Imperial Nomic 28 2.0 Current Rules

1. Minimal Office Holders

The Game of Imperial Nomic shall always include at least two not necessarily distinct players who are office-holders: The Imperial Emperor / Empress (TIE) and The Humble Scribe (THS). The initial holder of the post of TIE and THS is Joel "Joe Java" Ricker.

2. How to Play

A Proposal is submitted by sending it by electronic mail or the World Wide Web to THS. A person becomes a player at the submission of their first Proposal or Point of Order.

3. Rights & Responsibilities

1. TIE will judge each proposal submitted and accept, reject or ignore it. To ignore a proposal, the condition by which it is ignored must be explicit elsewhere in the ruleset.
2. A player who has two consecutive proposals rejected shall be placed on Probation. A player on Probation who makes a proposal that would ordinarily be rejected will instead have that proposal ignored with prejudice, with no change to the game state (as if the proposal had never been made). A player on Probation may earn their way out of Probation by having three proposals accepted since the last time they were placed on Probation.
3. TIE may, at any time, modify or remove any existing rule or enact new rules, by the issuing of a Proclamation. In addition, e may, at any time, issue a Directive calling for proposals in a certain area.
   • If TIE issues a Directive calling for proposals in a certain subject area, a player may not submit any proposals outside of the subject area until either (a) the player has a proposal accepted in the subject area or (b) TIE revokes the Directive. Any proposals submitted in violation of this rule will be ignored.
4. THS may rewrite a proposal to clarify its meaning, as long as the rewriting does not alter the meaning.
5. THS must publish, via the World Wide Web, the current set of rules, list of proposals, and scores of all players (see below).
   1. In order to assist with the verification of scoring, THS shall make a public record of all changes made to players scores, ordered chronologically by game dates or game events. (This record may be incorporated into the published log of proposals, at THS' discretion.)
6. THS will maintain a public mailing list for players to communicate through.

4. Automatic Queue System

A player may have at most 2 undecided proposals on the queue at any given time. Additional proposals submitted by that player while they already have two on the queue will be ignored with any attendant penalties.

5. Appeals Mechanism
    amended by: P7, 36

1. Any player may, at any time, submit a Point of Order to raise any issue relevant to the game.
2. A player may raise a Point of Order to point out a potential error in scoring. If a player raises a Point of Order which points out an error in scoring which benefits another player, the player whose score was miscalculated will have the error fixed, and the player who pointed out the error will receive a number of points equal to the error. A player who points out an error in scoring affecting solely themselves will have the error fixed but receive no extra points for pointing out the error.
3. A player who point out an error which causes points to be taken away from a player, the miscalculated score will be fixed, and the deducted points will be added to the score of the player who noted the error.
4. A player may use a Point of Order to point out errors in the game state which do not involve player scores. If a player points out a valid non-scoring error in the game state, the player will be awarded one point.

6. Timing

1. Proposals will be processed. Rule triggers, scoring changes, or actions submitted withe proposals that can happen or do happen when proposals are accepted/denied/ignored will take place now unless otherwise stated in the ruleset.
2. Actions will be processed. Actions that take place after proposals will happen now.
3. Scoring changes that are triggered by the rules will now take place. [ex. Player of the Day - ANDing of Player Profiles]
4. Game state changes that are triggered by the rules that do not affect scoring will now take place. [ex. Game Cooling]

7. Application of Rules

1. Each submission will be numbered and a new rule will apply to all submissions numbered greater than or equal to its own proposal unless it specifies otherwise. No player may be penalized for failure to follow a rule which did not exist at the time the offending action was performed.
2. When several rules apply at the same time, precedence as specified explicitly by the rules is applied first. Where there is no explicit or conflicting explicit precedence, the rules are applied from lowest to highest as far as possible without conflict

8. Titular Consistency

Proposals not containing a title will be ignored.

8. Winning the Game

The game ends when one player achieves the title of The Exalted Winner (TEW).

10. Game Day & Turn Processing

A game day begins at the moment the previous game day ends. The length of a game day is 24 hours or the length of time between consecutive announcements (proposal decisions, proclamations, etc.) from TIE via THS, whichever is longer. The beginning of the first game day will be the date and time since the beginning of the game. TIE may announce a new game day has occured in the event that e has no announcements or judgements to make.

11. Some Ground Rules
    amended by: P4, 12, 29, 30

1. The Exalted Winner (TEW) shall be the player who first aquires exactly 50 points. Every accepted proposal shall gain its proposer 3 points. Every rejected proposal shall cause its proposer to lose 2 points. Every ignored proposal shall cause its proposer to neither gain or lose points. Every player starts with 0 points.
2. A player who has more than 50 points shall receive and lose points in an opposite manner from that of players under 50 points. (That is, if an act by a player under 50 points would earn the player X points, a player over 50 points would lose X points, and vice versa.)
3. If the Game temperature ever reaches 0, then the last player to submit a proposal which was accepted before the temperature reached 0 shall be TEW.
4. When a player becomes TEW, all other players will be ranked below him/her with the rankings being determined first according to score with any ties being broken by player profile. If two or more players have the same profile, a random ordering will determine which recieves the higher rank. [This is just to provide ordering for the WINA scores]

12. Feel the Heat
    amended by: P10, 13, 14, 21, 29

1. There exists a game variable called "game temperature", or simply "temperature". It is a non-negative integer with units of Kelvin (K). The game temperature is initially set to 303K.
2. If a player's integer profile representation logically anded with the game temperature in Kelvin is ever equal to the game temperature in Kelvin, the player gains 5 points and the game temperature is raised (or lowered) a random integer in the range [-10 to 10] inclusive.
   
   This is checked once per game day, and is applied to all players meeting the criteria simultaneously. This effect is applied *after* all other scoring effects for that game day.
3. Whenever a proposal is accepted, the temperature of the game is increased by the number of proposals previously accepted in an unbroken streak or by 10, whichever is smaller. Whenever a proposal is rejected or ignored, the game temperature is reduced by the number of proposals previously rejected in an unbroken streak or 5, whichever is greater.
4. Whenever the game temperature exceeds 330K, the game will overheat, causing the game CPU to go all fritzy. If the temperature increase was caused by a player action, the player is awarded 100 points. If the temperature increase was caused by something else, *every* player's score resets to 0 points. In any case, the heat will vent and the game temperature will return to 303K.
5. If the game temperature ever is greater than 450K, then the game temperature will be reset to 280K and the player whose action/proposal caused the game to overheat shall be set to 0 points.
6. At the end of every game day, the game temperature will automatically cool by a random integral number of degrees selected from the interval [0..10] inclusive. If the Game temperature ever reaches 0, then the last player to submit a proposal which was accepted before the temperature reached 0 shall be TEW. This occurs after Player Profiles have been ANDed with Game Temperature.

13. Player Profiles

Every player has a Profile, most easily represented as an integer between 0 and 65535, inclusive. While this representation is useful, a Profile is actually trapezoidal plank whose altitude measures 16cm and whose parallel sides measure 3cm and 1cm. This plank is divided into sixteen trapzoidal sections, each with all four sides parallel (perhaps coincident) to the plank's sides and each with an altitude of 1cm. Each of these sections can be raised (5mm thick) or depressed (3mm thick). TIE can figure out which integer represents a Profile by placing the Profile on a piece of paper with its fat end on the left, writing a "1" beneath each raised section, putting a "0" beneath each depressed section, and then reading the sixteen digits as a binary integer. When TIE needed to issue a new Profile to a player, TIE will take a fresh piece of wood from a breadfruit tree, slice it into its general form, and lay it on a sheet of paper with its fat end on the left. TIE will then take a player's email address, remove every non-alphabetic character from that address, and proceed to write those letters beneath the Profile's sections from left to right. (If TIE runs out of letters before reaching the end, hebegin again at the beginning of the email address.) Then, with precision, TIE will carve each section to the appropriate height: sections above consonants will be raised and sections above vowels will be depressed. [As an example, a player with the email address "tivol@mit.edu" will have an initial Profile corresponding to 44373.]

14. Glue Guns and Wood Chips
   P33, 40

1. A player can request that THS retool a single section of her Profile, either by gluing wood to a depressed section thereby making it raised or by shaving off wood from a raised section, thereby making it depressed.
   
   If the proposal containing the request is accepted, then the player's score will only change by one point less than the usual "Proposal Accepted" bonus (currently: by two points not three) and THS will change her Profile as requested. If the proposal containing the request is rejected, then the player's score will only change by one less point than the usual "Proposal Denied" penalty (currently: by one not two) and THS will change her Profile by randomly altering one of the other fifteen sections.
   
   A proposal that includes a request to change at least two sections of a Profile will be ignored.
2. Another type of request that a player may make is to have his profile rotated one bit to either the left or the right. A rotate costs the same as having a section raised or lowered. When a rotate to the right is done, the section representing the least signifigant bit is chopped off and then reattached as the most signifigant bit (for example 011001 would become 101100). A rotate to the left would chop off the section representing the most signifigant bit is chopped off and reattached as the least signifigant bit (for example 011001 would become 110010).
3. Two consenting players may, by notifying THS swap exactly 4 contiguous bits from somewhere in their profiles. The bits do not have to come from the same place in each profile, but the new bits will replace the old bits.
4. In order to conserve the population of bread fruit trees, a conservation plan for woodchips shall be instituted. THS maintains a pool of woodchips, initially empty. A request by a player to shave wood off a raised section creates a woodchip if the request is granted. A request by a player to raise a depressed section consumes a woodchip if the request is granted. A request to raise a depressed section will not be granted (with no penalty to the player) if the pool of woodchips is empty at the time the request is processed.
5. A player may request a sealant be applied to her player profile. If such a request is granted, her score will drop by 6 points, and the sealant is considered applied at the beginning of the next game day. The sealant lasts for four game days. During this period, actions that raise or lower sections of the profile will not do so.

15. Profile Entropy

Profile Entropy measures the "randomness" in any player's Profile. To calculate a player's Profile Entropy, count up the number of raised and depressed sections, subtract the smaller from the larger, and divide by two. (Or, alternately, add the binary digits of the integer representation of the Profile, subtract 8, and take the absolute value.)

16. Player Profiles and the Primordial Oooze
    amended by: P31

1. Players may either be categorized as GP or FF; initially all players are categorized as GP. GP players have their personal Profiles connected to other players' as part of the Game Profile. FF players have their personal Profiles free-floating in the nebulous, heated soup of the game. On the score page, all GP players will be listed above every FF player.
   
   Any GP player may include in eir proposal a request to become an FF player. By making such a request, the player forfeits the right to gain (or lose) points for having eir proposal accepted. In order for the change in Profile status to occur, each of the following conditions must be true:
   
   
   • The proposal must be accepted.
   • When one adds the Game Temperature to the cube of the (post-proposal) streak count and subtracts the player's Profile Entropy, one gets a total not less than 300.
   • The player making the request is not TIE or THS.
2. If a player designated as FF (by rule 15) causes the game temperature to drop below 290K (the game temperature was above 290K immediately before the player action and below 290K immediately after the player action), the player shall be awarded a number of points equal to fifteen times the player's Profile Entropy.

17. Game Profile

The Game Profile consists of the Player Profiles are arranged from top to bottom in the order they are added to the player list (earliest at the top). The first has the largest of its parallel sides to the left, the second (just below the first) has the largest of its parallel sides to the right, alternating down the list. In this manner, the profiles stack to form either a large trapezoid (in the case of an odd number of players) or a large parallelogram (in the base of an even number of players).

18. Player of the Day

Each game day, a random player shall be selected by TIE as "Player Of The Day". At the end of each game day, TIE shall award one extra point to the player of the day. TIE and THS are not eligable for this award.

19. For Whom The Bell Tolls

There exists a Bell Tower with a beautiful set of chimes. At end end of every game day, the chimes ring out to inform the world (and the players) of the end of one day and the beginning of a new day. Players subscribing to the public mailing list hear the chimes via a brief text message sent by THS.

20. Every Game Should Have A Tivol

A player whose Profile isn't part of the Game Profile may take his Profile and whap Tivol upside the head instead of making one proposal. Players are allowed to whap Tivol more than once per Game Day. Unless the whapping player is Tivol (whose score will not change for a self-whapping), the whapping player will lose one point if his score is fifty or less and gain a one point if his score is fifty or more. When Tivol is whapped with a Profile, there is a twenty-percent chance that some randomly selected raised section of the Profile will turn a depressed section, creating a wood chip (unless, of course, the Profile is completely depressed). When Tivol gets whapped, it has the same effect on Game Temperature and Streaks as if the whapper just made a rejected proposal.

21. ...And Things Get Violent
    amended by: P41

• With each a proposal, a player can state that she'll try to protect her Profile from vandalism or that she'll try to vandalize a specific section of another player's Profile.
  
  A player's attempt at defacing a Profile will be successful if: her proposal containing the attempt to vandalize is accepted; her victim's last proposal either was not accepted or didn't contain a request to defend; and the section to be defaced is raised. A vandalized section becomes depressed, and the act of vandalism generated a wood chip.
• If a player's profile ever has a difference of exactly one or exactly two bits from the profile of another player (at the end of the day), and that player is the first of the two to point it out to THS, then that player will gain 3 points and the second player will lose 3 points. This action can only be performed once per day, and may not be performed two times in succession on the same player. [for instance, if player A had the profile 0000011110001 and player B had the profile 1100011110001, then there are exactly 2 bits different, and which ever of A or B reported it first would gain 3 points and the other would lose 3 points]

22. Tag
amended by: P50

A game of "tag" will be played during the course of the game. At any given moment during the game, one player (other than TIE) is designated as "It". When a player is "It", a player may not perform any game action other than submitting proposals. When a player who is currently "It" has a proposal accepted, the player may at that time designate another player to be "It" by informing THS. Such transfer of "It"-ness occurs at the end of the game day on which the "tag" occurs. Whenever there is a change in the player who is "It", the Game Temperature will drop by 15K.

Should the player who is named It fail to submit a proposal within five game days of when they were named It, the player shall be placed on Inactive Status, and the next player down in the player list shall be named It. If the player being put on inactive status is at the bottom of the list, the player closest to the top of the list that is not TIE or THS shall be named It. A player on inactive status may not perform any game action other than submitting proposals, and may not be tagged It by an active player. The first proposal accepted by an inactive player will restore that player to active status; however, no points will be earned for the proposal which restored the player to active status.

Jim Huggins will be the first person to be IT.