Subject: Proposal: The Unwashed Masses

From: "Jeffrey J. Weston" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 15:34:55 -0700 (PDT)

Create a not-so-fundamental Rule with the title "The Unwashed Masses" and
the following text:

The players of DocNomic represent the Great Leaders of the world. It
is they who control The Unwashed Masses through the creation of
Doctrines, the abuse of Precepts, and petty rivalry amongst
themselves.

The Unwashed Masses also follow Doctrines, however since they are
not like the Great Leaders of the world, they are referred to as a
Doctrine's Flock, instead of followers of a Doctrine. Each Doctrine
has a gamestate item known as "Flock" which is a non-negative
integer and tracks the exact number of The Unwashed Masses following
the Doctrine. Whenever a Doctrine is created, it starts out with a
Flock of 0. If a Doctrine ever has an unspecified Flock value, it is
set to 0. If an action attempts to set a Doctrine's Flock value to a
negative number, it is instead set to 0.

Create a not-so-fundamental Rule with the title "Doctrine Actions" and the
following text:

Once per dun, a Doctrine may take one Doctrine action. Only the
leader of a Doctrine may determine what action their Doctrine takes
by announcing it to the mailing list. The following Doctrine actions
are available:

- Influence the World: A number of The Unwashed Masses equal to the
Influence of the Doctrine joins the Flock.

- Spread the Word: A number of The Unwashed Masses equal to 1/10 of
the Flock value of the Doctrine (rounded down to the nearest
integer) joins the Flock.

- Steal From Others: A target Doctrine must be specified for this
action. 1/20 of the Flock value of the Doctrine (rounded down to
the nearest integer) or the Flock value of the target Doctrine
(whichever value is smaller) leaves the target Doctrine to join
the Doctrine initiating the action.

Amend Rule 1002 to read in full as follows:

A player may cease to follow their current Doctrine by announcing
their intention to do so to the mailing list. Any player doing so
has eir current point total reduced by N points, where N is defined
as the player's current point total, divided by 2 and rounded up to
the nearest whole number. (This may cause an increase to the
point total if the player's point total is negative. Other Rules may
adjust or limit this point loss. This Rule defers to such rules.
Such an adjustment applies to the number of points lost, and not to
the value of N.) The Doctrine that the player is leaving has N
subtracted from its Flock value, where N is defined as above. (This
may cause an increase in the Flock value, if the player's point
total is negative.)

Amend Rule 1006 by striking the word "Influence" and replacing it with
"Flock".

Amend Rule 1009 to read in full as follows:

Any Leader of a Doctrine may propose a merger with another Doctrine
by announcing a merger proposal to the mailing list. The merger
becomes pending if all of the following conditions are met at the
time of the merger proposal. If one or more of the following
conditions are false at the time of the merger proposal, the merger
immediately fails.

- Both Doctrines have Leaders.
- Both Doctrines have at least one Precept in common.
- Neither Doctrine has a Precept that is an opposite Precept of any
Precepts of the other Doctrine.
- Both Doctrines are more than three duns old.

Once the merger becomes pending, the Leader of the Doctrine that
received the merger proposal has 2 duns to accept or decline the
merger. If no response is received within that time, the merger is
automatically declined. Once a merger has been declined or accepted,
it is no longer pending. If the merger is accepted, both merging
Doctrines are destroyed and a new Doctrine is created with the
following properties:

- The name of the new Doctrine is of the form A DASH B where:
A is the name of the proposing Doctrine.
DASH is a hyphen ("-").
B is the name of the Doctrine that the merger was proposed to.

- The membership of the new Doctrine is the union of the memberships
of the merging Doctrines.

- The set of Precepts of the new Doctrine is the union of the
Precepts of the merging Doctrines.

- The new Doctrine has a creation date set to the time of the
acceptance of the Merger. All members of the Doctrine are
considered to have joined this new Doctrine exactly ten minutes
after this creation date.

- The Leader of the new Doctrine is randomly chosen by Doc from the
membership of the new Doctrine. This random selection may be done
in any fashion Doc desires.

- The Flock value of the new Doctrine is the sum of the Flock value
of the two merging Doctrines.

Upon completion of the Merger, all members of the new Doctrine gain
20 points. The Leader of the ex-Doctrine that received the proposal
gains an additional 5 points.

-- 
Jeff Weston (Sir Toby)

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 19 Jul 2002 09:55:51 -0400

> Create a not-so-fundamental Rule with the title "The Unwashed Masses" and

Quite a substantial set of changes. I'll hold off on judgment to give
others time to comment.

-- 
- Doc

---

From: Kevan Davis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:42:47 +0100

Hm, yes, feedback.

> Doctrines, the abuse of Precepts, and petty rivalry amongst

Heh. Excellent. Might be nice to introduce sub-ranks into each Doctrine, to 
underline the status of non-Leader Doctrine members. The importance of the 
scheming vizier.

> by announcing it to the mailing list.

This I like less. Fair enough in that it prepares the ground for more 
interesting Doctrine actions, but the three actions you specify are 
disappointing no-brainers - if (flock/10 > influence) then Spread, else 
Influence. And Steal if that would get you more, or if there's some future-
strategic reason to cut an enemy down to size.

A bit unexciting that the actions can always be performed, too, that there's no 
reason *not* to perform a Flock-fuelling action every dun. A bit of a shame 
that any Leader who has weekend/frequent Internet access automatically gets an 
easy edge over those that don't.

> their intention to do so to the mailing list. [...]
> The Doctrine that the player is leaving has N
> subtracted from its Flock value, where N is defined as above.

Seems a good touch, although I'm not sure why there's all the talk of negative 
Points when points "must be a finite integer".

Kevan

---

From: Kevan Davis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 18:28:13 +0100

I coughed:-

> Seems a good touch, although I'm not sure why there's all the talk of
> negative Points when points "must be a finite integer".

Feh, a long day. We can have negative finite integer points, of course.

On more careful reflection, this is actually quite worrying; I'm not sure I 
like the idea of a player being able to soak up negative points by continually 
leaving and rejoining a Doctrine, *and* scything away at that Doctrine's Flock 
in the process. Feels a bit scammy, but I can't see an easy way to get lots of 
negative points, off-hand, so who knows.

Kevan

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 19 Jul 2002 13:29:39 -0400

> easy edge over those that don't.

Good points...

> Points when points "must be a finite integer".

-137 is a finite integer.

-- 
- Doc

---

From: "Jeffrey J. Weston" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:08:15 -0700 (PDT)

> strategic reason to cut an enemy down to size.

I wasn't as sure about the Doctrine Actions rule. I was primarily hoping 
to lay down some simple actions that others would be able to modify, and 
add to if they had better ideas.

> easy edge over those that don't.

Hmm... Not sure how to correct the "always can be performed" bit. Perhaps
others can think of some interesting restrictions on performing the
actions. I was eventually hoping to add other actions that don't increase
your Flock, such as declaring war on another Doctrine, or something along
those lines. I didn't want to write up too much right away though, since
I wanted to see what Doc thought of the basic framework first. As far as
the weekend problem, that seems to affect most everything that can be done
once per dun. Admittedly, in this case it equates to a more visible
advantage. Perhaps make it every 2 duns, or increase the length of a dun
to 72 hours.

> Points when points "must be a finite integer".

Others have already covered the negative number bit. In my proposed 
changes, I was only trying to clarify what I felt was an existing feature 
(bug?) of the rule.

-- 
Jeff Weston (Sir Toby)

---

From: "Jeffrey J. Weston" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:09:12 -0700 (PDT)

> negative points, off-hand, so who knows.

Perhaps we can give N a minimum value of 10 so that a player's points and
eir Doctrine's Flock will always take some damage, no matter how low eir
points get.

-- 
Jeff Weston (Sir Toby)

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 22 Jul 2002 12:09:22 -0400

> gains an additional 5 points.

OK. As noted, the points raised by Kevan are indeed good ones,
pointing to some weaknesses in this scheme, but none horrid enough to
merit rejection of the whole. Repair amendments are welcome and
encouraged. 

+10 to Jeff.

-- 
- Doc

---

From: "Jeffrey J. Weston" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 09:29:18 -0700 (PDT)

> merit rejection of the whole. Repair amendments are welcome and

Okay, I'm working on a couple of fixes, but I want to get feedback from 
others before I send them out. First off, I'm thinking of amending Rule 
1002 so that N has a minimum value of 10, thus ensuring there is always a 
penalty for leaving a Doctrine, and eliminates a potential scam of gaining 
points/flock if you have negative points, and infinitely growing the flock 
of an Open Doctrine if you have negative points. I'm also thinking of 
restricting the actions "Influence the World" and "Spread the Word" such 
that they can't be performed by the Leading Doctrine (the one with the 
most Flock). That would still leave "Steal From Others" as an action that 
is always allowed. However, it leads to a smaller reward (5% of your flock 
instead of the 10% of your flock for "Spread the Word").

Any thoughts on these ideas, or further suggestions for improvement?

-- 
Jeff Weston (Sir Toby)

---

From: fnord <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 15:16:14 -0700 (PDT)

--- <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Okay, I'm working on a couple of fixes, but I want
> to get feedback from others before I send them out.
> First off, I'm thinking of amending Rule 1002 so
> that N has a minimum value of 10, thus ensuring
> there is always a penalty for leaving a Doctrine,
> and eliminates a potential scam of gaining 
> points/flock if you have negative points, and
> infinitely growing the flock of an Open Doctrine
> if you have negative points. 

Personally, I like the idea of a Flock's growth if
someone 'unliked' (as evinced by their negative score)
leaves the Doctrine.

> I'm also thinking of 
> restricting the actions "Influence the World" and
> "Spread the Word" such that they can't be
> performed by the Leading Doctrine (the one with the 
> most Flock). That would still leave "Steal From
> Others" as an action that is always allowed.
> However, it leads to a smaller reward (5% of your
> flock instead of the 10% of your flock for
> "Spread the Word").

A good idea. The Leading Doctrine already has way too
much power, as evinced (I love that word) by their
high Influence/Flock amount.

Michael

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 22 Jul 2002 21:34:43 -0400

> high Influence/Flock amount.

Seen the gamestate page lately? All Doctrines are tied at zero Flock
-- I haven't figured out which is the Leading Doctrine yet; I need to
dig up all their creation times. As for Influence, Scamsters
Anonymous has 130, Fundamentalist Cthulhu Worship has 120, and
Forty-Two - Jellyfish - Semantic Solipsism - Error 404 / Doctrine\ Not
Found has 110. I don't see any 600 pound gorilla all the other
Doctrines need to be protected from. And logically, the Leading
Doctrine ought to be *better*, not worse, at the above three Actions. 

-- 
- Doc

---

From: fnord <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 09:33:54 -0700 (PDT)

--- [email-masked] wrote:
> 
> Seen the gamestate page lately? All Doctrines are
> tied at zero Flock -- I haven't figured out which
> is the Leading Doctrine yet; I need to dig up all
> their creation times.

Actually, no, I haven't had a chance, since I've had
an attack of work laltely, which would also explain
why I'm about to go inactive.

> As for Influence, Scamsters
> Anonymous has 130, Fundamentalist Cthulhu Worship
> has 120, and Forty-Two - Jellyfish - Semantic
> Solipsism - Error 404 / Doctrine\ Not Found has 110.
> I don't see any 600 pound gorilla all the other
> Doctrines need to be protected from. 

Last time I had a chance to check these things, 7 duns
ago, FCW was way ahead in Influence. This was before
the breakup-creation-merger frenzy happened,
increasing the scores and Influence of other players
and Doctrines. My own darn fault for not being able
to be as involved as I could have been.

> And logically,
> the Leading Doctrine ought to be *better*, not
worse,
> at the above three Actions. 

Logically, yeah, that may be true. I'm just trying to
influence things so that those of me who don't have
much influence or score or flock still have a chance
(according to the current rules) of increasing their
stake.

Michael

---

From: "Jeffrey J. Weston" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 13:03:28 -0700 (PDT)

> Doctrine ought to be *better*, not worse, at the above three Actions. 

Given some of the responses I've seen to my proposed amendments to The
Unwashed Masses rules, I think I'll hold off on my proposal to fix some
bits of it and wait for other players to come up with some other ideas
first. I also want to see how The Unwashed Masses rules play out to see
what might need adjusting.

-- 
Jeff Weston (Sir Toby)