[FINAL CALL/FIFTH DRAFT] When Furniture Kills

[Kannap]

Name: When Furniture Kills

Description: Following an article published by the @@CAPITAL@@ Times reported an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by furniture falling on them.

Validity: All nations

Options:

[option]"@@LEADER@, you need to do something about this," complains @@randomname@@, whose partner was killed by a falling piano. "Enact safety laws! No furniture that's taller than knee high, for example, or building materials have to be as light as cardboard to so furniture isn't heavy enough to kill."
[effect]The nation's leading wacky waving furniture store has to close its doors following new regulations in @@NATION@@

[option]"That's a foolish idea," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. People are just idiots, and Natural Selection will take of them. I guess you could hang some posters reminding people to watch out for furniture, that way it doesn't look like you're ignoring things."
[effect]Furniture comes wrapped in informational pamphlets about furniture safety

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a large falling bookshelf as they approach your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, the real problem here is the assembly of furniture. Trusting people to assemble their own furniture at work or home is proving dangerous. Businesses need to be required to provide highly trained assembly crews to make sure furniture is safely assembled and won't hurt people."
[effect]Newspapers can't keep up with the high demand for classified ads seeking furniture assemblymen

[option]@@RANDOMNAME@@, a friend of yours in the furniture business, contacts you. "@@Leader@@, our businesses shouldn't be required to spend more money to do something that people have done for themselves for decades. Instead of burdening us, encourage customers to easily file claims for compensation if they're hurt by a company's product. The free market will figure itself out, always has."
[effect]Customers follow a wild goose chase in hopes to receive compensation for injuries.

Name: When Furniture Kills

Description: Following an article published by the @@CAPITAL@@ Times reported an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by furniture falling on them.

Validity: All nations

Options:

[option]"@@LEADER@, you need to do something about this," complains @@randomname@@, whose partner was killed by a falling piano. "Enact safety laws! No furniture over 3 feet tall, for example, or building materials have to be as light as cardboard to so furniture isn't heavy enough to kill."
[effect]The nation's leading wacky waving furniture store has to close its doors following new regulations in @@NATION@@

[option]"That's a foolish idea," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. People are just idiots, and Natural Selection will take of them. I guess you could hang some posters reminding people to watch out for furniture, that way it doesn't look like you're ignoring things."
[effect]Furniture comes wrapped in informational pamphlets about furniture safety

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a fifteen foot wide falling bookshelf approaches your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, the real problem here is the assembly of furniture. Trusting people to assemble their own furniture at work or home is proving dangerous. Businesses need to be required to provide highly trained assembly crews to make sure furniture is safely assembled and won't hurt people."
[effect]Newspapers can't keep up with the high demand for classified ads seeking furniture assemblymen

[option]@@RANDOMNAME@@, a friend of yours in the furniture business, contacts you. "@@Leader@@, our businesses shouldn't be required to spend more money to do something that people have done for themselves for decades. Instead of burdening us, encourage customers to easily file claims for compensation if they're hurt by a company's product. The free market will figure itself out, always has."
[effect]Customers follow a wild goose chase in hopes to receive compensation for injuries.

Name: When Furniture Kills

Description: Following an article published by the @@CAPITAL@@ Times reported an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by unstable furniture falling on them.

Validity: All nations

Options:

[option]After reading the article and hearing of a local man who's wife was killed by a falling piano from a hotel balcony, you agree to have a meeting with him. @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, a worker in the furniture restoration industry, enters your office with the intention to give you a piece of his mind. "Mr. @@Leader@@, you need to do something to solve this deadly issue. I suggest we enact safety laws about how heavy or tall furniture is allowed to be. No furniture over 3 feet tall, for example, and building materials have to be as light as cardboard to ensure furniture isn't heavy enough to kill."
[effect]citizens are disappointed that they can't buy the latest XXXL refrigerator or 150" television

[option]"That's a foolish idea," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. Furniture should neither be banned nor made 'safer,' but should instead be deregulated. Furniture manufacturers should be left unchecked and without regulation or safety requirements, imagine all the interesting new designs we'd get that have never been released before! Let natural selection take care of those who are clumsy around furniture."
[effect]furniture-related incidents increase in the wake of furniture companies having no legal obligation to make safe products

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a fifteen foot wide falling bookshelf approaches your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, this latest report has proven that furniture is simply too dangerous and must be banned. Replace it all with fluffy, pleasant cushions! Now, of course, cushions won't be able to replace bookshelves or refrigerators or various other things. Like, where will citizens place their books or perishable food items? We'll let others solve those problems, and society will improve itself. Cushions! Cushions! Cushions!"
[effect]department stores are replacing their furniture sections with cushions in various sizes and colors

Name: When Furniture Kills

Description: After an article recently published by @@RANDOMNAME@@ revealed the statistics of death caused by furniture made in @@NAME@@ falling on people throughout the nation, citizens have decided to call upon the government for action to prevent more furniture-related deaths.

Validity: Valid for nations with free press.

Options:

[option]@@RANDOMNAME@@, a worker in the furniture restoration industry enters your office to put in his thoughts, "@@Leader@@, we both know the citizens are fools who don't know what's best for them and that's why you're in charge. I suggest we enact safety laws above how heavy or how tall furniture is allowed to be.

[effect]Citizens are disappointed that they can't buy the latest XXXL refrigerator or 150" television.
[stats]Furniture restoration industry increases, happiness decreases.

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a fifteen foot wide falling bookshelf approaches your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, this latest report has proven that furniture is simply too dangerous and must be banned. Replace it all with fluffy, pleasant cushions!"

[effect]Department stores are replacing their furniture sections with cushions in various sizes and colors.
[stats]Furniture restoration industry decreases, happiness increases.

[option]"Both these ideas are foolish," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. Furniture should neither be banned nor made 'safer,' but should instead be enforced. All citizens should be forced to own furniture. Let natural selection take care of those who are clumsy around furniture."
[effect]People who refuse to own furniture are being rounded up by the police.
[stats]Furniture restoration industry increases, civil rights decreases.

First proposed a draft of this in 2015, then abandoned it.

---

First proposed a draft of this in 2015, then abandoned it. It certainly could use some a lot of work but I'm hoping for feedback!

[Sacara]

This is a funny draft, but we're going to need some polishing...

After an article recently published by @@RANDOMNAME@@ revealed the statistics of death caused by furniture made in @@NAME@@ falling on people throughout the nation, citizens have decided to call upon the government for action to prevent more furniture-related deaths.

Who is @@RANDOMNAME@@ and why does he have major say? I think you could get rid of the validity and just make the issue description short and sweet, like this:

An article published by the @@ANIMAL@@ City Times found an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by unstable furniture falling on them.

Options:

[option]@@RANDOMNAME@@, a worker in the furniture restoration industry, enters your office to put in his thoughts, "@@Leader@@, we both know the citizens are fools who don't know what's best for them and that's why you're in charge. I suggest we enact safety laws above how heavy or how tall furniture is allowed to be."
[effect]Citizens are disappointed that they can't buy the latest XXXL refrigerator or 150" television.

Alright, nice premise for the option. However, why is a random worker in the industry coming to talk to the leader of @@NAME@@? Maybe you could add humor by making it a survivor of a fatal furniture incident in which their wife was lost or something. Also, be a bit more descriptive when speaking about the regulations you want to add. Just to note as well, effect lines start with a lower case letter and end without punctuation. And that authors no longer submit stat suggestions anymore.

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a fifteen foot wide falling bookshelf approaches your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, this latest report has proven that furniture is simply too dangerous and must be banned. Replace it all with fluffy, pleasant cushions!"
[effect]Department stores are replacing their furniture sections with cushions in various sizes and colors.

How do you replace a bookshelf with cushions? I think you could add a bit to this option and move it to be the third one, as it is the 'crazy' one. For me, I tend to write in the "Reasonable option one -> Reasonable option two -> Crazy option three" format, and I think this draft would benefit from that.

[option]"Both these ideas are foolish," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. Furniture should neither be banned nor made 'safer,' but should instead be enforced. All citizens should be forced to own furniture. Let natural selection take care of those who are clumsy around furniture."
[effect]People who refuse to own furniture are being rounded up by the police.

As I said, I think this should be moved to option two. And what do you mean that people should be forced to own furniture? How does that work? I think this option should just suggest getting rid of any existing regulations of the industry and subsiding it.

[Kannap]

Thanks for your constructive criticism, Sacara.

I've edited the OP and the third draft is now present for reading.

[Kannap]

Bumping this in hopes to hear more constructive criticism regarding this issue before I start working on other drafts.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Name: When Furniture Kills

Description: Following an article published by the @@CAPITAL@@ Times reported an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by unstable furniture falling on them.

Unstable is an oddity here, as it suggests the furniture is either unbalanced in build, or prone to exploding. I'd drop that adjective.

[option]After reading the article and hearing of a local man who's wife was killed by a falling piano from a hotel balcony, you agree to have a meeting with him. @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, a worker in the furniture restoration industry, enters your office with the intention to give you a piece of his mind. "Mr. @@Leader@@, you need to do something to solve this deadly issue.

Don't put the speaker's identity first unless it's the most important piece of information. Also, you can't assume Leader's gender, and you don't need to fix the speaker's gender. There's a lot of wasted information here too, as well as some unnecessary overriding of autonomy in telling us what the player has thought and decided. Additionally, not all nations allow marriage. And finally, "whose", not "who's". Here, it'd be better to be more concise and just say:

"@@LEADER@, you need to do something about this," complains @@randomname@@, whose partner was killed by a falling piano.

I suggest we enact safety laws about how heavy or tall furniture is allowed to be. No furniture over 3 feet tall, for example, and building materials have to be as light as cardboard to ensure furniture isn't heavy enough to kill."
[effect]citizens are disappointed that they can't buy the latest XXXL refrigerator or 150" television

That option is okay, but the information needs to be transmitted more efficiently, and the effect line isn't actually a punchline, but rather just a description of some people being disappointed.

[option]"That's a foolish idea," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. Furniture should neither be banned nor made 'safer,' but should instead be deregulated.

So, basically the dismiss button, right? Also, arguing against a speaker who hasn't spoken yet. Nobody has suggested banning!

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a fifteen foot wide falling bookshelf approaches your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, this latest report has proven that furniture is simply too dangerous and must be banned. Replace it all with fluffy, pleasant cushions! Now, of course, cushions won't be able to replace bookshelves or refrigerators or various other things. Like, where will citizens place their books or perishable food items? We'll let others solve those problems, and society will improve itself. Cushions! Cushions! Cushions!"

Banning furniture isn't going to be easy to implement technically, so we'd not be keen on it.

More problematic here though is that the speaker spends half the option arguing against himself. That's not good writing.

However, all thatis just detail.

The big thing is that there's an information failure here in the issue as a whole - nobody is addressing WHY furniture is falling on people's heads. We have something out of the ordinary occurring, and no reason why.

An option to suggest all furniture should be lighter is fine, but not up front. Right now, you've got:

1) Make furniture lighter.
2) Don't make it lighter or ban it. Do nothing.
3) Ban it.

That's a mess. I'd try instead:

1) This is happening because (sensible reason). Address this with legislation/punishment. Sensible reason could be lax practices in furniture delivery.
2) No, don't regulate from above. Instead encourage compensation claims from those who are injured, and let this be a deterrent to unsafe practices. The free market, etc etc.
3) People need to be responsible for their own safety, own damn fault, just put some posters up reminding people to look up every now and then.
4) Make all furniture have to be soft or light, so it can't kill anyone from a drop of a few storeys. Cushions, etc.

[Australian rePublic]

Option 1- If the furniture fell out of a window, that's a problem with the building, not the piano. Also, if building material is light, won't furniture (or even people, or even pets) make the building collapse under weight?

[Jutsa]

A pleasure seeing you over in GI?, Kannap!

Just wanted to point out that the description reads very much like #512.
While the options spell out a different scenario, the issue descriptions are very much the same.

Perhaps you could say "large pieces of furniture", or something, and removing "unstable" could very well remove some of the overlap.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

512 was my very first edit!

I think despite both mentioning furniture, they're actually quite different.

[Far Tholk]

[option]"That's a foolish idea," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. Furniture should neither be banned nor made 'safer,' but should instead be deregulated. Furniture manufacturers should be left unchecked and wWithout regulation or safety requirements, imagine all the interesting new designs we'd get that have never been released before! Let natural selection take care of those who are clumsy around furniture."
[effect]furniture-related incidents increase in the wake of furniture companies having no legal obligation to make safe products

It works well without the bit I've struck through. Also, the effect line is kind of boring, maybe try to use an example of one of those interesting new furniture designs.

So, basically the dismiss button, right?

Not exactly, this option deregulates the furniture industry.

The first and third options seem pretty similar to me. One mandates furniture be changed to cardboard and the other to cushions, both 'solving' the problem by using less effective but safer materials.

[Kannap]

Fourth draft is up, for new words of constructive criticism.

Also turns out I'm absolutely dreadful at crafting and writing punchlines, so the effect lines leave a lot to be desired.

[Kannap]

Fourth draft is up, for new words of constructive criticism.

Also turns out I'm absolutely dreadful at crafting and writing punchlines, so the effect lines leave a lot to be desired.

Anymore criticism?

[Window Land]

In options 1 and 3 you use imperial measurements, however, there is a metricism policy. I would suggest getting rid of the fifteen feet and replacing it with colossal, gargantuan, or some other similar word. In option one, I would recommend saying knee high. That way, you clear the validity and have the effect line be something like "Bruised shins abound in @@NATION@@".

[Kannap]

Been busy with real life but haven't forgotten this.

Latest draft, after Window Land's suggestions to remove Imperial units, has been placed in the OP.

Looking for more constructive criticism, if there is any.

[Kannap]

If there's no more constructive criticism, I'm going to do what the youth call a "final call"

[Verdant Haven]

Description: Following an article published by the @@CAPITAL@@ Times reported an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by furniture falling on them.

That isn't a sentence. The words "Following" and "reported" are in different tenses, and create a grammatical twister. Easiest fix might be dropping "following" and adding a couple words to make the sentence "An article published by the @@CAPITAL@@ Times has reported an increasing number of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ are killed by furniture falling on them." I know you got a lot of feedback in this thread about making the issue description shorter, but it's short enough that, for my part at least, I don't understand what is going on. People killed by falling furniture? Huh? Perhaps "collapsing" would clarify what is meant. Why the sudden uptick in collapses?

[option]"@@LEADER@, you need to do something about this," complains @@randomname@@, whose partner was killed by a falling piano. "Enact safety laws! No furniture that's taller than knee high, for example, or building materials have to be as light as cardboard to so furniture isn't heavy enough to kill."
[effect]The nation's leading wacky waving furniture store has to close its doors following new regulations in @@NATION@@

Wait, a piano? How did a person have a piano fall on them? True pianos are tripods almost incapable of tipping, while uprights are very low to the ground. Both are short enough that they wouldn't really "fall on" a person unless they were pushed out a window or were being lifted for moving, which would not be the fault of the furniture itself. This conjures an image of cartoon villains, rather than unsafe housewares.

In the effect, what is a wacky waving furniture store? I have absolutely no mental picture of what is being communicated there. I would change "has" to "had" and drop in "in @@NATION@@" part on the end as well (this only will show up in descriptions specifically about a given nation, so it is implied).

[option]"That's a foolish idea," pipes in your sister, "because there is simply nothing wrong with furniture. People are just idiots, and Natural Selection will take of them. I guess you could hang some posters reminding people to watch out for furniture, that way it doesn't look like you're ignoring things."
[effect]Furniture comes wrapped in informational pamphlets about furniture safety

Natural Selection doesn't have to be capitalized (unless you're talking about the video game).

[option]One of your advisers, @@RANDOMNAME@@, dodging a large falling bookshelf as they approach your lopsided, top heavy desk. "@@Leader@@, the real problem here is the assembly of furniture. Trusting people to assemble their own furniture at work or home is proving dangerous. Businesses need to be required to provide highly trained assembly crews to make sure furniture is safely assembled and won't hurt people."
[effect]Newspapers can't keep up with the high demand for classified ads seeking furniture assemblymen

The first line is not a sentence. It reads like a photo caption - "A person named Bob, who is dodging while walking." What about them? What are they doing? For the argument made, that works I think, but would definitely reemphasize the need for something other than a piano in the first example. Nobody assembles their own pianos. Bookshelves may collapse, but they don't just fly off the walls. The only things this really fits in my mind would be like kitchen cabinets tumbling down, where they plummet until they hit a counter, then fall forward dangerously. Perhaps mounting things to the walls is what needs to be regulated? Building permits, professional contractors, engineers, that sort of thing?

[option]@@RANDOMNAME@@, a friend of yours in the furniture business, contacts you. "@@Leader@@, our businesses shouldn't be required to spend more money to do something that people have done for themselves for decades. Instead of burdening us, encourage customers to easily file claims for compensation if they're hurt by a company's product. The free market will figure itself out, always has."
[effect]Customers follow a wild goose chase in hopes to receive compensation for injuries.

Would a furniture industry rep really try to encourage having customers file claims against the furniture industry? Even if they are supremely confidant in their own company's products, since the above is already suggesting the fault lies with incompetent users (which the company can't control), perhaps they would be more likely to encourage having customers take out and file insurance claims? That way it protects the furniture industry from the onus of regulations, as well as responsibility.