Flaws in the original game

[wellsoberlin]

I think it would be good for some group to try playing the original
Parlement game (1968 rules posted on this group's Files). There are
some problems I want to call your attention to:

The rules allow things to grind to a halt in at least two places: If
a Government can't be formed and if the Budget can't be passed. I
discussed the first problem in my message Miscellaneous Points.

Maybe someone can come up with a reasonable rule for passing the
budgets. For example, if the Government fails to pass a budget twice,
it falls and an election is held. Of course, the change in
legislative records occasioned by the two budget votes is used in the
election!

I regret allowing factions to vote differently. I don't believe it
makes a better game, and usually in parliamentary democracy all the
members of a party vote the same way. No doubt experience will show
what makes a better game.

This is another example where the game can be used as a simulation. I
mentioned in another post trying out different rules for proportional
representation. But rules like allowing factions to vote differently
affect what happens in the game, and so do rules about what makes
Government fall. Students in a class studying parliamentary democracy
would learn by experience how these rules affect parliamentary
behavior.

The fact that Parlement has the possibility of being a simulation as
well as being played as a straight game is one reason I wanted to open
it up for interested people to develop.

I suspect simulations would be done much better with the aid of a
computer to do the calculations. But it very well may be that the
best game will be one like the 1968 version, designed to be played
with pencil and paper. After all, it was modeled after Diplomacy,
which is still thriving as a non-computer board game. (I am aware of
some of the computerizations that people have come up with, but I
haven't tried them.) It is not as wonderful as Diplomacy, but it
could be!

One thing I would promote as having high priority is to develop a
Parlement scenario based on American politics. which is very different
from parliamentary government. Most Americans have very little
understanding of parliaments and as Bob Surtees pointed out that may
inhibit the growth of the game in this country.

Charles Wells

[diplomacyworld]

Incidentally I have a lot of old material on the old game in my boxes
of 1960's-era zines...little or none of it is currently scanned and
posted to the Postal Diplomacy Zine Archive at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/
but I can always try to locate some of it in the coming weeks if
people want it or need it...especially if you know what zine you're
looking for.