single versus sets of gimmicks

Chris has the gist of it. It's the same principle that applies to other hazy areas. For example, is that horse out front of the saloon color, or a component? What I suggest is that if you don't feel like paying for the horse, don't do it. Someone will Challenge if its the wrong thing to do.

Same with squeezing in more rules for one Coin. See what you can get away with - the Challenges that ensue form the "jurisprudence" from which the group standards are formed.

Don't be an ass in play about pushing things, of course. But pushing concientiously to discover the borders is a service to the group. Similar to the benefits provided to our legal system by the ACLU or the Christian opposition group. By flying test cases, these groups cause the boundaries of the system to be discovered.

For instance, in the first Wiki game, I gimmicked that all real life information available on the internet about the game area in question could be interpreted as Facts for free. Basically for one Coin I got away with creating a bezillion Facts. But as it wasn't abusive, it wasn't Challenged. To some extent every Fact is this way - potentially atomized near infinitely. The only way to tell if something like this is abusive is on case-by-case bases.

So, if you said something like "All combats between gladiators have to be fought out using Hero System" or something, that would be including a ton of rules all at once, but would probably fly (given players amenable to that particular supposition, of course). If you tried to say, We're using the McNamee rule for Complication reward spending, and we're using the PC rule, I'd probably challenge and call that two things, however. See the difference?

Mike