
Nomic: A Game of Self-Amendment - an_ko
http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/nomic.htm
======
XaspR8d
I recall playing this a couple times in college, to vastly different results.
One 'ended' as a weird race to infinity, where the point values exploded and
the winning value increased exponentially every turn. Another created a weird
microsociety with social castes and jobs. I created a website for that one and
years later found mention of it on the site for _another_ Nomic game that had
grown to the point of establishing 'diplomatic relations' with other games.

If anything it belongs in a class of "game" alongside things like D&D...it's a
very minimal goal-oriented storytelling structure, albeit with one that leans
heavy towards legal and procedural creativity.

~~~
jey
Maybe that first one should use ordinals for scoring:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number)

------
tikhonj
If you like Nomic, check out Nomyx[1] which is a computer version of the game.
Rules are specified and submitted in a domain-specific language called Nomyx,
embedded in Haskell.

I don't know if the current game is active, but it's certainly something that
would be fun to try with a bunch of friends.

EDIT: forgot link (thanks an_ko)

[1]: [http://www.nomyx.net/](http://www.nomyx.net/)

~~~
an_ko
Clickable: [http://www.nomyx.net/](http://www.nomyx.net/)

There's also Dvorak
[http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/index.php/Main_Page](http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/index.php/Main_Page)
, a card game with a similar idea. It's also playable online, though players
have to enforce the rules manually.

------
squidfood
At least one open game, Agora Nomic, has been running via listserv
continuously since 1993 (arguably since 1992, when it started in a MUD/MOO
environment): [http://www.agoranomic.org/](http://www.agoranomic.org/)

Edit: hmm, that website is a bit out-of-date though the mailing list addresses
are current. If you want to see what a 22-year old Nomic Ruleset looks like:
[http://pastebin.com/jxxCiY2Y](http://pastebin.com/jxxCiY2Y)

~~~
comex
As a current player of Agora - over the last year or so we've been a bit short
on activity, so for anyone reading this, any new players would be highly
welcome! My basic plug for it is that it feels sort of like collaborative
programming in English, and, perhaps for that reason, a high percentage of
players tend to be programmers. Among other things, this means that we prefer
to explicitly define procedures rather than leaving things up to consensus,
and that we're a bit more literal-minded than you'd see in a real legal system
- if a rule clearly states something, it means it, even if it contradicts the
intent, and trying to find bugs and "scam" them, often for the purpose of a
temporary dictatorship over the rules or an unintended win, is considered a
valid way to play. Other players like to write a lot of proposals, while some
may be more interested in whatever non-meta gameplay mechanics are in place at
the time (currently not all that much).

There's no obligation to read the whole ruleset (or any of it) before joining
- it's only so big because of that tendency to explicitly define things, but
most of those things aren't really surprising, or you can look them up as
needed.

Basically to join you should subscribe to the three 'main' mailing lists
linked from the homepage (agora-business, agora-official, agora-discussion - I
really need to add a way to subscribe to them all at once or otherwise merge
them, but for now you have to do it individually) and send a message to agora-
business saying you want to become a player.

~~~
audiodude
I'd really like to play Nomic, preferably online, and I'm interested in
joining Agora. How do you keep track of who is a current player and get the
game back in motion?

~~~
comex
Agora's not stopped, just slowed. :) Most parts of the gamestate are kept
track of by elected officers posting periodic reports to the agora-official
mailing list (the amount of automation, if any, used to create these reports
varies). Sometimes officers also maintain a web version - notably, this is
usually the case for the rules, which are currently maintained at:

[http://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/rkeep/current_flr....](http://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/rkeep/current_flr.txt)

(Until recently the ruleset history was being tracked in RCS - yes, really. I
should try to convince the current rulekeepor to at least use Git...)

There's a link from agoranomic.org, but for the record, the agora-official
archive can be found at:

[http://www.mail-archive.com/agora-official@agoranomic.org/](http://www.mail-
archive.com/agora-official@agoranomic.org/)

(agora-official is for reports, agora-business is for taking game actions, and
agora-discussion is for discussion.)

For the list of officers, search for [IADoP]; for the list of players, search
for [Registrar]. I post as "omd".

Just for fun, another link that I should mention, since the one on
agoranomic.org is out of date (again, I need to fix this): almost 3000 old
judgements on rule interpretation, most of which are long obsolete due to the
relevant rules being amended or repealed, but some of which serve as (non-
binding) precedent -

[http://cfj.qoid.us](http://cfj.qoid.us)

------
fragsworth
From Wikipedia:

> The longevity of nomic games can pose a serious problem, in that the
> rulesets can grow so complex that current players do not fully understand
> them and prospective players are deterred from joining.

In other words, much like modern law!

------
evv
Lets build the software equivalent of this. It can be a web app which has the
ability to peer-review and modify its own source code.

It would probably quickly break, but we can always put it back together again.
Who knows, it might grow into something pretty cool.

Who's in? How would we architect such an organism?

~~~
an_ko
Previous work:

• [http://www.nomyx.net/](http://www.nomyx.net/) as mentioned in another
comment by
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057433)
is a Haskell-based software implementation.

• In a previous HN submission of Nomic, talked about organising one over
Github
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890109)
and some people played it that way
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4890944)
though the repo has since disappeared…

Architecture idea:

Node.js game server with repo on github. When someone sends it a PR, players
can post +1 or -1 to vote, with some threshold that makes it pass or fail. If
the vote fails, the PR is rejected. If it passes, the server merges the PR,
serialises the game state, reloads the program, loads the saved game state,
and continues.

~~~
pests
This was already done and I was involved! Never got out of the meta-stage and
no game, but it was Node based and included the +1/-1 to vote/fail a repo with
automatic merge in. It failed though, no activity at least.

[https://github.com/botwillacceptanything/botwillacceptanythi...](https://github.com/botwillacceptanything/botwillacceptanything)

------
TTPrograms
I've played a simplified game with friends - the only rule at the beginning
describes the order of turns and that rules may be added by majority vote.
We've often added variations of the rules in the version described here as
well as the game goes on. One of the fun pieces is that winning conditions are
undefined at the beginning, and the game often ends due to the implementation
of some kind of vote magnifying rule.

Very fun with the right crowd.

------
kbutler
The rules have existed since 1982 with a typo in the third rule (103)?

"(1) the enactment, repeal, or amendment of a mutable rule; (2) the enactment,
repeal, or amendment of an amendment of a mutable rule;"

One of those is supposed to be "immutable". But maybe someone mutated it...

~~~
PeterWhittaker
I wouldn't think so: (1) refers to rules for changing rules, including
amending rules, and (2) refers to rules for changing amendments to rules.

Logically, both rules and amendments to rules must be mutable in order for
these rules to be required. If a rule or amendment were immutable, one would
no longer require rules specifying how to amend them.

------
sparky_z
This looks interesting, but I tried 15 of those links at random and each one
was broken. Can somebody point me to an example game I can read about?

~~~
an_ko
The Internet Archive might have the pages:
[https://archive.org/web/](https://archive.org/web/)

The Wikipedia page's links still seem to be fresh:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic)

------
chriswarbo
I think Nomic could be used as a decent test of AI. It's not a full-
information game like chess or go (where an efficient search algorithm could
beat a human) and it's not really a probabilistic game like poker (where the
correct application of probability theory could beat a human). The open-ended
nature makes it more like a framework than a specific task :)

------
audiodude
If anyone's interested in playing a brand new game of Nomic on Github:
[https://github.com/audiodude/odeon](https://github.com/audiodude/odeon)

------
dstyrb
I don't think I've ever seen someone commit so much time and effort to making
a game sound so boring.

We played this as an essentially neverending drinking game... Not a special
session of the junior senate.

------
gcb0
[http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=87092](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=87092)

A sample game. you will notice that even the people 'playing' the previous one
have no idea in which state it was left.

~~~
SN76477
Isn't this how politics work?

