Game Moderation Abolition Amendment (Passed)

[Oakvale]

Feel free to ignore me since I'm obviously not a Senator.

I think there's a lot of truth to the idea that the GM position is in serious trouble. The present state of Atlasia is that we elect people to debate things, and the outcome of the debate shapes the results of future elections - not because of any simulated impact of legislation that passes or fails, but because of the merit and tenor of the debate. I think removing the GM would work just fine in that, domestic sense. And I absolutely agree that cost analyses are largely irrelevant and it's telling that recent GMs have abolished them entirely.

The problem with transferring GM powers to the SoEA or SoIA is that you end up with a a situation where an active office holder writes their own story - SoEA Superique solving the Israel-Palestine conflict springs to mind.

If we want to keep the GM position it's clear that we would have to institute penalties for people ignoring the GM's 'reality'. The problem with that is that it will be virtually impossible to manufacture any penalties that can be objectively applied in clear circumstances and not provoke massive outrage when implemented.

I disagree to some extent with the premise of Yelnoc's otherwise excellent post - the game is about elections, but the difference is that the 'governance' element is, as I mentioned, based around debate rather than on 'results'. And that's fine - I think us analysing and discussing the costs and merits of legislation is a lot more entertaining and actually healthy for the game than someone handing down the gospel by fiat.

The fundamental problem that needs to be addressed, and is not being addressed by the GM position for an array of myriad reasons, is that policy is ephemeral. This applies particularly in foreign policy. Look at it this way -

1. ISIS arises in real life.
2. Players naturally want to react to this event - to the extent that it would seem absurd to attempt to ignore it because it may not be happening in our virtual reality - and our imaginary far more hawkish Senate passes, say, a resolution to allow the President to deploy ground troops.
3. The President deploys ground troops in our hypothetical reality.
4. Atlasia reality and real life diverge - the U.S. does not deploy ground troops.
5. As a result of this, ISIS becomes more powerful in reality and, say, continues to push into Iraq.
6. Players naturally want to react to this event - to the extent that it would seem absurd to attempt to ignore it because it may not be happening in our virtual reality...



e: There's also the slightly crass point that 'real life' writes a far better 'plot' than any GM could.

[Oakvale]

Please do not give us the impossible task of judging whether someone has "ignored the GM's storyline" or whatever.