[s-d] Re: Comments on this nweek's proposals

[pete+bnomic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Peter Cooper Jr.)]

Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> On May 3, 2005, at 11.36 PM, Peter Cooper Jr. wrote:
>> - The HowToRollDice document is not a game document. Anyone could just
>>   change it to be "Players roll dice by asking me, and I decide which
>>   number I want them to get." You should probably make it a part of
>>   the game somehow, and prevent arbitrary revisions.
>
> Damn, I was totally going to do that.

Well, I was too. :)

>> p34 (Soul Pennies): Hmm... As Wonko said, this takes a bit of tracking
>> that I don't think I want to do, and I doubt anyone else really does
>> either.
>
> It wouldn't really be that bad, since the value of a Soul only changes
> when it's attached to its owner. Especially if my Energy Ball prop
> passes, because that will slow down that rate at which they can be
> gathered and spent.

Yeah, I guess it's not that bad.

> I do think that the bonus for sequels will require more judgment than
> it's probably worth.

Well, we can always change the rule later.

>> p36 (Random Object names): Hmm... An interesting idea, but I'm not
>> sure how well it'll work. As someone said, it's going to raise the
>> barrier of entry for new players. And I don't know if I like the
>> all-proposals-get-annulled if they all use the Gibberish word.
>
> I couldn't think of any better way to deal with multiple
> definitions. Any ideas?

Well, you can just give it to the first prop numerically or
something. It just seems like if they both pass, then people want
both, so they ought to occur.

> If we have the Grammar Nazi, then yes. I don't like the idea of
> incorporating lots of spelling errors into the rules.

True.

> Also, are acronyms, proper names, etc. considered words?

As is, any sequence of characters in the rules is, including spaces
and such... I'll try to clarify that.

>> p39 (Titles): Well, rather unoriginal. But not necessarily a bad idea.
>
> I don't know why we need Nobility; we had Titles for a very, very long
> time and I'm not sure anybody *ever* used that word after it was
> proposed.

True. The existence of Titles is probably enough.

> The [Grammar Nazi] violations are too harsh - everyone makes typos
> now and then, and I don't think we should be penalizing people for
> every single one. Maybe just for every three errors in the version
> that gets voted on?

Maybe... I'm much more concerned about them getting fixed than
penalizing people for them.

> Also, I'd like a way to fix them. In the days of yore, I wouldn't have
> made a big long posting telling Eugene what misspellings I'd like
> fixed; I would have fixed them all and then made a much shorter
> posting listing what I'd changed. The only thing wrong with the old
> system was the potential for it to alter itself; if that were
> forbidden it would work fine.

Well, the Nomic self-modification problem arises. (In any Nomic where
changing the rules is possible, you can't make any rule unchangeable.)
Even if you restricted the old Executive Tidiness to not work on
itself, you could use it on another rule, and that rule could amend
the Executive Tidiness rule, and you have full control
again. Basically, you need a way for players to object before the
arbitrary change comes into effect, much like our current
Tweaks...

Maybe we could have a way for the Grammar Nazi to submit changes to
props during the voting period, which like Tweaks don't work if anyone
Objects? And then some minor penalty if your prop got changed?

>> p42 (All-against passes): ABSTAIN isn't a vote at the moment. And I
>> don't think this change is a great idea, but it could make things
>> interesting, so I may vote for it anyway. But I'm not sure yet.
>
> I quite like this one. As I think I already said, I've had enough
> playing by the rules, and would like now to play *with* the rules.

I agree with the playing *with* the rules completely. And so I think
I'll go with it... It just makes me uneasy, somehow.


> This is good, but it's starting to look like Zones will never be
> zapped. We may need some ways to lock them down or Zap them early.

Or control 3-in-a-row or something...

> ... but not until I have time to rewrite the proposal-handling
> scripts to deal with that sort of thing.
>
> Clearly I didn't generalize them enough in the beginning.

Wonko's, it's Nomic. You couldn't *possibly* generalize any
automation scripts enough :).

-- 
Peter C.
"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?"
"It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?"
		-- MacNelley, "Shoe"

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