variable which is restricted to non-negative integers, but the subtraction comes up negative).
• 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.
• Gamestate is defined as any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of, such as Characters’ names.
• All integers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
• If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.

Typographic Conventions

• Italicized text, also known as Flavor Text, is not considered part of any form of gamestate and may be used to clarify proposals or rules with examples, notes, and flavor text. For example, this italicized text provides an example of the use of italicized text.

Timespans

• References to "a day" (as an entity rather than a duration, eg. "Sunday") refer to that day in the timezone of the BlogNomic blog, which is considered to be GMT for all purposes.
• References to a "week" refer to the period of time between the start of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.
• 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.
• If a game action is a Daily Action, each Character able to perform it may take that action once per day, but not more than once every six hours.
• If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Character able to perform it may take that action once per week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.
• Calendar Dates shall be represented in dd/mm/yy (day/month/year) format.

Keywords

• Quorum is equal to half the number of Characters, rounded down, plus one.
• Narrator
• Character

Dice

References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.

IEEE

• The IEEE auxiliary verbs used in Blognomic are:
  • Is required to: "shall";
  • Is recommended that: "should";
  • Is permitted to: "may";
  • Is able to: "can".