[Draft] Crashing the Party

[Drasnia]

Title: Crashing the Party

The Issue. In the most recent election, your party won in a landslide victory which has allowed your party to pass legislation without much resistance. However, the Opposition Leader has admonished members of your party - including the Speaker of the Lower House - for limiting the length of debate and rushing self-serving bills through Parliament.

Validity: nation must be a representative democracy

Option 1: "These tactics make a mockery of our venerable nation," decries Opposition Leader @@RANDOMNAME@@ the only place @@HE@@ is allowed - your office. "Bills are passed mere hours after they have been introduced. We need strict rules in place increasing the minimum debate period so legislation can get the attention it rightfully deserves."
Effect: disaster relief bills are passed long after rebuilding has finished

Option 2: "That’s politics, baby," says Majority Whip @@RANDOMNAME@@ in between shaking hands and kissing babies at a party rally. "Debate minimums only serve to make it more difficult for us to respond to timely issues. If you ask me, we should get rid of all debate. Just imagine what we could get done then."
Effect: MPs pass bills to find out what's in them

Option 3: "I daresay, these ruffians have exposed the flaws inherent to Parliament," scoffs self-proclaimed Earl of Northwestern @@ANIMAL@@ County, Lord Pilkington III. "Indeed, so long as they are in office, they will act like the miscreants they are. We must go back to the days of yore when lords ruled with dignity and grace."
Effect: there are no days except the good ole days

Option 4: "Moving to a unicameral system was all a ploy by the lower house to increase their wealth and power," speculates former upper house member @@RANDOMNAME@@ while polishing @@HIS@@ priceless Dàguó vase. "Without upper statesmen like myself checking the power of the inferior – ahem - the lower house, corruption such as this will run rampant. Bring back the upper house, @@LEADER@@!"
Validity: no senate (#560.1)
Effect: the upper house has been reinstated

Title: Crashing the Party

The Issue. In the most recent election, the Majority Party won in a landslide victory. Since then, they have used their power to limit debate and rush self-serving bills through Parliament at a breakneck pace.

Validity: nation must be a representative democracy

Option 1: "These tactics make a mockery of our venerable nation," decries Opposition Leader @@RANDOMNAME@@ the only place he is allowed - your office. "There is such little time to debate and work to improve bills anymore. We need strict rules in place increasing the minimum debate period so legislation can get the attention it rightfully deserves."
Effect: disaster relief bills are passed long after rebuilding has finished

Option 2: "That’s politics, baby," says Majority Whip @@RANDOMNAME@@ in between shaking hands and kissing babies at a party rally. "Debate minimums only serve to make it more difficult for us to respond to timely issues. If you ask me, we should get rid of all debate. Just imagine what we could get done then."
Effect: passed legislation regularly set land speed records for inanimate objects

Option 3: "I daresay, these ruffians have exposed the flaws inherent to Parliament," scoffs self-proclaimed Earl of Northwestern @@ANIMAL@@ County, Lord Pilkington III. "Indeed, so long as they are in office, they will act like the miscreants they are. We must go back to the days of yore when lords ruled with dignity and grace."
Effect: there are no days except the good ole days

Option 4: "Moving to a unicameral system was all a ploy by the lower house to increase their wealth and power," speculates former upper house member @@RANDOMNAME@@ while polishing their priceless Dàguó vase. "Without upper statesmen like myself checking the power of the inferior – ahem - the lower house, corruption such as this will run rampant. Bring back the upper house, @@LEADER@@!"
Validity: no senate (#560.1)
Effect: the upper house has been reinstated

[Drasnia]

Some commentary on the draft:

I thought I'd get back into writing by trying my hand at a #560.1 reversal. I felt like making it a general issue with a fourth option with a No Senate validity would avoid a lot of the problems with respecting player choice. I now see why there still is no reversal because that problem makes it incredibly tough.

I'm not super crazy about the name. It's not terrible, but it definitely doesn't blow you out of the water. Some alternatives I came up with were Uncivil Servants, Unsilent Majority, Party Animals, and Over the Pork Barrel. Tell me which ones you like or if you come up with others.

The fourth option veers pretty close to "bad choice, reverse?" territory, but I think having the second option which allows the player to reaffirm a lot of the sentiment of #560.1 evens it out just enough to be fine.

Effect lines in this suck but they're the best I've come up with so far. I'm very rusty in this respect. Suggestions would be very appreciated (especially #4).

[SherpDaWerp]

This is an interesting draft. The approach you've used is good and shouldn't create any of the usual #560 reversal problems, but it comes out odd.

The description needs to set up more of a problem for me. Given I'm @@LEADER@@, who controls the majority party, why is it a problem that we can actually get stuff done? Also, speaking about the Majority Party in such a way as to avoid player autonomy has created an odd situation where I'm assumed to be in control of the Majority Party, but I still don't control the bills they put out.

To remedy this, I would suggest moving some of the Opposition Leader's complaints to the description. That way, you can still talk about me and my legislature passing tons of bills in a negative way, but frame the negative bits as merely the Opposition Leader's opinion.

In the most recent election, your party won in a landslide victory. But the ability to pass legislation without challenge isn't without issue - the Opposition Leader has accused you and your party of rushing self-serving bills through the legislature without enough negotiation and debate.

This way, you can leave out the weirdness arising from not being able to objectively say that @@LEADER@@'s bills are bad, but still set up a conflict.

It's also weird that the Majority Party won in a landslide in both houses - I get that it's to keep it non-specific (upper or no upper house), but it's rare that a party will control both houses, which makes it feel like such an event should get an explicit mention. Not sure how you could do that rather than write twin drafts with slightly different descriptions, though.

As I said, I do like the premise/setup of a #560.1 reversal being an option in a semi-related draft, rather than the focus of an issue, so if you fix the issues arising from this dance with autonomy/validities, I reckon it'll be quite good.

[Drasnia]

This is an interesting draft. The approach you've used is good and shouldn't create any of the usual #560 reversal problems, but it comes out odd.

The description needs to set up more of a problem for me. Given I'm @@LEADER@@, who controls the majority party, why is it a problem that we can actually get stuff done? Also, speaking about the Majority Party in such a way as to avoid player autonomy has created an odd situation where I'm assumed to be in control of the Majority Party, but I still don't control the bills they put out.

To remedy this, I would suggest moving some of the Opposition Leader's complaints to the description. That way, you can still talk about me and my legislature passing tons of bills in a negative way, but frame the negative bits as merely the Opposition Leader's opinion.

In the most recent election, your party won in a landslide victory. But the ability to pass legislation without challenge isn't without issue - the Opposition Leader has accused you and your party of rushing self-serving bills through the legislature without enough negotiation and debate.

This way, you can leave out the weirdness arising from not being able to objectively say that @@LEADER@@'s bills are bad, but still set up a conflict.

It's also weird that the Majority Party won in a landslide in both houses - I get that it's to keep it non-specific (upper or no upper house), but it's rare that a party will control both houses, which makes it feel like such an event should get an explicit mention. Not sure how you could do that rather than write twin drafts with slightly different descriptions, though.

As I said, I do like the premise/setup of a #560.1 reversal being an option in a semi-related draft, rather than the focus of an issue, so if you fix the issues arising from this dance with autonomy/validities, I reckon it'll be quite good.

This draft's been written and re-written probably about a half dozen times now (and probably worse off because of it), and the description is one of the things I changed the most. When I first started out, the description was something along the lines of:

It's election season in @@NAME@@ and this year the majority party has gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle. In a bid to make true on many of their MP's campaign promises, the majority party rushed several poorly-written and error-filled bills to vote.

Would something more along the lines of that be better, or do you like your concept better?

[SherpDaWerp]

This draft's been written and re-written probably about a half dozen times now (and probably worse off because of it), and the description is one of the things I changed the most. When I first started out, the description was something along the lines of:

It's election season in @@NAME@@ and this year the majority party has gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle. In a bid to make true on many of their MP's campaign promises, the majority party rushed several poorly-written and error-filled bills to vote.

Would something more along the lines of that be better, or do you like your concept better?

My main concern was that speaking about the Majority Party in third person makes it sound like you/@@LEADER@@ isn't the leader of the Majority Party, in addition to "you can't say @@LEADER@@ made bad bills in an objective sense".

The Classic Problem™ with a No Senate reversal is that the biggest reason to have an upper house is for double-checking and confirmation, but there's no need to have double-checking and confirmation if @@LEADER@@'s bills can't have mistakes in them. Your draft is (IMO) far enough outside "@@LEADER@@'s bills are bad", but that description doesn't meet that standard.

The core argument I read from your draft was "one party rushing bills through is bad, how do we remedy this". That's quite close to "your bills are bad", but by framing it as the Opposition Leader's accusations instead of objective fact, it seems OK. Plus, by presenting other options like "give more debate time", it seems more like an issue of how much legislative debate is good (and the fact that an absolute majority removes said debate) rather than a straight-up "your bills are bad" No Senate reversal.

If I'm to be honest mine is just better mine doesn't have as much of the "your bills are bad" purely because I wrote it with full awareness of this problem, so I tried to emphasise the fact that your bills aren't objectively bad.

[Australian rePublic]

But wouldn't that mean that leader him/herself is doing all these things?

[Drasnia]

But wouldn't that mean that leader him/herself is doing all these things?

That's a fair point. It's definitely something that I need to avoid. I'm working on a rewrite I hope to have out sometime this afternoon™ so hopefully I'll have fixed that issue.

[Drasnia]

Draft 2 is now out. I used some of Sherp's ideas for the desc and while it's still not perfect, I feel it's a lot better.

I added a couple pronoun macros, changed a sentence in option 1, and changed the effect for option 2. The effects are still pretty bad so advice on those would be very appreciated.

[Jutsa]

Not gonna lie I'm really digging the issue not surrounding but still giving the opportunity for an upper house reversal while also being open to all kinds of nations.

Also digging the feudalism option.

Not much to say except you missed an "in" in

@@RANDOMNAME@@ the only place @@HE@@ is allowed

[Drasnia]

Not much to say except you missed an "in" in

@@RANDOMNAME@@ the only place @@HE@@ is allowed

It was intentional and, at least to me, is still perfectly correct if a less common expression.

[Drasnia]

Bump.

[Westinor]

Looks alright, shouldn't there be a validity requiring that the nation has parties (seeing as there is an issue, I believe, abolishing those all together)?

[SherpDaWerp]

In the most recent election, your party won in a landslide victory which has allowed your party to pass legislation without much resistance.

This sentence feels like it runs on a bit. The part with "which has" needs a comma instead, to break the sentence properly into three fragments rather than 1 short fragment and 1 really long one.
Plus, "your party" appears twice. You can't assume the name, but the second time you could just put "you" instead, to cut down on repetition. Having introduced "your party", "you" could be plural referring to the group, rather than you singular, so it doesn't necessarily mean that @@LEADER@@ passes all the legislation on their own.

the Speaker of the Lower House

Given the description is non-specific, this is out-of-place. Why would @@NAME@@ have a Lower House and no Upper House?

The rest is good - the description leaves all the usual assumptions untouched and the opposition leader's comments are a great way to say "your bills are bad" without actually saying that outright.

"Moving to a unicameral system was all a ploy by the lower house to increase their wealth and power," speculates former upper house member @@RANDOMNAME@@ while polishing @@HIS@@ priceless Dàguó vase. "Without upper statesmen like myself checking the power of the inferior – ahem - the lower house, corruption such as this will run rampant. Bring back the upper house, @@LEADER@@!"

This option seems tangential to the actual issue at hand - there's not enough in this option about how the lack of debate relates to the lack of an upper house. Clearly it would, but maybe there should be a sentence about how there would be double the debate if an upper house still existed.

[Drasnia]

In the most recent election, your party won in a landslide victory which has allowed your party to pass legislation without much resistance.

This sentence feels like it runs on a bit. The part with "which has" needs a comma instead, to break the sentence properly into three fragments rather than 1 short fragment and 1 really long one.
Plus, "your party" appears twice. You can't assume the name, but the second time you could just put "you" instead, to cut down on repetition. Having introduced "your party", "you" could be plural referring to the group, rather than you singular, so it doesn't necessarily mean that @@LEADER@@ passes all the legislation on their own.

the Speaker of the Lower House

Given the description is non-specific, this is out-of-place. Why would @@NAME@@ have a Lower House and no Upper House?

The rest is good - the description leaves all the usual assumptions untouched and the opposition leader's comments are a great way to say "your bills are bad" without actually saying that outright.

"Moving to a unicameral system was all a ploy by the lower house to increase their wealth and power," speculates former upper house member @@RANDOMNAME@@ while polishing @@HIS@@ priceless Dàguó vase. "Without upper statesmen like myself checking the power of the inferior – ahem - the lower house, corruption such as this will run rampant. Bring back the upper house, @@LEADER@@!"

This option seems tangential to the actual issue at hand - there's not enough in this option about how the lack of debate relates to the lack of an upper house. Clearly it would, but maybe there should be a sentence about how there would be double the debate if an upper house still existed.

Those are some great points. I'll incorporate them in my next draft. I'll give this another day or two for further feedback before I edit Draft 3.

[Candensia]

Look, it might be trivial, but I've been staring at it for days, and I'm distracted by it more than I probably should.

"That’s politics, baby," says Majority Whip @@RANDOMNAME@@

You've got an apostrophe that needs be straightened out.

[Drasnia]

Look, it might be trivial, but I've been staring at it for days, and I'm distracted by it more than I probably should.

"That’s politics, baby," says Majority Whip @@RANDOMNAME@@

You've got an apostrophe that needs be straightened out.

Yeah, don't know how that got in there. I'll whip it back into shape.

[Fauxia]

How does this differ from issue #130? I get that this is about establishing minimum time and that is about stretching debate for all it’s worth, but I don’t really see much of a difference once you reach the options.

Well, besides the crazy option and the Upper House option.

[Drasnia]

How does this differ from issue #130? I get that this is about establishing minimum time and that is about stretching debate for all it’s worth, but I don’t really see much of a difference once you reach the options.

Well, besides the crazy option and the Upper House option.

It's the entire opposite premise.