Re: [s-d] Judgement draft

[Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 24, 2006, at 8:14 PM, Antonio Dolcetta wrote:

>> Well, that makes sense.  But I'm uggered if I know whether it works.
>>
>> What if the rule says "at point x in the game if y happened, give
>> Antonio 10 points."  And you ask for a judgement on whether y
>> happened.  And it goes in your favour.  I could (perversely,
>> awkwardly) argue that since we're no longer at point x, the rules no
>> longer grant you the points.
>
> I'd say that since point x happened, I should have gotten my points,
> since the rules and the current resolved RFJs say so. If necessary I
> could issue a new RFJ to that effect and see what happens.

I wonder if the RFJ should actually have more game-changing power,  
and maybe require a consensus vote. The reason I say this is because  
many RFJs stem from overlooked bits of rules, or things that we  
didn't think through until somebody called attention to the fact that  
we were doing them wrongly.

A monopoly analogy would be:
I and three friends (Alfred, Barney, and Carl) are playing Monopoly.  
B lands on my hotel on Boardwalk, but just at that moment a nearby  
end table catches fire for no apparent reason. A flurry of activity  
follows before we resume the game, and when we start up again, we  
forget that B owes me all eir money.

Two rounds later, I land on C's hotel on Ventnor Ave. I start to pay,  
but suddenly realize I don't have enough money.

Now A points out that I forgot to collect from B. This is the "RFJ" -  
a player believes we failed to enforce a rule properly, and calls for  
confirmation and response.

In this case, as with most "normal" games, we decide the issue by  
consensus. Most likely, we say "Ok, B gives me the money now, and we  
pretend I've had it all along". But it could be more complicated:  
maybe B already gave most of it to A, and maybe A would have gone  
bankrupt on eir previous turn. Or maybe B's strategy would have  
changed drastically had e known that e was nearly broke.

In my experience, usually some sort of consensus is reached, that may  
or may not follow the rules strictly. For example, we might say that  
B will give me half of the money, which is enough to keep me from  
losing to C, but won't invalidate what B's been doing; we regard the  
lost half as a penalty I incurred for not collecting my own rent. Or  
maybe we'd say I lost all the rent because of this; I might object,  
but the three remaining players might outvote me and say I'm just  
being a poor sport. Or maybe we'll do something stranger: perhaps I  
get some block of "phantom money" that B then has to pay for in  
installments over the next few turns, or B and I are forced to sign a  
contract wherein B agrees to pay me some fraction of the rent e  
collects in the next few turns, and C takes that amount on credit  
until I can pay it off.

By comparison, the B Nomic way, at least based on the past, would be  
to nullify the past two rounds and replay them. Yes, this is possible  
- the mailing list archives allow us to perfectly reconstruct the  
game at any time - but it's irritating, and may still be unfair to  
someone (for example, if partway through those turns I revealed some  
clever strategy that will be defeated now that everyone knows about  
it beforehand).

Thus, I suggest that we need a method whereby a judge, or a panel of  
judges, or maybe even a consensus vote of the whole game, can  
"correct" the gamestate in whatever method is deemed fairest to all  
parties.

-- 
Wonko


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