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Nomic: "...a game in which changing the rules is a move."
- saurabh 16y agoHaven't read about it before but sounds interesting.
- anthonyb 16y agoIt 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 http://www.nomic.net/~nomicwiki/index.php/PerlNomic
- davidalln 16y agoThis sounds a lot like the semi-popular college game 1000 Blank White Cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Blank_White_Cards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Blank_White_Cards)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- pw0ncakes 16y agoSounds 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.
- hugh3 16y agoSorry, I just changed the rules and now you're not allowed to play.
- GHFigs 16y agoIf 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.
- plorkyeran 16y agoBlogNomic's current round is (possibly) about to end, so if you want to try playing it online you could jump in when the next game starts.
- byrneseyeview 16y agoMaybe before/after the next Hackers & Founders meeting you could get some folks together. I am definitely interested.
- njl 16y agoWhen 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.
- milkshakes 16y agoFor 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/ http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/
- gte910h 16y agoBe forewarned, the game can go quite long as mathematically, there is no guarantee it will halt.
- hugh3 16y agoIt can also be quite frequently won on the first turn.
- jeffbradberry 16y agoNot at all in any of the variants I know of.
- gte910h 16y agoBy 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.
- dfreidin 16y agoIn Monty Python Fluxx, you can play "Play All," use "Bring Out Your Dead" to get rid of all your cards except for "The Cheese Shop" which you then play to win.
- msg 16y agoBut as a player there are many things you can do to ensure that it ends quickly (draw 4, play all, let's do that again, take another turn). You might not always be the beneficiary but the game will be over shortly. I'm a fan of the zombie version, which is a hoot.
- jsomers 16y agoHofstadter 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=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 http://books.google.com/books?id=o8jzWF7rD6oC&dq=metamag....
- Vivtek 16y agoPartly 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 16y agoPeter 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.
- chokma 16y agoNomic 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.
- lambda 16y agoAh, 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/ http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/macronomic/
- lambda 16y agoHey, 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/ http://www.agoranomic.org/ It was started in 1993; that's an impressive run.
- blahedo 16y agoAgora 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 16y agoI 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."
- mkramlich 16y agoFluxx. highly recommend for hackers. same spirit as Nomic but MUCH simpler and easier to learn and play. And fast.
- div 16y agoThis brought back fond memories of calvinball http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball