[Bnomic-private] Stop me before it's too late...

[Wonko]

Quoth Glotmorf,

> On 8/21/02 at 11:21 PM Wonko wrote:
> 
>> Quoth Glotmorf,
>> 
>>> I have had a vision.
>>> 
>>> Imagine a city, perhaps the size of Manhattan, with office buildings,
>> stores,
>>> tenements, and perhaps even boroughs and subways.
>>> 
>>> Imagine the rules to a Nomic game are businesses of varying sizes
>> (depending
>>> on the size and/or complexity of the rule), with offices in the city.
>>> 
>>> Imagine the tradable items in the game are available in the stores.
>>> 
>>> Imagine entities have homes in the tenements.
>>> 
>>> Now imagine editing the rules by breaking into the rules' offices and
>> trashing
>>> them.  Changing the availability of items by robbing, vandalizing,
>> running
>>> protection rackets on or even buying the stores.  Players can be spied
>> on, and
>>> possibly robbed, by black-bag operations at their homes.
>>> 
>>> You don't necessarily know that a given rule has a given office.  The
>> business
>>> that represents the rule may have a name, a mission, a product/service
>> line,
>>> etc. that hints at the rule, but nothing anywhere says Rule 15 is in
>> Suite 215
>>> at 5th and 47th.  And there are other businesses that serve as red
>> herrings,
>>> including ones that seem to compete with the actual rule businesses.
>> Possibly
>>> you can start businesses like that to throw off other players.  And
>> businesses
>>> may move around as their office space needs change.
>>> 
>>> Nuking the city Just Isn't Allowed.
>>> 
>>> Is this as off the wall as it sounds to me?  Is it desirable?  Is it even
>>> possible?  Has it...been done?
>> 
>> Off the wall?
>> Yes, but so what? You should hear some of the ideas I've had for Nomic
>> Games
>> (one of which involved 24 or more seperate rulesets)
>> 
>> Desirable?
>> Not in this game. But maybe, when it's all over, we can start again like
>> that...
>> 
>> Possible?
>> You'd need a really good admin, maybe even two or three, just to keep track
>> of where everything is. Ministries would often be hard to do - so much
>> knowledge is known only to the admins, the Ministers would often have to
>> make multiple queries for info in order to do anything. But it could be
>> done.
>> 
>> Been Done?
>> Frankly, outside of your message and some crazed speculations I had back
>> when the Grid was first developed, I've never seen ANY mention of rules
>> even
>> having physical locations. I'm almost certain that it's never been done.
> 
> Wow.  An original Nomic idea. :)  I'll post it to the BB and see if it's truly
> unique.
> 
> It's not just physical locations, BTW.  Think physical manifestations.
> Imagine, for example, that the Gremlin rule was, say, an employment agency or
> a theatrical agent.  That the Grid rule was the city planner's office, a
> mapmaking company or a realtor.  That the voting rule was a government office,
> a consumer survey company or the local office of the ACLU.

But nobody knows which companies are which until they break in and see...
Ooo, and if you can find the rule that says you can't change the rules
without finding them, you could change it to let you (and only you) change
any rule at will...

I would say that if you plan on a Nomic in which rules have such physical
manifestations, it'd be far better (and easier) to make it a MUD Nomic.

> I daresay we're taling massive.  It might actually be easier to find, say,
> some existing and viable MORPG somewhere and do the parasite thang.
> 

I don't believe I've ever come across the acronym MORPG before... what is
that?



-- 
Wonko