Re: [s-d] [s-b] Testing

[Jamie Ahloy Dallaire <bad.leprechaun@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the info on Thermo, Teucer. Sounds like a fun experiment! Also
looking forward to your thesis on B :-) And yes, I'd be up for a new game
of 112 B.

Charles, I just had a quick dig through the archives to look at XX, but
I'll definitely need a longer sit-down with it to really see what happened.

When I said it should be "difficult" to slow/halt the endgame timer, that
was poorly worded. What I really had in mind was "difficult to do without
harming your own chances of winning." It could be something as easy/simple
as voluntarily giving up some of your own points to extend the timer, if
hoarding points were a way of achieving victory. It could be interesting to
build in some sort of cooperative multiplier to make coordinated
point-spending more effective than isolated individual actions, but that
really doesn't need to be in there to make players seek cooperation in this
kind of scenario. To take a ThermoDyNomic idea, holding onto a hot potato
could extend the timer :-)

Having read A Fire Upon The Deep semi-recently, I was also wondering if
setting the game in some analogue of the Zones of Thought would make for
good gameplay (explanation / minor sort-of-spoiler here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep#Setting). To state it
simply, the lower down you get (or the less time is left on the endgame
timer), the harder it becomes to get anything done. In terms of a nomic,
this might mean increased costs on taking various actions within the game,
limits on the frequency with which actions can be taken, or limits on the
class of rules that can be amended. For example, at a certain point in the
game, some rules might be modifiable by majority vote, some others only
unanimously, and some others not at all - however, moving "up a zone" or
increasing the endgame delay could shift the boundaries of these categories
and make some previously completely-immutable rules suddenly subject to
change with unanimous consent. This would make it potentially advantageous
for players to be continually working to pump up the timer (ie move the
game into a higher zone) rather than just ignoring it until time is almost
up and then having a flurry of activity to save the day.

Jamie




On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Charles Walker
<charles.w.walker@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> On 21 Aug 2013, at 00:09, Jamie Ahloy Dallaire <bad.leprechaun@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > Since people seem to be paying attention... :-)
> >
> > Would there be any interest in starting a self-destructing round of
> nomic?
> > What I have in mind is something that, in addition to a traditional nomic
> > ruleset, also includes a core of (truly) immutable rules that operate
> > something like a ticking timer that automatically ends the game when it
> > reaches zero, and govern the (difficult) ways in which the group of
> players
> > can temporarily halt or reverse the flow of time. There can't be a way to
> > just legislate our way around the timer.
> >
> > What I'm interested in is the potential for tension between competitive
> > (seeking individual victory) and cooperative behaviour (trying to keep
> the
> > game alive).
> >
> > Do let me know if this already exists!
> >
> > Jamie
>
> Agorans recently played Agora XX, a sort of sub-nomic, to celebrate its
> twentieth birthday. The fixed end point made for some really interesting
> play, or at least play that was different to your standard email nomic
> game. The absence of any incentive to keep the game alive meant that there
> was no cooperative play in that sense, but in the end the game was won by a
> group of players working together to pass a proposal which made them win.
>
> I'd be interested to hear your ideas for how players can halt or slow the
> endgame timer.
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