Diary 2019-01-30

By Max Woerner Chase

Sleep update: slept earlier, somewhat better rested. I'm definitely not all better all at once, so I'll have to keep at this.

Besides working on my sleep habits, I also got some of Continuum's rules formalized into a flowchart. There were some ambiguities that I had to make a judgment call on, or consult third-party clarifications in the Internet Archive (!!!). Some things, I'm still not sure about. Like, in a competitive action, suppose P1 is at N4 and rolls a 2, for a total roll of 2. P2 is at A5 and rolls a 4, for a total of 1. At this stage, P1 should beat P2. But suppose we counterfactually add in P3, at J6, who rolls a 6, for a total roll of 0. Adding a superior contestant with a worse roll causes the competion to favor, instead of P1... P2. Time travel really is confusing. Now, it's possible, maybe likely, that I'm coming to this conclusion as a result of a flawed reading of the rules, but I'm not exactly sure where I went wrong, if so.

If I had to house-rule this, I'd say that the superiority-style rules... no, I thought I had something, but there are always weird counterfactuals, I think. My intuitive desires are that adding characters should not function as a kingmaker, and that something like the superiority rules remain intact, and I'm doubtful it's possible to have both at once, and the former is harder.

Another way to look at the problem is, in the above counterfactual, the individual matchups aren't transitive. So there's no way to combine the matchups without reversing one or two of them. For now, I choose to just not worry about this.

For now, I'd better wrap up, and work on the highest priority: resting. Good night.