Orc In A Spacesuit on 17 Nov 2002 05:25:03 -0000


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Re: [spoon-discuss] a different society fix 

From: Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Quoth Orc In A Spacesuit,
>>> Change the sentence "A Society is a group of one or
>>> more entities who are
>>> Members of the Society."
>>> to
>>> "A Society is a group of zero or more entities.
>>> These entities are the
>>> Members of the Society."
>>> [[This allows for 0-member societies, as specified
>>> by the rules]]
>>
>> No.  Societies are collections of members.  Memberless
>> societies are pointless.
>
> If a rule specifies that a memberless society exists, this makes sure that a 
> paradox isn't created.

Memberless societies could be useful... I'm not entirely certain how, but I
think they could be useful...

For one thing, I wouldn't want to lose INH just because some Ordinance went
weird and forced everyone out.


Glad we agree.


>>> Change the sentence "Actions in this rule are not
>>> the only actions that
>>> societies may take."
>>> to
>>> "Societies may only take actions explictly permitted
>>> em in the rules."
>>
>> This borders on not allowing charters any variance in
>> a society's actions.  This, under my version of the
>> society rule, would be equivalent to only permitting
>> standard methods to be used.
>
> Standard Methods are a bit, um, stodgy. No offence. Plus, I hope to make > lots of actions be permitted by societies (and other entities) in the rules > later, and expect others may too. Defining an action and defining a very 
> similar Standard Method would be very inefficient.
Standard Methods would be a good thing to keep in a separate file somewhere. 
Maybe if there's a ministry of societies, e could keep track of this. They
are helpful - it's far more efficient for six different societies to say
that they use Open Admissions than for six different societies to define
Open Admission separately.


Which is shorter:
"This Society Accepts any Entity that desires to be a member."
"This Society uses the Open Admissions Standard Method for admitting members."
Even if you cut off that "for admitting members" part, then it's only a few characters shorter. Hardly enough reason for a whole bunch of Standard Methods that would have to be looked up seperatly, and would take up lots of space in the ruleset. 


In response to the original issue here, I think what would be better would
be to include societies in the default case; that way, things that aren't
directly part of the gamestate (like INH Ordinances) could be altered by
INH, but M-Tek couldn't create new rules without explicit permission from
the ruleset.
Hmm. *Mulls*. I've thought about including it with the rest, but I figured that Societies didn't need to be able to do all sorts or crazy stuff; the stuff permitted them was plenty. But yeah, we need to let things like Ordinances work, and without requring that the charters get huge. I'm afraid to include societies in the default case, because there are many rules that restrict 'players', and not 'players and societies'. This needs a resolution. Anyone who would like to do the legwork here is welcome. 


>>> Change the sentence "Players may transfer a positive
>>> amount of eir Bandwidth
>>> to any Society that is not a Corporation."
>>> to
>>> "Players may transfer a positive amount of eir
>>> Bandwidth to any Society that
>>> is not a Corporation, provided that the Player's
>>> Bandwidth remains
>>> positive."
>>
>> No.  I might want to give all my bandwidth to a
>> society, and zero is not a positive number.
>
> I'll change it.
Some would call zero a positive number. I'd want Rob's opinion on that - e's 
a math nerd, isn't e?
It truly depends. Talk to any assembly hack, and e'll tell you that zero is neither negative or positive. Talk to some math people, and it's positive. But I'll change it to 'nonnegative' to be sure. 


>>> Change the sentence "In this rule, all Dimensions
>>> are Properties, and Points
>>> and Entropy, if they are not Dimensions, are
>>> Properties too."
>>> to
>>> "In this rule, all Dimensions are Properties, and
>>> Points, BNS and Entropy,
>>> if they are not Dimensions, are Properties too."
>>
>> I still don't see why properties are necessary.  Just
>> give societies dimensions, alrady.  Hell, even let
>> them score wins.
>
> BNS is not a dimension. Score is not a dimension. I wanted brevity. That > is why I use 'property'. As for actually giving them the dimensions, they > did not have them before; also, I feel that the 'charm' etc of a society is > the charm of its members; if it's members are respeceted, so is the society; 
> if the society acts mischieviously, its members appear mischievious.

Dude, score's been a dimension since before I was a player. Hell, score's
been a dimension since before *Rob* was a player, and e'll be one year old
in less than a month, game-wise. They weren't called 'dimensions' back then, 
'cuz there was only one of 'em, but it was a dimension nonetheless.


Oops.  My big bad.  But BNS still isn't.


I'm wondering if it might be easier to just scrap non-Capital changes for
societies - maybe they get Bandwidth, Score, Resources, and BNS, and
anything else that changes gets ignored. I like the idea of general
societies fitting into three basic categories - the 'ignorants', like INH,
which the game can more or less completely ignore, the 'pools', like M-Tek,
that allow players to share resources, and the 'Corporations', like WBE,
which allow players to make a lot of money while appearing not to be the
sole benefactor of the agency.


Sounds good.  Beyond the scope of this prop.  Go to it.


>>> Change the senctence "Once per nweek, a Player may
>>> create a Society, giving
>>> it a uniquely identifying name."
>>> to
>>> "Each Player may, once per nweek, create a Society,
>>> at which time e must
>>> give it a uniquely identifying name.  The given name
>>> must not misrepresent
>>> the gamestate or attempt to do so; if it does, the
>>> Administrator may Rectify
>>> it and all references to it."
>>
>> If I can't create a society with a particular name, I
>> would rather fail to create it than have someone else
>> change it without my consent.
>
> However, if someone creates a society and does other things based on the
> society's creation, they may be quite unhappy if it ends up not being
> created, especially if the actions they take give away eir plans (like the > Bomb Gnome Speeder Throw I orchestrated earlier, or any of the attempts at 
> game breaking some members take regularly).

'misrepresent the gamestate'? Whazzat?


*cough*Wonko May Not Vote*cough*


>>> Change the sentence "Unless e specifies otherwise,
>>> the creator of a society
>>> becomes a member of that Society upon its creation."
>>> to
>>> "If e chooses, the creator of a Society may declare
>>> emself to be a member
>>> upon creation, in which case is is the only member
>>> upon creation; otherwise,
>>> the society has no members upon creation."
>>
>> Does this mean the society exists immediately upon
>> creation?
>
> I think that's implicit in the word 'create'.

That's bad. Make a delay, so we have a buffer time to catch loophole
societies, should they ever be possible.
There's no delay now, and there wasn't before. But appearently the people want one. The people consisting of Wonko and Glotmorf. Fine. I'll put that in. But not being able to have a society do anything for an nweek seems like a pain. 

Respectfully,
Orc In A Spacesuit

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