Rule 1112/3
Let there be Harf!
snowgod (Phil Ackley)
At any given time, there will be, at most, a single player with the title of Harfmeister. The title of Harfmeister cannot be transferred or awarded except as described in the rules. If, at any time, no one has the title of Harfmeister, or the player with the title is 'on ice', the title is given (or transferred) to the Speaker.The Harfmeister may designate proposals currently under consideration (in the voting queue) as Harfy, by publically announcing that he or she is doing so. No more than three proposals may be designated as Harfy at the same time. Once so designated, a proposal may never lose its Harfy status, until it is accepted, rejected, or otherwise removed from voting consideration. The Harfmeister may not designate his or her own proposals as Harfy, however. Proposals may only be designated as Harfy by methods explicitly defined in the rules.
If a Harfy proposal passes, its author gains 5 points (a score change based on proposal content) and the title of Harfmeister passes from the current Harfmeister to the author of the Harfy proposal. If two or more Harfy proposals are accepted simultaneously, the title of Harfmeister shall go to the author of the highest numbered one.
The Harfmeister may use his or her discretion in determining what is to be considered Harfy for the purposes of this rule, but it is considered bad form to designate a proposal as Harfy that is not really Harfy, and other players are permitted to sneer.
If any voting player feels the Harfmeister is hogging the Harf [that is, sitting on the title of Harfmeister with no intent to designate any proposals as Harfy], they may start an Inquisition by publically calling for one. An Inquisition is a Hearing. It is also Strange. The valid responses to an Inquisition are 'No! He's going to share the Harf!', or 'Yes! He is Hogging the Harf!' If the verdict is the latter, the Harfmeister is guilty of hogging the Harf and must immediately go to his or her home if he or she may legally do so. The person who called for the Inquisition then becomes the Harfmeister.
Rule 1117/6
Telepathy, Telekinesis, and Side Effects
Calvin N Hobbes (Thierry Joffrain)
A player's stars are aligned when, and only when, her score, her number of A$, and the number of accepted proposals she has authored are all prime. A player experiences a minor epiphany as she leaves the Ackanomic Afterlife if and only if her stars were aligned at some point while she was in the Ackanomic Afterlife. A player endures a jolt of personal empowerment only by correctly reporting to a public forum that within the past 24 hours she has had a minor epiphany.When a player endures a jolt of personal empowerment, the following occurs: if she does not already have the ability to use telepathy then she gains that ability; otherwise, if she does not already have the ability to use telekinesis then she gains that ability; otherwise she receives one newly-created dose of psi-enhancer. Doses of psi-enhancer are non-tradeable entities.
When a player uses telepathy she is permitted to send one public or private message that other rules prohibit her from sending. This does not constrain the recipient's interpretation of the message (i.e. Telepathy does not permit a player to vote when they are otherwise not permitted to do so, although it does permit them to send a message labelled as a vote). One use of telekinesis permits the telekinetic player to cast one vote even when prohibited to do so by other rules -- she is said to be able to manipulate her (and only her) vote counter. A player may vote telekinetically even if otherwise prohibited from sending messages, whether or not she has the ability to use telepathy.
So long as a player has the ability to use telepathy and/or telekinesis, she may make as many uses of it as she likes. However, telepathy and telekinesis are Paranormal Powers. However, if a player uses either telepathy or telekinesis it is not treated as a use of a Paranormal Power unless she has already used that same power within the last 17 days (408 hours). It's just considered to be another wind sheared weather balloon and it is good form for senators to publicly deny everything about the incident. If, however, the player uses telepathy or telekinesis twice in a 17 day (408) hour period, then the player will be treated as having used that Paranormal Power. This paragraph takes precedence over the Rule called 'Dealing with the Paranormal'.
Rule 1118/4
Dealing with the Paranormal
Calvin N Hobbes (Thierry Joffrain)
The W-File Pair is a team of two agents, Mold and Scold. They investigate paranormal activities and the use of unnatural abilities.If a player has made use of a Paranormal Power then that player (also called Krykec for the purposes of this rule) is taken in for questioning. Krykec will be injected with an alien sedative which destroys one of her doses of psi-enhancer if she has at least one, and which otherwise removes whichever Paranoral Power that player has most recently used. They will then question Krykec about 'alien colonization' for 48 hours, during which time Krykec may neither take any action that would be prohibited if she were in Gaol, nor make any use of Paranormal Powers. Krykec is not actually in Gaol during that time, however, and she is released after the 48 hours are over.
If a non-player entity makes use of a Paranormal Power, then the W-File Pair will investigate the incident. In this case, a player, to be called Krykec for the purposes of this rule, will be randomly selected to assist in this investigation.
Within seven days of being called Krykec for the purposes of this rule, the player must write a report to be called 'W-File Case #number' (where number is the report number). It is good form for all players to sneer publicly at the contents of the report. At least one Scientist must write a refuting report that should contain the phrases 'violates the laws of physics' and 'a claw is a claw and nobody has seen a talking claw'. Any Scientist may exempt himself from the responsiblity of writing this report himself by publicly posting a message in which he states:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." [William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5]and specifies the particular W-File Case e is exempting emself from any time within seven days of the W-File Case being posted, unless he is the only Scientist remaining who has not posted a "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." [William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5] message. If there is only one Scientist remaining who has not declared himself to be "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." [William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5] for a particular W-File Case, then that Scientist, who is designated the Horatio for that W-File, is now the only Scientist responsible for writing the refuting report described above, and must do so within seven days of the W-File Case to be refuted being posted, unless another Scientist does so first [out of the goodness of his heart, I guess]. If no refuting report is posted by any Scientist within seven days of a W-File Case being reported, then all Scientists who had not exempted themselves from the responsibility of writing that refuting report will have committed a Crime. The Mad Scientist is not considered a Scientist, for the purposes of this Rule alone; this takes precedence over any other Rule which may state or imply that e is.The W-File pair is a named, unownable entity.
Rule 1123/1
snowgod's Disease
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
A horrible epidemic is sweeping across Acka!This epidemic is named "snowgod's Disease." Its sufferers are highly prone to send private messages to the public forum, particularly if those private messages are to one's co-conspirators in a scam, coup attempt, or other loophole surfing activity. To preserve the public health of Acka, some action must be taken!
Whenever a player believes another player is infected with snowgod's Disease, he may call a Public Health Emergency by posting in a public message that he is doing so, and naming which player he believes is infected. A Public Health Emergency is a type of Hearing. The valid responses are, "Yes, why just yesterday e posted a letter to eir aunt!" and, "No, e, uh, meant to do that." If the verdict is "Yes, why just yesterday e posted a letter to eir aunt!" the named player is determined to be infected with snowgod's Disease until the end of the calendar month, and the player who called the Hearing, known for this purpose as the Medical Examiner, shall within the next seven days, publically post what treatment he feels the infected player should be subjected to. This "prescription" is not a legally binding document. No player may have a Public Health Emergency called against him more than one per calendar month, as this would be just plain too silly.
Rule 1127/1
Sanctity of Harf
Robert Sevin (Mitchell Harding)
No player may have the character string (delimited by the quotation marks) "harf", nor any variation wherein the only difference is capitalization, contained within their Ackanomic name.
Rule 1129/1
Crazy French-Scotsmen
Robert Sevin (Mitchell Harding)
Any new player of Ackanomic (defined, for these purposes, as a player who has been a player of Ackanomic for less than 31 days) that is playing Ackanomic for the first time (i.e. they have only joined the game of Ackanomic once) may publicly complain when they lose any points or currency. When they exercise this option, the penalty will immediately be counteracted. In order for this complaint to have the effects described in this rule, it must express the sentiment "I didn't understand the rules! You keep changing the rules! You never told me about that rule!". It need not (and in fact is encouraged not to) use those exact phrases, but it must adequately express those sentiments.If the penalty involved a loss of points, the penalized player's score (after having the penalty revoked) will be raised to the first prime number higher than their current score. If the penalty involved a loss of currency, the player with the most currency (in case of a tie, the player with the most currency whose Ackanomic name occurs first alphabetically) must give the new player currency, the amount of which must be positive and non-zero. The player cannot be selected to give themselves currency. In this case, whichever player (other than the penalized player) with the most vowels in their name will give the penalized player a positive non-zero amount of currency.
This public complaining may only be exercised 3 times by any player. If a player manages to legitimately exercise this ability 3 times within a 48 hour period, they will be dubbed a Crazy Scotsman. If the player manages to legitimately exercise this ability 3 times within a 24 hour period, they will instead by dubbed a Crazy French-Scotsman.
Rule 1131/9
The Sinister Alien Abduction Act
snowgod (Phil Ackley)
Section I - AbductionSinister Aliens exist. They are located at an advance staging base on the metallic universal sphere directly over the top of the earth (henceforth known as the edge of the universe). Sinister Aliens may alter the text of a Rule, in the manner and under the conditions set out below. This process is known as "abduction". The effect of an abduction on a Rule, when it has an effect, is that of a temporary repeal of said Rule, plus any prescribed rule changes contained herein .
The selection of the Rule to be abducted by Sinister Aliens occurs as follows: as soon as possible after the distribution of the magic potato, the Officer in Charge of Random Things shall select a random integer in the range [M,N], where M and N are, respectively, the numbers of the lowest and highest numbered Rulespresent in the Ruleset. A number selected by this method shall be known as a Alien Target Designation Number. If the Alien Target Designation Number selected is the number of a Rule, then that Rule is abducted as described below unless the Rule is protected as described below, and no further Alien Target Designation Numbers are selected in that week. If the Alien Target Designation Number is the number of a Rule Suite(that is, there exists a Rule Suite the base number of whose rules is the Alien Target Designation Number), then one of the Rules in that Suite(including, possibly, the Head of that Suite, if it exists), determined at random, shall be abducted instead. If the Alien Target Designation Number is does not correspond to the number of a Rule or a Rule Suite, then a new Alien Target Designation Number is selected as above, unless three such Alien Target Designation Numbers(none of which is the number of a Rule)have already been selected that week. In that case, the Sinister Aliens are deemed incompetent and no Rule can be abducted until the next Magic Potato distribution.
If the Sinister Aliens are deemed incompetent and all three Alien Target Designation Numbers are prime, then the Treasury shall pay A$100 to each active player, to recompense them for the emotional duress caused by the Sinister Alien attack.
If a Rule has been abducted or if an abduction attempt has been made but defeated, the Officer in Charge of Random Things shall announce the number and title of that Rule. If no Rule has been abducted, then he shall announce that fact.
It is considered good form for the officer in charge of random things to include an epic tale of Ancient Alien Battles or a story of the Sinister Alien's journey from the edge of the universe in this announcement. It is also considered good form to announce that the Sinister Aliens "were surely the Nemesis of our own Ancients" and that "We shall One day triumph over them, just as our forefathers, the ancients, must have!"
An abducted Rule shall be treated as if it has been repealed for a period of one week. After one week the rule is said to be returned by the aliens. All nomic business related to said rule will be put on hold until the rule is returned by the Sinister Aliens. Any deadlines that had been specified by the abducted rule that would otherwise fall within the week of the rule's absence shall be extended one week. This deadline extension takes precedence over all other rules. Any Bad Pointer References created by the abduction (and temporary repeal) of this rule shall be treated as ambiguous rule changes.
Section II - Protection
The President may purchase an Earth Defense Missle for any Rule for the sum of A$250 per Rule. No other player may purchase Earth Defense Missles, but it is considered good form for a player to donate money to the President to help defray costs. The Prresident may not purchase more than two Earth Defense Missles in any one calendar week.
If the Sinister Aliens attempt to abduct a rule that has been protected with Earth Defense Missles the aliens shall be blown out of the sky and the rule designated by the Alien Target Designation Number will remain intact, and in its original form. The President then has the option acting "hip" and making a speech congratulating Ackanomic on its victory.
Section III - Exemption
There is one exception to the above: if this Rule is the abducted Rule the Sinister Aliens shall have abducted the only power they maintain over our ruleset. As it would be impossible for them to return the rule, this rule shall then repeal itself.
All Rule Changes caused by the Sinister Alien Abduction Act shall be attributed to Sinister Aliens.
The selection of an existing Rule to be abducted by Sinister Aliens is considered a Paranormal Power use by a non player entity.
Rule 1132/0
Alien Abductions of Players
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)
Within 3 days after a rule is abducted by Sinister Aliens, any player may make a call for Alien Volunteers by announcing publicly "There has been a spacecraft sighted, flying high above the sky." [They Might Be Giants, "For Science", 1st verse]After such a call, players may volunteer to meet the aliens by posting publicly "Yes, I will kiss the girl from Venus, for science." [They Might Be Giants, "For Science", 3rd verse] until either 3 days have elapsed or there are 3 such volunteers, whichever comes first.
However, at any time before this procedure ends, any player may announce "Now listen all you swingers, don't you try to tag along." [They Might Be Giants, "Absolutely Bill's Mood", line 12] After a player does so, no additional Swingers may volunteer in the above manner for that abduction, though any Swingers who have already volunteered are not affected and non-Swingers may continue to volunteer.
When the aliens return the rule whose abduction prompted the call for Alien Volunteers, if there are any volunteers, one is selected at random to be abducted in the Aliens' spaceship (in addition to any rule that might be abducted). Within 3 days of being abducted, the abducted volunteer should announce the spaceship launch together with the name of a moon; the player is then transported to that moon. If he fails to do so within this time, he is found to be left behind by the Aliens in a far-off field in the Wilds of Ackanomia. [You didn't think they landed in the middle of downtown, did you?]
