cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (03/28/85)
Every few months someone asks the net about playing Nomic by mail. I participated in a lengthy game of Nomic by net mail about two years ago. It was lengthy because it took forever to get vote replies from all players. The game went 9 months and we completed 2 player turns, got stuck on the third trying to get replies from somebody, and then abandoned the whole thing. It is my impression that Nomic is a game that inherently doesn't work well by mail. There is a need to get a feel of the consensus of the group about proposed rule changes before committing to a final proposal. In my game, there was a strong tendency for discussions to be unilateral -- one person writes, no one replies. Discussion needs to be encouraged. Also, parallelism needs to be encouraged: discussion of several rules should be open at once, to keep enthusiasm alive between votes. However, should people still like to give it a try, heed the following MORALS: 1) Get a group of players who are all within two machines by mail path. Really. You have enough trouble fighting multiple reliability statistics to get all players involved. You don't need more trouble from mail path blockage. 2) The net Nomic needs some new Initial Rules, along the following lines: 3) Have a game coordinator who judges things like when votes have been made or missed, and mails out the current rule set at appropriate times. A backup coordinator ought also to be designated, as our game had a big hole in it when the coordinator went on vacation. 4) Put a voting protocol into the initial rules (modifiable). Include a time limit for votes, from the day of posting of a final rule proposal. No exceptions. I suggest that missed votes be counted as "yea" votes. 5) Put a time limit on announcement of the next player's final rule proposal from the time of announcement of the results of the previous vote. A missed announcement counts as automatic rejection and the turn passes. I'm not ready to get involved in Nomic again myself. Good luck if you decide to try it. Charles Poirier (ihnp4!vax135!cjp)