Towards A Taxonomy Of Player Types

Essay by Josh, June 2025

BlogNomic is a niche occupation, appealing primarily to a narrow and quite definable subset of the population at large. It is not for everybody, and there are some observable common characteristics that strongly indicate a long-term Nomicstician. Despite that, however, it is possible to identify notable sub-groupings within the cohort, and if one tries hard enough one can even start to develop a taxonomy of players and play styles that have repeatedly come up in BlogNomic over the years. This can be useful, if one wishes - it is in some ways crucial to have a developed understanding of the predilections and characteristics of competitors, just as it can be instructive to know your own weaknesses and plug your own gaps. Even absent a strategic impetus, however, there remains a certain navel-gazey fun to be had in the impulse to comparative categorisation. This essay sets out some of the schema by which a BlogNomic player might find themselves sorted.

Victory Approach

In his Beginner's Strategy Guide, Cuddlebeam defined three broad approaches to winning at BlogNomic: pooling, by which players utilise their combined resource-base to achieve greater outcomes at the expense of less organised rivals; conventional play, in which a player simply plays the mechanics of the game better than anyone else to achieve the stated victory condition; and scams, through which the as-written meaning of the ruleset is distorted and subverted to produce unexpected effects. This triumvirate of approaches has since been considered to be part of the game's meta, to the point that it is the primary lens through which historic victories are assessed in the History of victories directory.

This lends us one way to consider how players approach the game. Most players will, of course, pursue any path that makes itself available to them, but most players, even very successful ones, show a marked preference for one approach over the others. If BlogNomic were to have a Sorting Hat, this would probably be the brute-force metric by which players were sorted; are they Poolingpuff, Conventindor, or Scammingclaw?

Bartleisation

Richard Bartle was a notable historian and scholar on Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs, a form of massively-multiplayer game popular in the pre-GUI era of internet games. He developed a schema by which MUD players were assessed along two axes (Acting <> Interacting and Players <> World) to be sorted into one of four categories: Killers (who sought PvP opportunities, including what we would now consider to be griefers), Achievers (players who were motivated to win, either within the terms of the game or by their own metrics), Socialisers (those primarily participating for the social context of the game), or Explorers (participants whose main driver was to discover the new, in terms of in-game phenomena or mechanical innovations).

Kevan adapted this to consider BlogNomic player archetypes, and even tied it together with a little quiz. This approach considered playstyle and personality more than outcome, and as such it maps imperfectly against an victory-style-oriented view - for example, a BlogNomic scammer would be likely show some propensity towards being a Killer, undermining the nature of the game and its other players rather than working within in, but would also clearly be motivated as an Achiever (the purpose of scams is to win) and an Explorer (most scams come from creative interpretations generated from a deep understanding of the ruleset).

A discursion on Veterancy

Players who have been playing the game for longer develop distinct identities of play, but also develop a greater awareness of the tools and approaches available, making them more flexible in their strategies. In some ways, the presence of players whose tenure in BlogNomic is now well in its third decade distorts any attempt to develop a topology of play, as their playstyle carries an outsized effect on the fabric of the game, both forcing newer players to conform or adapt to their approaches and rooting their assumptions of play into the game's core documents, both the ruleset and its unwritten code of play.

This does not render the exercise useless but may mean that it is instructive to examine those players, their assumptions, and the extent to which those assumptions have become de facto rules, even when not written.

Individual Styles

Imperial Styles is the scheme by which Emperors can signal their intentions with regards to their dynasty. It has been speculated that players could adopt a similar tagging scheme, which could, eventually, lead to different mechanical levels of player access to things like core proposals and dynastic mechanics.

Activity-Led Identity

Perhaps the only truly objective taxonomy is one rooted in a player's own actions. In this case, again, you would assess each player along two axes: Quantity of Activity (proposals, votes and game moves) vs Efficacy of Outcome (rate at which those moves improve the player's position or leads to them winning the game). It is noted that not every player is motivated by victory, but this isn't intended to be a judgemental exercise, except perhaps at certain points, and BlogNomic is a competitive game that produces a winner on a regular basis, so efficacy of moves seems like a valid lens through which the game can be assessed.

This metric also only assesses a player in the moment; an individual can move around within this schema based on their behaviour over the recent short term, and even long-term, veteran players can find themselves made mobile by circumstance.

High volume, high efficacy: Shapers

Players in this category propose often, vote in their own interest, take their moves efficiently, construct persuasive arguments that move contentious matters in their own favour, and generally are highly present in shaping the game. Membership to this group seems to be somewhat self-reinforcing, as core players are very likely to drop out of dynasties that do not grab their attention. A Shaper in a dynasty is an overt, controlling presence, forcing other players to respond. The presence of a Shaper in a dynasty can push players in other categories to up their own tempo, or can induce disaffected players to step away; however, the absence of Shaper in a dynasty can allow players in other categories to find new or creative ways to take control of the game, just as much as it can cause a dynasty to flounder.

High volume, low efficacy: Engineers and Dilletantes

Engineers tend to be players who enjoy proposing to refine or perfect the ruleset; Dilletantes are players who enjoy playing socially but aren't motivated to optimise, play competitively, or maintain an effort level that is consistent with controlling the game. Players in this section can and frequently do win; they also are important for the game, ensuring that the core rules are well-maintained and providing the chaotic, unpredictable environment that makes BlogNomic competitive.

Low volume, high efficacy: Snipers

These are the players who are always working in the background. Snipers are not always active and don't have to be named in the sidebar to be dangerous. They are players who are watching the game very, very closely, but only intervene when they spot an opportunity. The presence of a Sniper, or a group of Snipers, can feel disruptive to other players - the classic example is a player swooping in from idle at the 11th hour to exploit a loophole as a new player and snag some status divorced from their performance - but it is always the job of high-volume players to protect their position from Snipers, rather than being the job of a Sniper to respect the labour of players who didn't plan ahead to defend their position.

Low volume, low efficacy: Slouches

Players who are neither active nor competitive are Slouches. They tend not to propose much, not to take many if any dynastic moves, and cast votes without commentary, often following the majority or voting DEF. These players have, by and large, low value to the game, and too many of them can be actively destructive to a dynasty, forcing players who seek a competitive environment away and allowing proposals to pass without high quality scrutiny. Slouches should be encouraged to idle out of the game wherever possible.