Mornington Crescent

[jalapeno_dude]

Pish tosh! Of course a Karma penalty can be any arbitrary number, as can a Karma bonus. That is not in dispute. But if there is an inventory cap than certainly no more than this amount of items can be deducted from one's inventory at once. Hence as I stated above I am left with nonnegative Karma once the Penalty is deducted. To argue otherwise would be to assert that the game can, in fact, track, an amount of Karma larger than the cap, which makes a mockery of your assertion; in that case my full Karma bonus from my original selfless act of towel-donation would also be tracked and merely not added to my inventory until needed.

[Alicorn]

Of course no more can be deducted. You simply cannot afford the penalty! If you were obliged to pay a penalty of seventeen pieces of eight when you had only four, you would not wind up with negative thirteen pieces of eight, you just would fail to pay your penalty and suffer appropriate consequences. In this case, your penalty was voluntarily incurred as you yourself chose to invite the Debate! But you cannot afford to do it, because you only have 999 nonillion karma, due to this being a digital game with an inventory cap. The penalty is larger than what you have available and you may not volunteer to incur it (1.29) when you could in any way do otherwise (such as by refraining from initiating this Debate). That you did not track your karma in a non-inventory manner when you initially accrued it is your own mistake!

[Lambda]

jalapeno_dude, you lost 10 million Karma (for Bad Sport) on Turn Two, 10,000 x 10,600 Karma (for Indulgences) on Turn Two, and 6.02 x 10^23 Karma (for actions while Disguised) on Turn Five. You therefore had only 998,999,999,397,999,999,999,999,884,000,000 Karma with which to pay the penalty. Therefore, even if the penalty is capped at 999 nonillion Karma, you are still left with a deficit.

[jalapeno_dude]

Alicorn, I disagree with your example! Standard Accounting Rules (Appendix $.3, pages 23843-42187) allow me to accept a temporary Deficit of anything, including the pieces of eight in your example, as long as I can bear the associated Costs, e.g. by borrowing the appropriate amount and maintaining a high enough Credit Rating to assuage my creditors. Thus I could certainly have negative thirteen pieces of eight [or thirteen pieces of negative eight] if I so desired. [Of course I could only have up to negative 999 nonillion pieces of eight in my inventory if an inventory cap existed.]

You cite 1.29, but this is merely repeating an argument we have already had; if this game had an inventory cap I would be able to incur the penalty.

[jalapeno_dude]

Lambda, your argument might be valid [provided that we actually were in a game with an inventory cap and you Joined the Debate], but [happily for me] Alicorn explicitly ruled out these deductions by stipulating that "[my] karma has technically been at that ceiling ever since [I gained the amount of Karma larger than 999 nonillion]". I think we are supposed to assume that the digital precedent for this game treated the largest possible inventory value as the equivalent of infinity; any smaller amount subtracted from it would still yield the largest possible inventory value. Depending on the implementation, subtracting 999 nonillion again would yield either 999 nonillion, 0, or "not a number" Karma, none of which are negative amounts of Karma.

[Alicorn]

The cap is not "infinity", but rather 999 nonillion. Treating 999 nonillion as though it were some other, larger, non-999-nonillion number flouts the letter and the spirit both of the cap!

[pistachi0n]

(Is it my turn? I think it is but I don't want to skip somebody again.)

[jalapeno_dude]

[I missed the 36-hour deadline to rebut Alicorn's latest Point, which means I must concede to her Counterattack. I therefore lack the means to Riposte, and the Debate is retroactively deemed to have never begun at all. As a result, it seems that Alicorn has triumphed!]

Congratulations, Alicorn! In your first MC game, too; very impressive!

If people wish to continue playing Mornington Crescent, Aminev gives Alicorn, as winner, the right to choose the ruleset and start condition for the next game. I suggest creating a new thread and allowing new people to sign up as well...

[Alicorn]

Yaaaaaaay! *confetti*

It may be time for a Mornington Crescent break just as it was time for a Mafia break. (Perhaps it is time for a Mafia resumption. D'you suppose it's been long enough?)

[pistachi0n]

I think it's time for a Mafia resumption!