Ooh, I just happen to have a draft of a "Welcome to Nomicide" post I'm writing in TextEdit over here, and I just finished the "What is Nomic?" section. Let me just inflict it on you post it for you...
What is Nomic?
Nomic is a philosophical exercise. Nomic is a simulation of operating legal systems. Nomic is a wacky and unique gaming experience. Nomic is whatever the players want it to be - a card game, a Monopoly variant, a computer program ... almost anything.
...that was pretty uninformative. Let's back up.
Back in 1982, a philosophy research professor by the name of Peter Suber published an early draft of the rules of the game in Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas column. The book from which the rules were lifted was finally completed in 1990, and is now available online: it is called The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Law, Logic, Omnipotence, and Change.
As you may have guessed, Nomic is a game invented to demonstrate this thesis.
Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.
Of course, it need not be an exercise in philosophy - quite often, players simply enjoy the creation of new rules as they race to a winning score.
What is Nomic?
Nomic is a philosophical exercise. Nomic is a simulation of operating legal systems. Nomic is a wacky and unique gaming experience. Nomic is whatever the players want it to be - a card game, a Monopoly variant, a computer program ... almost anything.
...that was pretty uninformative. Let's back up.
Back in 1982, a philosophy research professor by the name of Peter Suber published an early draft of the rules of the game in Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas column. The book from which the rules were lifted was finally completed in 1990, and is now available online: it is called The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Law, Logic, Omnipotence, and Change.
As you may have guessed, Nomic is a game invented to demonstrate this thesis.
Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.
Of course, it need not be an exercise in philosophy - quite often, players simply enjoy the creation of new rules as they race to a winning score.
Whatever it is, more info (and pretty reliable info - Nomic geeks have been known to revert inappropriate edits within a minute of their creation) can be found on the Nomic Wikipedia page, or in Appendix 3 of Suber's book, where the game is formally defined.
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