--- id: GROUND-RPT-0006 type: report title: "clay-borg: all four Scenarios and all three Modes measured — modes change who wins, not whether the group survives" domain: consumer repo: ground-game status: informational owner: bernd topic_slug: whynot created: "2026-08-08" extends: GROUND-WP-0003 --- # Boards and Modes measurement receipt (CB-EV-0033) Upstream: clay-borg `evidence/CB-EV-0033-boards-and-modes.md`. **Context:** clay-borg dealt `SCN_01` and only `SCN_01` for its whole existence — `deal()` took a scenario id and the one caller passed a literal, so **15 of the 20 Problem cards had never been dealt by anything**. Fixed on our side; all four boards and all three modes now run. 4 × 3 × 3 cells, 100 games each, two bots. Everything below is bots, no felt play. --- ## 1. SCN_01 and SCN_02 are the same board — is that intended? Identical suit **and** value at every priority. Every measured cell matches exactly, at every seat band, under both bots. A reskin is a legitimate choice and we are not calling this a defect. But it means **"four scenarios" is three boards**, and any study treating them as four independent samples double-counts one. We have pinned the current state with a test so a future divergence is a decision rather than a drift. **Ask:** intended reskin, or did one deck get copied and not re-tuned? --- ## 2. SCN_04 is materially harder at 2 players | board | 2p group success (/100) | |---|---| | SCN_01 / SCN_02 | 67 | | SCN_03 | 73 | | **SCN_04** | **52** | **Your own data holds everything else fixed.** All four 2p deals are Surface + priorities 1–2, all four give 6 available points against a threshold of 5, all four start at Stress 2 over five rounds. The only difference is the suit multiset: | board | 2p suits | |---|---| | SCN_01 / SCN_02 | Repair, Clarify, Boundary | | SCN_03 | Boundary, Clarify, Repair | | **SCN_04** | **Repair, Clarify, Repair** | SCN_04 is the only 2p deal needing **two of one suit**. **We are not claiming causation** — nothing here demonstrates the second Repair is what costs the 15 points. But the seat-band thresholds (5 / 7 / 9) are uniform across boards, and at 2p the boards are not. **Ask:** is a ~15-point spread at 2p acceptable board variety, or should the 2p threshold or SCN_04's priority-2 suit move? --- ## 3. Every board is a formality at 6 players 100/100 group success in **all twelve** 6p cells, both bots, every mode. Same shape as F17. Reported, not acted on. --- ## 4. The three Modes change **who wins**, not **whether the group survives** We previously reported that the modes produced identical play. That was **our instrument, not your game** — the bot never read the Mode card. We built one that plays its seat's own objective and re-ran everything. **Group success: unchanged in 34 of 36 cells.** (SCN_03 at 4p moves 99 → 100 in all three modes — that is a bot refinement, not a mode effect; it moves under SHARED GROUND too.) **Winning seats per game, BONDED COALITIONS:** | board | 4p, mode-blind bot | 4p, mode-aware bot | |---|---|---| | SCN_01 / SCN_02 | 2.04 | **2.98** | | SCN_03 | 2.12 | **3.29** | | SCN_04 | 2.05 | **3.01** | A seat whose score is its coalition's sum bonds harder, and coalitions come out about half again as large. COMMON PROBLEM moves at 6p (1.10 → 1.17). Nothing else moves. **Control:** under SHARED GROUND the two bots agree at all but ≤2 decision points across twelve boards — so the moving columns are mode-awareness, not "a different bot". **Design reading, offered not asserted:** the Mode card currently decides the *distribution of the win*, and the threshold decides survival independently of it. If a Mode is meant to make the group's task feel different — not just the podium — nothing we can measure says it currently does. ### The seat-band pattern is the interesting part 2p: nothing moves in any mode. 4p: the largest effect. 6p: **nothing** under BONDED COALITIONS. Our candidate explanation is that **two relation slots per seat cap network growth**, so at 6p the incentive exists and cannot be acted on. **This is untested.** It is cheap for us to test if you want it: run with a third relation slot and see whether 6p coalition size then moves the way 4p's does. **Ask:** is the two-slot limit meant to bind this hard at 5–6 players? --- ## 5. Two things needing your ruling **(a) SHARED GROUND's mastery rating counts cards where the shared score counts points.** The Mode card reads *"All claimed Problem cards form one shared score. … For a mastery rating, subtract 1 for each Blame token still in play and 1 for each Denied Problem."* The shared score is claimed **value** (what the threshold is compared against); our engine subtracts those penalties from the claimed **count**. Both readings fit the sentence and they differ on every game where a 3-point Problem is claimed. We have not changed it — scoring is yours. **(b) A package that adds a *file* is invisible to a consumer.** `h2-scoped-problem-stress` ships `Rules_Text.csv` — 22 passages of player-facing rules, including the one that says what a `stress_scope` does — and clay-borg had **never read the file**. Our freshness check verifies files it knows about; a file no reader mentions is not stale, it is unseen. We have since read the passage we needed; the other 21 are still unread. **Ask:** could a package manifest name its own files, so that a consumer reading none of them is a detectable state rather than a silence? --- ## Standing limits on all of the above - **No bot models a rival playing their objective.** A competitive mode in which nobody anticipates an opponent is a weak test of that mode. - **Bond-scoped joint SOLVE remains untested** (CB-EV-0032 criterion 4, unchanged) — these bots read the Mode, not the module. - **No felt play.** All bots, every number. --- ## Ground-game disposition (2026-08-08 review) | # | Finding | Disposition | |---|---------|-------------| | 1 | SCN_01 ≡ SCN_02 mechanically | **Not treated as intentional.** Fiction reskin only; three distinct boards, not four. Residual: re-tune SCN_02 suit and/or values (content workplan). | | 2 | SCN_04 harder at 2p (~52 vs ~67–73) | **Acceptable variety for now** as a harder board; monitor. If table feel is too swingy, first lever is priority-2 suit (drop double Repair), not global thresholds. | | 3 | 6p 100% group success | **Known pattern** (F17 / difficulty line). Not fixed here; deal/pressure modules and WP-0005 disposition (Standard thresholds stand). | | 4 | Modes change *who* wins, not *whether* group succeeds | **Accepted as current design property**, not a defect. Threshold = survival; Mode = distribution. Mode-aware bot was clay-borg instrument fix. | | 5 | 2 relation slots mute 6p coalition effect | **Intentional cap** (complexity/time). Documented; third slot stays extension, not core r0. Optional clay-borg sensitivity run welcome. | | 6 | Mastery: points vs card count | **RULED: points.** Shared score and mastery penalties use **point values**, not card count. Modes.csv clarified. | | 7 | Package file manifest | **Accepted process ask.** Catalog/modules should declare `consumed_files` / overlays so unread files are detectable. Tracked under WP-0008 residual. |