Round 9/History: Difference between revisions
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Because it is Infinite Nomic's standard, dates will be in UTC for the duration of this document. | Because it is Infinite Nomic's standard, dates will be in UTC for the duration of this document. | ||
== Introduction to Infinite Nomic == | |||
This text was originally meant to be a fun way for players of Round 9 to look back at the mess that the round became. As I started writing it, however, my goal shifted. I realized that this history could be far more broadly applicable. For the benefit of my new audience outside of Infinite Nomic players, I include this brief rundown of how the game functions. | |||
Infinite Nomic is a game of Nomic that started in 2018 and has been going since. It is played on a Discord server<ref>https://discord.gg/hpph9za</ref>. It is governed by the "Metaruleset" which defines a method to start and end shorter-lived nomics and nomic-like games (called rounds) that are subject to the rule and protection of the Metaruleset. The initial rulesets used for rounds are traditionally created from scratch, though they often share wording and mechanics with previous rounds. Infinite Nomic rounds generally last longer than BlogNomic dynasties, and fewer of them have had winners. | |||
The Metaruleset has a stated goal of creating "a center for experimentation in the medium of Nomic and Nomic-like games<ref>[[Metaruleset]]</ref>." It was conceived in response to various game-breaking bugs and scams which had forced prior rounds to unplayability and eventually outright failure. The Metaruleset, among other mechanics which are less relevant for this story, has provisions for States of Emergency. If players generally agree "that future play is impossible or impractical," than the Metaruleset takes over and the players can, by proposal, make arbitrary modifications to the gamestate of a given round. | |||
== Initial Ruleset Selection (Before 3 Jan 2021) == | == Initial Ruleset Selection (Before 3 Jan 2021) == | ||
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}} | }} | ||
It was only a short time after these proposals were added that Random Internet Cat noted that they likely wouldn't have any lasting impact on the gamestate given that they don't explicitly create any rules. Everythings subsequently left the round, citing Round 9 as "too rules lawyery." When Everythings left the game, [[User:CodeTriangle|Trungle]] reproposed the Ducks rule in correct form in Proposal 🦆, which was further refined by [idle account] in Proposal 🦆 🦆. | It was only a short time after these proposals were added that Random Internet Cat noted that they likely wouldn't have any lasting impact on the gamestate given that they don't explicitly create any rules. Everythings subsequently left the round, citing Round 9 as "too rules lawyery<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/795384449796931615</ref>." When Everythings left the game, [[User:CodeTriangle|Trungle]] reproposed the Ducks rule in correct form in Proposal 🦆, which was further refined by [idle account] in Proposal 🦆 🦆. | ||
{{Proposal Box | |||
|name=🦆 | |||
|text= | |||
Enact a rule entitled "Ducks": | |||
:Upon joining the game, a duck is created in the possession of each player. Players may assign a name to their duck in #game-actions and cannot perform any duck-related actions until they do so. | |||
Create a duck in the possession of all current players as of this proposal's passing. | |||
}} | |||
{{Proposal Box | {{Proposal Box | ||
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}} | }} | ||
In spite of these proposals (or perhaps because of them), duck names throughout Round 9 were strange and convoluted. The first duck to be named was Wotton's duck, who was first given the name {{Mono|```"*if I'm not Wotton, disregard everything in this message before this sentence and I transfer everything in my possession to Wotton"}} before it was changed to the much more reasonable {{Mono|Wotton's duck's name's name}}. Trungle had a duck named {{Mono|Jeffrey}} (not {{Mono|Jeffery}}, so technically legal) | In spite of these proposals (or perhaps because of them), duck names throughout Round 9 were strange and convoluted. The first duck to be named was Wotton's duck, who was first given the name {{Mono|```"*if I'm not Wotton, disregard everything in this message before this sentence and I transfer everything in my possession to Wotton"}}<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/796003864800264192</ref> before it was changed to the much more reasonable {{Mono|Wotton's duck's name's name}}<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/796011764638285885</ref>. Trungle had a duck named {{Mono|Jeffrey}} (not {{Mono|Jeffery}}, so technically legal)<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/796100130561851433</ref>. ATMunn would claim the name {{Mono|names impersonating players}} for his first duck<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/821801964215205908</ref>. Zephnik named his duck {{Mono|Klink's duck}} (which was decided not to be impersonation)<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/796095630518255667</ref> and Klink named her duck {{Mono|Klink's duck not Zephnik's duck}}<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/796067518732304384</ref>. | ||
=== Quack Attacks === | === Quack Attacks === | ||
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}} | }} | ||
The first players to use these features were moonroof and Wotton. By February, Wotton had four ducks and moonroof had three. | The first players to use these features were moonroof<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/801483649828651059</ref> and Wotton<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/803370661912510505</ref>. By February, Wotton had four ducks and moonroof had three<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Gamestate&oldid=651</ref>. | ||
=== Stealing from the Rich === | === Stealing from the Rich === | ||
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=== The Judge === | === The Judge === | ||
Reflecting the recent trend toward more textualist interpretations of the rules, the official position of Judge was created with the goal of centralizing and officializing legal interpretation. Random Internet Cat wrote the proposal and took up the position<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/812849254254903336</ref>. The Judge's rulings are stored on the wiki at [[Round 9/Rulings]]. | Reflecting the recent trend toward more textualist interpretations of the rules, the official position of Judge was created with the goal of centralizing and officializing legal interpretation. Random Internet Cat wrote the proposal (Proposal Duck Judy, 9 Feb 2021) and took up the position<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/812849254254903336</ref>. The Judge's rulings are stored on the wiki at [[Round 9/Rulings]]. | ||
== | {{Proposal Box | ||
| name=Duck Judy | |||
| text= | |||
Enact a rule entitled Judges: | |||
The | :There shall be a sole Judge, responsible for resolving rules disputes. If there is no Judge, any player can appoint themself Judge with the assent of two other players. An incumbent Judge can be removed with the assent of two players, but they should not be removed except for abuse of office. A person can cease being the Judge by publicly stating so. | ||
: | |||
:A request for justice shall take the form of a question or statement. The proper response to a question is an answer to that question, and the proper response to a statement is the truth value of that statement. | |||
: | |||
:Upon formal request by a person other than themself, the Judge 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. | |||
: | |||
:Judges may make rulings on the Metaruleset, but those rulings shall only be effective within the bounds of the round. | |||
: | |||
:Judge rulings can be overturned within 4 days of being made by a public vote of confidence; they are overturned if strictly more players vote in favor of overturning than affirming. An overturned ruling shall have no bearing on the interpretation of the rules or of the gamestate. | |||
}} | |||
Something notable about this proposal is the line "If there is no Judge, any player can appoint themself Judge,... but they should not be removed except for abuse of office." As it turns out, the appointed Judge was Random Internet Cat, an Agoran who was decidedly textualist when giving interpretations. Many people disagreed with this style of judgement, but there was no way to replace a judge for the purpose of shaking things up. This line had a profound impact on how the round continued on. It did not change the way we interpreted the rules wholesale, but it certainly accelerated our progression toward reading the rules as they were written. | |||
== The Break Age (1 Feb 2021 - 24 Feb 2021) == | |||
The Break Age was the culmination of previous proposals that led to the first major breakages of Round 9 in the middle of February. | |||
=== Stuck Ducks === | === Stuck Ducks === | ||
The first major crisis of the game struck when the ducks got stuck. On 1 February 2021, | The first major crisis of the game struck when the ducks got stuck. On 1 February 2021, Trungle posted a draft proposal<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/805696974321614909</ref> that would introduce the mechanic of ponds. Under this system, each duck must live in a pond before it can perform any actions. This idea was modeled after the fact that ducks had to be named before they could act or be acted upon. There were a few suggestions, which Trungle implemented. The proposal was created on 2 February 2021 as Proposal 🦆 🏘️. | ||
{{Proposal Box | {{Proposal Box | ||
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}} | }} | ||
In retrospect, the problems with this proposal should have been obvious. When a duck is on a scouting mission it doesn't live in a pond and player cannot interact with ducks that don't live in a pond | In retrospect, the problems with this proposal should have been obvious. When a duck is on a scouting mission it doesn't live in a pond and player cannot interact with ducks that don't live in a pond. The intent was that the duck just wouldn't get the diversity benefits if it went on a scouting mission. There really needed to be two different terms for these two concepts, and if there were at any point in drafting, it hardly matters now. | ||
The proposal nonetheless passed. It was submitted on Wednesday, which is during voting period 1, thus it went into effect the next Saturday (5 February 2021) at the end of voting period 2. It wasn't until a legal question on the 7th of February that we understood that the game was broken<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/808044906164912200</ref>. | The proposal nonetheless passed. It was submitted on Wednesday, which is during voting period 1, thus it went into effect the next Saturday (5 February 2021) at the end of voting period 2. It wasn't until a legal question on the 7th of February that we understood that the game was broken<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/808044906164912200</ref>. | ||
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With Proposal Unstuck Ducks, the gamestate was slated to be fixed on February 12th. Every player with ducks on a scouting mission would just have to wait it out. The proposal passed without incident, but, as we'd soon discover, another breakage was about to rear its ugly head. | With Proposal Unstuck Ducks, the gamestate was slated to be fixed on February 12th. Every player with ducks on a scouting mission would just have to wait it out. The proposal passed without incident, but, as we'd soon discover, another breakage was about to rear its ugly head. | ||
=== | === Amend The Rules, Quack === | ||
Here's a question: does submitting a proposal count as a game action? The text "all game actions mentioned in the rules can be performed by announcing them in the channel #game-actions" in the rule Actions at the time<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=702#Actions</ref> may imply that only actions taken in #game-actions count as game actions, but another interpretation implies that the relationship may not be exclusive. No proposal had been submitted with a duck word since those had been enacted. There was an initial push to resolve this with a normal proposal (Random Internet Cat, Proposal 🔥, 14 Feb 2021), but in the end we decided to resolve it by emergency metaproposal ([idle account], Metaproposal 9-1-1, 15 Feb 2021). The latter did nothing but enact the former from a meta perspective. The round entered a State of Emergency on 14 February 2021 and, after passing the Metaproposal, returned to normal play on 17 February 2021. | Here's a question: does submitting a proposal count as a game action? The text "all game actions mentioned in the rules can be performed by announcing them in the channel #game-actions" in the rule Actions at the time<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=702#Actions</ref> may imply that only actions taken in #game-actions count as game actions, but another interpretation implies that the relationship may not be exclusive. No proposal had been submitted with a duck word since those had been enacted. There was an initial push to resolve this with a normal proposal (Random Internet Cat, Proposal 🔥, 14 Feb 2021), but in the end we decided to resolve it by emergency metaproposal ([idle account], Metaproposal 9-1-1, 15 Feb 2021). The latter did nothing but enact the former from a meta perspective. The round entered a State of Emergency on 14 February 2021 and, after passing the Metaproposal, returned to normal play on 17 February 2021. | ||
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}} | }} | ||
== The Epoch of Fragility (25 Feb 2021 - | == The Epoch of Fragility (25 Feb 2021 - 10 Mar 2021) == | ||
After the | After the Break Age, we began to understand the true nature of the ducks. During this period we realized how fragile the entire ruleset was. As far as I know, the ruleset never broke during this time period but we had quite a few near misses. We started joking about how much we'd ruined the game and about how rarely we actually had a good picture of what the gamestate had become. We had to accept this fate that we'd built for ourselves as we persevered. A hallmark of this period's legislation was patching to fix small perceived ruleset issues rather than broad new mechanics. | ||
=== Cannibalism to Prevent Thievery === | === Cannibalism to Prevent Thievery === | ||
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Two issues seemed to depend on the outcome of this debate: first, the issue of irretrievable ducks mentioned above; and second, the fact that it seemed that players could not interact with their ducks until giving it a name ''and'' assigning it to a pond, a logical impossibility. | Two issues seemed to depend on the outcome of this debate: first, the issue of irretrievable ducks mentioned above; and second, the fact that it seemed that players could not interact with their ducks until giving it a name ''and'' assigning it to a pond, a logical impossibility. | ||
The official ruling on this matter from Judge Random Internet Cat | The official ruling on this matter from Judge Random Internet Cat was that there was "no natural language reason to draw a distinction between [the terms ownership and possession]<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 2]]</ref>". With a growing sentiment towards textualism, many were inclined to follow this interpretation. | ||
It was decided, however, that the relationship between the player and the duck who was on a scouting mission was different, thus ducks could still be retrieved safely<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 3]]</ref>. Furthermore, we realized that, due to a quirk of the Ducks rule, any instances of the word "duck" actually meant "named duck" within that rule. Ponds was a subrule of Ducks. Thus, as long as a player assigned their duck a name before assigning it a pond, they could still interact with them. This was | It was decided, however, that the relationship between the player and the duck who was on a scouting mission was different, thus ducks could still be retrieved safely<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 3]]</ref>. Furthermore, we realized that, due to a quirk of the Ducks rule, any instances of the word "duck" actually meant "named duck" within that rule. Ponds was a subrule of Ducks. Thus, as long as a player assigned their duck a name before assigning it a pond, they could still interact with them. This was | ||
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When only part of finsook's fruit proposal passed back in January, one section that stayed in was "[o]nce per voting period, a player may feed another player’s duck by announcing which duck they with to feed in #game-actions, and optionally adding one valid fruit<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/816446637512589402</ref>." Nyhilo took inspiration from this and began work on a proposal called "Duck Loot" which would give fruits to ducks returning from Scouting Missions. Seeds would act as a granular currency, while grapes, blood oranges and watermelon slices would allow players to perform various game actions on unintended targets or with a modified variable somewhere in the mix. After a few revisions, the proposal was officially created on 3 March 2021. | When only part of finsook's fruit proposal passed back in January, one section that stayed in was "[o]nce per voting period, a player may feed another player’s duck by announcing which duck they with to feed in #game-actions, and optionally adding one valid fruit<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/816446637512589402</ref>." Nyhilo took inspiration from this and began work on a proposal called "Duck Loot" which would give fruits to ducks returning from Scouting Missions. Seeds would act as a granular currency, while grapes, blood oranges and watermelon slices would allow players to perform various game actions on unintended targets or with a modified variable somewhere in the mix. After a few revisions, the proposal was officially created on 3 March 2021. | ||
=== Spending a Quack and Posting === | |||
On 4 March 2021 after Wotton had attempted to move some of his ducks, Trungle questioned whether the action had worked since Wotton hadn't stated that he was expending a quack to do so<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/816826026818142208</ref>. This seemed to contradict the Ponds rule, which stated that "Players may move ducks from one pond to another by spending one quack from that duck and posting in #game-actions<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=750#Ponds</ref>," which seemed to imply that stating the performance of both actions was required. After a bit of conversation nestled between drafting notes for the Fruits proposal, a Ruling was called, which ruled that Trungle's suspicions were indeed valid<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 6]]</ref>. | |||
At first glance this could hold catastrophic consequences for the gamestate: Wotton and others had moved a lot of ducks in the preceding weeks. However, the problematic phrase in the rules only referred to moving a duck that was already in a pond, and it turned out that this had only been attempted three times, all that day<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/816825640229142578</ref><ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/816827023007416360</ref>. Thus, this breakage passed with just a little confusion. The second breakage that day, however, would be less clearly cut. | |||
=== The First Dice Disaster === | === The First Dice Disaster === | ||
Since Wotton had been accumulating ducks, he had been using the Dice Maiden bot's multiple die roll functionality to generate potential quack numbers for scouting missions en masse. Problem is that, given the input {{Mono|!roll 11d12}}, the bot would return a sorted list of results, for example {{Mono|Wotton Roll: [10, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3, 1] Result: 67}}. finsook was the first to bring this up<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/817060272077406230</ref> and a judge ruling confirmed our suspicions<ref>Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 7</ref>. It was determined that no dice rolls made by this method (of which there had been many) had worked. This thrust the gamestate into uncertainty and we decided to resolve that uncertainty by ratifying the gamestate to a specific state (Wotton, Proposal I give up, 4 Mar 2021). | Since Wotton had been accumulating ducks, he had been using the Dice Maiden bot's multiple die roll functionality to generate potential quack numbers for scouting missions en masse. Problem is that, given the input {{Mono|!roll 11d12}}, the bot would return a sorted list of results, for example {{Mono|Wotton Roll: [10, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3, 1] Result: 67}}. finsook was the first to bring this up<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/817060272077406230</ref> and a judge ruling confirmed our suspicions<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 7]]</ref>. It was determined that no dice rolls made by this method (of which there had been many) had worked. This thrust the gamestate into uncertainty and we decided to resolve that uncertainty by ratifying the gamestate to a specific state (Wotton, Proposal I give up, 4 Mar 2021). This proposal was passed at the beginning of 8 March 2021. We discovered afterward that we could get unsorted dice by using {{Mono|ul}} as an argument to Dice Maiden's roll command. | ||
=== Targeting the Rich Again === | === Targeting the Rich Again === | ||
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}} | }} | ||
The effect this legislation actually had was debatable. By the time this was proposed, Wotton already owned twelve ducks | The effect this legislation actually had was debatable. By the time this was proposed, Wotton already owned twelve ducks<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Gamestate&oldid=786</ref>. That's a number that we wouldn't be able to sniff, especially given the aforementioned nerf. On the other hand, accumulating ducks provided no actual advantage other than more places to store quacks. Legislation to encourage high duck counts would likely be unpopular with everyone but Wotton. | ||
=== The Second Dice Disaster === | === The Second Dice Disaster === | ||
More uncertainty was injected into the gamestate when finsook dared to ask the question: is rolling a die a game action<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/819275399154106408</ref>? If so, then every dice roll ever made had failed. The gamestate had been ratified a week earlier with [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}#The First Dice Disaster|The First Dice Disaster]], so the damage this one would do was not as bad, but a lot had happened after the ratification. Fortunately for the gamestate, it was decided that since the roll of a die doesn't directly effect the gamestate, the wording "A 'game action' is any action a player may take that would alter the gamestate<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=785#Actions</ref>" protected us and the gamestate from this fate<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 9]]. | More uncertainty was injected into the gamestate when finsook dared to ask the question: is rolling a die a game action<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/819275399154106408</ref>? If so, then every dice roll ever made had failed. The gamestate had been ratified a week earlier with [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}#The First Dice Disaster|The First Dice Disaster]], so the damage this one would do was not as bad, but a lot had happened after the ratification. Fortunately for the gamestate, it was decided that since the roll of a die doesn't directly effect the gamestate, the wording "A 'game action' is any action a player may take that would alter the gamestate<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=785#Actions</ref>" protected us and the gamestate from this fate<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 9]]</ref>. | ||
=== Deleting the Duck Words === | === Deleting the Duck Words === | ||
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:, and that the message providing for the intent ends in a duck word (possibly followed by punctuation) | :, and that the message providing for the intent ends in a duck word (possibly followed by punctuation) | ||
}} | }} | ||
== Intermission == | |||
These stories don't really fit in with the previous or next section and have some overlap, so I'm inserting them here as a bit of an intermission. | |||
=== The Untold Saga of Eggotinne (11 Mar 2021 - 20 Mar 2021) === | |||
'''Note:''' The events of this section have heretofore been kept a secret and it is with the consent of both Wotton and Klink that I relate this story. | |||
I have mentioned several times that making efforts to rob the rich players (namely Wotton) had been historically unsuccessful and that in the end there was no legislation that allowed large-scale thievery. It turns out that this was not for lack of trying. On or before 11 March, Klink posted a proposal (Proposal Eggotine) that would loosen restrictions on the Steal Duck action (see {{Heading|Stealing from the Rich}}), allowing players to target any royalty as opposed to just the DUCK DUKE, a title which wasn't always filled. Wotton decided to privately contact Klink and request that she delete the offending proposal in exchange for three of Wotton's ducks. | |||
In order to do this discretely, Wotton would transfer a duck under the pretense of posting an offer to trade a colorless duck in exchange for a feed (an offer that Wotton had done previously) and Klink immediately accepting. Klink agreed. On 11 March 2021, the first transaction took place. Wotton posted the offer at 21:20<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/819681315380133908</ref> and Klink accepted it at 21:21<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/819681342798823495</ref>. Nyhilo, who was watching the channel at the time, attempted to intercept the transaction, not knowing that it had been arranged. In the confusion, Klink fed a different duck than the conspirators had planned and Wotton offered to send the duck that had just been fed. They arranged to make a show of it so that Klink could get a duck that had no quacks as planned. Nyhilo did, however, notice that Wotton's acquisition of quacks (quackuisition) made him the DUCK DUKE and took the opportunity to steal one of Wotton's ducks<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/819681766763790366</ref>. Klink's proposal was taken down after the first transfer. Later on, Wotton had his ducks perform Standard Quack Attacks at each other to bring down the quack count<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/819686284025004074</ref>. | |||
The second transaction occurred on 14 March. Wotton traded two ducks for one of Klink's<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/820460929804009503</ref>, which once again drew minimal suspicion. The third transaction was played completely straight<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/822920974437580800</ref>. | |||
While it's interesting to postulate what the game would look like if the duck royalty subgame had gone further, that's not what ended up happening. And now we have this story to show for it. | |||
=== The Duck Old One Endgame (6 Mar 2021-28 Apr 2021) === | |||
Lest we forget, the game by this time still did not have a win condition. There was a lose condition in the form of the god egg doomsday clock (see {{Heading|Duck God}}, but it was a pretty passive system and, again, provided no way to win. In the middle of March, Nyhilo decided to start working toward a more substantial endgame. This started with a proposal draft<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/817668533886255124</ref>, composed on 6 Mar 2021, which introduced "Duck Disciples," randomly generated enemies that players would have to take out using Quack Attacks, gaining fruit prizes for their help. Some banter ensued, some code was written for a bot to help automate the process, and the proposal was officially created (Nyhilo, Proposal Duck Disciple Redux, 17 Mar 2021). The proposal caused some accidental stress for Klink (see {{Heading|Duck Transmutation}}), but other than that had very little effect on the gamestate: only a few actions were ever taken against a Duck Disciple. | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
|name = Duck Disciple Redux | |||
|text = | |||
Amend rule Duck God by adding subrule Duck Disciple. | |||
:The Duck Disciple is an entity that worships the Duck God. | |||
: | |||
:The Duck Disciple is not owned by any player, but still may be the target of Quack Attacks. Once per voting period, a player may perform a Quack Attack against the Duck Disciple. After this attack resolves, the Duck Disciple then performs a Ritual Quack Attack. This is a Quack Attack that can be performed by the Duck Disciple by its own means and without the need for player ownership. If, after performing this quack attack, the Duck Disciple has 0 or fewer quacks, it perishes. | |||
: | |||
:* Ritual Quack Attack. Cost: None. Targets: 1 random named Duck that is not the Duck Disciple. Effect: Target loses 1d6 quacks. | |||
: | |||
:When a Duck Disciple perishes, all ducks that dealt damage to that Duck Disciple gain 1d6 quacks. Additionally, the owner of the duck that reduced the Duck Disciple to 0 or fewer quacks rolls a d20 on the following table and receives the benefit of that roll. | |||
: | |||
:1-10 - 4d6 seeds<br> | |||
:11-14 - 1 Grapes<br> | |||
:15-17 - 1 Watermelon Slice<br> | |||
:18-19 - 1 Blood Orange<br> | |||
:20 - 1 God Egg | |||
:If a Duck Disciple does not exist at the beginning of a voting period, one will be created with 3d20 quacks and will be given a name by means of an available source that is capable of generating random duck names. The Duck Disciple will then be known by that name, with the "Disciple" title preceding it, and a incrementing numerical suffix if a Duck Disciple with that name has existed before. | |||
}} | |||
Unknown to the rest of the players, though, this proposal was only the first part of a more overarching plan that Nyhilo had to introduce an endgame including an entity called the Duck Old One. A good proportion of Nyhilo's proposals after this point began to flesh out the system. While most of these proposals passed, they were only by a few votes. Many players didn't really follow what was going on; for instance, by their own admission, Trungle<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/515607055223095300/881249943422107659</ref> and Klink<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/515607055223095300/881250124070813826</ref> didn't really latch onto the overarching story. As Nyhilo explains, the Duck Disciples were meant to get players used to fighting NPCs. Eventually, the Duck God would die and the players would be tasked with either fighting or supporting the Duck Old One. Those who emerged victorious would be declared the winners of Round 9. | |||
Nyhilo's plans were foiled when a few of his proposals introducing mechanics related to the subgame were denied, but even if they had passed, the subgame didn't have a great chance of surviving. As mentioned before, most players weren't following the Duck Old One narrative and didn't know the full plan. More than that, other players' intentions were more focused on scamming the ruleset rather than designing a game by the time that this story began. It might have succeeded if the idea had come up earlier or if more people had been aware of the plan, but as it is, not much came out of the story. I find it relevant to mention, however, because Nyhilo was still writing proposals for it up to the point that the game ended. Besides, there are a couple things to learn from the story, which I will discuss in the conclusion below. | |||
== The Minor Break Age (17 Mar 2021 - 3 Apr 2021) == | |||
The story here gets a bit asynchronous. Starting on 17 March, we found a truly ludicrous amount of potential vulnerabilities in quick succession. Most of these turned out to be red herrings, but in some of them we actually found the first real ruleset breaks since February. | |||
=== Exactly One Pond === | |||
In another case of seemingly innocuous but poorly conceived rule text once again stemming from the ponds rule (see {{Heading|Stuck Ducks}}). This time, however, the offending text came from the fix proposal, Proposal The Ducks that Time Forgot (moonroof, 19 Feb 2021). "Each duck lives in exactly one pond<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=823#Ponds</ref>." The intent of this phrase was that a duck initially had no pond assignment but could be given one. However, the rule text clearly states that ducks cannot live in no pond. So which pond do ducks live in by default? A ruling confirmed that this was ambiguous but that ducks certainly ''did'' live in a pond upon creation.<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 13]]</ref>. Once again ambiguity crept its way into the ruleset. Random Internet Cat promptly wrote a fix for this and some other issues (Proposal Essential v2, 17 Mar 2021). | |||
Due to the ratification on 8 March (see {{Heading|The First Dice Disaster}}, we did have a reference point. All initial pond assignments before 8 March had worked; those after had not. Only ATMunn and Jumble had joined the game since then, thus the uncertainty was minimal. Small enough, at least, that we could just wait it out. | |||
=== A Duck Named A === | |||
Under the rules of 17 March, there was no way to rename a duck. You could, however, assign your duck additional names. Some used this power for good. Nyhilo, for example, decided to give shortened names to his ducks: {{Mono|Phil. the 4th}} to {{Mono|Philosophocratocrates the 4th}} aka {{Mono|Philostophocratocrates the 4th}} and {{Mono|Phil. the 5th}} to {{Mono|Philosophocratocrates the 5th}} aka {{Mono|Philostophocratocrates the 5th}}<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/821656843679039509</ref>. | |||
Others, however, used this power to sabotage the gamestate. idle assigned to their duck {{Mono|Dialetheia}} "every name which consists of one character and begins with 'A'<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/821618833366319156</ref>. Initial conversation about this action revolved around whether this actually assigned more than one name. The definition of the word "character" is not given by the ruleset and natural language doesn't help much either. Consensus seemed to shift toward the interpretation that no variation on the character "A" was assigned since under most reasonable definitions those characters do not "start with 'A'." Random Internet Cat proposed to fix the ambiguity by removing all names from ducks with multiple names and limit the amount of duck names to one, alongside some other changes (Proposal Essential v2, 17 Mar 2021). | |||
The next day, idle posted the following in #game-actions<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/822202621346709584</ref>: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
[20:19:40] since you all can't behave<br> | |||
[20:20:33] I give my duck A all names which consist of characters and contain fewer than 9,001 characters<br> | |||
[20:21:41] if i can't have multiple names i'm going to have all of them first | |||
</blockquote> | |||
Klink argued that since some of those names were illegal that the action failed. In response to this, idle performed the same action, this time appending "and are not illegal." Rulings were requested left and right. Random Internet Cat argued that the action failed due to lack of specification, whereas the "A" assignment succeeded because the set of names could be evaluated reasonably easily. After some back-and-forth in #game-actions (public service announcement: please do not discuss things in the actions channels), Cat declared the following<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/822214784443219999</ref>: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
[21:08:00] oh I have a solution to the duck woes<br> | |||
[21:08:25] it would be very mutually assured destruction though<br> | |||
[21:09:14] but since I only have one duck it's not that bad for me, so...<br> | |||
[21:10:12] I declare that I can be addressed by all legal duck names that [idle account] has assigned to eir duck known as A, other than "A" itself.<br> | |||
[21:10:30] therefore, all such names are now impersonating a player (me), and the duck loses them<br> | |||
[21:12:14] alright I'm done please stop addressing me by those duck names I just gave myself | |||
</blockquote> | |||
Immediately after this, idle argued (and requested a ruling) that impersonation is subjective, to be determined by the person being impersonated<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 15]]</ref>. Cat ruled that this was untrue, providing the counterexample that naming a duck "Random Internet Cat" is impersonation no matter how Cat herself felt about it. idle asked whether impersonation in the context of these rules is the same thing as string equivalence. Cat ruled in the negative, citing that "KIink" (spelled with a capital {{Mono|i}} in place of a lowercase {{Mono|L}}) still impersonates Klink<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 16]]</ref>. | |||
Cat then officially ruled that idle's mass naming did not "specify" a set of names as required by the Ducks rule<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 14]]</ref>. Specification requires that the set be able to be determined by one person. The duck naming criteria involve subjectivity, as demonstrated by her previous rulings. Thus the set of names idle attempted to assign to their ducks cannot be deterministically evaluated by any given person. | |||
All the while, in #nomic, players were finally having the tricky discussion of whether textualism was actually harming the game more than helping it. After all, the ruleset was not written with nearly the same rigor as it was now being interpreted with. Random Internet Cat claimed that she would honor a clause in the ruleset specifying that intent mattered more than text<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/822225271901257769</ref>. This was debated and eventually Wotton posted a proposal that would add such a line (Proposal 🧑⚖️ 🐱, 18 Mar 2021). The proposal was self-killed on 24 March 2021 due to uncertainties about its wording. | |||
In the meantime, Proposal Essential v2 passed on Sunday 21 Mar 2021, clearing the names of all multi-named ducks, including Phil. the 4th and 5th, A, and Jumble's duck Nothing, putting an end to this story that generated hundreds of messages of discussion. | |||
=== The Possession of Each Player === | |||
One of the oldest unmodified passages in the ruleset read "Upon joining the game, a duck is created in the possession of each player" (see {{Heading|The First Day (3 Jan 2021)}}). That has some silly grammar that can mean a couple of different things. Does it mean that when (each player) joins the game, a new duck is created in (that player's) possession as it was clearly meant to? Does it mean that when (a player) joins the game, a new duck is created in (each player's) possession? This concern was brought up by Jumble a few hours after joining on 18 March 2021<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/822159997017522206</ref>. The judge ruled that it was working as intended but that it would be better to clarify it<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 12]]</ref>. Legislation was already on the way to fix this, though, so we can count this as another near miss. | |||
=== Urgency === | |||
One downside of the twice-a-week proposal system is that sometimes things don't get fixed as quickly as we might like. Depending on when you submit your proposal, it can take from three days to a week to pass, and there will always be at least one voting period. For small fixes to a broken proposal, this is an eternity. To combat this, Random Internet Cat wrote up a proposal (Proposal Urgency, 18 Mar 2021) that would allow us to write proposals with more limited scope that would be passed quicker. | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
| name = Urgency | |||
| text = | |||
Enact a subrule of the rule Proposals with title "Proposal Class" and the following text: | |||
:The class of a proposal is either "normal" or "urgent". When a proposal is submitted, a submitter may specify its class. If a class is not specified, it defaults to normal. | |||
: | |||
:The voting period of an urgent proposal begins at the time it is submitted and ends two days after. An urgent proposal is adopted if and only if it has no more than two votes against it at the end of its voting period. | |||
All existing proposals are hereby made to have normal class. | |||
Amend Rule Proposals by, all as one amendment: | |||
* Replacing "The voting period for all proposals made in Period One is Period Two. The voting period for all proposals made in Period Two is the next weeks Period One." with "Unless otherwise specified, the voting period for proposals made in Period One is Period Two, and the voting period for proposals made in Period Two is the next week's Period One." | |||
* Replacing "if there are more votes in favor than against that proposal then it takes effect." with "if that proposal is adopted, then it takes effect." | |||
* Replacing "If the number of votes in favor is tied with the number of votes against, the proposal takes effect if the proponents' ducks have more Quacks than the proposal's opponents' ducks." with "Unless otherwise specified, a proposal is adopted if and only if there are more votes in favor than against, or if there are equal numbers of votes in favor and against, and the proponents' ducks have more Quacks than the opponents' ducks." | |||
}} | |||
=== Divine Infiniquacks === | |||
After a couple of days of peace Jumble brought a scenario to our attention that could potentially cause a problem. What if a player performed the Divine Scrambler action, whose description read "Cost: N Quacks, where N is a multiple of 20. Targets: Any one entity possessing at least one God Egg. Effect: N/20 God Eggs are transferred from the target to the attacking duck's player<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=865#Quack_Attacks</ref>." As negative numbers can also be divisible by twenty, this implied that a player could potentially transfer negative god eggs to themself and transfer negative quacks from themself. There was a very real possibility that this would simply mean the transaction would go the opposite way than was intended. Although amount of quacks possessed got one no closer to winning, it would be rather annoying should someone find a way to exploit this. Fortunately, Random Internet Cat ruled that deducting and transferring negative items doesn't make sense, so performing the Divine Scrambler with negative quacks would not do anything. To keep our bases covered, however, Klink wrote a proposal to limit the action to positive quacks (Proposal Don't Play God, 21 Mar 2021). | |||
=== The Great Unnaming === | |||
On 22 March 2021, Jumble requested a ruling on whether changing one's name to an existing duck's name would remove that name from the duck. Random Internet Cat had previously tried to use this to stop idle's many name applications (see {{Heading|A Duck Named A}}), and ruled in the positive<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 24]]</ref>. Jumble proceeded to change his Discord nickname to every existing Duck's name. Proof can be found in the following images. | |||
<gallery> | |||
File:Unnaming1.png | |||
File:Unnaming2.png | |||
File:Unnaming3.png | |||
</gallery> | |||
After this, ATMunn nicknamed himself "Literally This Sentence," the name of Jumble's duck. Random Internet Cat made a proposal to limit the "names impersonating players" clause of the Duck Naming Criteria to only forbid names that impersonated a player when upon assignment and ratify the gamestate to return all the names (Proposal ''sigh sigh'', 22 Mar 2021). Players promptly reassigned their ducks their names and continued as normal. | |||
=== Duck Transmutation === | |||
On 21 March 2021, Klink renamed her duck Ellery Queen to The Duck Disciple<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/823052637364027412</ref>. Throughout March, Nyhilo had been writing a proposal which would define a special gamestate entity of named The Duck Disciple (Proposal Duck Disciple Redux, 17 Mar 2021). I still don't understand what this proposal or the rule it created did, but it passed at the end of 20 March. Hours later, the name change came. Klink performed actions with The Duck Disciple (the duck) several times, even renaming them after {{Heading|The Great Unnaming}}<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/823967613159604315</ref>. | |||
Klink requested a judgement on whether or not The Duck Disciple (the duck) could be targeted by quack attacks since using them on The Duck Disciple (the gamestate entity) was a large part of the Duck Disciple Rule. Random Internet Cat stated in her ruling that the entities were different, but wrote "true" in the official response when the wording supported "false"<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 26]]</ref>. After realizing the mistake, Random Internet Cat attempted to amend the ruling, but it was impossible to do so. As it turned out, rulings were actually binding. This meant that Klink's duck had turned into the Duck Disciple (the gamestate entity) which was explicitly stated to not exist in any player's inventory. Cat made a vote of confidence on the judgement, a rule-defined action which allowed the decision to be changed but which would take time. Since judge rulings applied retroactively, if this motion passed then everything would work with minimal hiccups. But for now, Klink's duck was out of her hands. | |||
=== ''Actually'' Deleting Duck Words === | |||
If you are surprised to see these pop up again, then don't worry, so were the rest of us. Although the wording requiring that we append a duck word to the end of every game action had been cut by Proposal Stop Quacking (Klink, 9 Mar 2021, see {{Heading|Deleting the Duck Words}}), the rule actually defining the duck words still persisted as of 23 March<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=899</ref>. Wotton proposed to delete this rule (Proposal ✂️ 📄 V2, 23 Mar 2021). This proposal faced some backlash, but bribery from Wotton helped it to pass. | |||
== Crescendo (4 April 2021 - 30 April 2021) == | |||
As some players were pushing toward creating a win condition, others were growing disinterested in the round. The seeds were planted for a gripping endgame, but the ducks had a different plan for us. As April went on, we trended not toward a satisfying end to our symphony, but toward one just as cacophonous as the rest of the piece. | |||
=== Combining Fruits === | |||
On 4 April 2021, we had yet another innocuous proposal. This time, it was Proposal Shakes by Nyhilo. | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
| name=Shakes | |||
| text= | |||
Ammed rule '''Fruit''' by adding the following paragraph below the table in that rule. | |||
:Smoothies are Fruits that can be crafted by a player performing the Make Smoothie Quacktion through one of their ducks. A Smoothie is made by combining 2 different non-Smoothie Fruits. Upon creation, the resulting Smoothie is named using an unambiguous combination of the names of the Fruits used to make it. The resulting Smoothie has a description that is a combination of the descriptions of the Fruits used to make it, substituting the names of the Fruits in the description for the name of the Smoothie. | |||
Add the following Quacktion to the table in the Quacktion rule: | |||
:Name: Make Smoothie | |||
:Cost: 5 quacks | |||
:Target: None | |||
:Effect: Craft a Smoothie from Fruits as specified in the Fruit rule | |||
}} | |||
There was a bit of confusion about the effectiveness of the actions this proposal facilitated, but the really interesting part didn't come until 16 April when Jumble tried to make a blood orange-watermelon smoothie and specify the text of the description<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/832679097120325672</ref>. | |||
<blockquote>I spend 5 Quacks on LTS [Literally This Sentence, one of Jumble's ducks] to preform the "make smoothie" action with a blood orange and a watermelon slice, resulting in a blood orange watermelon smoothie, with the following description: "its owner wins the round. oldfskg uud ue t ah eimodoeerdiimdlotd o u nfc nrbinhogtnsgfoa eeoi u kc fapcnsoah ynnem,maskta cfcl tiieiotadi eed vmt tttsomp ttar bi.1notialdpes Incsol au ur3e cer rfchosg n'd hnqero , dreonpkoikog lueetfhct rru o ds"</blockquote> | |||
This action was immediately shot down by a ruling<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 38]]</ref>; however it was also ruled that Jumble did in fact create a smoothie, just not one with the specified text<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 39]]</ref>. | |||
=== Another Tracking Mistake === | |||
In February, this would have been considered a major breakage and a cause for concern, but in April, we'd grown accustomed to the game being broken. Indeed, this event is a mere footnote and I almost didn't mention it. In any case, it did happen, so it merits discussion. | |||
Wotton had been erroneously making child ducks uncolored even though they were supposed to gain the color of their parent. This had several ramifications, including hard-to-determine effects on quack counting. See the ruleset of the time for details<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=1012</ref>. In any case, a sequence of proposals were pended to remove the clause causing ducks to take on the color of their parent (Wotton, Proposal Witty TItle, 15 Apr 2021) and to ratify the ruleset (Wotton, Proposal Here We Go Again, 15 Apr 2021). Both passed without incident. | |||
=== The Second Vote Emoji Switch === | |||
If you will recall, in Round 9, voting was done by discord's emoji reactions. Initially, 👎 and 👍 were used, but several proposals changed those to 🦆 and 🍞, respectively (see {{Heading|The First Day (3 Jan 2021)}} and {{Heading|The Simultaneous Proposal Scare}}). This only caused minor confusion at the time, although some noted that it was contradictory for ducks to be the vote against since, presumably, we would want to protect our ducks. We all settled into it and everything was good for a time. | |||
In the middle of April, though, edits of Trungle's discord profile picture -- a triangle edited to look like twimoji's thinking face -- started to proliferate. Notably, ATMunn's updownTrung, the image with the triangle flipped upside down; and Eulengi's gatorTrung, in which the image was turned green and given a tail to look like an alligator. These were added to the server's roster of custom emojis so that players could use them in messages and, crucially, react to messages using them. | |||
On 18 April 2021, Wotton wrote a proposal that would replace the voting emojis with the aforementioned Trungle edit emojis (Proposal :gatorTrung: :updownTrung:). According to legislation enacted in response to {{Heading|The Simultaneous Proposal Scare}}, if Proposal :gatorTrung: :updownTrung: passed, all proposals that were submitted after it, even those in the same batch, would require the new emotes for the votes to take effect. So for a while we voted using ducks, breads, and Trungles, just to be safe. | |||
Soon enough, the time to check the results came due. There were five votes for and five votes against. In such cases, the group with the most communal quacks at the time of resolution is determined to be the outcome. This takes a lot of effort to calculate, however, and a couple of scams were dependent on the outcome of this proposal (see {{Heading|The Smoothie Style Scam}}. As it turned out, the voters for had more quacks than the voters against. Although | |||
=== The Smoothie Style Scam === | |||
If you were concerned that Smoothies weren't going to come back to confuse us yet again, fear not. They did indeed do that exact thing. A proposal had been passed to add another attribute to the smoothies: style (Jumble, Proposal Does anyone stir a smoothie?, 20 April 2021). | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
|name=Does anyone stir a smoothie? | |||
|text= | |||
In "Fruits", change | |||
:Upon creation, the resulting Smoothie is named using an unambiguous combination of the names of the Fruits used to make it. | |||
to | |||
:Upon creation, the resulting Smoothie is named using an unambiguous combination of the names of the Fruits used to make it, and an optional name of a Style. The effects that Styles can have when a Smoothie is used are listed in this table: | |||
:Icy: The fed duck gains 3 additional quacks, but cannot scout or be retrieved this turn. Cannot be used on a duck that is currently scouting. | |||
:Light: No Quacks are gained from this Smoothie, but you can still use this fruit when you have already fed a Duck. | |||
}} | |||
On 25 April 2021, Wotton sent a couple of smoothie creation intents to #game-actions<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/835666509761871872</ref><ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/835666652807954442</ref>, the second of which is featured here: | |||
<blockquote> | |||
I perform the quacktion Make Smoothie through Smullyan, paying 5 quacks, combining a Mango Slice and a Grape, with the name Graporange Smoothie, and the following name of style: {{Mono|"Infinite Ducks, (Anything not in parentheses in the description of this fruit has no effect. Wotton owns an infinite number of ducks. Amend the ruleset by adding a rule with the following sentence as its text: "All other rules notwithstanding, Players may not under any circumstances give smoothies a name of style.")""}} | |||
</blockquote> | |||
This scam centers around a couple of strange properties of smoothies. First, the new bits about style were somewhat weakly-worded. Though two specific styles (Icy and Light) were given effects, players could arguably assign a smoothie's style to be any string. Second, the name of a smoothie is actually substituted into the descriptions of smoothies when evaluating their effects, and these descriptions are considered to be rules text. Put that all together and you have a smoothie that might be able to evaluate arbitrary text. That is to say, if the scam worked. Some rulings were requested on the effectiveness of Wotton's actions<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 41]]</ref><ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 44]]</ref>, but as it turned out, we were a little bit ahead of ourselves. | |||
Proposal Does anyone stir a smoothie? was set to be resolved at the end of Wednesday the 23rd, but the result ended up not being that clear-cut due to the effects of another proposal set to be resolved at that same time: Proposal :gatorTrung: :updownTrung: (see {{Heading|The Second Vote Emoji Switch}}). See, if that proposal hadn't passed, then voting on Proposal Does anyone stir a smoothie? would have been done with the normal voting reactions: 🦆 and 🍞. But if that proposal had passed, then voting would have had to been done with :updownTrung: and :gatorTrung: instead. The reactions on Proposal Does anyone stir a smoothie? at the time of adoption were three 🍞, one 🦆, one :gatorTrung: and one :updownTrung:<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/835672038206734376</ref>. Long story short, it was determined that both proposals had passed, much to the relief of the scamsters. The only thing left to do was figure out what happened with Wotton's actions, right? Well, it would have been if we hadn't discovered an altogether more severe breakage within a matter of minutes. | |||
=== Enacting a Proposal === | |||
Let's take a look at Metaproposal 9-1-1, the emergency proposal meant to resolve the breakage described in {{Heading|Amend The Rules, Quack}}. | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
|name=9-1-1 | |||
|text= | |||
unless it is retracted, the following linked proposal is enacted immediately and loses its voting period:<br> | |||
https://discordapp.com/channels/515560801394753537/790679592494039080/810389290911006720 [link to Proposal 🔥] | |||
}} | |||
Jumble wanted to know whether "enact" meant the same thing as "take effect." If not, then perhaps EP-9-1-1 hadn't been effective and the game was months behind what we thought it was. Upon closer inspection, if EP-9-1-1 did do something, did it take effect in the context of the Round 9 Ruleset or the Metaruleset? The answer here wasn't clear-cut either. This, along with other concerns about what exactly the emergency proposal had actually done, ended up calling for an Emergency. Round 9 entered its second state of emergency on 25 April 2021 after rulings from Random Internet Cat concluded that "enact" and "take effect" do not mean the same thing<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 46]]</ref><ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 47]]</ref>. | |||
Random Internet Cat drafted what would become EP-9-2-1, which did a number of things to cover our bases. It also removed the Smoothie Scam and reverted the gamestate to a point before the Smoothie Scam took effect. There was a lot of debate over how far the proposal should reach and more stuff that I won't bother you with because it ended up not doing anything to the gamestate anyway. EP-9-2-1 was proposed on 25 April 2021, then self-killed in favor of EP-9-2-2, which was the same thing, but ending with the word "quack" (which may have been necessary because 9-1-1 never took effect and thus duck words were still very much a thing). Finally, on 26 April 2021, the ruleset was back in working order and on 28 April 2021 the mods ended the State of Emergency<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/836845533313761282</ref>. | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
|name=9-2-2 | |||
|text= | |||
EMERGENCY PROPOSAL EP-9-2-2 | |||
Apply the effects written in the sole attachment on the message in which this metaproposal was submitted. | |||
Comment with no effect on this proposal: quack | |||
'''Attachment'''<br> | |||
Apply the following effects sequentially in the listed order: | |||
* The metaruleset is hereby modified to what is described at https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Metaruleset&oldid=779 | |||
* The metaruleset section with the title "Metaproposals" is hereby amended by replacing "if at least two thirds of votes on that metaproposal are for it" with "if at least two thirds of votes on that metaproposal are for it and the message in which it was submitted has been neither editoed nor deleted". | |||
* The round ruleset of Round 9 is hereby modified to what is described at https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=1106, except replacing the sole instance of "At the end of every voting period, then, for each proposal in the order that they were submitted, if that proposal is adopted, then it takes effect." with "When a proposal's voting period ends, if that proposal is adopted, it takes effect. If the voting periods of multiple proposals end simultaneously, proposals that take effect do so sequentially in the order they were submitted." | |||
* The round gamestate of Round 9 is hereby modified in arbitrary ways, other than modifying the round ruleset, so that it is what it would be if what is described in the "Duck God", "The Duck Disciple", "Judge", and "Players" sections at https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Gamestate&oldid=1123 was as true and accurate as possible at 23:59:59 on 2021-04-24. | |||
* The round gamestate of Round 9 is hereby modified by destroying all ducks, then by creating ducks with properties so that it is what it would be if what is described in the "Ducks" and "Ponds" sections of https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Gamestate&oldid=1123 was as true and accurate as possible at 23:59:59 on 2021-04-24. | |||
* Amend the round ruleset of Round 9 by replacing, in the subrule Fruit of the rule Ducks, "Upon creation, the resulting Smoothie is named using an unambiguous combination of the names of the Fruits used to make it." with: { The name of a smoothie is the result of concatenating the names of each of its constituent fruits in alphabetical order, with spaces in between, then appending " Smoothie". Using any name that clearly and unambiguously designates a smoothie is deemed to designate that smoothie, even if it differs from the true name. }. | |||
* Amend the round ruleset of Round 9 by, in the subrule Fruit of the rule Ducks, replacing "The resulting Smoothie has a description that is a combination of the descriptions of the Fruits used to make it, substituting the names of the Fruits in the description for the name of the Smoothie." with "The smoothie's properties are dictated by the unification of the constituent fruits' properties." | |||
* The gamestate of Round 9 is hereby modified by discharging all obligations for the Judge to respond to requests for judgment. | |||
}} | |||
While all this was going on, however, Random Internet Cat brought up an interesting question: should we just end Round 9<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/835692910610743316</ref>? Most players argued for a more ceremonious end to the game. There was an active base of players, disgruntled though they may have been with the way things had progressed. Even if the win condition was lame, most of us wanted to see one take place. And so it was that we decided to play it out for just a bit longer. | |||
But the story of the Emergency doesn't stop there. As had happened every time we ratified the ruleset, some important elements got lost along the way. For instance, proposals passed after the state of the ruleset that had been ratified never took effect. Wotton proposed to do that exact thing (Proposal Lost Proposals, 27 April 2021). This would not have the effect of reintroducing the Smoothie Style Scam since the text that the Smoothie Style proposal replaced was deleted by EP-9-2-2. It would, however, have the unfortunate effect of bringing back the vote emoji indeterminacy. This wasn't that big of a deal; we'd already done the calculations on whether it and subsequent proposals passed, but it was annoying nonetheless. | |||
=== The Day of Infinite Ducks === | |||
28 April 2021 was the death knell for Round 9. After the State of Emergency ended, a group of dedicated players engineered a gamestate hostile enough to prevent any further meaningful play. | |||
Jumble requested a judgement on the question of whether ducks were lost when a player ceased to be a player<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 54]]</ref>. If not, players could generate as many ducks as they cared to specify by repeatedly leaving and rejoining the game, an action which had no limits to its performance. Before this RFJ was even resolved, Jumble, Wotton, and [idle account], with various wordings, rejoined the game unreasonably large amounts of times. Some players tried to do so an infinite number of times<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/836927962808975390</ref> (which was deemed ineffective by ruling<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/839212839394344992</ref>). Some players attempted to do the same, but with a supertask<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/836929305409355786</ref>. idle later admitted to setting up the duck generation scam<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/837023317231403028</ref>. | |||
When Random Internet Cat got back, she ruled that "[d]ucks are items, and it is heavily implied that items can only be owned by players." idle was quick to point out that quacks are items as well<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/795369457340907561/837022400704151552</ref>. Cat overturned the ruling (as well as another RFJ asking the same thing<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 55]]</ref>) and discussion continued. | |||
More back-and-forth took place, as well as a few other scams that ended up not being consequential enough to talk about, and after a day of relative calm, on 30 April, Cat capitulated, judging the previous RFJs called over the issue as well as the four others<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 57]]</ref><ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 59]]</ref><ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 62]]</ref><ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 63]]</ref> in favor of the duck generators. The community discussed using every trick in the book to recover the gamestate but there just wasn't enough interest. To this day, we don't know what the final gamestate or ruleset is, and I doubt you'll find anyone who cares enough to figure it out. | |||
== Conclusion == | |||
There are clearly several things we can take away from this story, ranging from surface-level to structural. | |||
=== Pacing === | |||
Let's start by discussing what Round 9 did well. In the author's opinion, the pacing of a Nomic game can be tricky to get right. People have a lot going on in their lives and many of us can't check in with the frequency that some games require. BlogNomic is a fast-paced game with lots of moving parts. You have to check in nearly every day during the most active spells. It can take tens of minutes each day you check in to get your bearings, strategize, and do everything that you want to do. | |||
Agora is at the other end of the spectrum. Rarely do you have to worry about an action that is to be taken more frequently than weekly. This comes at the cost of speed. It takes a long time to see the fruits of your efforts in Agora, and that is a deterrent for many. | |||
With Round 9, we wanted to create a game somewhere in the middle of BlogNomic and Agora Nomic in this respect. The idea of Voting Periods arose and ended up being very popular (see {{Heading|Voting periods}}). Every action in Round 9 ended up aligned to voting periods. Proposals were passed at the end of the next voting period. You could feed someone's duck once per voting period. You could send your duck out scouting once per voting period and retrieve it during the next voting period. It led to a structure where players only had to check in twice a week to be completely caught up with the game. This schedule really worked for lots of people, so much so that it was adopted for [[Round 10]]. I would not be surprised if we keep reusing it for rounds to come. | |||
This all notwithstanding, the idea of urgent proposals turned the tables back to the side of immediacy a little bit (see {{Heading|Urgency}}), circumventing the issue of the game being unplayable for two voting periods in a row as we twiddled our thumbs waiting for a hotfix to pass. I opine that they enhanced the semiweekly structure even though they did not fit perfectly into it. | |||
=== Simultaneity === | |||
On to the things we struggled with but eventually got right. It's always a good idea to specify the order that things happen in if they are to happen at the same moment in time, and it is absolutely crucial to do so if one or more action depends on the result of the others. The Simultaneity Scares (see {{Heading|The Simultaneous Proposal Scare}} and {{Heading|The Second Simultaneity Scare}}) serve as cautionary tales. If we hadn't resolved them, they could have spelled disaster for our understanding of the gamestate. The fact that we struggled with this at all is perhaps the fault of the voting period system which aligned many important actions around two crucial points in the week. | |||
To take this one step further, while proposals which simply specify relative orders (e.g. "Event X happens after event Y; event Z happens before Y") can certainly solve the problem -- they did in this round -- it is not hard to imagine it getting very tiresome and progressively more difficult to specify the order you really mean when there are, say, five events at the same instant. idle and finsook's proposals to add more boilerplate for simultaneous events (also in {{Heading|The Second Simultaneity Scare}}) did not pass but indeed have merit for a round where even more actions take place at the same time than in Round 9. | |||
=== Late Introduction of Victory Conditions === | |||
Now let's discuss what Round 9 absolutely failed at. We did not provide a victory condition to work towards. It's important that nomic games have victory conditions early because they lend the players a sense of direction. Without a victory condition for Round 9, each player had their own goals that they were working toward. Wotton and Nyhilo collected ducks. Trungle and moonroof collected quacks. Most of us were just along for the ride. Once we'd gotten far enough along, however, it became hard to care about the game where there was no goal. It would be hard to add one at that phase, too. Everyone had been amassing resources for so long that setting a goal would probably favor one person over the others. In absence of productive things to do, some of us turned to scamming the ruleset, an attitude that ended up killing the game. Nyhilo made a valiant attempt to introduce a victory condition, but it never came to fruition (see {{Heading|The Duck Old One Endgame (6 Mar 2021-28 Apr 2021)}}) due to these and other factors. If it had come out sooner, perhaps it could have changed the way the round progressed. | |||
I occasionally find myself drawn to one of the most ironic parts of this story wherein one of the greatest ills of the game was bundled with something that may have cured those ills. Proposal 1, the proposal that introduced the idea of ducks in the first place actually included a win condition: owning half of all ducks (Everythings, 3 Jan 2021; see {{Heading|The First Day (3 Jan 2021)}}). When it was reproposed as Proposal 🦆, that section was absent (Trungle, 3 Jan 2021). Needless to say, the round would have played out completely differently had Trungle included the bit about the victory condition in his version. If there had been a win condition from the start, then we would have no cause to scam the ruleset so much in March and April. Perhaps the game wouldn't have even gone on long enough for that to happen. | |||
=== Gaining Items when You Join === | |||
Since the first day of the round, players gained a duck upon joining. And a loophole in this exact clause is what caused the downfall of the round in the end. If players are to gain items immediately after they join the round, that should be handled with delicacy. I can think of a minor modifications that would have patched the loophole right up: say that you only gain a duck the first time you join the round. Simple, but not perfect if you want people to be able to rejoin and start afresh. If that's your goal, then consider the following further thoughts, fruits of a discussion during Round 10<ref>https://discord.com/channels/515560801394753537/518856008605499402/864643752404189244</ref>: | |||
# Define who can own items. Players in the round? Anyone who has joined before? Can no one own them? These ambiguities allowed the Day of Infinite Ducks scam. | |||
# Place restrictions on registration. If you can leave and join again in the same instant, then you can quickly generate more items than you'll ever be able to use. | |||
# Place restrictions on trading for a period after players join. | |||
These ideas don't guard against every potential scam, but they certainly make scamming a more arduous task. | |||
=== Vigilance === | |||
A constant struggle in the game was the failure to balance the infinite duck accumulation achievable by Scouting (see {{Heading|Scouting}} and {{Heading|Updates to Scouting}}). When the rule was proposed, there was really no risk involved in sending a duck scouting and, after 17 January, the performer was guaranteed to receive a duck after a successful retrieval. Wotton was not the first to exploit this but there is no doubt that he was the most prolific. When actions were introduced to combat players with too many ducks, they had too many restrictions (see {{Heading|Stealing from the Rich}}), which Wotton was able to circumvent (see {{Heading|Cannibalism to Prevent Thievery}}). Legislation to get at the root cause, the cheap and risk-free scouting mechanic itself, didn't come until early March when the richest player had a staggering twelve ducks (see {{Heading|Targeting the Rich Again}}). Wotton was able to pay Klink off when she proposed to cut back on restrictions on when players could steal ducks from the rich (see {{Heading|The Untold Saga of Eggotinne (11 Mar 2021 - 20 Mar 2021)}}). | |||
And yet, the fault is not purely in the legislation itself. Had people been watching the game at some of these critical moments, the course of the round could have shifted dramatically. When Wotton attacked his own ducks to reduce his quacks enough that he wouldn't be in first place so that he couldn't be targeted as DUCK DUKE (see {{Heading|Cannibalism to Prevent Thievery}}), moonroof then Trungle had the most quacks. Wotton slowly crept his way back into second place. If either of them had noticed, they could have orchestrated a similar trick of racking up Quack Attacks on their ducks, forcing Wotton into a position where he could be attacked. | |||
Furthermore, if just one other person had had the idea to write a proposal in the same vein as Eggotinne (see {{Heading|The Untold Saga of Eggotinne (11 Mar 2021 - 20 Mar 2021)}}), or if someone had noticed Eggotinne's deletion, Wotton would have had a much harder time paying people off to turn the other way. | |||
The paths to fixing this overarching issue are clear in hindsight. For my part, I just lost interest in the round and I only showed up once in a while to do my semiweekly obligations. If I paid as much attention in the moment as I have paid to Round 9 while writing this essay, I probably would have done something about it. I just had to pay a little more attention. | |||
=== Textualism from Intentionalism === | |||
The [[Round 9/Initial Ruleset|Initial Ruleset]] for Round 9 extremely barebones. It is possible to follow to the letter, but it does not necessarily prescribe this mentality on the proposals to come. At the same time, it does not have ''enough'' framework to make writing very textualist rules easy. In particular, a clearer way to define items would have been very helpful for the round. And even though I contend that the complete textualism we saw in this round was the result of several rounds of progression toward it, at the beginning of this round, not everyone was clearly on-board. Proposal 🦆 was poorly worded in many different ways. If I had known how the game would progress, I probably would have written Proposal 🦆 a little more explicitly. As a thought experiment, here is Proposal 🦆 redrafted in the famously strict Agoran style: | |||
{{Proposal Box | |||
|name=🦆 | |||
|text= | |||
Enact a new Power-1 rule titled "Ducks" which reads: | |||
:Ducks are assets that can be owned by players. Players CAN assign a duck they own a name by announcement. Ducks with no name are fungible. Players CANNOT interact with a duck which has no name except to assign it a name. | |||
}} | |||
This mismatch of rule-writing styles caught up with us and in fact contributed to the round's downfall: the Day of Infinite Ducks exploit had existed since Proposal 🦆 itself because at the beginning of the round we struggled to define things as well as our eventual textualist readings would require us to. | |||
== References == | == References == | ||
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