The Game of Law

version 0.5.1 (12-12-2010)

Overall game mechanics:

• Change, add or remove legislature in order to increase your chances to gain points.
• Change, add or remove legislature in order to decrease the chances of others to gain points.
• Write legislature that gains popular support and gain points.
• Participate constructively and gain points.
• Vote on legislature that puts you in a favorable position.
• Work together or create factions.

The mechanics above only apply if the starting set of rules are in effect. These rules are likely to change, and will heavily influence game mechanics. They may even remove points from the game altogether.

The moderators serve as judges: they must follow the law, but have room to interpret. If you want less interpretation room, write better laws.

The Constitution

1. No article in the Constitution can be changed or removed from the game, except for specific situations described in this Constitution.
2. An article may be removed from the Constitution and turned into a part of Common Law. The proposal must reach 75% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 20% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round.
3. No one can write a new Constitution article.
4. The moderator(s) reserve(s) the right to veto any legislature, if it may render gameplay  impossible.
5. If conflicting laws exist, Constitutional law always applies before Common Law.
6. If conflicting laws exist within either the Constitution or the Common Law, we look at the numerical sorting. Law 1 applies before Law 2, Law 5 applies before Law 12, et cetera.
7. Emergency laws will only be in effect for a limited number of rounds, with a maximum of 4 rounds.
8. Emergency laws are created in the same way as Common Law, but cannot be changed in any way.

Common Law

1. You win the game when you reach a number of 10*n points, where n = the number of subscribers at the end of the round.
2. If you post in an active game thread, when a round is in progress, your highest scoring comment will be counted as points, with a maximum of 0.5*n, where n = the number of subscribers at the end of the round.
3. Game rounds periods of time, defined and announced by the moderator(s), in which game actions can be performed. Game actions are such things as (but not limited to) proposing new legislation, proposing changes, and submitting votes.
4. New proposals on legislation can only be entered during a game round.
5. All votes will be counted at the end of the round. Screenshots will be made. Voting after the end of round is technically possible, but will have no effect on the game.
6. Every redditor is eligible to play. When you post in an active game thread, you automatically play.
7. All articles of Common Law can be changed or removed. The proposal must reach 51% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 10% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round.
8. New articles may be added to Common Law. The proposal must reach 51% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 10% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round.
9. An existing article of Common Law can be turned into a part of the Constitution. The proposal must reach 75% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 20% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round.
10. About the position and sorting of laws:

1. New laws will be added at the end.
2. One can propose to change the position of an article. The proposal must reach 51% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 20% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round.
3. If an article changes position, all other articles will be adjusted accordingly.

11. During each round, every player may propose to change, remove or add 1 piece of legislation.
12. A proposed piece of legislation may not be edited, except for ninja edits, The fearsome asterisk will show if a comment has been changed.
13. Only the top 3 propositions will pass, provided they have met their individual conditions.
14. When you break a law, your post or comment will be removed.
15. Information on criminals and their unlawful actions will be made public.
16. When a criminal has been convicted 3 times, the community may vote to ban the perpetrator. The moderators must use the banhammer if the community so wishes. The proposal must reach 75% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 20% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round.
17. When we have a winner, the game ends. We have a special thread to vote on the basis of a new game: will we play with the current rules, or go back to the original rules and start over. The proposal to switch back to original rules must reach 75% of votes. The number of votes cast must be at least 20% of the total number of subscribers, counted at the end of the game round. Else, we continue with the current rules.
18. Formatting of Legislative Proposals

For the purposes of organization and legibility, each proposal of a new Common Law shall

a) be either a New Post or a New Comment within a post, and b) shall start with the following header:

{ Legislation Proposal }: #SHORT_TITLE#

where #SHORT_TITLE# is a short description of the legislation being proposed.

19. Bound by the law

Everyone who participates in the game is bound by its laws.

20. Eligibility of casted upvotes and downvotes

(1) Any upvote to a proposed legislation MUST be accompanied by a reply to the proposed legislation stating the following:

(1 - a) Mandatory line: "yea", "yes", or "agreed" in bold, on its own line

(1 - b) Optional line: a reason for this decision

(2) Any downvote to a proposed legislation MUST be accompanied by a reply to the proposed legislation stating the following:

(2 - a) Mandatory line: "nay", "no", or "disagreed" in bold, on its own line

(2 - b) Optional line: a reason for this decision

(3) This form of reply, henceforth called THE VOTE, can only be done once per proposed legislation per account. If an account is found to reply twice or more to a proposed legislation, all THE VOTES by the account are deemed invalid and ignored from the final count.

(4) Any VOTE which adheres to (1) is considered to be an AGREEMENT VOTE and gives +1 to the final count of the proposed legislation.

(5) Any VOTE which adheres to (2) is considered to be a DISAGREEMENT VOTE and gives -1 to the final count of the proposed legislation.

(6) The number of upvotes and downvotes of a proposed legislation are replaced with the number of THE VOTES attached to it. The upvote and downvote counts from reddit.com will be replaced with the final count of THE AGREEMENT VOTES and THE DISAGREEMENT VOTES.

(7) To cover the event of active abstention, it is possible to reply to a proposed legislation with anything other than the specified format. This will be counted as abstaining from voting on this proposed legislation, and contributes +0 to the final count. This ABSTAINING VOTE is counted towards the total allowed mentioned in (3).

(8) Any VOTE is eligible if all of the following conditions are satisfied:

(8 - a) the account used to write THE VOTE has redditor for X months where X is larger or equal to 6. In the event of dispute, the moderator is allowed to decide on whether a VOTE is eligible or not.

(8 - b) the reply in question has no asterisk-mark from reddit, which denotes an edit has taken place after the 3 minutes mark.

(9) The final count will be performed by the moderator, or any person directly appointed by the moderator through a game-wide announcement.

(10) In the event of final count mismatch or dispute on the final count for any proposed legislation, anyone can propose a re-count of the final count. It will pass only with a final count of strictly more than 51% of participants. Once passed, the proposed legislation will be set aside from the common law, and a re-count will be initiated.

(11) The re-count mentioned in (10), if passed, will be done by the person proposing the re-count and reviewed by the moderator. The final decision of which count to take shall be decided on a vote between: the person proposing the re-count, the moderator, and one person chosen by the moderator in a list of maximum 5 persons, minimum 3 persons, written by the person proposing the re-count.

Case Law

1. It is not explicitly forbidden to make more than one legislation proposal. Doing so will not be considered a criminal act.
2. Comments in a game thread are sorted with the ‘top’ algorithm.

Emergency Law

1. During the first 3 rounds, and no longer than 3 rounds, the moderators reserve the right to adjust all numbers within both the Constitution and the Common Law, which influence the outcome of voting.

1. The moderators solemnly swear they’ll only try to do what’s best for gameplay.