Subject: MN: Re: Year 2, Week 46 Proposals

From: "Kevan Davis" <kevan@z...>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 21:34:28 -0000

Just some brief response to comments on my own Proposals, things being a bit
busy for me this week...

Dunx said:-

>{ Speaker's Comment: I'm sure we all congratulate the author on eir
success,
> in whatever fabulous new career e is embarking upon. Best of luck. }

My thanks. There's not much of a long-term career in millennium bug
software, I suspect, but that's what I'm doing - plunging into some Visual
Basic work for a company in Brighton; sideways into e-commerce or something
after that, it seems. Gloriously better than the dark days of my Felixstowe
employment, I'm glad to say.

>>Proposal 659 - God Help Us [Multiple]
>
>All fair enough, I think - I still think you shouldn't be offered sanctuary
>while you're picking up Pigeons though.

Ah, the old chestnuts. I like the Pigeons business, and don't think it's too
overpowered - if you hop quietly between Holies, your route's fairly
predictable. Maybe it'd be interesting if we permitted the [Catching Pigeon]
Action to also be played at any Station containing a Player with a Pigeon
(in which case you coax said Pigeon away). Hmm.

>Proposal 660 - Loan Clamps [Action]

>
>1. it is far, far too cheap to initiate. Since Bronze is as common as water
> (slight exaggeration, but you see my point) this would undoubtedly
become
> the primary offensive Clamp.

It wouldn't, really, because the victim is kindly given the means to pay it
off; it'd see more cases of self-clamping, I should think, with Players
getting a free Gold and paying it off in instalments. Rarely would the Clamp
be used offensively; with the victim pretty much guaranteed the option to
get rid of it, you're just giving em the choice, and paying the initial
Bronze for them.

On the matter, Paul said:-

>This would be
>fairly dangerous when combined with a shunt to take eir gold token away...

But, of course, you can only Shunt as your first Post-Move Action, so it
wouldn't really work. Except if you had an accomplice to steal the Gold
before the Victim had eir Turn, I suppose, which is quite amusing.

But anyway, Dunx...

> A Red or Green component would be more appropriate, I would have
>thought.

Maybe Green, but it seemed quite a purely-fiscal thing.

> I can see the point of this (you lose all your tokens, and scramble
around
> looking for a Gold), and I can see a thriving Token Gift market
> developing,

A matter of finding enough Silvers and Bronzes to get by, if you've got a
lot of other Tokens you don't want to lose... The idea of someone running
out of everything and begging for enough to pay off their Loan Clamp seems
amusing, though.

> but not only does it seem appallingly Draconian it is entirely
> out of step with how other Token loss states behave (cf Token Cascade,
> particularly).

It seemed a suitably harsh penalty for not paying it off; anything else
(such as destroying the Clamp and all Tokens) would just encourage people to
get a Loan Clamp, spend everything (or Hoard the Gold) and repeat as
desired.

I didn't realise there was a standard Token-loss system to be "out of step"
with, though...

Kevan

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