spoon-discuss: Physical Law/Mutable Rule

[Dan Waldron <wald7330@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am working on a proposal that will divide the existing ruleset into
Physical Laws and Mutable Rules.  It is also a way for me to once again
become famailiar with the ruleset.  The sense behind the division is to
create some sort of division between what is possible and what is legal.
So although it might be possible to, for example, alter the score of
another player, it isn't legal.  There will also be a general cleanup of
the rules.  It is similar to the division in Suberian nomic between
mutable and immutable rules: the Physical Laws provide the basic mechanics
of the game and the mutable rules will provide the means for actually
getting things done.  There will also be a useable way of creating club
charters and in fact any body of rules that applies to a subset of
players.

I have already put enough work into this proposal that I really don't want
it to fail so I'll have to put in place any suggestions that anyone makes.

Here's draft.

Defining Rule
{{
There exist three types of rules: Physical Laws, Mutable Rules, and
Charter Rules.

Physical Laws take precedence over all other rules.  No Mutable Rule or
Charter Rule can declare an exception to any Physical Law.

Charter Rules defer to all other rules.  No Charter Rule may declare an
exception to any other rule.  The subsetset of entities to which a Charter
Rule or group of Charter Rules applies must be specified by Mutable Rule
of Physical Law.
}}

To make this work requires surprisingly few changes:  Here are the biggest
ones.

25/1 The Administrator - Physical Law
{{
The Administrator is responsible for all game duties not assigned by the
Rules to the other players.  The Administrator may make changes to the
Rules and the Game State.  The Administrator is also responsible for
updating the Game State to show the results of actions taken.
}}

Ministers - Physical Law
{{
Ministers may make changes to the game state within the juristiction of
their ministry.
}}


Permissions - Mutable Rule 
{{ 
Ministers and The Administrator may change the rules or game state only as
instructed to do so by Mutable Rules.
}}

Here is the list of physical laws.  A few of them will need fixes.  I
would also like to combine the gremlin definitions because there are a lot
of them scattered all over the place and they make very little sense
unless grouped together.  I'd like to do the same for gnomes and
miscellaneous grid objects.
Physical Laws:
1/0 The Game
2/1 Names
3/6 Time
4/3 Versions and Revision Numbers
5/3 Serial Numbers
7/0 Spivak Pronouns
8/1 Comments
9/0 Randomness and Dice
13/1 Players (fix)
14/0 Forfeit (fix)
16/0 Fora
17/3 Timing of Events
25/0 The Administrator (fixed)
150/1 Screw That! (fix)
151/0 That Wasn't Me!
153/2 Universal Law
154/4 Dimensions
205/2 Leaves of Absence
206/0 Garbage Collection
207/0 Merrymaking
210/0 You Are Here
213/4 The Cursed Sushi of Babel
214/2 I Can't See The Clock
217/3 Standard Delimiters
256/3 Gremlins
258/4 The Pink Cashmere Scarf of Impeccable Style
260/2 Kick in the Ass
262/0 Individuality
263/1 Titles
293/6 The Immunity Idol
295/2 Girls Will Be Boys and Boys Will Be Girls...and Drones
296/4 The Scoring Gremlin
297/2 The Witch Gremlin
298/1 List Of Nobility
299/1 Bandwidth Gremlin
300/2 Keywords
301/8 The Grid
344/0 I've Got the Style It Takes
345/1 The LoanShark Gremlin (AKA Luigi)
346/2 Big Rocks
347/1 The violence inherent in the system
348/4 The Yeti
349/0 Grid Objects
350/0 Pinball Guns
351/1 Elbonian Airways
352/0 i said i've got a big stick
353/0 Shields
354/0 Buttplates
355/2 GremBall
356/2 Sexy Sirens On The Rocks
393/0 The All-Important Default Case (fix)
394/10 Monday Night Football!
395/1 I get no respect!
400/2 The Meteor Gremlin
401/1 A Whole New Ball Of Wax
402/2 The Window Gremlins
405/2 Weather
406/1 Yoyo Gnomes
407/0 Space
408/1 Water, Water Everywhere
439/0 Hiding Really Means Hiding
440/6 Entropy
441/1 Gnomes
442/0 Basic Gnomes
443/0 Third and long... *boot!*
446/1 Radar
467/0 Ice Gnomes
468/0 Fire Gnomes
469/0 Dimensional Realms
492/0 The Golden-Armed Gremlin
493/3 DimShips
494/1 Siren Bait (fix)
495/1 Rah, Rah, Sis Boom Bah! (fix)
496/0 the AAAHHH! Gremlin
497/1 Subsections
498/4 Beer Cans
499/0 The 5-Star General Gremlin
500/0 The Goon Gremlin
501/0 The Police Gremlin
502/1 Happy New nYear
503/0 Cheers!
545/1 Temperature
546/0 Pass! I'm Open!
547/1 Death
548/1 Sheep Gnomes
549/0 Shears
550/2 Cotton Swabs
551/1 The Bandit Gremlin
573/2 Stop the World!  I Wanna Get Off! (split)
574/0 The Bowling Gremlin
575/0 Replication
576/1 The Gnome Factory
577/0 Radar Towers
579/0 The Flaming Gremlin
581/0 Weather Gnomes
628/0 Blood Alcohol Content
632/0 Garbage Cans
635/0 DimShip Guns and Armor
637/0 Gnome Bags
638/2 The Wine List
639/0 Gnomes Up The Wazoo
640/0 Winter Gnomes
641/0 Summer Gnomes
662/0 Impaired coordination
664/0 Heard it through the grapevine
696/0 BYOB
699/0 The Slightly Less Important Not-So Default Case
700/0 Minister of the Survey of Ordinance (fix and switch)
705/0 Bonus Boxes

Everything else is Mutable

Mutable Rules:
15/2 Nweekly Voting
19/5 Poposals (fix)
20/2 Eligible Voters
22/2 Post-Win Reset
23/1 The Ballot
24/0 The Roster
26/0 New Players
27/1 Winning
28/1 Designation of Fora
29/0 Twilight of the Fora
30/1 Vote Counting
32/8 Proposal Passage
124/0 Proposal Scoring
125/0 Automation
126/6 Call For Inquiry
127/3 Judges
128/6 Judgement
129/3 Statute of Limitations
155/2 No kickbacks
204/1 Thou Shalt Not Screw With Time
208/0 Proxies
209/0 Misbehaving Judges
211/0 Paper Trail
212/1 Bandwidth Rationing
216/1 Elimination of Boilerplate (fix action for instruction to the Admin.
Take out the bit about Standard Delimiters)
255/2 Typos
257/3 powers of Executive Tidiness
294/0 Limitation of Voting
358/0 Dependant Proposals
396/1 A Little Fun For Everyone
403/0 Opposed Proposals
404/3 Judicial Rear View
436/1 You Can't Have Football Without Color Commentary
437/1 Literary Forms
578/1 Societies
580/2 Shelve
625/1 Ministers 
626/0 Ministerial Elections 
627/0 Ministerial Non-Confidence
629/0 Yawn
630/1 Club Props
631/1 Club Charters
633/0 The Upper House
636/0 Keep your hands off!
697/0 Consent of Ministers 
698/0 Insta-Rules
701/0 Insta-Minister
703/0 The Other Exploitation
704/0 Judgement Props
706/0 A La Carte Props

The number of Physical Laws will go down with the overhaul of Grid
Objects, and perhaps some general rules for things like transfer,
throwing, and movement.  It might be possible to make the bulk of Football
rules into Charter rules.


Dan Waldron
ICQ 57894467