Bretonia Parliament Writeup

[Daedric]

As it stands, yes. I agree.

I just don't think you need a full fledged bicameral legislature on a GAME.

You don't. The players asked for it, no one is forcing them to participate. If you don't want to directly participate but want your voice heard, join one of the parties and give an MP in your party a piece of your mind!

Edit: By you don't, I meant you don't need a full fledged bicameral legislature. :P

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[Ingenious]

You don't. The players asked for it, no one is forcing them to participate. If you don't want to directly participate but want your voice heard, join one of the parties and give an MP in your party a piece of your mind!

Edit: By you don't, I meant you don't need a full fledged bicameral legislature. :P

Ok, well feedback was asked for, feedback delivered, it's a frivolous idea that will consume too much time to actually be fun, IMHO.

[jammi]

If you don't want to directly participate but want your voice heard, join one of the parties and give an MP in your party a piece of your mind!

Man has a point. If you want influence without responsibility, find an MP that reflects your own ideology and lobby him to do what you want. There's also the possibility of bribes, if they're crooked enough. Then again, if they are actually honest, you might end up receiving a visit from the BPA for that. :D

EDIT: Fun is different things for different people - usually I like politics. Fun. The vast majority of the workload will be organising votes and making sure people stick to procedure. 90% of that workload will be undertaken by a small core of players, such as myself and Dab. I'd be more than happy to help in that respect. The others just vote on legislature, and present debates if they feel particularly strongly on a matter.

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[Daedric]

Ok, well feedback was asked for, feedback delivered, it's a frivolous idea that will consume too much time to actually be fun, IMHO.

I'll agree with you. Zoners had something similar, it was more work than it was fun.

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[sadtranslation]

I've got a solution for the issue of peerages. In the UK, the House of Lords (the second house) used to consist entirely of Hereditary Peers. These are the people who had been appointed a title by patronage at some point in their ancestor's lifetimes and had thus acquired a seat in the Lords. They were predominantly rich, Conservative/Whig supporters who weren't actual politicians. Some of them today can actually trace their inherited titles back over 600 years.

No, you surely misunderstood me, though, I may be not clear enough. Those parties mentioned fit as a mere definition as a parliament bloc, but, honestly, it makes more sense to have a number of parties with a different background forming blocs than limited number of parties with the subgroups of them.

When it came to the last attempt to establish a functional Parliament, I was making a Green Front write-up basing it on sweden experience of merging socialists with environmentalists and it actually made it look better than a little kid among the serious politicans, giving it a much more reasonable electorate than younglings from Cambridge and much better potential with the propaganda aimed on Leeds's population, for example.

Having alternative and freedom of choice and creation make Parliament an interesting playground, otherwise it will be a cosplay of British Parliament, a descent approach, but is not necessary for creating a Parliament in Discovery Bretonia. The system suggested is easier to manage, but, eventually, it limits players; though, there is always such a solution as elections that will only bring more political roleplay and at the same time let you to have a reasonably limited number of seats if you desire so.

Though, I just cleared my point in the first paragraph of the post.

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[Dab]

The whole idea of making a working Parliament for Bretonia was suggested several times already lately and it's good to see some progress; and while the procedural part requires some time to be looked through, there is a major flaw of this suggestion compared to Murphy's project made a couple of month ago.

Parties suggested in this write-up are merely boring. In opposition to parties suggested by players for Murphy's Parliament, the ones here are cardboard cutouts, tied to the support of Queen and the Army, support of business and control over the Monarchy, to ecology and Dublin separation - as Royalists, Federalists, Green and Independence parties accordingly.

While for the Royalists and Federalists, that are mentioned as the largest parties, it basically guarantees the struggle for power, the remaining two groups, basically, the representatives of unlawful Gaians and Mollys, are introduced to the sandbox operational manual and allowed to play with someone there. Not their low number of seats offered is the problem, but the simplified agenda that hardly fits any reasonable requirements.

While Murphy's Parliament had quite a number of factions, that was hardly a problem since with good player-made write-ups they represented all the factions in Bretonia, giving them a complex historical background and motivation, making them realistic political groups which are interesting to play; the groups with frontmen, ideas, standing suggestions and history.

Really, cardboard cutouts are hardly the best idea for keyboard pvp. Parties sumbitted by players are suddenly the best solution. Since it was mentioned above, I can only suggest the replacement of the current ones as well.

None of the stuff used in this writeup came from Murphy's. It's likely that we had similar things, I don't know, because it has been months since I read anything related to what Murphy did for Parliament. The reason there are similarities is because both ideas were based on Britain's political system.

These are not "cardboard cutouts". The Party Platforms were written up by me literally 30 minutes before this thread was created.

I created the platforms to give a generally idea on their political views and positions, while still leaving it open to interpretation and fluctuation. I don't want to force people into a specific mold. As with infocards I write for the mod, I like to leave things as open-ended as possible while establishing the base line of the idea/lore. There is enough here for people to choose their party, but also to be able to shape that party's politics, rather than being forced to vote a certain way.

If you want to update the party platform descriptions, which I left short and vague purposefully, feel free to submit any revised descriptions.

Also, the Independence and Green Parties, while required for the Molly/Gaian MPs, are not restricted only to the Molly/Gaian MPs. Independent MPs can also join these parties.

So to clarify: There are stations owned by BMM - which are the host of independent seats, and there are separate seats which are BMM's to occupy? These are two separate things right? If so, for the independant seats on BMM's stations, say Hargreave - can any character be an MP for this station, or just BMM characters?

My concern is that the larger factions have too much control in this parliament. I love the idea, don't get me wrong, but I feel that steps need to be taken to prevent this turning into a Bretonian leaders chat. Some of the more interesting mechanics of this parliament - the player parties, independent debate - hinge on a large contingent of players not directly linked to any official faction.

Independent seats are open to independent characters only. Those with no link to official factions. They might be opened to official faction members as well if we cannot get enough indie involvement to fill up seats.

The idea WAS to give a lot of power to certain factions. NPC factions, not Official. BMM should be the strongest political group in Bretonia. The seats were created in order to stick to that lore. BowEx is also very strong in politics. Gateway and Planetform are less powerful.

Remember this is a BRETONIAN Parliament. Not a "Sirius Parliament." Non-Bretonian factions are not going to have as much political power as Bretonian factions. But they are given enough that they can influence and shift the politics of Bretonia if they can cooperate. This means making deals and compromises amongst each other, and with the Bret Faction MPs. This means being politicians.

This is very hard to achieve, and will thus never be used. It's usually 2/3 for a veto.
Other than that, seems pretty good.

The Veto Override is -meant- to be hard to achieve. However, it is not impossible. I have personal experience in these kinds of forum roleplays with voting and the like. I've been in CoZ and in the older Bret leader War Cabinet that used a strict voting system. Getting 3/4ths votes isn't very difficult most of the time.

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[jammi]

One more thing. For forum work, the Commons and Lords need to be kept separate. Too confusing otherwise.

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[Diomedes]

This looks very interesting. I haven't tallied the total seat number, but it seems enough that at leas the Commons discussions will be pretty daunting to keep pace with if a significant portion of MPs begin adding to the discussion. Might almost need to supplement each speech with bullet points at the end of each post, or something similar to keep the developments in the house easily followed.

Another question: Privateer representatives I take it will just fall into one of the independent categories? Politics and policy is something where historically British privateers and the government/military leadership did not always agree. It might have an interesting dynamic if these are kept separate from the BAF seats (which I assume is the other option).

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[jammi]

This looks very interesting. I haven't tallied the total seat number, but it seems enough that at leas the Commons discussions will be pretty daunting to keep pace with if a significant portion of MPs begin adding to the discussion. Might almost need to supplement each speech with bullet points at the end of each post, or something similar to keep the developments in the house easily followed.

I don't think there will actually be a unified Parliament chat on Skype after we've finished setting things up. Instead there will be chats on the basis of political parties. The agenda will probably be displayed in a public document somewhere, with debates for and against legislation / an action being presented on the forum. To stop this part becoming congested, that's where the Speaker of the House / steward would come into it. They could arrange who speaks when, much alike the current Commons. When it comes to a vote, MPs will record their vote privately, which will then be tallied and displayed publicly.

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[Linkus]

Looks good.
Basically takes the decision making away from Skype and puts it on the forums, with some guidelines to allow more people to be involved without cocking it all up.

I'll be throwing my hand in for a seat.

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