Nomic 5 - Proposal 308 - The Way of The Force (Pass)

[Crunkus_old]

Note if created, I believe Zoomzip get's Anakin Skywalker's Second Lightsaber unless a totally new player enters the game. Inactive players are considered in the game (they are tracked, they can even have their points changed under current rules), correct? We should probably talk that through now.

Meanwhile...if you're reading this and want to play....that lightsaber could be yours (a nice position actually to be first possessor of it, you'll likely rise in midi-chlorians faster)...just enter the game....assuming no one else does after you.

[super_dipsy]

I'm probably going to vote yes even though I haven't gone through it yet. Love the summary, that helps a lot. Can I check something? Knowing you, Crunkus, I think I know the answer to this, but are the Sith and Jedhi career paths (in terms of power) roughly balanced? Or is it tilted to make it better to be a Jedi than a Sith?

As far as getting more players, I am on the brink of doing something which could radically alter the level of Playdip forum interaction (in my opinion)...just checking out a few nuances and then it will probably happen (as long as noone shoots it down). And as an aside, Crunkus and other mafia folk, I suspect your brethren in particular will love it (well some will). More to come.....

[Crunkus_old]

I'm probably going to vote yes even though I haven't gone through it yet. Love the summary, that helps a lot. Can I check something? Knowing you, Crunkus, I think I know the answer to this, but are the Sith and Jedhi career paths (in terms of power) roughly balanced? Or is it tilted to make it better to be a Jedi than a Sith?

You can grab power more quickly with the Sith. But the power comes at a price. The Sith are also structured to be a bit more competitive with each other and the Jedi have incentives to work together. The Sith Powers are a bit more powerful and even include a win condition (if you can get 112 repealed). There are reasons to be Jedi and reasons to be Sith. Jedi have some tricks Sith don't have. They also have more domain over positive votes, while sith have more domain over negative votes. If an inbalance in the force begins to develop, you can always create items and new mechanics in an effort to restore balance to the force...if that's your agenda . It should be pretty balanced initially. If you want to go dark, you can, and if you want to Jedi you can. You'll attain power more quickly if you go dark, but there's a lot downsides too. It's designed to be a complex decision that would change given the game circumstances. New players to the game definitely have a reason to go Dark if there's a Dark Sith Lord in power. That pesky emperor...always corrupting the young force potentials. Then again, then Jedi would surely embrace and support a newbie's decision to resist the temptation...

As far as getting more players, I am on the brink of doing something which could radically alter the level of Playdip forum interaction (in my opinion)...just checking out a few nuances and then it will probably happen (as long as noone shoots it down). And as an aside, Crunkus and other mafia folk, I suspect your brethren in particular will love it (well some will). More to come.....

Now I'm excited.

[Crunkus_old]

The active (~10:10 13 Mar 2014) player in Nomic 5 with the most negative midi-chlorian count that is also less than -10 is known by the title: Dark Lord of the Sith.

I just added the word "active" to the clause defining the Dark Lord of the Sith. Slight change, but it's probably for the best.

[connect4]

I think the only minor point I have for discussion is the infamous persuasion of the upper tier Jedi (sorry don't have the exact name in front of me). The vote coercion one. I know it only works for |midichlorian| <= 11 (or < 11, again don't have the post in front of me). I realize it eventually corrects itself because using this power changes the target's midichlorian level by forcing them to cast AYE. However, it's certainly possible for 4-5 turns for a player to not have an actual vote (player starting at -10 for instance) (or longer if they can't get their midichlorian count fixed on their own; for instance, through unlucky(?) betting against the House). Should there be a limit placed on this portion of the ability, such as every other turn?

Also, minor technical note,t here are a few "If... than" clauses (I think in the Disturbance in the Force section) that should be "If... then"

[Crunkus_old]

I think the only minor point I have for discussion is the infamous persuasion of the upper tier Jedi (sorry don't have the exact name in front of me). The vote coercion one. I know it only works for |midichlorian| <= 11 (or < 11, again don't have the post in front of me). I realize it eventually corrects itself because using this power changes the target's midichlorian level by forcing them to cast AYE. However, it's certainly possible for 4-5 turns for a player to not have an actual vote (player starting at -10 for instance) (or longer if they can't get their midichlorian count fixed on their own; for instance, through unlucky(?) betting against the House). Should there be a limit placed on this portion of the ability, such as every other turn?

"The force can have a powerful effect on the weak-minded."
-- Obi-Wan

Keep in mind the target can also cast other AYE votes to more rapidly get out of range of such an ability as well. Also, there could be social consequences for such a play. In fact, I'd argue it encourages social consequences...which is in the end a good thing. Yo, Dark Sith Lord, have my back...apply some pressure to the this meddlesome Jedi.... You might even find sympathetic Jedi who would argue against such things. It really depends on all of the circumstances in play. The thing is, now there are a lot more possible consequences in play with this proposal then their used to be. That has the net affect of encouraging interactivity between all the players on a deeper level within the game....in this case paradoxically by limiting one narrow aspect of it in a given circumstance. It's also worth noting that if the target become Jedi, even if succeptable, there's an even greater penalty for this sort of thing, and if someone uses it during their own turn, it's a 10 point hit.

Having said all of that, I can see if no one goes dark right away, the Jedi could keep Dark Apprentices from flourishing using this to an extent. It might even be less than desirable. The other ways of losing/gains midi-chlorians make it possible to stay weak for an extended time, but also allow wiggling out from the clutch of such effects. I like that there are incentives to not remain too weak either way, because it provides incentives for people to commit one way or the other most of the time rather than languishing in the middle too long. Overall, this gets a lot more balanced the more players there are in the game.

I could put in a clause preventing it's use on the same target by the same jedi on consecutive turns...how does that sound? This is one of the more powerful weapons in the Jedi's arsenal. I'm loathe to limit it more than is warranted. Keep in mind we're adding a new incentive for NAY votes and this will make legislation overall more difficult to pass without sufficient counter-balancing from the light-side of the force. Depending on the legislation they might not even want to use this consecutively... But perhaps there's no harm in that level of meddling. Why do I suspect connect4 is a future Dark Sith Lord?

Also, minor technical note,t here are a few "If... than" clauses (I think in the Disturbance in the Force section) that should be "If... then"

Ack...I'll look for that now by copy/pasting to google docs and running a find. I had to do that for a couple of things earlier.

Thanks for that.

EDIT: Looks like I only did that twice. It's corrected now.

[Pagane]

I really like where this is going. I don't have any beefs with it at the moment, but I'm going to re-read it and see how it looks by the light of day.


I'm going to spoil the surprise for my next proposal and give you a preview, because I think it'll have a big effect on the midi-chlorian count:
Essentially, I'm going to define some Things as Collectible. The first batch of Collectible Things that I will propose will all be focused on creating more Things. If all of the Things in my set are created, then in an extreme scenario we could have as many as 3 Things being proposed at once. (One by the Proposer, 2 more as a result of Things in play.)
1 AYE/NAY vote for Proposal, 3 AYE/NAY votes for Things. That's a potential range of 8 to -8 midi-chlorians for each player in a single turn. So in the near future we could be speeding up our Jedi training or our Path to the Dark Side enormously.


Also.. seeing as this proposal will almost certainly pass with flying colors, I don't think that there's a good bet for the House to make today. I'll take a page from good ol' Crunkus' book.

BETTING LINE

YES/NO: numberwang1 WILL VOTE AYE FOR PROPOSAL 308

[Crunkus_old]

Just added a bunch of narfables to a few clauses, leaves a few more possibilities open for the future, and gives me another point.

I also added a dark-side bodily corruption to Force Destruction to keep the theme going.

[Pagane]

In Nomic 5, there is a unit of currency known as midi-chlorians.

Midichlorians are defined as a unit of currency. Currency can be transferred in-thread. Can you give away midichlorians when you're already in the negative scale, lowering your negative midi-count even further? So if Crunkus is the Dark Lord with -30, and I'm at -20, can I give him 10 midichlorians, raising him to -20 and lowering me to -30?
And can I ally myself with a Jedi, giving him positive midis to both increase my Sith value and to raise his Jedi value?

This also applies to Victory Points as well- it seems like Sith will eventually gain benefits from having negative Victory Points.

Currently, the language of the currency seems directed at positive-only currency. Defining Midichlorians as a currency that can hold negative value opens this can of worms.

PPE: before posting, I looked up this clause:

For each unit of currency, the sum of all transfers made during a turn must be less than or equal to the number of units of that currency the player had at the start of the turn. This clause is narfable.

This requires transfers to only made by players with enough POSITIVE units of currency to cover the transfers. Disregard this question. Keep the Currency transfers in mind, however.

One cool point though: because of the ability to transfer positive currency, it's relatively easy for a Jedi of any rank to switch to the Dark Side, while Sith have a much harder time returning to the Light. Oh, how the mighty can corrupt themselves. Almost poetic, actually.

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A FORCE PUSH by a Jedi Master has the effect of changing the possessor of the Target Thing to the active player whose scheduled turn to become the active player is the PULL VALUE ahead of the target player in the scheduled turn order.

That should read PUSH VALUE rather than PULL VALUE.

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Lightsabers:
Are the Bad Ass Sounds required to be played when a player transfers or uses his lightsaber? If not, I would be less than opposed to seeing it made so.
Confrontations are left undefined. I look forward to figuring out how lightsaber duels work. I think they should include both skill with a lightsaber and mastery of the force, since they are two distinct fundamentals to Jedi/Sith combat. I also think that there should be midichlorian penalties for a Jedi who Confronts another Jedi.

The properties of the lightsabers constructed by the Sith should be changed to state that they will remain in the possession of the SITH who created them, not the JEDI. Either that, or just say PLAYER for both Jedi and Sith lightsabers.
And what is the point of only allowing Jedi to give their lightsabers to other Jedi, but allowing Sith to give their lightsabers to anyone?

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This ability can only be successfully used by a Sith if that Sith has not yet used a Darth Ability during the current turn.

If a Darth uses Force Domination, Force Fear or Force Lightning, he cannot use another Darth ability earlier in the turn. Can he still use Construct Lightsaber AFTER he has used one of these during the same turn?

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The skin on the right side of Darth Pagane's face begins to slough off slowly:

So I can be a Sith Lord AND Two-Face. I approve.

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Anakyn Skywalker's Second Lightsaber can be used to block Dark Lord abilities. To do so, do you Confront the Dark Lord? If not, how do you trigger the trolling-the-Dark-Lord bit?

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There aren't any Narfable Clauses. I'd be much happier if this were changed.
PPE: I see you already fixed that, Crunkus.

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In Conclusion: I really look forward to seeing how this dynamic plays out!

My absolute favorite bit is the Dark Seduction, giving brand new players a grand entrance, a large boost in points, and a fast track to becoming a Darth.
I also really enjoy the different dynamics for Jedi and Sith: the Jedi are more balanced, and their control of AYE votes and possession of Things is incredibly powerful, while the Sith are more offensively based, and their powers grow enormously once a Dark Lord has risen.

[Pagane]

Just noticed that Construct Lightsaber (Darth) also cannot be used if the Darth has already used another Darth ability. Makes sense: Darths get one ability per turn. Disregard that question.