Nomic

[Thomas David Baker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic

Shall we play it?

[Gary Lynch]

Perhaps i'm beging dumb but I don't get it.

It doesn't really explain how you begin.

[Paul Young]

Its a game about changing and modifying rules but does not state the starting rules apart from you all have to come up with a rule, let the person clockwise have a go, vote and roll a dice. Is that it?

[Thomas David Baker]

In a way it doesn't really matter how you begin but the initial rules normally establish something like:

- An order of play
- That each player may propose one change to the rules per turn
- That 2/3rds of the players must vote "yes" to adopt a proposal
- That each turn a player rolls a d6 and adds the result to his score.
- That a player reaching 100 points is the winner.

Then it's your turn and you can propose any new rule you want and vote on it. You can change what players can do every turn. Or change the victory condition. Or change the rules about changing rules. Or make it so that anyone failing to begin each sentence with "All hail Jason Howlett, King of Trousers" is disqualified from the game. If your change is adopted you can then do something under the new rule. If it isn't you roll your d6 and it's the next guy's go. Rinse and repeat.

Here's an example game where they made some kind of mining/war board game:

http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/nomopoly/IV/history.xhtml
http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/nomopoly/IV/rules.xhtml

This one turned into some kind of meta-game on the rules where proposing certain rules gives you "possession" of real-world countries:

http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/Pure_Nomic/The%20Rules%20Thus%20Far

See in particular:

7: The Final Rule The first person to possess an entire continent is the winner of this game, if and only if at that time a proper definition of "possession" exists.

and:

17: On The Territorial Outcome Of The Twenty-Fifth Rule Upon Rule 25 being passed and entered in the official list of Rules Thus Far, under whatever name it may be entered, the eldest player in the game shall be
awarded possession of Monaco; the player whose age most nearly approaches the
mean age of all the players at the time shall be awarded possession of Brazil;
the player whose age is closest to the date of the day on which the poll by
which Rule 25 is passed closes (that is, the number of the day in the month)
shall be awarded possession of Japan; and the two players whose ages are
closest together shall be awarded joint possession of the United States of
America. When there are several players who meet the same demand, they will be
ordered lexicographically by the last letter of their legal first name, and the
last one will be picked. Where this does not resolve the issue, the procedures
outlined in Rule 18 shall be followed.

This one I don't really understand but involves Word Farms and Letter Machines:

http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/pumpkinpatch/EdRules.html

So really it just goes where the participants want it to. I have my ideas about what would happen in a Games Club version but I'll keep them to myself for now :)

[Ben Titmarsh]

Here's another one:

http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ruleset

It's basically an abstract framework for building your own game. I like the idea, sounds like it would be pretty tough in practise though!

[Thomas David Baker]

I don't know about tough - you can always propose nothing on your turn. Of course that wouldn't be very exciting :)

I think it will be cool. We can play via a group on Demonic Tutor. Post here or join the group to play. We'll start some time next week.

http://demonictutor.ning.com/group/nomic

[Gary Lynch]

I'm in. Sounds interesting could be fun. Does sound a bit complicated but I guess we will get the hang of it.

Only problem I can see is people being lazy and not contributing often enough. This I believe is a common problem with London players.

Thomas David Baker said:

I don't know about tough - you can always propose nothing on your turn. Of course that wouldn't be very exciting :) I think it will be cool. We can play via a group on Demonic Tutor. Post here or join the group to play. We'll start some time next week.

http://demonictutor.ning.com/group/nomic

[Thomas David Baker]

Then we can make a rule to kill them in their sleep.

I like to think it's more "busy" than "lazy" but the end result is the same I guess.

[Dan Barrett]

How we gonna do dice rolls if we're playing online?

[Kieran Symington]

I'm in, though I'm not sure how good this game will turn out to be - especially when the rules get massively complex. No way to know until we try it, though.

[Tiff Leek]

Generally online games aren't done with dice but a formula based on number of player votes something something. I did read that.

My vote is for busy rather than lazy also. There are other things in life than Magic...

You can't propose nothing - if you can't make a move you win, right? Paradox victories?

I think these things.

[Thomas David Baker]

Kieran Symington said:

I'm not sure how good this game will turn out to be

That's kind of up to us, right?

[Tom Reeve]

Why does it feel like it was only a matter of time before you suggested this...