Cycle 17/Ruleset Draft

Single Transferable Vote (STV) Nomic

Time

General

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

Phases

Each week is divided into two phases:

1. Election Phase: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
2. Governance Phase: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Rules

A rule is a body of text which governs the state of the game. Rules that are in effect apply continuously. When a player joins the game, they agree to abide by the rules in effect.

A subrule is a rule that claims another rule as its parent. The subrule is not part of the parent; instead this relationship is to be used for organizational purposes.

A rule that is not a subrule is a top-level rule.

Players

Any person may become a player by posting a message setting forth their intent to do so in the channel ⁠#game-actions, provided they have not been a player at any point in the past seven days. A player may cease being a player by sending a message that sets forth their intent to do so in #⁠game-actions.

A player is 'reputable' if they have continuously been a player for the previous seven days or if they have continuously been a player from a time that was within 3 days of the round starting. If two reputable players publicly declare that an unreputable player (i.e. a player who has not yet become reputable) is reputable then that unreputable player becomes reputable immediately.

Proposals

Proposals are made by sending a message in the channel #proposals.

A 👍 or 👎 reaction from a player on a Proposal message at the time when the voting period ends constitutes a vote in favor or against, respectively. If a person's vote is unclear (excluding abstentions), it is considered to be against.

At the end of its voting period, a proposal takes effect if it is popular (as defined for its type) and the message in which it was submitted has been neither deleted nor edited. If more than one proposal would otherwise take effect simultaneously, they take effect in the order in which they were created.

The class of a proposal must be one of the classes listed below. When a proposal is submitted, the submitter may specify its class. if no class is specified, the proposal class defaults to Standard.

Urgent Class Proposal

The voting period of an urgent proposal begins at the time it is submitted and ends two days after. An urgent proposal is popular if it has no more than two votes against it.

Rules to the contrary notwithstanding, only a reputable player can submit an urgent proposal. Urgent proposals should only be used to correct the game to its intended state and to maintain playability.

Standard Class Proposal

The voting period for a standard proposal is the phase that started after the proposal was submitted. A standard proposal is popular if it has not been vetoed by parliament and has more votes in favor than votes against.

Elections

Each election phase, an election is held where all players are both candidates and voters.

Each voter may send an ordered list of candidates in #elections as their vote. At the end of the election phase, the following process is repeated until all seats have been allocated, with n initially 1 and incremented by 1 at each iteration:

1. The Droop Quota is calculated according to Q = ⌊ V / (S + 1) ⌋ + 1, where V is the number of votes and S is the number of seats to fill.
2. nth preference votes are counted. Any candidates that reach the quota are awarded seats.
   • If multiple candidates reach the quota, the rank of their seat is determined by number of votes. If they have the same number they tie, and the next ranked seat is skipped.
   • If this would fill more seats than available, randomness is used to determine which of these candidates receive seats.
3. Of the candidates that reach the quota, any surplus votes for them are divided amongst the nth place voters and awarded as their (n + 1) th preference votes.

The elected players hold their seats for the following governance phase and next election phase.

Seats

There are 3 seats at the beginning of the game.

The first player to win a seat in each election gains 10 points, the second gains 8 and the third gains 5.

Parliament

Players who are on parliament may veto any standard proposal. Resulting in it failing. At least half of parliament must agree to veto a proposal for this to occur.

Judgement

There shall be a sole Judge, responsible for resolving rules disputes. An incumbent Judge can be removed with the assent of two players, but they should not be removed in this manner 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 submission of a request for justice by a person other than themself in #request-for-justice, the Judge can and shall, as quickly as possible, issue a response to the request in ⁠#request-for-justice. 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 while still considering the expressed or clearly implied legislative intent.

Within 4 days of a judge issuing a ruling, a public vote of confidence on that ruling can be initiated in #request-for-justice. Votes may be cast in such a vote for a period of 2 days after initiation. Votes are to be cast by 👍 or 👎 reactions on a clearly designated poll message; if a person's vote is unclear, it is to affirm the judgement. A ruling is overturned if strictly more players vote in favor of overturning than affirming.

A ruling may be overturned by the Judge who made it within one week of being made. When a ruling is overturned in this manner, the Judge shall then issue a new ruling on the initial request, which shall be binding in the same manner as the original ruling.

An overturned ruling shall have no bearing on the interpretation of the rules or of the gamestate.

Any reputable player may become a candidate for the Judge by sending a message in the channel #judge-elections. If there are any Judge candidacies put forward during a week, the player whose message is both popular and has the most 👍 reactions from players becomes the Judge once that week ends. A Judge Candidacy message is popular if it has more 👍 than 👎 reactions from players on its initiating message. Ties are broken in favor of the player with the earliest text message during that week.

If no judge candidacies are put forward during a week, then the incumbent judge retains their position.

Randomness

When randomisation is concerned in this ruleset, it must be resolved by a generally trusted and fair method accessible to all players in the game, and as soon as possible.

When a rule would have a player determine something by random chance, that player should resolve the random chance as their next act, and must resolve it before other actions involving the result of the triggering event may take place - or by phase end. If the randomisation is not resolved, then the event either does not take place, or takes place with only the non-random, non-optional elements resolved.

For instance, if a player receives an item with an optional random chance of having a special trait, they must randomly determine that trait before they may perform actions involving that item, or else the gaining of that trait fails by default. If a player would receive an item with a random attribute that must be determined, they do not receive that item until the attribute is determined.

Random Choices

A person shall not deliberately select random values for a rules-defined action without intending to use those values to the best of their ability to resolve that action.

If a person has selected some or all of the random values necessary to perform an action, they shall not discard the valid specifications in order to attempt a substantially similar action with the goal of obtaining different random values. If there is consensus that a preponderance of the evidence exists, or if a Judge ruling, not overturned, finds that a player has done such a thing, all attempts other than the first are deemed to be invalid and to not have affected the gamestate.

Dice Rolls

A rule that requires a selection of an NdK value, for non-negative integer N and positive integer K, is requiring the random selection of N rolls of a K-sided die.

• If not otherwise specified, this produces the sum of N rolls of a K-sided die; that is, the sum of N independent selections of integers from 1 to K, using a uniform random distribution. If N is zero, the sum is zero.

• If a rule requires an NdK dice roll with a target number x, this instead produces the number of N independent 1dK rolls that meet or exceed the target number and can be abbreviated as "x+". For example, if a rule requires a dice roll with a target number of 3, this can be abbreviated to "3+".

Items

Items are entities defined as such by the rules. Items can be owned by players and are stored in their inventory. When an item's owner cannot reasonably be determined using publicly available information, or if it would be owned by a non-player, it is instead destroyed.

Items with similar properties may be grouped together into item classes.

For an entity to gain an item is for that item to be created in that entity's possession. To grant an entity an item is to create it in that entity's possession.

For an entity to lose an item is for that item to be destroyed from that entity's possession. To revoke an item from an entity is to destroy it from that entity's possession.

Reputable players may trade items from their inventories with the consent of all parties.

Inventory

Each player has an inventory containing all of the items they possess.

Trading

A trade is an exchange or transfer of items between two entities, with each entity giving a specified finite set of items to the other.

When otherwise authorized, a trade between two players takes place when both players explicitly consent to the trade in #trades within 7 days of each other.

Using items

If an item specifies an ability to be used, that item can be used by the player that owns it by posting to #⁠game-actions, specifying the item, and any other required details. When used, the item takes effect as specified in its description, then the item is destroyed. If an item's description references "you", it refers to the player who used the item. If it implies that a player does something, then the player who does it is the player who used the item.

Points

Points are items.

Victory

The first player(s) to have at least 100 points wins Cycle 17. If after the first phase, there is ever less than 3 players, the player(s) with the most points wins. After a player wins, the cycle then ends.