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Author: u/None *
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Score: 9
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Created: 2016-03-26T10:01:47
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u/Izeinwinter [+17] (3 hours later)
Is oath magic new, or old? Because this makes an enormous difference.
If oath magic has been a part of the setting for a long time, it will have been woven into the fabric of society on a bone deep level, and have utterly transformed it, because this is the kind of thing that allows you to eliminate the agent problem.
Agents of the law will be utterly incorruptible - and perfectly trusted.
Merchants will be non-deceptive, and known to be so, and so on and so forth, because everyone will be using standardized oaths that have been long codified and shown to be abuse and loophole free over the course of centuries.
This also limits munchkinism rather severely, because people will be very, very skeptical of any new oath that isn't in the Codex of Duly Tested, Examined, and Approved Oaths. No oathing to tell the truth and then being technically truthy to get away with shit - if you want to establish trustworthyness magically, you take either the Witness, Judge, Trader, or Enforcers oaths of Not Deceiving People, and those are all darn bulletproof.
If it's new, people will be making up their own oaths and everything will be a clusterfuck because they get it wrong.
u/Epizestro [+2] (4 hours later)
It's quite old, but in the setting it doesn't make much difference. An Oath is a great tool for building trust, and it's useful for merchants, but it loses it's effectiveness when it comes to the ruling class.
The magic system in this setting allows for people to train to a ridiculous height. People can become so strong such that an entire army of people at a lower level can't hope to scratch them. Now, consider that the Oath magic had to be new at some point. The people running the country are going to be the strongest individuals (power gives resources, everyone wants resources for further advancing their magic, large amounts of treachery pre-Oath, ergo the people at the top got there by the sword and stay there with their newly acquired resources) and the people a little lower the totem pole are still going to be strong. They're not going to want to swear Oaths giving away their ability to deceive, to struggle for power. After all, if you reach a high enough level, you can live forever. The people who swear they will never do no wrong are cutting off massive amounts of their own potential for growth. And it's likely they would all band together to avoid making any Oath of the sort, maybe even swearing another Oath to rebel or kill the king's loved ones if they're ever forced to swear an Oath against deceit and the like. So no precedent is set for Oath swearing as a requirement to enter into a position of power, it would never become the tradition and wouldn't be as suspicious if someone didn't swear an Oath upon entering the position.
As for law enforcement, what could swearing an Oath help with there? Criminals can also swear Oaths, making it easy to pass Oaths of truthfulness, by simply Oathing away the memories of the crime. There would be a few more steps once the enforcers get savvy to this, but then there's just a few more steps easily accomplished by Oath. As such, Oaths of truthfulness are nearly worthless after the fact. It's better in-setting to rely on the other branches of magic - scrying, divination, that sort of thing - for anything regarding crimes, because then anyone with knowledge of such things can easily repeat the tests to see if the law enforcement is being truthful or not.
u/Izeinwinter [+5] (5 hours later)
It's not so much for the purposes of a trial.
how to put this.. Okay, modern analogy; Law enforcement relies on people trusting the cops. The more trustworthy law enforcement is, the more effective it ultimately is, because people volunteer information to trusted agents of law and order in a way they do not to such agents that are viewed with suspicion.
Thus, the black witch king in the mountain may be a corrupt and ancient being with a drinking problem, but if said witchking is wise, then the Sheriff? The sheriff is sworn to the law. If the witchking is foolish, sworn to the witch-king.
u/Epizestro [+1] (5 hours later)
I do see where you're coming from there, but for this setting I have, it's not as relevant. The rule of the witchking may be fair under the lawsworn sherrif, but that doesn't matter when a group of unsworn people roll up with more resources and stronger individuals and decide that they want that mountain. Cunning is the most reliable way to gain resources to grow stronger, and Oathing away your ability to exploit your position for more resources is a surefire way to hinder your future growth. In this sense, the witchking has to choose between fair underlings, and competent underlings. When he needs strength to defend his territory, you can be sure he'd pick competent any day.
u/Izeinwinter [+7] (7 hours later)
Resources = Money. A well governed nation will be richer, and tax collecting yields more wealth over time if that's done fairly too.
So unless the magic rewards corruption directly - Meaning that there are spells that run on the heart of a forsaken child and so on, then no, the witchking isn't weakening his power by forcing his underlings to be paragons. After all, if one underling backstabs another for personal advantage, all the resources invested in the stabbed person go poof, and that's a net loss to the witchking, even if it isnt to the stabber.
There are perverse incentives in this system. For example, I think that in a system where you can just pour battle experience and wealth into minions to strengthen them with no real upper bounds on return to investment, the optimum strategy is to have as few sworn minons as at all practical, so that you can concentrate gold ect into them.
So the sheriff is incorruptible. And tearing across the country side desperately trying to cover an absurdly oversized circuit, dealing out very rapid justice so she can sprint to the next village and investigate a robbery there. Sprint because it's faster than riding after the 5th level of investiture. Horses, after all, die if you push them too hard.
Probably not how everyplace would do things, but at least some places will do this. The starting requirement is a ruler with a secure enough position to kick things off, and enough wisdom to see that it is a good idea.
u/Epizestro [+1] (16 hours later)
It's not that the magic rewards corruption, or punishes incorruptibility. It's that being incorruptible holds no advantage in terms of raising your strength. Consider two different sherrifs; one who is perfectly fair and just in his upholding of the law, and another that uses his position for his own ends. If they both start at the same level of strength, the one who exploited his position will be stronger than the one who didn't.
Since this is an older magic in the setting, it has been experimented in towards such a direction. But, the other countries, rulers, sects and the like who didn't instigate an Oath block against their members being would expand if they had the chance. One ridiculously strong character can swing an entire war in their side's favour. You're far more likely to get such a character emerging from a side that doesn't forbid exploitation.
u/Izeinwinter [+7] (20 hours later)
You would be correct.. if corruption didn't affect the wealth of nations. But it does. An individual corrupt sheriff will have more money, than a comparable honest one in an otherwise identical nation. A nation which has only honest sheriffs - because they use magic to enforce that - will be quite a lot wealthier, overall, than it's neighbours. That means higher tax income. Thus, more strength. Uhm. That does the depend on the ruler having enough sense to spend at least most of those increased earnings extravagantly on their minions as opposed to just hogging it all and building more palaces..
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (3 days later)
Because kingdoms are most likely to survive if they are well-managed, and kingdoms are more likely to be well-managed if certain Oaths are sworn by their rulers, you are likely to see most kingdoms ruled by people who, in order to take the throne, had to take an Oath that they would manage the kingdom well.
u/luminarium [+1] (5 days later)
They're not going to want to swear Oaths giving away their ability to deceive, to struggle for power.
I don't think it would work out that way, here's why:
Imagine two societies, A and B. Society A has the people in positions of power swear oaths, Society B doesn't. People in Society B won't trust their leaders to speak truth or to fulfill their promises.
As a result, a capable knight will prefer to pledge his loyalty to a king from Society A instead of a king from Society B, knowing that the king from Society B might screw him over at any time even if he had been entirely loyal. Society A thus winds up with more knights, more power, more ability to militarily crush Society B.
Likewise, capitalists open up their companies in Society A knowing they have laws that they can depend on - that means lower risk, after all. And the knowledge that the rulers in the society won't just nationalize their companies, which can't be said for Society B's leaders. So capitalists primarily invest in Society A turning Society A into an advanced economy, while Society B is still stuck in medieval stasis. Soon Society A will turn out military technologies, and have such an advantage in productivity, that they would overwhelm Society B.
Likewise, people in general will emigrate from Society B, where they fear for their lives (because the rulers are free to kill anyone at will), to Society A, where the rulers have sworn oaths to abide by rule of law and not kill people wantonly. This results in Society A having a far greater population than Society B, which means a much larger economy and a much larger pool of potential conscripts.
So by the law of evolution of societies, Society A will eventually crush Society B and dominate. Just like in the real world, where nations that have a strong rule of law dominate over ones that don't.
And the power elite, knowing that their nations will become advantaged by using oaths, will take action to not only take oaths themselves, but also ensure that the rest of the people in positions of power do likewise. They don't want to be part of the soon-to-fail Society B, after all.
What this means of course, is that a few centuries after the discovery of Oaths, all major countries will have oath-abiding governments.
This is practically a guarantee. If you create a world with oaths where the leaders don't use oaths, it will be entirely unbelievable in my opinion.
u/creatureofthewood [+2] (10 hours later)
his also limits munchkinism rather severely
Realistically, but not fictionally.
Case in point, hpmor.
u/ulyssessword [+12] (7 hours later)
There are two exploitable features here, aside from the obvious. The first is magical knowledge, and the second is magical enforcement.
You have a sealed box and a friend in front of you. You make an oath: "I swear to give my friend a sealed box containing an apple within 10 seconds, or else I will give him a dollar." You give him the sealed box, wait 10 seconds, then check if you have lost a dollar. You now know if the box contained an apple.
Depending on how smart the Oath magic is, you can solve everything by binary search.
Also, depending on the specifics, it could be used for free, instantaneous transportation. "I promise to not touch this table, or else I will give [far off merchant] 100 bales of cotton." Touch the table to teleport the cotton from your warehouse to theirs.
u/Jiro_T [+3] (a day later)
If the oath can make you do things it isn't possible for you to do on your own, there are much better uses than teleporting bales of cotton--oaths become a do-anything spell.
u/None [+8] (3 hours later)
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u/None [+4] (4 hours later)
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u/None [+7] (5 hours later)
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u/None [+4] (5 hours later)
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u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+4] Roll the Dice on Fate (7 hours later)
That's fair. From there it's a matter of skill with rules lawyering, who has more information about the exact rules of Oathing, and who moves fastest. Which means you'd end up with some countries under oath-king rule and some not, which sets up up a nice set of ideological differences set a story in.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (3 days later)
This seems overly cynical in that you assume that this would be the case in every kingdom. There are many monarchs whose underlings were, at least on balance, faithful to them. This becomes more common as you get into smaller polities (i.e. tribes, clans, and bands) since the ruler was closer and closer to the whole group. Depending on when Oath magic got started, you're probably going to see a whole lot of large nations that are ruled in a weirdly tribal/band-like fashion despite their size, because Oaths allow them to maintain that structure.
u/luminarium [+3] (5 days later)
The person who discovers oaths first becomes the oath-king, unless he's a coward or helpless or stupid or something. This is how it'd play out:
- Person A (discoverer of oath magic) abducts some person (B) weaker than him, and forces B to swear oaths of fealty to him on pain of torture. The oath of fealty also includes a provision that prevents them from revealing the fact that they've been subverted.
- Rinse and repeat. Person A can abduct a bunch of people weaker than him, or even have his vassals abduct people, all of whom are weaker than his vassals.
- Once he has enough people, he can have his vassals team up against stronger individuals, forcing them to swear oaths of fealty too. Even if he's only able to abduct the weakest people in the village, once he gets a bunch of them together they'll be able to overcome any ordinary person. And once he's claimed a bunch of ordinary people, he'd be able to overcome a soldier (bows are really useful). And once he's claimed a bunch of soldiers, he'd be able to overcome even a competent soldier / knight, etc.
- Eventually he will be able to subvert his entire village, and then other villages, towns, cities, kingdoms, empires.
u/granker [+6] (10 minutes later)
What are the rules with consequences that you do not have that are not 'owned' by another?
"I swear to you that I will not click my fingers. If I do, I will suddenly:
- reach peak physical condition
- become as healthy as possible
- stop ageing
- become omnipotent
- etcetera So mote it be." Click.
u/None [+3] (20 minutes later)
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u/ArisKatsaris [+7] Sidebar Contender (43 minutes later)
Do people with diseases 'own' their diseases? "If I break my oath, I will suddenly lose my brain tumor"?
u/Epizestro [+2] (an hour later)
That should work, yes. But you can't offer your ill health, so you'd be in the same condition post Oath breaking as pre, just without the disease.
It's also worth to mention that the story is set in a medieval style world, so most non-magical medicinal practitioners aren't capable of diagnosing tumours and the like. A modern-day insert or a capable mage could detect the like, but the latter would have other methods for dealing with this sort of thing anyway.
u/Geminii27 [+2] (an hour later)
"If I break my oath, may I lose my sickness and be unable to regain it for the rest of my mortal life."
u/Epizestro [+2] (an hour later)
No, because you do not currently own those future diseases. You can Oath them away when you get them, but you can't do so beforehand. You also can't set up an Oath where, if you ever fall ill, you Oath away that illness, because you have to own the consequence at the time of swearing.
u/None [+3] (3 hours later)
Can you oath away potentialities?
You technically own the potential to do or become (X). Can you swear an oath to lose the potential to become sick?
Additionally, can you oath away neuroses? Like, you own your PTSD, or your compulsive gambling disorder, or etc.
u/Epizestro [+1] (3 hours later)
You can't Oath away your potential for sickness, but you can Oath away your potential for things you have to work for, either by offering your motivation to do such a thing, or by making an Oath that you'll never become such a thing, with dire consequences.
For neuroses, you'd have to separate them into deficiencies and otherwise. If it's a deficiency (i.e. a lack of motivation, a lack of restraint, the like) then no, you can't Oath that away. If it's something separate (PTSD being a learned reaction from traumatic memories) then you can.
u/RandomDamage [+1] (6 hours later)
The cost would have to have similar value to the action.
You could probably oath away an illness with a vow of poverty, but the cost would be that it comes back if you break the conditions of the vow.
u/granker [+3] (an hour later)
Consider: I don't just own my skills, but my experiences and memories. These could easily be passed down the line to descendants if I was for example on my deathbed. Depending on whether the "self" is contained in a soul in your setting, you could easily craft an Oath to trade bodies with another.
Continuously retraining in a skill could highlight better teaching practices such that the teaching is quickly optimized. Also, people develop and retain skills and knowledge differently, so one package of skills cycling through a series of novice learners to build on the product could output a broader and therefore more useful package.
Large groups of literate individuals could read through pages and transfer all the memories/knowledge contained within to one person so that the information is absorbed at incredible rates.
I wonder if it's possible to duplicate memories through oaths rather than transfer.
Edit: You could through social pressure and time form a society in which the eldest son is duty bound to host their father's soul/memories/skills when they are close to passing, continuing the lineage.
u/creatureofthewood [+7] (10 hours later)
Oaths as a method of communication.
"I shall not die. If I do, may this flower which I invested care into raising burst into flames". Now you know if he's dead or not.
You really gotta firm up "consequences" if you don't want to inadvertently create an entire magic system based on "consequences". It's very hard to give people free reign over what the "consequence" is without finding an exploit. (Even with the example I gave, you can tie the flower-oath to something more trivial and weaponize the flower by tying it to dynamite.)
The easy way is to have rigidly fixed consequences.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+4] fear of last pages (4 hours later)
Firstly, it would likely impose a sense of objective morality upon the world. No matter if the oath works through “divine intervention” or something like a technologically advanced alien civilisation, it would still mean that the population has to adhere to certain standards and word-definitions and is unable to ignore them. Maybe some countries would choose to ignore the Oath in their legal system or outright outlaw invoking it, but it would still be there, like a weird psychological phenomenon — if not outright a law of nature.
If the women from the Judgment of Solomon made an oath setting the penalty as something happening to their supposed son, would that Oath take? If yes, then people are a type of potential property in a moral system that can not be ignored, disputed, or changed. Similar consequences should be expected regarding owning animals of various degrees of intelligence.
Another ultimate litmus test for countries would be whether they require from their politicians, governmental workers, and citizens to take certain kinds of Oaths or not. A standard argument against mandatory Oaths could be made through concept of “free will”. This argument could also be abused to a degree to allow political corruption, nepotism, crime cover-up, etc.
In countries, where citizens are required to take certain Oaths, there would always be the looming risk that an agent from within or without would be able to hijack their entire government by finding a loophole in the currently used version of the mandatory Oath set.
If the Oaths can be used to make someone do something, people would be perceived as functionaries, to a certain degree. An Oath could be arranged this way to make a person be literally unable to stop working on a certain task until they are finished. If a company specialises on this kind of Oaths (let’s call it an Oath-factory), it’s reasonable to assume that it would care about the health condition of its functionaries because they are a valuable asset to it. The penalty section of a typical Oath used by an Oath-factory would resemble a programming code.
On a personal level, Oaths could be used to improve skills and character, to get rid of bad habits (“I swear to stop wanting to smoke if I break this Oath”), to forget things and maybe to share memories and knowledge with others. Oaths made by amateurs would also be more likely to backfire and cause harm to involved parties.
u/None [+3] (5 hours later)
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u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+4] fear of last pages (6 hours later)
I'd say the baby is not explicitly 'owned' by either woman, it is it's own soul
(Opinion:)
It’s perfectly fine for you-the-writer to use WordOfGod for establishing and defining laws of the setting, because that’s what sci-fi and fantasy are largely about — changing basic aspects of our reality to investigate how such changes would affect the human society and using the narrative of adventure to deliver investigation results.
However, the same doesn’t hold true for using WoG to define certain social behaviours (unless psychological characteristics themselves are what you’re changing as a basic aspect). Not only does that defeat the whole purpose of social inquiry, but you also have to consider that your audience will be reading the story while holding certain expectations. They’d expect, for instance, for people in your world to have psychological characteristics similar to people from ours. And if people in your world act differently without any explanation for that difference, at best it would be making your audience frustrated by their illogical actions.
The only way I can see it happening is if ...
This is the point where you should start to change\broaden your opinion on the matter instead of continuing to bend the world’s laws to conform to your opinion.
Especially if the Oath system is not a new phenomenon, there would have been at least some countries in its history which decided to use the Oaths for one reason or another. And at least some of them would’ve survived to this day because a country without corruption would be much more efficient in going through the technology levels. Some of them would’ve self-eliminated for various reasons (e.g. getting hijacked, having crazy dictators, etc), yes, but as with any kind of evolutionary system, the ones that survived would be the more durable and balanced ones. So: your world would have had at least some powerful countries that have Oath-powered political hierarchies.
As for the Oath factories, what incentive could such a place have to entice people to want to work there?
Well, this one you can tweak out to a certain degree depending on how your story’s background canvas is painted. For instance: [in your world there is no philosophical analogue to Free Software Movement] → [there are at least some poor strata and countries (safe Oaths for self-improvement are expensive and scarce)] → [they get economically abused by their more developed counterparts]. And akin to how sweatshops are a thing in our worlds, employee-abusive Oath-factories would be a thing in yours.
On the other hand, I’d think that even if everybody had their basic needs covered, at least some people would find working through an Oath factory more effective. In this case, of course, the factories would be more interested in caring for not only the well-being of their employees but also for their rights.
u/Jiro_T [+2] (a day later)
any Oath with it's harm as the consequence would require it's permission.
That still allows a loophole. The age at which someone understands X and is free of outside influence isn't a yes/no thing; people gradually get more and more independent as they age. What's the highest level of dependency that's still independent enough that someone can take an oath? Can a 5 year old or 10 year old take one? Clearly they can never completely understand things like an adult can, but they surely have some understanding. And it obviously wouldn't make sense to say that you can't take an oath unless you have 100% understanding and are under 0 pressure.
u/alexeyr [+1] Steersman (8 days later)
As for the Oath factories, what incentive could such a place have to entice people to want to work there? Near any worker would prefer to go with a competitor who doesn't institute such practices over the factory.
First, this assumes there are enough jobs at the competitors for everyone who wants one.
Second, the obvious benefits are higher pay and (possibly) the owner's/manager's Oath to treat his workers fairly. Those workers who would work honestly anyway don't have a lot to lose by taking the Oath (assuming it has exceptions for personal emergencies, sickness leave, etc.). The competitors only get those who aren't willing to work honestly and are substantially less effective. They get driven out of business. Now everyone has to work at the oath-factory or nowhere. The Oath might lose those exceptions (perhaps the owner didn't swear an Oath, or was willing to suffer the consequences, or lost/sold the factory to someone else).
u/Shadawn [+3] (9 hours later)
Will Oath-System accept a language of your own invention that uses same words that common language, but have different meanings? Then, when you're giving Oath with witnesses present, you're mentally notifying Oath-System that you're giving it in your own language, in which it means something harmless. If this works, potential implications are endless.
Can consequence include giving up any object to another person? Can this be used to teleport objects? Can you consequence away your dumbness? What about hunger, or thirst? What about waste - unlike previous examples, this is actually your own physical thing, but losing it may be highly advantageous.
Can you consequence away knowledge? Can this be used to induce highly selective amnesia?
Can you use Oath to derive knowledge? For example "I'll now tell the city where my nemesis currently resides, or my left pinky experiences mild pain for 3 seconds. It's City ABC". What is the result of such Oath, assuming you don't know your nemesis whereabouts.
Can Oath be conditional? "If you do anything my son, I'll do my utmost to make you suffer for eternity, or I die." Will you feel this Oath activation when condition is triggered, or when you learn that condition is triggered?
Btw, If Oath can be conditional, it may be possible (I'm not exact expert) to craft "Computational Oath" - sequence of logic that brings some output (in Morse code of weak pains to your pinky, for example) depending on some input. I assume calculator can be done easily enough (at least for some near-immortal superbeing).
u/Jiro_T [+1] (3 days later)
Most magic systems treat categories that people find useful as primitive categories. Thus you can have magic that can't create food, even though food is pretty similar to non-food, or magic that can turn you into an animal but can't make arbitrary physiological changes.
In line with this, you can't invent your own language and switch the words around, since the average guy in the street will say "that's not a real language", in the same way that you can't say "I will define 'animal X' as 'human being with the genes of the current king'" and use the animal transform spell to turn into the king.
u/Shadawn [+1] (5 days later)
Well, would making a kingdom somewhere far from civilization that talks in your "fake" language (and learns all words meaning "nothing", or all words of Common language, as a part of their religion) help with this? Because that's not an impossible feat for immortal being of a godlike power.
And those two examples are somewhat different - usually magic system defines what counts as "animal", but Oaths use natural language defined by humans (unless it works other way in that setting). Will Oath system work for obscure language of a backwater tribe? If it would, how is it different from my example?
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+3] (9 hours later)
I think Yudkowsky had the right idea on how to balance such a system - namely, it doesn't do anything physically impossible nor does it cause any consequence if it is broken - it simply compels the oath-maker to complete the terms of the oath to the best of their ability.
Still totally munchkinable via tricking rubes into making poorly-considered oaths that effectively make them your perfect slaves.
u/Dwood15 [+1] (17 days later)
Are there examples of fun these oaths in Web novels?
u/vakusdrake [+3] (a day later)
If the first person to get access to the oath system is extremely ambitious and somewhat clever I can see this playing out as invasion of the body snatchers. First the "Master" oaths himself to psychologically give up his ability to be deterred from his goals by laziness. Next being super motivated he kidnaps a few powerful people. He forces them to agree at swordpoint to something they can't possibly do, then when they fail they forfeit their ability to desire things other than what aligns with master's will, or through another method they effectively become a thrall of his. Now that Master has forced many powerful people into thralldom they will then go on to kidnap more people to thrall... You get the point, and that's without even getting into the spell's abilities to potentially transfer skills and information, even over great distance.
Basically depending on how things go when oaths are first discovered this could play out like invasion of the body snatchers on roids.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
That's not how it works. An Oath doesn't guarantee that something will happen, it just provides consequences. If you have a problem with laziness and you take an oath to not be lazy the Oath won't magically cure your laziness, it will just punish you for being lazy.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (2 days later)
No you missed the point, the punishment is what i'm talking about based on the other comments you can actually set quite a few things as punishment it doesn't just have to kill them. That's why I was clear that the second step is actually to get them to break the contract (by setting it as impossible to uphold) so that you can then exploit the punishment mechanic.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
First the "Master" oaths himself to psychologically give up his ability to be deterred from his goals by laziness. Next being super motivated
As I said, this doesn't work.
u/vakusdrake [+2] (3 days later)
You missed the point, the oath can be anything, he can have an oath to not stand on one foot.
The point is that since you can give up lots of things as collateral to the oath it could do more than just kill you if you break it.
If you look at some of the other comment threads it is clear you can give up memories and other aspects of your mind as collateral. So I find that part of the oath system as interesting as the oath itself.
u/klassekatze [+3] (5 days later)
Capture a guy.
You then have him swear, on penalty of death, to never eat chicken.
You then have him swear to make a sincere effort to capture anyone he believes he can capture without getting caught that he has not previously caught, and have them swear all the oaths he swears today, on penalty of death.
You then have him swear, on penalty of death, to never disclose any of this happened, or why he is attempting to capture people if he is caught in the act.
Release your prisoner.
- 16... You have released a self replicating oath into the world. In all likelihood, people will be eternally plagued by random kidnappings, and chickens will inherit the earth because damn near nobody eats them.
Of course, that is if you are lucky, and it is merely a ban on chicken that your evil oathificer devises. Probably a loophole in my example here somewhere but you get the gist.
u/Quillwraith [+2] Red King Consolidated (a day later)
"I agree to aid any person or people who have also taken this Oath when doing so is substantially more beneficial to them then it is costly to me, and not to harm any person or people who have also taken this oath unless doing so is substantially more beneficial to me then it is harmful to them."
Phrasing could use some work, but hopefully it's good enough to make the point.
Taking this Oath will, on average, be beneficial - the only actions it requires are positive-sum, and the only ones it prohibits are negative sum. (It wouldn't be in your interest to take it if you knew that you would have many easy opportunities to help others but almost never be in a position to receive help, but that's not a usual situation.) If you have taken this Oath, it's in your interest to persuade more people to take it as well.
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (3 days later)
//if something that doesn't belong to you is offered up in consequence in the Oath, it requires agreement from the owner of that something.//
This will have an interesting effect on the idea property rights, namely that they apparently exist in a demonstrable way.