Gadgeteer

In the context of Mornington Nomic, a Gadgeteer is someone who believes that the game is all about the 'bells and whistles'. There is somewhat of a fine line between Gadgeteers and Rule Inventors, but in general a Rule Inventor will want to add more complexity to the existing structure, while a Gadgeteer will want to add new structure which may be, but more often is not, relevant to the supposed goal of the game.

(For instance, when it comes to rules for moving around on the London Underground in an effort to reach Mornington Crescent: a Rule Inventor would look to make up rules and conventions for how one should move, different methods of moving, different restrictions that prevent certain kinds of moves and so on, and carefully weigh out every possible option as to how a player's tokens should be disposed when doing so, whereas a Gadgeteer would want to add in a feature allowing players to busk for money or tokens in the tunnels and invent a collection of four or five musical instruments to busk with, at least one of which is wildly implausible but 'sounds like a cool idea'.)

To bring an unnecessary collection of stereotypes into the matter, Gadgeteers tend to get annoyed at Rule Inventors for 'messing with their ideas', and dismiss Purists as reactionary killjoys (but have a secret smile to themselves and give themselves some bragging points when one of their ideas gets accepted by the Purists, especially if it wasn't 'modified out of all recognition' by Rule Inventors first …)

If two Gadgeteers have ideas that contradict each other, they will both ignore each other and carry on regardless, leaving the mess to be sorted out by others.

[JLE]

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