On Thu, 6 Feb 2014, Jonatan Kilhamn wrote: > I find the thought that Agora maybe just accidentally ended hilarious. > Almost so much that I want it to be true. But I think we're safe. The > game of agora, and of nomics in general, is well-established as not > being a normal game.
This reminds me of my first game of Nomic - so either some useful historical context or a rambling memoir ahead: First played nomic circa 1990. Picked up from a copy of Metamagical Themas that circulated in the dorm about that time (we photocopied the rules out of there and pasted them on cards). So playing blind without any accumulated internet wisdom about "nomics in general". The game was about 8-10 people in our usual games club, used to playing long sessions of Cosmic Encounters or whatever into the night. The very first game, just as we were settling in and and gone through one or so round of turns, an early loophole let someone jump in and get the victory condition (very obvious loophole when pointed out, no argument that the win worked). Instantly and viscerally, the table split. About half the people said "eh, cheap win. oh well, game over" and the other half said "nothing in the rules says the game is over!" It was weird how the split was instantaneous, and half the people started out at one conclusion, half at the other, without any pre-discussion. After a bunch of struggle and rules lawyering (this turned out to be our very first CFJ), the "let the game continue" crowd dominated, the game continued, though the disgruntled Winner just gave up, I think. Game broke up that night without a second victory condition, at exhaustion point, we passed a firm resolution that "rules to the contrary notwithstanding, the game is now over". Played about a dozen tabletop nomic games in college and grad school since then. And it's basically been a meta-discussion each time that pretty much went (upon victory condition): 1. Was victory condition cheap loophole? Is the night still young? Keep playing (continuously, not with rules reset). 2. Was it a clever, hard-fought victory? Do we need to sleep? Game over. Except in that first game, it was never formally voted on; it was more like when you play a series of games/hands of any game at a late night gaming session; after each win, we basically asked ourselves, in the silence of the rules, what we might ask of Agora now: one more round, or do we call it a night?
