Nomic - Turn Twenty Eight (tai sez: omnomnom)

[Carthrat]

(there are pretty silly ways of getting around that, mind, you could define an alternate win condition to simply set your score total to 200 or whatever)

[AndrewRogue]

I'd be willing to provide Rat with 9 starting points. Then he's at least level with me, and can take the lead next.

Anyhow, as long as the players keep it together, we can get stuff through the non-players just fine.

[Bardiche]

Yeah, our power may be limited now, but you'd need to waste more proposals in order to eliminate the mob again. :V

and even then we'd be unable to overthrow the players if 80% votes in favor

Nine points sounds good enough. You can lower the amount a little just so you have a slight edge afaik. -swirly thumbs up- But I'll vote for this regardless! Because then Rat can serve the mob with mob-favoring proposals.

[Carthrat]

Regrettably...

It is now the Voting phase! Send them in.

314: Carthrat is to be included in the game as a 7th player, in addition to his role as unofficial moderator.

Carthrat says you should vote yes to this proposal.

[Carthrat]

Modly note: My computer crashed overnight, taking with it an unsaved .txt file that contained records of who voted what this round. It would be cool if people Forum PM'd me instead of just IMing me with votes from now on, since then I can't actually lose votes like that. I'll do my best to remember but ugh what a pain, feel free to send them again if you used AIM or IRC.

[Excal]

not gonna be home for a while and can't pm so voting here.  Vote = Yes.

[Carthrat]

314: Carthrat is to be included in the game as a 7th player, in addition to his role as unofficial moderator.

AndrewRogue: Yea
EvilTom: Nay
Excal: Yea
Jo'ou: Yea
Sopko: Nay
VerySlightlyMad: Nay

Alex: Nay
Bardiche: Yea
Ciato: Yea
Corwin: Yea
Dunefar: Nay
Gatewalker: Yea
Kilga: Yea
Laggy: Yea
Nitori: Yea
Ryogo: Yea
QuietRain: Yea
Super: Nay
Twilkitry: Nay
Yakumo: Nay

The proposal was PASSED!

<->

Nomic -- Turn Fifteen

Players - Points

1. AndrewRogue: 24
2. Carthrat: 0
3. EvilTom: 45
4. Excal: 35
5. Jo'ou Ranbu: 36
6. Sopko: 35
7. VerySlightlyMad: 43

It is Carthrat's turn! Please propose a change to the rul- oh wait.

315. (Amendment to 311.) Every player gains three votes every voting phase. Votes are expended during the voting phase as normal, however: A player may chose to use all, some, or none of his votes on a given proposal, with the weight of said votes tallied appropriately. A player who does not use a portion of his votes during any given turn may retain them for use in later turns. Any amount of votes can be spent, so long as the voter has possession of them, and there is no limit to the number of votes that can be held in stock.

A player cannot vote in multiple ways in any given turn; each vote must be for the same purpose (so you cannot vote both yea and nay in one turn.) No matter how many votes a player casts, when determining penalties and bonuses, the player counts as only having cast one vote.

Every non-player participant on the board gains one vote each turn, which may not be retained or saved; it must be used the same turn it is gained (or not used at all, in which case it expires); non-players count as eligible voters for the purpose of determining whether or not a proposal passes (ala rule 306), but they do not have to vote (ala rule 303). All the penalties and bonuses associated with voting for the purposes of playing the game will be reserved for players.

It is now the Discussion phase! 48 hours to go.

[Carthrat]

tl;dr, this proposal allows people to bank votes for use later. Adds a bit of strategy to the game, since you can either try to really push proposals through (if you need them) or hold back for when it really matters to you. Should encourage more dynamic proposal making- it'll force people to make *actually topical proposals* unless they want other players to just not vote strongly and thus rack up points/power.

Cleans up a couple details on non-player voters that bugged me, too, though it won't really change how things are being played right now.

I have a few more ideas for proposals based on this one, including a trading system and the introduction of resources that aren't votes, but they're too much for one proposal. Do want people to see where I'm going with this, though.

[Hunter Sopko]

I'm in support of this. It's a neat idea. The trading of stored votes though... no. That'd lead to clusterfuckery I think. The second part, the resources that aren't votes thing, intrigues me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[EvilTom]

When saving votes.. wouldn't you be penalised for not voting?

[Hunter Sopko]

Spending one vote still counts as voting, but I guess if one saved all three votes then yes, they'd be penalized for not voting.

[Carthrat]

What Soppy said. Save all three and lose ten points~

[Bardiche]

So players have a sum of 9 influence per turn against our 1?

Yeah, so not voting Yea on this! D:

[Carthrat]

I don't follow your math at all. o-O

Ah, I think I get it. Well, no, player votes don't 'count for three' anymore, since that proposal is the one being amended. Instead they just have three votes, so on that count, nothing functionally changes (though they can save votes up now.)

[Bardiche]

Oh, okay. Then I'll vote Yea, since anything that makes this game more interesting to read is a good thing by my book.

Was just mostly concerned with losing even more of what little influence we have.

[VySaika]

This sounds good to me. Especially since a player deciding to save some votes makes the Mobb a larger influance in that vote, so that's another strategical aspect. Sure, you can save up votes for when you need to slam something through later, but is it worth possibly letting the peanut gallery control the matter at hand now, etc.

So yeah, sounds fun for you guys, interesting for us to watch, and adds another level of strategy. I see no downsides to this.

[Dunefar]

This is a bad proposal. It lets people store votes for pet projects and vote bomb away to unbalance the system. The strategic edition to the game is lost in the rush to store up a stockpile of votes that can push through a tepid idea. Not only does it weaken the mob, it turns the game into an ineffective standoff of vote storing and whoring.

[Yakumo]

As much as I hate to say it, I actually agree with Dune on this one.  If you're going to allow votes to stockpile, at least set a limit on it. 

[Halbarad]

I'm with Dune and Yakko on this one. While it'll take a while (especially at this game's pace) to build up enough votes to votebomb a single proposal, it WILL happen eventually.

[Bardiche]

The way I see it, someone could save all their votes, then:

Proposal 322: Carthrat will have 200 points.

And then votebomb it to hell. It'd be interesting if Carth'd saved enough votes to actually pass his proposal, especially with the backing of the mob. It makes me wonder how that 80% rule works, though. Since technically probably only Carthrat would realistically vote in favor of this one.

[Shale]

As much as I hate to say it, I actually agree with Dune on this one.  If you're going to allow votes to stockpile, at least set a limit on it. 

This. Set an upper limit of 3-6 stockpiled votes, and it'll look better.

[Kilgamayan]

Rather than set a limit on how many votes you can stockpile, I'd rather see a limit on how many votes you can bomb at once.

[Carthrat]

I disagree with basically all these limitations. Vote stockpiling is inherently balanced by two factors.

a) Other players can do it too, and no doubt will out of paranoia (allowing those who don't to get ahead in the short term; keep in mind a single proposal can have incredible effects on the game!)

b) People will be terrified of the mob's influence. Let's keep in mind that the default vote of the mob for any given proposal is likely to be 'no' (hi, Dune), and thus any player who wants to get something through is pretty boned unless they slam more votes into it or
blatantly appeal to the mob (which will, I guarantee, have a higher chance of the other players ganging up on them to screw them, thus creating a lose-lose situation where nothing ever gets done.)

Furthermore, limitations are plain boring. People have constantly said 'let's up the craziness factor of this game!' and 'yay I can't wait for cool things to happen'. Yet instigating caps runs directly counter to this, since it prevents any player from gaining a significant advantage and thus lessens the chances of anyone taking drastic, cunning, or bold moves.

[Excal]

Hmm, yes.  I think I agree with Rat on this one.  Willing to wait on arguments, but it does keep very nicely to the spirit of what I was aiming for while at the same time allowing degrees of flexibility in terms of what we can do.  Want to reread the fine print a bit, but otherwise, I think I'm decided.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I honestly like this proposal. You people are complaining about the point of poor balance, but seriously? The game's point is to be broken. *Shrug.* And I like the bigger flexibility multiple votes would give, as well as make it more competitive for important proposals. Eh.