Subject: MN: Re: Dolly's definitely feeling unwell.

From: "Kevan Davis" <kevan@z...>
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 08:37:06 -0000

>> I think we've been doing alright, really, reproposing things which failed
>> because of careless yet drastic mistakes, and quietly heralding the more
>> ambitious Proposals before we make them, to get a bit of feedback.
>
>This would work if Proposers did get feedback, but I've got virtually
>nothing from people that I've felt made me want to repropose the idea when
>proposals have been shot down in flames - and that's with me asking for
>comment too.

[nods sadly] It's always very disheartening to read that one of your
Proposals has failed four Votes to nil, for no obvious reason.

>I was thinking through an idea for having a 'current ruleset' system - that
>each game got parcelled off with its own ruleset and therefore had the
rules
>static (unless a special type of proposal was put through - problem fixing,
>you see) during the entire course of its play. I've been burnt several
>times in recent games by having to rethink my entire strategy because a new
>proposal has shot down the core tactic in mid-play.

Hmm. An interesting thought, but I imagine rather confusing in practice -
I'm not sure I could cope with six different rulesets, particularly with
games dragging on as long as they do (the Long Game obviously more so than
any other). It's true that there is a potential problem of someone Proposing
things which drop a spanner into your fiendish strategy, but I feel that
this just adds to the experience; such is what it is to play a Nomic. And
it's more luck than persecution, really - with at least a Week's delay
between proposal and enactment, any hasty "Players actually need *four*
Golds to enter MC" attempts probably won't work.

We need to play as we go along, I think, otherwise we'll have rules sitting
untested for far too long, dozens of them suddenly realised as flawed once
we come to use them. The fact that we've got five games going on at once is
enough to stop the Nomic system being used to deny victories - in the early
days we had a fair bit of "Oh, wait a minute, someone's about to win; let's
change things", but with several games in progress, the wider impact of an
amendment is more visible.

Although I did rather like the idea, floated a couple of years ago, of
making a Long Game unwinnable by continually altering the ruleset...

Kevan

--
kevan@d...
http://members.xoom.com/asabove

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