The WSoGMM Electorate Negotiation Game (Starting)

[Hoppster]

The WSoGMM Electorate Negotiation Game

Created by Hoppster

tl;dr in next post.

Aim

You've just set up a brand new political party in a brand new democracy. Hurrah! Broken promises all around! Of course, politics isn't just as easy as breaking your promises. It's all about timing when you do it. You'll be working to convince the public, other parties and indeed your own party, that you're working in their interests, when in reality, you have your own private agenda...

*four game years = 4 to 7 days

About the game

You and

a bunch of random people you play games with on teh interwebz

your fellow party members are competing for four years* in the WSoGMM Political Interwebz Office. However, following the deposition of dictator Mubarakobama, the (non-biased) God of Politics, Hoppster, has stepped in to ensure that the interwebz remain democratic.

Please note that this may be a relatively slow-paced game, and the majority of player interaction is likely to take place over QuickTopic. There may also be a fair amount of game-time where you do not have anything to do.

Signing up:

• Zang, Drench, Xalxe, Twistedspoon: please confirm that you still want your pre-in slots.
  
• For the rest of you not awesome enough to pre-in, you should clearly reply with '/in' if you wish to play.
  
• The game will be played with teams of 3. If you missed out signing up you can still /in if you have 2 others.
  
• Even if you are not directly involved in the game, you can still vote in the elections. The more the merrier!

I am also accepting replacements.

General Proceedings:

1. See this post for a list of 15 various political issues (eg. Animal Rights). Once the game starts, each player should PM me a division of 30 'Personal Agenda Tokens' between these issues. These represent your own personal/political priorities with regards to various government policies (or your 'Individual Priorities', or IPs). (You can split them between as many or as few issues as you wish.) They will be the same throughout the whole game.
   
2. I will then split players into teams/parties (via the medium of random.org).
   
3. Each party will be given it's own quicktopic. You will have to choose a party name.
   
4. At the beginning of each round, you must choose a party leader and
   three
   public priorities of the party as a whole (PPPs). These do not actually need to be related to
   any
   member's personal priorities.
   
5. The party must also decide of a division of 20 PAT's between these three priorities. They will also be added to each member's IPs. Each public priority must have at least 1 PAT assigned to it.
   
6. A public thread will be started with a poll, representing an election. The various options will be each parties' three public priorites (and in what order they are ranked), however, which party that it is will not be identified.
   
7. If more than one party choses the exact same three public priorities (and ranks them in the same order), the parties concerned will be asked to change at least one of these priorities. In the unlikely case of the same scenario occuring again after this, then it will be repeated until there exist no parties with the same combination of priorities.
   
8. Should any party have 50% of the votes, they are elected into government. Otherwise, it is up to the parties to form coalitions so that between them they have 50% of the votes.
   
9. The next round starts at Step 4.

Government Elected (Single Party Majority):

1. In the case that a party is elected into Government without the need for a coalition, then they will be given a link to that round's Government quicktopic.
   
2. They must then agree (majority) on a division of 29 'Government Budget Tokens'. These Budget Points may be spent on as little or as many issues as the party chooses.

No Single Party Majority:

1. In the case that there is no single party majority, all parties must try to form a coalition government with a majority (≥ 50%) vote.
   
2. Ultimately, the leaders of each party are the ones who call the shots in this scenario.
   
3. It is in all parties' interests for the parties involved in the coalition to have similar priorities.
   
4. Preliminary discussion of possible GBT distribution is permitted.
   
5. Should a Coalition Government be formed, the parties involved will be given a link to that round's Government QuickTopic.
   
6. They must then agree (majority) on a division/spending of 29 'Government Budget Tokens' - between the two parties. These two parties then agree within their individual party's QuickTopic on how their party is going to spend their allocated GBT's on the various political issues.

Scoring:

There are two aspects to scoring - Party Scoring and Individual Scoring. Whether you want to play for yourself or for your team is up to you.

• A party gains 100 Democracy Points for forming a Government without a need for a coalition.
  
• All parties (
  n
  ) involved in a Coalition Government gain 120/
  n
  Democracy Points.
  
• If a Government fails to agree on a division of GBTs, the party will be penalised 200 Democracy Points.
  
• If a Coalition Government fails to agree on a division/spending of GBTs, then all parties involved will be penalised 180/
  n
  Democracy Points.
  
• If no government can be formed, then
  all
  parties will be penalised 50 Democracy Points.
  
• A party involved in Government will recieve
  xy
  Democracy Points, where
  x
  is the number of PATs assigned to a PPP and
  y
  is the number of GBTs spent on that priority.

• All individuals in a Government gain 50 Self Points.
  
• All individuals in a Coalition Government gain 30 Self Points.
  
• All individuals in a Government, whether Coalition or not, that fails to agree on a division of GBTs, will be penalised 150 Self Points.
  
• An individual involved in Government will recieve
  xy
  Self Points, where
  x
  is the number of PATs assigned to a priority, and
  y
  is the number of GBTs spent on that priority.

Politician Draft:

At the end of each round, each party leader has the option to nominate a party member for drafting. All members nominated for drafting will be randomly assigned to a party. You may end up drafted back into the same party.

Round Timings:

1. Each party will have four days to select a leader and then select their public priorities and PAT division.
   
2. The Public Poll/Voting stage will last for two days.
   
3. If a single-party has a majority, then they will have four days to decide on the spending of GBT's.
   
4. If there is no single-party majority, then party leaders will have four days to form a coalition.
   
5. The Coalition Government (if formed) will then have seven days to decide on the spending of GBT's.
   
6. The Politician Draft stage will then last for two days.
   
7. There are a spare two days to allow for moderator/organisational error. (Rounds will last 2 or 3 weeks)
   
8. There will be 1.5
   n
   rounds, where
   n
   is the number of parties competing (rounded up).

Other Information:

All rules are subject to change. Suggestions are welcome. I'm paticularly concerned about the poll idea, as I'm not sure that enough people will vote and thus the only voters (effectively) will be those taking part.

[Hoppster]

tl;dr

You, a budding politician, have your own personal political agenda. You are randomly assigned to a party, and at the beginning of each round you apoint a party leader and decide on your party's political agenda. A poll is held where the public votes on the various agendas, and then if a party has at least 50% of the votes, they are elected to Government. Otherwise, parties must try to form a Coalition Government. Either way, the government have to decide on how to spend their budget. Individuals must decide whether to put theirselves or their party first.

Players:

1. Zang
   
2. Drench
   
3. Xalxe
   
4. Twistedspoon
   
5. werewolf555
   
6. Empking
   
7. Kcdaspot
   
8. AGar
   
9. CooLDoG
   
10. gandalf5166
    
11. animorpherv1
    
12. Cirno
    
13. 
    
14. 
    

[Hoppster]

The Political Issues/Priorities

A brief description/summary of the issues, or what you might expect them to involve. The descriptions don't actually have any actual bearing on the game, it's just to make it less of a mundane list.

DISCLAIMER: Not intended to be taken seriously.

Aid/Charity (National & International)

Oh, these poor people don't have clean water to drink. Let's send them some missionaries. That'll help them.

Animal Rights

Should scientists experiment on rats? Should we wear fur? Should dogs be entitled to a say in neutering?

Armed Forces

Let's forcibly conscript everybody! Yaay! The Air Force are all pussies, let's disband them as well!

Countering Climate Change

Let's find renewable sources of energy! Solar Power! Wind Power! Forced-manual-labour Power!

Counter-terrorism

Why does this guy keep sending us Blu-Rays of himself? THEY WON'T WORK IN MY CRAPPY DVD PLAYER!

Education

Those who can't do, teach.

Equality of Rights

Let's not persecute based on race/gender/sexuality/other arbitary factor... let's persecute based on whether or not they can rub their stomach and pat their head simultaneously.

Foreign Relations

Let's face it, we all never liked France anyway. Zimbabwe is cool though. That Mugabe's got a sweet thing going on.

Healthcare

I just realised that people in our country are dying! Let's try to prolong their lives and increase their burden on the state.

Immigration

How can I show my authority... by needlessly persecuting ethnic minorities who come into our country!

International Trade

I don't want your crappy Thailand knock-offs. I want the real thing, straight from Vietnam.

National Finance

We appear to be in debt. Eh... it's probably better if we don't make the country go bankrupt.

Nuclear Development

Boom.

Public Services

Bring back our libraries! We want more buses! More free prostitutes for everybody!

Space Exploration

OHMYGOD I JUST TOTALLY SAW A GREENSPACEALIENORSOMAT.

[Hoppster]

Abbreviations/Clarification:

PAT

- Personal Agenda Token:

Players are given 30 of these to distribute these between the 15 Political Issues as their

IPs

, and this will last for the whole of the game. At the beginning of each round, each party decides on an additional distribution of 20 PAT's between

three

Political Issues as their

PPs

, and each member of that party will then have that added to their

IPs

for the remainder of that round

.

GBT

- Government Budget Token:

Government is given 29 of these to distribute between the 15 Political Issues. In the case of a Coalition Government, the Coalition can either decide on division as a whole, or alternatively split the 29 tokens between the two parties, who then decide within their own party on the division of their allocated tokens.

IP

- Individual Prioritiy:

See PAT for more information. It is a political issue to which a player has assigned at least one PAT.

PPP

- Public Party Priority:

See PAT for more information. It is one (of three) political issue(s) to which a party has assigned at least one PAT.

DPt

- Democracy Point:

See 'Scoring' for more information. At the end of the game, the winning party is the one with the most Democracy Points.

SPt

- Self Point:

See 'Scoring' for more information. At the end of the game, the winning individual is the one with the most Self Points.

NB: Do not feel obliged to use these abbreviations. It is just that I may use them, and they are here to clarify.

[Hoppster]

How many rounds does this go for? But in any case...
I don't know if I'd enjoy playing the game too much, but I'll certainly participate as a voter.

It depends on how many people sign up (and how many parties we have as a result).

[Hoppster]

/confirm

Wrong thread? I've put you down anyway but I don't actually recall you having a pre-in slot.

[Hoppster]

Suggestions are welcome.

You could choose a few party leaders and give them tokens to bid for party members.
Auctions are always fun, and team spirit should be nice and high

No, damnit. As I said before, stuff like this makes the loners on this forum feel even worse. But thanks for the suggestion.

[Hoppster]

Actually, if you want to be technical about it, this game isn't about a democracy, but a republic, bump.

Perhaps nobody will notice if I just subtly edit out the Democratic bit of the title.

[Hoppster]

Is it just me or did Mr. (or Mrs.) Mod forget to clearly put in how to win?

I added it fairly recently.

EDIT: TO CLARIFY, I would rather not be addressed as Mrs. Hoppster, paticularly as I am not female.

Is it just me or did Mr. (or Mrs.) Mod forget to clearly put in how to win?

It's Mrs

Mrs Hoppster gets quite annoyed if you do not address her femininity. Perhaps she will spare you this one time if you apologise nicely to Mrs Hoppster.

<snip>

I believe the win condition was to have the most points when the number of rounds has elapsed, as stated in the above quote :s

Mrs Hoppster? That's really stupid, even if I were female (which I'm not), I wouldn't be Mrs Hoppster, would I?

[Hoppster]

Bump.

I'll cancel this if we don't have 15 by Monday.

To you people reading this thread - 11 people are going to be disappointed because you were too scared to join. Shame on you.

[Hoppster]

Don't forget about the kittens he'll punch in anger as well.

[Hoppster]

Punching kittens worse than raping children? ...

Yes, you're right. I'm out of order.

[Hoppster]

I'll consider it if we only get one more player.

[Hoppster]

^ WHICH MAKES IT FAR WORSE! HE CAME TO RUB IT IN OUR FACES.

[Hoppster]

/in if there are any slots left. I am not good at counting.

AWESOMEEEEEE.

I can't even remember what I planned to do with this, it's taken so long. Let me just re-read the rules.

[Hoppster]

I like 4 teams of 3.

^ This.

Now back to reading the rules.

[Hoppster]

EVERYONE: FYI, Twistedspoon's RL name is Mojo. No kidding.


Oh yeah, I remember how to play my own game now.

General Proceedings:

1. See this post for a list of 15 various political issues (eg. Animal Rights). Once the game starts, each player should PM me a division of 30 'Personal Agenda Tokens' between these issues. These represent your own personal/political priorities with regards to various government policies (or your 'Individual Priorities', or IPs). (You can split them between as many or as few issues as you wish.) They will be the same throughout the whole game.

^This. Everyone, please. Mass PM going out shortly.

[Hoppster]

EVERYONE: FYI, Twistedspoon's RL name is Mojo. No kidding.

...Mrs.Hopsster

anyways, care to tell me where you actually got this crazy RL name idea from?

Nope.

[Hoppster]

/in as well. maybe I'll do better in this than the last game.

Humm. I'll think about 3 teams of 3 + one team of 4, but I think that would make it severely unbalanced (against the team of 4).

Unless we get at least 2 others, how about I put you down as a replacement? I have a horrible feeling that some people who signed up have forgotten about the game.

[Hoppster]

@Hopp:

I'm not sure, but if JDGA gets in we could have 7 teams of 2?

7 teams of 2...

Maybe. Better than four uneven teams, at least.

Hmmm.

I'll think about that.

[Hoppster]

teams of 2 is silly

not really a party then

Better then different-numbered teams.

I'll be

randomly

assigning players to teams once I've got everybody's decision on their 'political priorities'.

Also, Lowell, I'm putting you down as a replacement. I currently have 8/12 people ready. Of the remaining 4, I haven't heard anything from 3 of them, so if I haven't heard back by tomorrow I'll be seeking replacements for them.

[Hoppster]

teams of 2 is silly

not really a party then

Better then different-numbered teams.

not really

team size makes little difference after you reach a sensible 3 players per party

Yes it does. Four-player party has to appease four members. Three-player part has to appease three members. Guess which is easier.

[Hoppster]

appeasing is easy

no-one would prefer one policy over another since each has an equal chance of being favoured by the public

No, not that bit. The bit where, if they get elected, they decide the government budget spending. It may well emerge that all players in a party have completely different personal priorities, and if they decide to play for themselves, then more players is more problematic.

[Hoppster]

^ Just because one person does it doesn't mean everybody is doing it. >>

[Hoppster]

Your last post makes no sense to me.

Just Zang & Cirno now.

[Hoppster]

Your last post makes no sense to me.

Just Zang & Cirno now.

WHO WHAT WHERE WHY.

Random teams will be announced TONIGHT*!!!

*GMT

[Hoppster]

Well Cirno, that was based on...well, I'll let Hoppy explain why.

SCREW YOU.

PMs with links to your party quicktopic are sent.

I'll elaborate tomorrow. For now, decide a party name.

[Hoppster]

TEAM A
TEAM B
TEAM C
TEAM D

Feel free to read,

but not post in

, other teams' QuickTopics.

[Hoppster]

Agree, we need a private hq. We can still keep the public ones to blast propaganda out though.

I LIKE THIS IDEA.

I'll send out PMs with private QuickTopics soon.

[Hoppster]

So, I'm an alternate then, or what?

Replacement. I'll add you into the first post.

Also, guys, please PM me when your team has agreed on a name.

And I guess you may as well start deciding on your leader/PPPs.

[Hoppster]

GAME IS DEAD --- NOT BIG SUPRISE

Okay, I'll be seeing if the interest remains in this. Mass PM going out now.

Sorry about not being more pro-active, but, what can I say. I'm lazy. Quicktopics aren't working out as well as I'd thought as well. It won't require me to do too much once (if) I get it started though, so we'll see.