How to Play Nomic—The Game of Faulty Democracy

Created in 1982 by philosopher Paul Suber, Nomic is a game where players create the rules by voting diplomatically. As laws stack up, the tangled web of restrictions is eventually undone by one player who manipulates the system and claims victory.

Number of players: Three or more. An odd number of players is recommended to prevent ties. The game can adjust for this problem though, since players make rules as they go along (for example, they might grant the creator of any given rule one and a half votes.)
Equipment: A six-sided die, a pen, and a deck of index cards. If there are no index cards about, a few sheets of paper will do.

Rules of play:
1.) Choose a player to go first.
2.) That player proposes a new rule.
3.) The players vote as to whether the rule passes.
4.) If the rule passes, that new rule is written down on an index card.
5.) The active player rolls a six-sided die, and adds the value to their score total. Then if that player has one hundred or more points, they win the game.
6.) Play continues to the player to that person’s right. Go back to step two.

Note #1: A game where a player rolls the die every rotation and eventually gets to one hundred points would be a horrible slog over approximately 28-29 rounds. That’s intentional. The point of having an inefficient way to achieve victory is so that players will latch onto the flawed system and create rules to solve the problem. Maybe players get to roll an extra die when they get someone a drink (that they ask for) or vote positively for a bill. Maybe players need to tell a terrible joke when they roll a three, and get ten points if someone groans. How the players achieve 100 points is up to their imagination, their ability to massage the pre-existing rules, and their ability to manipulate their friends.

Note #2: Just because there is a clear path to victory (having 100 points) does not mean that’s the only way to win Nomic. New rules can always establish alternative ways to win. In fact, a new rule may remove the ability to win when a player achieves 100 points.

Note #3: Be aware that just because you make a rule that says players can’t do something, doesn’t mean that there’s a system in place to penalize those players. For example, saying that it’s against the rules to laugh is meaningless if there is no consequence for laughing. This problem, of course, can be solved with further rules.

Note #4: I’d personally avoid player elimination when possible. Not only does it make things awkward for players who can no longer play, but it decreases the amount of players voting until only two players are left. It’s certainly possible to play and win a two player game of Nomic, but it can be a real challenge to move things forward between two voters while everyone else is either bored or having a fun time without you.

Note #5: For ease of play, I recommend assigning every rule a number. It makes it much easier to talk about the rules that way.

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Additional rules: Suber’s initial ruleset includes a few rules I don’t personally recommend. Nomic is great because it’s so simple and easy to explain, only to turn into a terrible mess in the end. I don’t think Suber’s additional rules about the sorts of actions players can do on their turn fits the spirit of that mentality. But if you played a few games of Nomic already, and are looking for a minor touch of structure to the voting process, then your play group might find these additional rules acceptable.

According to Suber, rules are divided into two types: mutable and immutable. Immutable rules always take precedence over mutable rules. They’re also more durable and take additional steps to create and eliminate.

When establishing a new rule, players have five different options. They may:

• Propose a new mutable rule
• Propose an amendment to a mutable rule
• Propose a repeal of a mutable rule
• Propose to transmute a rule from mutable to immutable
• Or propose to transmute a rule from immutable to mutable

Interestingly, Suber didn’t include any path to add an amendment to an immutable rule to this list. I suppose to do that, one would need to make the rule mutable first… which would put the rule in danger of being repealed in one step.