Re: [s-d] [s-b] This game is boring, let's have an Emergency.

[Craig Daniel <teucer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 11:56 PM, Craig Daniel <teucer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 6:54 PM, James Baxter <jebaxter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> OK I think B Nomic is probably platonic as it has no existence except as defined by the rules. If the rules cease to hold power in their
>> own right then it just becomes a series of loose customs and none of us would have to follow the rules because the have no real
>> meaning. So B Nomic must be platonic.
>
> My take on the nature of B Nomic:
>
> Nomics default to strict Platonism, because as you say their rules are
> the only thing that grants them existence. However, those rules might
> mandate pragmatism - imagine a board game with the understanding that
> an invalid play is left to stand if not spotted right away, because it
> makes things simpler. Agora does this *a lot*; B Nomic has often done
> it a little, though during the BGoran Era it did it more heavily.
>
> Pragmatism is Agora's way of ensuring stability. B's is emergencies -
> if things are breaking down, we have an emergency. Emergencies are a
> normal, indeed core, part of B's ruleset, and have been from the
> start. To my way of thinking, a tolerance for frequent emergencies
> makes Agoran pragmatism unnecessary, just as Agora has no need of any
> kind of emergency rule because it solves such problems differently.

To follow up on this, following are some points that I think make B
characteristically itself. They apply more or less to every era I have
ever participated in.

- B is a primarily platonic game. It may be pragmatized in places, but
that is not the core of how it is done. Heck, this game once
platonically declared itself independent, to make sure that mere
outside legal issues could never interfere with what game actions were
and were not valid.
- B gameplay has two modes, ntime and emergencies. Emergency play is
simple, but allows for sweeping changes; ntime is where the real
action is. Think of them as regulation and overtime in a sporting
event.
- B tolerates active attempts to twist the rules until they not only
crack but utterly shatter; we can always pick up the pieces with an
emergency.
- B's ruleset is far less legalese-heavy than Agora's. Less true now,
but it used to be that ehird's complaint about certain over-literal
readings being the "retarded monkey" school of rule interpretation was
spot on in places. (That said, stupidity or true ambiguity in
rule-writing comes up anyhow, leading to things like interpreting the
Dimensions as spacial and moving in them. That's a real First Era
case, btw; the judge ruled that the movement failed because it was
done wrong, not because you can't move in the Dimensions.)
- B's gameplay is always whimsical. Right now we're wandering around a
manor house committing attempted murder while wearing seven-league
boots. Once upon a time, we used to throw sheep gnomes at each other
and garth brooks. Flavor text and lack of legalese ought to be a major
part of writing these sections of the rules; tomato vines don't just
vanish, they "wither and die."
- Superfluous rules are welcome. Seriously, this game has a motto, and
a history textbook, and they're enshrined in the rules.

ehird likes to say 5E is classic, perfect B. It's a ruleset that
defines the terms "confused baker's dozen" (14) and "first-class
monster" (a monster of biological nature), and it lets us kill each
other with the Large Hadron Collider; it's not unique in its classic
status, but it sure has some of all of the above. It gets a little too
big on the legalese for my taste, but that's largely in an attempt to
resolve some fourth-era controversy over whether the "players"
mentioned in the rules are the people playing the game, or wholly
rule-defined pawns that we manipulate.

 - teucer
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