All Fone One: Regime Diabolique - The Setup

So, as most people who know me know, I am a big fan of games.   In the past few years I have gotten a lot of my friends into gaming by hosting gatherings where playing games is the primary activity.   More recently I have started to get back into playing longer, narrative based games.   This article will talk about my experiences with one such game.

The game we played at this particular session was called All For One: Regime Diabolique.   This game is based heavily on The Three Musketeers.   The game is set in an alternate universe 1636 France where the Musketeers protect the king and the nation from threats that are both mundane and supernatural.   This is a world where the musketeers not only have to contend with the nefarious schemes of Cardinal Richelieu but also with witches, werewolves, and other creatures from the horror genre.

All For One uses a generic ruleset called Ubiquity which emphasizes storytelling and cinematic action.  I have a few games that use the Ubiquity rules and apply those rules to different settings so it's a system I felt confident in using.

Three of the players were people I knew were experienced in role playing games and in fact we had a played RPGs as a group before.   The next player was new to RPGs but had experience with table top games.   The last two players were unknown quantities.  People who had expressed interest but who I didn't know all that well.

The players first step was creating their characters.  Because the game is about swashbuckling musketeers some skills are automatically given to the players.   Basically any character in the game is expected to be able to ride a horse, fight with a sword, shoot a gun, and do all the general athletic stuff that you see in swashbuckler movies like swing on a rope or scale a wall.

Once the characters were made the story of the game could begin and that is what we will cover next time...

Creating a Meritocratic Government

Another long one so bear with me.... or don't, nobody is forcing you down this particular rabbit hole.

So, in the interest of full disclosure, this started off with me "poking the bear" which, in this case, was one of my more populist friends. Still, it sent me down an avenue of thought that I found rather intriguing. Also, I know this is not going to happen but this is an exercise in philosophy rather than policy.

So anyway, reforming government....

To me the biggest problem with government is that there is little to no correlation between the qualities that make a successful politician and the qualities that make a good leader. In fact I would go so far as to say that the people who make the best politicians may be the least qualified to actually lead. Add to that the fact that our system incentivizes people to become career politicians and then use their insider knowledge as lobbyists... It seems fundamentally broken.

So, what do we do about it? In the first article below Andy Rooney suggests giving people a test to see who would be the best leader and putting that person in charge. While his argument falls apart when he starts suggesting ideology based questions and flippantly disregards the need for a neutral scorer I think his idea has merit.

Instead of testing for ideology we could test for the areas that would make an effective leader regardless of ideology. Knowledge of history, how the government works, basic scientific literacy, critical thinking.... whatever we think our leaders need to be good at. I don't pretend that I am the one who should be making this test but I am certain a group of experts who have studied these fields can design test questions that can't be "cheated". Then all we have to do is have a computer score the test and give that person the job.

The next step is to make the test free to take. We can have other gatekeeping measures such as requiring the test takers be of a certain age or meet citizenship requirements, we could mandate that the test taker has a college degree and isn't a convicted felon but gatekeeping measures should be kept to a minimum since doing otherwise defeats the purpose of a meritocracy.

Also, because our society seems to value local representation, we could offer the test in each state or district and continue to give each district a local member. If, however, we plan on maintaining single member districts we should adopt a system like the one here in Iowa that prevents gerrymandering.

Another option would be to offer a second test for ideology to ensure the new government is representative as well as qualified but other demographic information should not be a factor. Finally we would still need a constitution to limit what the government can do and protect basic rights like free speech, fair trial, etc. While tyranny of the intellectuals may not be as bad as tyranny of the masses I still believe that tyranny should be avoided whenever possible.

OK so now that we have reformed our electoral system to create a meritocracy; let's talk about reforming government. In education it is common practice to require students to be in class and, if they miss too many classes, then we don't allow them to take the test. This system could be adopted for congress. Require members to actually be on the House/Senate floor and, if they miss too many sessions, bar them from becoming a candidate the next time around. Additionally; legislators should not be able to raise their own salary. The salary of a legislator should match the median annual income for a person with a college degree in the nation. This would ensure that legislators economic interests were pegged to those of their constituents. It may also be logical to start legislators out at 1.5 times the average and lower it over time. Other safeguards could ensure that legislators would have to do their own taxes or be part of whatever public education or health system they enact.

Will any of this ever happen, no it won't. Still I believe there is some utility in thinking about systems of government even if it for purely philosophical reasons.

Thinking About Law School

Ok this is going to be a longer one so please, bear with me. I wanted to offer some commentary about a subject that has been really important to me for the last couple of years... law school. I know a lot has been written on law school and what it's like and whats wrong with it and I am going to try to avoid sounding like a pre-law advisor.

Anyway, law school, I have loved my time here but I see where the complaints come from. It isn't a perfect system by any means. Really, more than other educational programs, it seems to incentivize bad behavior. What do I mean by that:

First of all law school is competitive, by it's nature it's competitive, and thats not necessarily a bad thing. A desire to be the best and to be recognized is, in my opinion, the right mindset to have as it drives us to better ourselves and to achieve things. The problem with law school is that it instills a competitive mindset with only a token effort to encourage people to compete honorably. Now I don't know if the stories you hear about people hiding books or popping aderall or any of that are true but I know that they are believable and perhaps that is enough. We have created an environment where doing these things is seen as "reasonable" behavior.

The other thing law school does wrong is encourages a tragedy of the commons mindset... funny when you consider that during the first year we got at least one lesson on that work. Anyway, law school incentivizes people to take as much for themselves as possible regardless of whether or not they actually want it. This makes an already competitive environment much more so. I think this is also part of the reason law school evokes so many unpleasant memories in people, because they see it as three years of going after what everyone else wanted, usually for no high purpose than self aggrandizment.

That brings us, rather perfectly, into my next point. John Grisham once had one of his characters opine that meetings his fellow law students brought with it a sense of camaraderie because despite where they came from or even what they planned to do they all loved the law and that meant they all had some commonality. I don't know if that is really true. Yes I think some people actually do want to study law and find it engaging and even exciting. I think other people are here because they think is expected of them or because they don't know what they want to do and this seemed like a way of delaying that ultimate decision.

So, short of becoming the dean, how does one improve law school? I suppose I would answer: "by being a better law student". I have held out a few qualities that I believe an exemplary law student has. He is driven to succeed on his merits but also competes in a manner that is honorable. Additionally, he is motivated by intrinsic rather than extrinsic forces. Doing what he wants to do rather than what people tell him he should do or what will serve to pad his resume.

This paints a pretty grim picture and, like I said, I have really enjoyed law school. I think part of this is because I was able to surround myself with good people who share at least some of my philosophy. Also, maybe it is quixotic to expect an established system to get better because I spent a half hour getting philosophical about it but... it certainly can't hurt to pose the questions.