DG6: Make rules easier to change?

[DaveShack]

One of the things I've noticed about the start of each DemoGame since 4 (wasn't really here in DG3 until the creation day chat) is that the pre-game discussion eventually reaches the point of open warfare with deeply divided issues on what the rules should be. My opinion is that we get a "fight to the death" attitude on these discussions because we've set the rules up to be very hard to change after the game starts. This shifts the focus from the game, where it ought to be, to the rules. Undoubtably this is driven in part because we have people who want to play the role of legal scholar.

I don't want to deny the minority who actually like writing laws in legal language their fun, nor do I think that the principle that a "constitution" should be hard to change should be ignored. The arguments in favor of setting a high bar to change a "constitution" are right on track based on the factual and historical accuracy regarding how such documents are created.

I do question though whether basing our rules on the constitutional model is the right thing to do for game play's sake. What if we made the rules relatively easy to change, maybe with a simple majority and a very low required number of voters? There is less incentive to fight over rules if all you need to do is convince a majority of voters the rule needs to change.

 

[Cyc]

I believe the "fight to the death" attitude you speak of was mainly caused by the lack of time we had to put the rules together. Some contributors would rather tie up the process by flip-flopping on the issue or wading uselessly through portions of the issue that are of little importance to the total package. The fact that the bar is set so high in regards to changing the Constitution does add to this problem, but I believe it is not the cause. Making the Rules List/Constitution easier to change may make the situation appear to move along more smoothly, but the root problem will still bottleneck as we run out of time before the start of DG6.

True, being able to start the game and change the rules/laws easily later will help, but by then the arguements have still taken place, the people who don't like laws will have their soapbox, and the bad/hurried rules/laws that were passed may not be able to be changed quickly enough.

 

[Ashburnham]

Are the rules really all that hard to change currently? From what I've seen in this Demogame, the biggest obstacle in changing the law is overcoming the apathy of the citizens. If an issue were truly important to a large group of the citizens, I don't see how they would have any trouble changing the law.

 

[Black_Hole]

I have an idea, lets strip down the constitution a bit, put everything hard coded in there, 3 branches, basic rights, etc... these will still be hard to change however start moving more stuff that might change/controversial stuff to the CoL. The code of laws is relatively easy to change...