The fixed name that I’m currently using for the second speaker comes from the 1960s ‘Batman’ movie: I included this on a whim, and wouldn’t object to changing it if people feel strongly on the matter. Yes, the speaker in the fourth option is a version of the Joker: The original version of him in the comics briefly operated a gambling ship near Gotham City version back in the early 1940s, so he seemed an obvious person to use in this role here… and, as you might recognize, that option’s effect line is a ‘Casablanca’ reference.
^_^
Fifth draft
Casino Ahoy!
[issue]Certain 'entrepeneurs' have found a way around @@NAME@@′s ban on gambling: They have built a casino aboard a ship, and keep this just outside of your territorial waters (apart from brief resupply runs to foreign ports) while using fast boats to ferry their clientele to and fro.
[validity]Gambling is banned; nation has Police; leaving the nation is legal; Capitalism… and maybe also — to ensure that there are enough potential customers for this enterprise to work — some combination of high Wealthy Income, high Income Inequality, and/or low Taxation?
[option]"It's a disgrace!" exclaims @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@ Joyless, your Anti-Gambling Tsar'. "@@DEMONYMPPLURAL@@ mustn't be allowed to do things outside this country that they couldn't legally do within it. Change the law so that people need an official permit even to take boat-trips past the territorial limit, and so that any @@DEMONYM@@ who does do something illegal while they are elsewhere can be arrested, tried, and punished accordingly, when they come back home afterwards."
[validity]unrestricted (If the nation previously lacked Courts then this would reinstate them)
[effect]offshore fishermen and recreational sailors hug the coast closely for fear of arrest
[option]"That's bit much, though," grumbles Commodore Schmidlapp, your adviser on maritime matters, perhaps remembering some incidents from visits to foreign ports during his own sea-going career. "Why not just send a crew of Navy men togged-up in civvies, pretending to be crooks themselves, to get aboard that ship somehow and seize control then move it inside the territorial limit where the police can 'arrest' them and take over?"
[validity]nation has a Military.
[effect]the navy’s special forces have adopted a skull-&-crossbones flag
[option]"Actually, @@LEADER@@, maybe this indicates that the ban on Gambling was a mistake to start with?" @@RANDOMNAME@@, a Treasury official murmurs. "If people are going to keep on gambling anyway, then we might as well let them do it legally, so that we can tax the business..."
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]the government ends up with much more of gamblers′ money than casino owners do
[option]"That would be no fun,″ complains somebody who seems to have found his way into this meeting without an invitation, a decidedly pale-skinned man whom you recognise as casino-ship owner Mr Joseph Kerr. ″If you leave the situation as it is, without allowing competitors ashore or meddling in other ways, then we will pay a reasonable 'tax' – in untraceable cash, of course – directly to your office."
[validity]unrestricted
[effect]@@LEADER@@ is publicly shocked — shocked! — to find that gambling is going on aboard ships just outside the nation′s territorial waters
Changes from fourth draft: Alterations to that draft which that were marked on it by striking through or use of green colour made into normal text; one more word deleted from option four.
Changes from third draft: quotation marks straightened, various minor changes to wording in options 1, 3, & 4.
Changes from second draft: introduction expanded to mention resupply abroad, first option expanded slightly to answer the "Why not just stop the boats that take their customers out?" question, first option's effect line changed.
Changes from first draft: Options 2 & 4 both expanded in response to feedback.
) would be something like
