Re: [spoon-discuss] Subgame?

[Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 01:21  AM, SkArcher wrote:

> 26/06/2003 06:15:41, Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 12:10  AM, Rob Speer wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 11:54:26PM -0400, Daniel Lepage wrote:
> > > > How does this look for a start?
> > >
> > > Sounds too complex for the state of the game right now.
> >
> > Most of the complexity is simply a roundabout way of saying, "Let's
> > pretend we're taking turns and have cards!"
> >
> > The game I'm trying to create is Dvorak, which can be described in 99
> > words:
> >
> > Shuffle the cards into a draw pile.
> >  Draw five cards each. Choose who takes the first turn.
> >  Each turn, draw a card from the top of the draw pile, then play a
> > Thing and/or an Action. (Things go onto the table in front of the
> > person who played them, Actions go face-up onto the discard pile.)
> >   If you've got more than five cards in your hand at the end of your
> > turn, discard down to five. Then it's the next Player's turn.
> >   When the draw pile's empty, shuffle the discard pile to make a new
> > one.
> >   And that's it.
>
> Well yes, but that is exactly the problem, isn't it. As with Nomic, 
> where
> the short version is
>
>
> Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect 
> it
> differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is
> proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them 
> in that
> way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done 
> afterwards,
> and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed. 
> --Peter
> Suber
>
>
>
> Its not what you are saying that is the issue, but what you aren't
>
> Anyone reading the above comment has absolutely no idea that the result
> could be B Nomic, but B Nomic is only one of the possibilities - your 
> card
> game says very little, and (especially in combination with Nomic 
> itself)
> this could result in one hell of a lot of complexity to track.

Except there's not really anything that the 99-word Dvorak leaves out, 
except the text of the cards themselves. Which is whatever we want it 
to be, so it couldn't be put in anyway. And I suppose it doesn't 
specifically say that you do what the cards say.

In Dvorak games in general, there's not much to track. You need to know 
whose turn it is; you need to know where the cards are; you need 
somebody to implement the effects of the cards, which are usually 
fairly basic ("destroy target Thing." or "Action: Draw two cards, then 
discard one.").

We could play 'open-hand', as it were; then all we'd need is a little 
automailer, so that someone could email it a message, "Wonko draws a 
card" or "Glotmorf discards at random" and it would email to s-b, 
"Wonko draws 'The End of the World'." or "Glotmorf discards 
'Mantisman'."

There actually is a MUSH engine already written for doing exactly that. 
See http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/engine.html for more details.

--
Wonko

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