Community Garden/Ruleset

Info

Time

All times mentioned in this ruleset are in UTC. Days start at 00:00 UTC.

Players

Any person may become a player by sending any message in any channel in The Community Garden category. A player may stop being a player by announcing their intent in any channel in The Community Garden category or by leaving the Discord server.

Measurement

Unless otherwise specified, all measurements of the plant are conducted using centimetres.

Garden Supplies

Bags of Fertilizer are a tracked integer quantity.

The Plant

The plant is a cellular automata.

Position

Each cell has an integer position, which is related to the number of cells it is away from the origin. This position is denoted with a (x,y) notation, where x is the horizontal coordinate relative to the origin with the positive axis pointing right and y is vertical coordinate relative to the origin with the positive axis pointing up. For instance, if one would reference the cell immediately above and to the left of the origin, that would be cell (-1,1).

The origin (0,0) is the bottom-most stem feature that was in place the day the plant became a cellular automata.

Features

The plant may have any number of additional features, created via interaction with actions. Each feature has one or more ascii characters that represent that feature in its cell and a rule that describes how that feature may be placed when created. The following type of features exist:

Name	Ascii	Rule
Leaves	&	May be placed adjacent to another Branch or Stem
Buds	°	May be placed adjacent to another Branch or Stem
Flowers	@	May replace a Bud
Branches	-, /, or \	May be placed adjacent to another Branch or Stem
Stems	|	May be placed in the cell above the existing stem with the greatest y value
Bugs	ඞ	May replace a leaf, flower, or bud. If no leaves, flowers, or buds are on the plant, it can be placed anywhere.
Fruit	*	May replace a flower with at least one bug adjacent to it.

There are some additional restrictions to this:

• No features may be placed at y-level 0 or below
• Only Stems may be placed with an x-coordinate of 0
• Unless a rule states that a feature replaces another, features cannot be placed in a cell that already contains another feature
• Only bugs can be placed while there are bugs in the Feature pile.
• A maximum of 10 bugs can exist in the feature pile. Any additional bugs are not added.

There is a collection called the Feature Pile, which may contain features waiting to be placed.

Actions

Players and non-player persons may perform actions. Any player rolling dice or randomly selecting from weighted pools to resolve the result of a previous action is not, itself, an action.

Caring for the Plant

Any player may care for the plant once per day by posting their intent to do so in ⁠#plant-actions. This can take any form, such as watering the plant, checking the health of its soil, or even merely admiring it, so long as the intent is clear. That player may then roll Nd(6+X) and add that number of Growth Points to the plant. X represents the number of fruits on the plant, and N represents the Era of the plant.

Players may always choose that N to be 1 and/or X to be 0 instead of their actual value.

Growing

A player may spend A number of Growth Points to trigger the plant to grow by stating their intent to do so in #plant-actions. The number of Growth Points to trigger this growth is equal to 7 * n + 3.5 * (n^2), rounded down, where n is the current Era. The first time the plant is triggered to grow each day, any player may select a feature to be added to the Feature Pile by performing a weighted roll on the following table. This action fails if there are not enough Growth Points on the plant to spend.

Weight	Feature
6	Leaf
5	Branch
4	Bud
3	Flower
1	Stem
1	Roll 2 more times on this table, and add all features rolled. Repeat as necessary.
1	add a Bug to the feature pile. Roll again on this table, and add all features rolled. Repeat as necessary.
1	Bug
2	Fruit

Placing

Any player may select a feature in the Feature Pile to place on the plant by specifying what feature they are placing and the coordinates of the cell they are placing the feature in. A feature of the specified type must exist in the Feature Pile in order to be placed. When a player tries to place a feature it is removed from the Feature Pile. If a player tries to place a feature in a cell in a way that would violate that feature's Rule for placement, the feature is not placed there and falls back into the Feature Pile.

After placing a feature, the player who placed it should update the record for gamestate accordingly or ask someone else to - so that the plant may flourish and we may all be informed of its current state.

Bug Removal

Any player can remove one bug from the plant and spend 20 GP to do so, by posting the intent and the location of the bug to #plant-actions. This can take any form as long as the intent is clear. When a bug is removed, a bag of fertilizer is created.

Fertilizing

A player may spend x bags of fertilizer to fertilize the plant and trigger a Growth Spurt, where x is 10 + the current Era number. The first time this happens each day, any player may select new features to be added to the Feature Pile by performing 10 weighted rolls on the table in the Growing rule.

Eras

The Plant starts at Era 1. A player can initiate the advance of the Era of the plant by posting the current Era and the next Era in their intent to do so in ⁠#plant-actions. Once that intent has 6 🪴 reactions, any player can reply to that intent to advance to the next Era, by spending a number of Growth Points equal to 100 * n, where n is the current Era. Once the Era has advanced, any player may instantly trigger a Growth Spurt without spending any bags of fertilizer, provided no player has already done so.

Seasons

There are six seasons cycled through according to the calendar date.

Once during each season, one player may request a seasonal bounty, generating some features that are in season. This bounty is then added to the feature pile.

The table below outlines the seasons:

Name	Time	Bounty
Frigid	January and February in odd years, July and August in even years	2 stems
Verdant	March and April in odd years, September and October in even years	4 leaves and 2 buds
Blossom	May and June in odd years, November and December in even years	3 flowers
Arid	July and August in odd years, January and February in even years	2 bugs
Rustic	September and October in odd years, March and April in even years	3 fruits
Misted	November and December in odd years, May and June in even years	4 branches and 2 stems

The Plant Keeper

The Plant Keeper is a player. There is never more than one Plant Keeper at a time. The Plant Keeper is responsible for resolving rules disputes. The Plant Keeper may cease being such by stating so in #plant-keeper.

A request for clarification is an action that shall take the form of a question or statement. The proper response to a question is an action in the form of an answer to that question, and the proper response to a statement is the truth value of that statement.

Upon formal request by a player other than themself, the Plant Keeper shall, as quickly as possible, issue a response to the request. This response shall be binding only to the extent that it reasonably directly pertains to the request, and only to the extent that it does not blatantly and obviously contradict rules text.

In order to be the Plant Keeper, a player must be a Gardener. The Plant Keeper cannot change roles or perform actions specific to a role other than a Gardener under any circumstances.

If after 7 days the message sent by the player has at least 3 :+1: reactions, and has more :+1: reactions than :-1: reactions, that player becomes the new Plant Keeper.

Proposals

Any person may make a proposal by sending a message as an action in #plant-proposals. If that message is deleted or modified during its voting period, the proposal is retracted. If there is an active proposal made by a person in the last 7 days, any new proposal they make is immediately retracted. An "active proposal" refers to any proposal that hasn't been retracted and is still in its 7-day voting period.

The voting period for proposals is 7 days. Once a proposal's voting period ends, if there are more votes in favor than against, the proposal takes effect.

A 👍 or 👎 reaction on a Proposal message at the time when the voting period ends constitutes a vote in favor or against, respectively.

4sts's Agreement

Players may choose to be critics, who are trolls instead of humans by announcing such in the Plant-Chatter channel of the discord, this however has no gameplay effect