Re: [s-d] Question: mackerel and devices

["Daniel Lepage" <dplepage@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/8/07, Jamie Dallaire <bad.leprechaun@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I'm new here and have been looking over the rules, and I'm a bit confused as
> to the function of mackerel and devices. Granted, they might have had a
> function that got legislated out before I got here, or we could legislate
> one in. Or maybe I just haven't figured it out ;-)
>
> Mackerel: I'm guessing since everyone still has exactly m50, it hasn't much
> worth at present aside from the fact you can trade in your initial two
> metric bunches of it for one point short of an nDozen. Am I right?

Mackerel were intended as a standard currency, but the game kind of
fell apart shortly after they were proposed. As a result, I don't
believe anyone has ever used a Mackerel; feel free to propose a use
for them.

> Devices: Other than the panic button, does anyone have any other device? Is
> there any sort of list where one can see what devices exist and who was
> them? How do devices come into being?

Devices are a legacy concept, dating back to the House subgame. We
just wanted a general abstract concept of an object that can be passed
around and used. They made a lot of sense back when the game was
played on a board, and there were all sorts of Devices you could
gather and use. That subgame has since ended and been proposed out,
but some of the abstractions still remain because they could be useful
in another subgame.

> Similar question concerning victory conditions, actually. Even though
> they're not there as part of the rules page, they're
> added/amended/destroyed/abused in much the same way (through proposals) as
> all the other rules, correct?

Yes, they're modified the same way. As a general rule, proposals can
modify any aspect of the game, and if the rules don't prescribe
another way to modify something, we assume that it's intended to be
changed only by proposal.

One reason for keeping them separate from the real rules is that we
might want other ways to manipulate them. For example, maybe there
could be a device that, when used, deactivated a Victory Condition for
a few days. You wouldn't want to be able to do that to an arbitrary
rule.

-- 
Wonko
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