Thinking a lot about ratchets lately. Internal and external. Ratchets are more fundamental than clocks. Things that can only grow in one direction, and reversed only via destruction.
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Was part of a society for a long-running game, rules changes were brought in by committee. Old guard had two explicit and oft-quoted mantras:
1. Hate and fear change
2. Fight the ratchet
(Hard to roll back changes to a 'good' state, and power creep is ≈impossible to undo)
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Caveat: I can't recommend running a game with rules updates in this way unless you absolutely love meetings and exacting pedantry in procedure and rules-lawyering.
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Yeah that does not sound like much fun. Like Robert's Rules of Order but for its own sake rather than running parliamentary proceedings.
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It's greatest merit is eventually producing game designers used to writing rules that will only see the light of play if they can be successfully justified in this gauntlet. Sort of a know-the-conventions-before-you-break-them training ground.
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