

Nomic: "...a game in which changing the rules is a move." - elimisteve
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/nomic.htm

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lambda
Ah, I remember playing Nomic obsessively online back when I was in high-
school. I was the webmaster (or "Secretary of Truth") who inflicted the
painful red color scheme on MacroNomic:
<http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/macronomic/>

~~~
lambda
Hey, I just took a look at the longest-running Nomic, Agora, and it appears to
still be at least somewhat active: <http://www.agoranomic.org/> It was started
in 1993; that's an impressive run.

~~~
blahedo
Agora was great---I was involved for about six years in the early days, and it
taught me a _lot_ about logic, world modelling, and precision of expression.
You know, computer science.

~~~
anthonyb
I started, but found it frustrating and eventually quit. The rules were the
size of a phone book, and there were a lot of meta/social rules in addition to
the written ones. At least once I followed the letter of the law, only to be
told that "no, that's not how you're supposed to do it."

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njl
When I taught high school, nomic was the day-before-vacation time waster in my
CS classes. I think we actually had a winner once in the couple of dozen times
we played, but the kids had fun. They sat around arguing about logic, which
was a very easy sell to my administration.

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milkshakes
For those with a shorter attention span, there's an addictive card game in
which changing the rules is a move:
<http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/>

~~~
gte910h
Be forewarned, the game can go quite long as mathematically, there is no
guarantee it will halt.

~~~
hugh3
It can also be quite frequently won on the first turn.

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jeffbradberry
Not at all in any of the variants I know of.

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gte910h
By first turn, he means "first play around the table".

If you get a play 3 or play all out in the first turn, and someone else has 2
keepers that match a goal card, someone can then win by playing all three.

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davidalln
This sounds a lot like the semi-popular college game 1000 Blank White Cards
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Blank_White_Cards>)

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div
This brought back fond memories of calvinball
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball>

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saurabh
Haven't read about it before but sounds interesting.

~~~
anthonyb
It is interesting, particularly if you play it with like-minded friends.

Another similar game which is just as good is Bartok (or Bartog or Warthog,
depending on who you ask). Similar to Uno, but when you win a round, you get
to make a new rule which applies to every future round. Best played with
drunken Mathematicians/CS types.

Finally, if you want to be _really_ scared, there's PerlNomic, in which rule
changes are actually diffs applied to the voting code:
<http://www.nomic.net/~nomicwiki/index.php/PerlNomic>

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jsomers
Hofstadter wrote about this in a column for Scientific American. The article
appears in his collection, "Metamagical Themas," and Google Books has most of
it here:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=o8jzWF7rD6oC&dq=metamag...](http://books.google.com/books?id=o8jzWF7rD6oC&dq=metamagical+themas&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=TQ7TS5ryBoKC8gaRx625Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=nomic&f=false).

~~~
Vivtek
Partly because Peter Suber worked with Hofstadter during a sabbatical year,
and I believe developed Nomic during that time (or at least did some of the
preliminary talking about it). It's a very Hofstadterian game.

~~~
Vivtek
Peter Suber just wrote to me correcting my misapprehension of causality:

 _I published Nomic in 1982, about seven years before my sabbatical in
Hofstadter's lab. But I published it in Hofstadter's column in Scientific
American. We got to know one another through Nomic, and it led to the
sabbatical at his lab, not the other way around.

There's nothing confidential in this; please feel free to post it if you think
it would interest others._

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chokma
Nomic is a fascinating game.

For those about to try it in school: You should probably add a fixed rule
about not ending class prematurely and going outside to play (my students
needed a rather long time to come up with this loop hole). But it was an
interesting hour which served as an introduction to the 10 commandments.

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mkramlich
Fluxx. highly recommend for hackers. same spirit as Nomic but MUCH simpler and
easier to learn and play. And fast.

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pw0ncakes
Sounds really cool. I wish I could find a group to play this with. Any takers
in NYC?

In other news, all these numbered rules made me think of Rule #34. I lost.

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hugh3
Sorry, I just changed the rules and now you're not allowed to play.

~~~
GHFigs
If pw0ncakes were already a player, this would be illegal under rules 104-108,
rule 111, possibly rule 201, and indeed might have handed him victory under
rule 213.

