Ruleset Draft, the Third

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Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Captains must obey the most recent version of this document.

Section One consists of the "core rules" of blognomic, covering basic Captain and proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the "dynastic rules" of the current round, and Section Three contains the glossary, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

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.

Captains

Anybody may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post announcing their arrival. An Admin will add them to the roster in the sidebar and to the GNDT, at which moment they become a Captain.

A single person may not control more than one Captain within BlogNomic. A Captain may only change their name through a successful proposal.

Some Captains are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Captains may be promoted to or demoted from Adminhood only through a successful Proposal or Call for Judgment.

Some Captains are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. Admins may render a Captain Idle if that Captain has asked to become Idle or if that Captain has not posted a entry or comment for more than 7 days. Admins may unidle a Captain at her request - the Captain'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 Captains receive, if such a value exists.

Proposals

Any DDA Member may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the "Proposal" category that describes those changes. A Captain may not make a Proposal if he already has 2 Proposals pending. Furthermore, no Captain may post more than 3 Proposals in the same day.

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

Voting

Any DDA Member may cast her Vote on a Pending Proposal by making a comment on that entry using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST or DEFERENTIAL. They may change their vote at any time by making another comment containing the new vote. Only the most recent vote by each DDA Member is counted when resolving a Proposal.

If the DDA Member who made a Proposal has not cast a Vote on it, her Vote is counted as FOR. If a DDA Member votes against her 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 DDA Commander. The vote will count as the same as the DDA Commander's vote. If there is no DDA Commander, or the DDA Commander voted DEFERENTIAL, a vote of DEFERENTIAL counts as an explicit vote of abstention.

Enactment

The oldest pending Voting Post may be enacted by any Admin 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 vote, more than half of its votes are FOR, and it has not been vetoed or self-killed.

The oldest pending Voting Post 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 has not reached the requirements for passing as defined above.
  • The Captain who posted it it has Self-Killed it.
  • The Dread Pirate has voted to VETO 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).

Whenever a Proposal is passed, the enacting admin must update the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal.

Calls for Judgment

If two or more Captain actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Captain feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Captain may raise a Call for Judgment by posting an entry in the "Call for Judgment" category. If the Captain 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 Captains may add votes of agreement or disagreement in comments to this entry, using appropriate voting icons (a Captain's later votes overriding their earlier ones). Unfailed CfJs continue until they reach a quorum of FOR votes, a quorum of AGAINST votes, or until four 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

Posts following the format specified by a rule (such as Proposals and Calls for Judgment) are considered official posts. These posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Captain may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it.

If no Captain has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author. 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 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 Captain may update any Captain's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Captain 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.

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

Dynasties, Victory and Ascension

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty is headed by a single Captain, known as the Dread Pirate, and is named according to the number of Dynasties he has headed (eg. "The First Dynasty of Myke"). The DDA Commander may vote to VETO Proposals.

If a DDA Member (other than the DDA Commander) 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 “DDA Members”, “Calls for Judgment”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”. During a Hiatus, all Calls for Judgment may be resolved two days after being posted.

Every DDA Member 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). Only the most recent vote by each DDA Member is counted.

The Declaration of Victory may be resolved after 24 hours, or after 12 hours if a quorum of FOR or AGAINST votes is reached. Upon resolution, if a Quorum of DDA Members 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 DDA Member who made the DoV as its DDA Commander. (That DDA Member may pass this role to another willing DDA Member at this point, if he wishes.) The Hiatus continues until the new DDA Commander posts an Ascension Address to the BlogNomic weblog - this shall specify the DDA Commander’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 posted between a passed DoV and an ascension address.

Dynastic Rules

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 Enacment 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 I 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 Title of the entry. Any entry that does not have exactly one subject 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 Captains' names and the blog colour scheme.

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 Captain 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 Captain able to perform it may take that action once per week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Keywords

  • Unless otherwise specified, Quorum is equal to half the number of Captains, rounded down, plus one.

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".