The Nomic World game

The initial ruleset

This was distributed before the game began, but wasn't up for discussion.

Nomic World's first crisis

Using the powers that he thought were open to him as a Judge, a player Lindrum effectively took over the game, declaring himself President for a week and promising a new Constitution. This is the text of his Judgement.

Summary : first month

The first of Steve's summaries of play, covering the first month of the game, and posted on 10 November 1992.

Ruleset on 1/12/92

The Nomic World ruleset from that date.

Summary : fifth month

Although the summaries were intended to come out monthly, there was something of a delay before this one came out on 22 January 1993.

Summary : seventh month

Posted on 11 March 1993.

Last summary

This is the last summary I have. It summarises developments between 10 March and 27 April. Although I am not sure of the dates, it can't have been much after this that Nomic World finally ended.

Some Nomic World rulesets

These rulesets are provided by Nomic World player Evantine, apparently the former Rulekeeper of Nomic World.

The Terrible Proposals

These came about to exploit a bug in the proposal rules that existed briefly in the Nomic World ruleset, and have acquired a certain lasting fame.

Note

Final verdict

(From Steve Gardner (12 February 1996))

Nomic World was not by any means an ideal forum for playing Nomic. In fact, I'd say that, although there were special aspects of NW play which are lacking in Agora (eg the excitement of interactivity), play-by-email has proved itself to be by far the most durable and reliable platform for Nomic play. MUD-play contains a fundamental flaw: its reliance on a wizard-programmer to maintain and update the code as necessary. The presence of this element introduces an almost unbearable strain, for what happens when the public adopts Proposals which the wizard cannot or will not implement? The wizard is not an Officer who can be replaced. And what happens when the software cannot cope with a legal move, such as the submission of a set of Chromatic Repeals, or 500 CFJs? Such problems arose repeatedly during Nomic World's 9 month existence, and they eventually destroyed it.