Re: [s-d] RE: [s-b] [auto] Wonko votes

["Daniel Peter Lepage" <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> What do you mean by "a failure to act IAW the rules"? It's impossible to
>> act without being in accordance with the rules, by definition. The rules
>> don't require that every prop defining the Gibberish word also set a new
>> one; they just mention that props that don't won't have any effect.
>> Submitting such a prop is perfectly legal, and in fact could be a clever
>> strategy - you submit the prop now, nobody realizes it has no effect
>> until
>> too late, you get the points for the prop passing, and then you don't
>> need
>> to come up with a new prop idea because you can propose the first one
>> again.
>>
>
> Exactly. And as I'm responsible for a part of the awards,
> I prefer to curtail the practice by making it explicit.
> Notice the prop doesn't preclude awards for other conditions
> that might resolve a proposal as having no effect.

All I'm pointing out is that as it stands, players aren't rewarded for
failing to act IAW the rules. They're rewarded for acting IAW the rules in
a clever manner. I think this is fair - if you forget to set a new
Gibberish word, but the other players like the prop enough to vote it
through anyway, then you deserve the points even if you don't get to make
your changes.

And if you trick everyone into passing your prop when you knew perfectly
well that it would have no effect, well, that's everyone else's fault for
voting for it.

>> Being explicit is good, but not at the cost of generality. I want Souls
>> to
>> be Carryable Household Objects for all intents and purposes; this prop
>> would make them a special case. For example, imagine I have a tool that
>> lets me pick up any Carryable object in the Front Hall, regardless of
>> where I am. Then I can grab Talismans, sleeping players, etc., but I
>> can't
>> grab Souls, because of this prop. The rules describing my tool,
>> therefore,
>> need to specifically mention Souls or else I can't use it properly. The
>> resulting convoluted descriptions will negate any clarity gained by this
>> prop.
>>
> Now imagine a Necromancer in possession of the tool you describe.
> A player engages me in combat I have no desire to be a part of,
> and I end up dying or asleep, and lose my soul. The Necromancer uses
> that tool to take my soul before I have a chance to, and then can
> usurp my votes for the nweek. Souls are a special case, IMHO.

That's beside the point. If forbidding this is the point of your proposal,
then your prop should say so explicitly. If you don't want them to be a
special case, then don't single them out or make them look like a special
case.

> My prop doesn't say that this rule has special precedence, so a tool
> that you propose can overrule it.
> As to generality, I dislike having to look in three or four different
> sections of the rules to clarify if an action as legal. I'll propose
> for explicitness every time. If this chafes, then vote Against.
> I realize I'm a mere upstart to these procedings, and if my props
> trash your long term strategy then, "Oh, well". Let the voters decide.

Well said, but I think you're contradicting yourself. I fully agree that
we shouldn't have to look in many places to clarify if an action is legal.
And so if the rules say "Anyone can use a Long-Range Grabber to pick up a
Carryable Household Object from the Front Hall", and "Souls are Carryable
Household Objects", I don't want to go looking for a clause that says
"Nobody can pick up a Soul in a different room".

I also suspect that the only reason the current wording seems unclear to
you is because it's a recent change to the rules. A new player joining the
game wouldn't be confused because e wouldn't even think about the
possibility of picking up Souls in other rooms. For such a player, this
prop's effects would in fact be _confusing_ instead of elucidating, since
the fact that the rules forbid it implies that it would be permitted
otherwise.

I have also seen numerous cases where players have added clarification
text like what you've proposed, only to discover a few nweeks later that
the thing being clarified had changed but the clarification hadn't. For
example, if we proposed a change to the way players can pick up objects,
the author of said proposal would have to remember that the way things are
picked up is changed in the Souls rule as well, and would have to update
it accordingly.

In short, I'd like to keep all text that falls under "how to pick things
up" in the section about how to pick things up.

-- 
Wonko


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