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Nomic

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Re: Nomic

#11

Post by chrisacky »

If there is one thing that the "internet" has lost, it's games like this. I used to love playing #wolfgame on IRC. Even Ultima Online (although hardly a typical heritage game) definitely shaped the way MMORPGs evolved.

Anyway, back onto Nomic. After reading the Wiki and seeing the "Initial Rule Set" [1] then reading through a lot of the archives it became clear that "chaos" and administration was the downfall of this game.

Eventually, the constitution that formed became so unmanageable and untrackable that it was impossible to progress. Judges were needed to resolve the rule disputes on every single vote and rule loop-holes were hard to spot (albeit an intended point of the game).[2]

But guess what we have now... Freaking version control. Companies/governments are tracking their constitution on GitHub at the moment, so why can't we also track the constitution of games such as this on GitHub as well. Last month GitHub launched their "create a game" contest that incorporated some form of "Pull"/"Push" feature into the game.

Well how incredibly awesome (I'm getting giddigy as I type this), would it be if we implemented Nomic voting rules using pull requests (for the votes), and have contributors sign up if they want to play the game.

Tracking the constitution changes was clearly the biggest technical challenge back in 1990s, and now we have tools to solve this problem totally.

GitHub makes Nomic awesome.

Ps. Ultima Online just made me feel all nostalgic. I miss West Brittania Bank, Felucca, my 24x24 Stone Keep (presumably fallen and reclaimed now) and my enormous Runebook library.

    [1] : http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm#initial%20set

    [2] : http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/a/

Re: Nomic

#12

Post by drewcrawford »

There's a commercial game similar to this called Flux. It's not as free-form (there are cards with rule changes pre-printed on them), but it is easier to play with a group of new users.

One of the primary results--obvious to programmers but perhaps not obvious to the general public--is how easy it is for rules to interact in unexpected ways, often producing ambiguous gameplay which may go unnoticed by players for significant lengths of time.

Re: Nomic

#13

Post by icebraining »

whyleyc wrote: post #10

It sounds like "Calvinball". http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#section_6

It was my first thought as well ;) But the article doesn't do the comic strip justice.

https://lh3.ggpht.com/_zRSvuGbL2L0/TE0I0GlkcTI/AAAAAAAAAg4/k...

http://littlebobeep.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Calvinbal...

Re: Nomic

#14

Post by mjn »

I've been interested in this idea of games with modifiable rules on and off, but something about the voting aspect doesn't appeal to me that much. Not entirely sure why. I like the self-referentiality of the rules being modifiable, but it just being a vote, "what rule change do you want?", feels unsatisfying.

I'm not sure what to replace it by, admittedly. I did one experiment where instead of saying what the rules were, your actions were taken as an example of what you thought the new rules should be: if you did something not previously legal, it was inferred to now be legal [1]. But that just led fairly quickly to chaos, unless it were carefully restricted. So maybe not the right approach either. But I still like the idea that the game-mechanics changes themselves are related to the game mechanics in a cybernetic-feedback-loop kind of way, rather than a completely "outside the system" free vote. Now as to how to implement that in a way that makes for a playable/interesting game...

[1] http://www.kmjn.org/notes/reflexive_rules.html

Re: Nomic

#15

Post by cpeterso »

BlogNomic is a nomic game that has been running since 2003. When someone "wins", they reset the rules and being a new "dynasty". New players are welcome, but most players have been playing for a very long time so the rules get quite tricky.

http://blognomic.com/

Re: Nomic

#16

Post by dorkrawk »

mjn wrote: post #14

I've been interested in this idea of games with modifiable rules on and off, but something about the voting aspect doesn't appeal to me that much. Not entirely sure why. I like the self-referentiality of the rules being modifiable, but it just being a vote, "what rule change do you want?", feels unsatisfying. I'm not sure what to replace it by, admittedly. I did one experiment where instead of saying what the rules w…

I suppose you could just make a new rule that says rules are decided on by something other than voting.

Re: Nomic

#17

Post by indspenceable »

drewcrawford wrote: post #12

There's a commercial game similar to this called Flux. It's not as free-form (there are cards with rule changes pre-printed on them), but it is easier to play with a group of new users. One of the primary results--obvious to programmers but perhaps not obvious to the general public--is how easy it is for rules to interact in unexpected ways, often producing ambiguous gameplay which may go unnoticed by players for sig…

Not to be contrarian, but flux is nothing like nomic. Rules in flux don't interact in unexpected ways (there are a few variables that change, notably, draws per turn, maximum hand size, and win conditions which are generally what cards you have out in front of you in order to win) but the player has no freedom to make up new rules on her own.

Re: Nomic

#18

Post by TillE »

chrisacky wrote: post #11

If there is one thing that the "internet" has lost, it's games like this. I used to love playing #wolfgame on IRC. Even Ultima Online (although hardly a typical heritage game) definitely shaped the way MMORPGs evolved. Anyway, back onto Nomic. After reading the Wiki and seeing the "Initial Rule Set" [1] then reading through a lot of the archives it became clear that "chaos" and administration was the downfall of this…

Sadly, UO didn't shape the way MMOs evolved, with the rare exception of niche games like EVE.

Current MMORPGs are almost exclusively of the DikuMUD / EverQuest / WoW lineage, just hack and slash with very few other options for interacting with or changing the game world.

Re: Nomic

#19

Post by bryogenic »

chrisacky wrote: post #11

If there is one thing that the "internet" has lost, it's games like this. I used to love playing #wolfgame on IRC. Even Ultima Online (although hardly a typical heritage game) definitely shaped the way MMORPGs evolved. Anyway, back onto Nomic. After reading the Wiki and seeing the "Initial Rule Set" [1] then reading through a lot of the archives it became clear that "chaos" and administration was the downfall of this…

Anyone current versions of this on GitHub? I think it might even be fun to read the version history.
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