Socialist America roleplay server

[Enso]

So I was browsing reddit last week & came across someone promoting a political roleplay discord server. I spend the majority of my day logged into discord (it minimizes to the system tray on PC & the phone app is accessible), so I figured: why not.

The server roleplay is set in the year 2080 after a socialist revolution begins. When you first join the server; you are given the opportunity to join an ideology / party affiliation. You can also found a new party later, if you wish. There is very little stated restrictions to this. The majority of the server is leftist sects. Communist, Socialist, Authoritarian Socialist/ Stalinist, Libertarian Socialists (currently the most powerful party in both numbers & by securing the presidency), Social Democrats, Capitalists, & Council Communists (founded by me).

Parties all participate in congress and anyone can propose new bills to debate. Speaker of the house chooses which bills will be voted on. I wasn't initially going to run for an office (every 30 days an election is held for president & speaker) & eventually did only to help garner interest in my Council Communist party, because the party I initially joined ("Socialist Party of the New America") very quickly dissolved within about 2 days. Within game-time compression 1 IRL days = 52 in-game days.

(Started brushing up on my Trotsky yesterday just to get in the right headspace. lol)

I realized at some point that while I love the concept of this social experiment, it was left up to the participators to decide the eventual direction of the whole thing (the server owner is a hands-off managerial role thus far). President has admin powers, among a few other people for the similar reason we have "janitors" here, but President will be able to have as much power as is legislated to them. There's about 50 people at the moment, mostly harmonious, but we encourage that people vocalize their disagreements regarding different aspects of leftist ideology. I ended up being elected the first speaker of the house, and the person I endorsed for president (a Libertarian Socialist, ended up winning that seat).






I actually expected myself to lose the election because I am currently a party of one [Council Communist], the Libertarian Socialists were running a candidate for speaker as well, but I did have a cool campaign poster going for me.

Here are the first two bills that I chose to put up for a vote.

Currently it's all very open-ended, but the president-elect & I started to discuss the structuring of the server itself; and how it could easily be transitioned into something similar to mafia or DnD. Having mafia players there would help facilitate this, since it's not exactly a common language.

tl;dr

Spoiler

elv3e Yesterday at 12:56 PM
I do think that we need a legit constitution for the server that can be opened up in a browser or downloaded for reference.
[12:57 PM]
I don't think it needs to be that radically different from the US constitution (with some notable exceptions).

elv3e Yesterday at 1:08 PM
Maybe we set up a GitHub/GitLab for easy reading and access?

jik12358 Yesterday at 1:13 PM
Slavoj ?i?ek is good, change my mind

elv3e Yesterday at 1:14 PM
Ahem... The guy looks like a slightly more alcoholic and significantly more energetic Dan Harmon.

enso Yesterday at 1:16 PM
Sublime Object of Ideology was a good listen in audiobook format but only because I listened to it right after Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit so actually knew what he was talking about like half the time.
[1:20 PM]
@elv3e I've been thinking about overarching mechanics a lot. I am sure I will have a coherent plan of action regarding meta-structuring before my term as speaker is up, at least. Even just considering things like a simulated economy / the influence of random events.
[1:21 PM]
Only b/c server owner didn't really lay anything like that out. My brain can only handle so much abstraction.

elv3e Yesterday at 1:21 PM
Maybe create a bot-only "events" channel or something?

enso Yesterday at 1:21 PM
ooo that's an awesome idea wow

elv3e Yesterday at 1:22 PM
Like, economic news, national tragedies, random political scandals, etc.
[1:22 PM]
No fun if I'm president without the occasional thing for someone to create an in-universe conspiracy theory lol

enso Yesterday at 1:23 PM
Also! Perhaps passing a Universal Basic Income legislation could allow us to deposit a sort of currency to members at a set interval. Something along those lines might be interesting to see play out, anyway.
[1:24 PM]
This I think of conceptually b/c parties IRL have varying access to resources.
[1:25 PM]
Obviously some capitalists would have no moral disgust over hoarding money for themselves, so it would act as a variable.

elv3e Yesterday at 1:26 PM
I do think a server reorganization effort might help as well. Heck, many of the channels don't even have a description of what they're used for.

enso Yesterday at 1:28 PM
I keep thinking about the consequences of this post... lol.

enso Yesterday at 1:28 PM
[1:28 PM]
We live in a ... lawless ... society.

elv3e Yesterday at 1:29 PM
lolol

enso Yesterday at 1:29 PM
How am I going to pay for my healthcare when I get shot for being speaker if I have no monies.
[1:31 PM]
rolls D20 dexterity check

elv3e Yesterday at 1:32 PM
Hmmm... actually, that's not too far off from war games that are used by think tanks for "what if" scenarios. Give players roles to play and act accordingly, dice to correspond to random chance, etc.

enso Yesterday at 1:33 PM
dice rolls really do solve a lot of problems in game-theory

elv3e Yesterday at 1:35 PM
Hell, look up the Transition Integrity Project. Might prove a solid baseline for creating a game system. Or at least for fueling paranoia about the election lol
[1:39 PM]
Only difference is that rather than running the game for purposes of research, the game could be run here for roleplay and entertainment.

enso Yesterday at 1:39 PM
Maybe this bot would be useful. https://avrae.io
Avrae
Avrae is a Discord bot designed to streamline playing D&D over Discord. Featuring advanced dice, SRD and character sheet integration, and initiative tracking, you'll never need another D&D bot.

[1:40 PM]
I tried "Dice Maiden" but couldn't get it to work.
[1:40 PM]
This one is just like

!r d20

elv3e Yesterday at 1:41 PM
Yeah, maybe having members make a character sheet of random politically-relevant stats could help.

enso Yesterday at 1:41 PM
As long as it were very accessible.

elv3e Yesterday at 1:42 PM
Within reason, anyway.
[1:43 PM]
Man, the more I'm thinking about this, the more I kinda want to make a general purpose "new American government roleplay" ruleset lol.

enso Yesterday at 1:48 PM
Right. I encourage it so long as it isn't alienating to anyone, but I doubt it would be. Probably the element that brought most of us here to begin with.

This is Day 7 that I've been a member there.

Here is the invite link: https://discord.gg/quT6vAg

Anyone is welcome to join at any time. The comradery is good & I would like to see it grow. Two of the things that interest me most are political theory and roleplaying games & I think this has potential to keep becoming better with time, with the right minds involved.

[Enso]

Suddenly remembers no one here is an American.

[Enso]

Needed to organize my thoughts on this some, anyway. (& you obviously don't need to be American to join, several people there are not already.)

[Enso]

If anyone sees my fellow American Jerome around; please tell him that he's also invited.

[Zeluvia]

I am in Texas, you counting that? So is PH.



Should use the Estonian model for voting. And taxes. They fucking rock. https://e-estonia.com


And go pick up Bhutan's Gross Domestic Happiness Index. https://ophi.org.uk/policy/national-...ppiness-index



I hate all these Old Ideas...socialism, capitalism, communism, all suck, we are past that crap. scarcity is not an issue


Steady state economy FTW. https://steadystate.org/discover/definition


Common ownership of necessities, electric, water, sewage, trash, internet, phone, highways, run off taxes or as municipal or state non profits.



Special regulations for transportation of goods. Environmental damage included in the cost of doing business.



Competition in all other areas. Severe regulation to protect and encourage competition and prevent monopolization; for example, a corporation can expand vertically, but not horizontally (buy related business that either supply or sell end products, but not competitors or unrelated businesses)

[gib]

Originally Posted by Zeluvia

Common ownership of necessities, electric, water, sewage, trash, internet, phone, highways,

and amazon.com?

[Zeluvia]

Walmart needs to step the fuck up and compete !

[MondoVman]

Originally Posted by Zeluvia

Walmart needs to step the fuck up and compete !

*Considers PMing Zel a link to Walmart's online website. Nope. Effort.

[Enso]

In ~42 hours a bill that I wrote will (probably) pass that will implement a more mechanical game system. It introduces money, banking, random events, static events, & a health points system.

[Enso]

Originally Posted by Zeluvia

I hate all these Old Ideas...socialism, capitalism, communism, all suck, we are past that crap. scarcity is not an issue

I'm going to try to get the server owner to add an official Anarchist Party option upon sign-up. You can also create your own party.

[Zeluvia]

Originally Posted by MondoVman

*Considers PMing Zel a link to Walmart's online website. Nope. Effort.

oh I use it. In fact, I have returns to make, because just WTF. I ordered two cans of peaches, 6 jars of chinese mustard, a can opener, and a cat bed.


I got 12 cans of peaches, 1 jar of chinese mustard, a cat bed that measured, I shit you not, 6 inches in diameter, and the can opener is still on its way.


This is pretty typical of my experience with Wal Mart.

[Zeluvia]

Originally Posted by Enso

I'm going to try to get the server owner to add an official Anarchist Party option upon sign-up. You can also create your own party.

Anarchists are just people having a temper tantrum because they aren't in the hierarchy. Anarchy is unnatural and unworkable.



Hierarchies are biologically inevitable. Organization is necessary. Leaders emerge. But once a society grows past Dunbar's limit, Social cues can no longer be used to set the hierarchy. This is why there is always a form of government eventually. The idea that all humans lived in bands of hunter gatherers without any hierarchy isn't born out by the evidence. Leadership may be subtle, and it may vary according to the circumstances, with different people taking charge of different aspects of tribal life, but it's there.


There is in fact a theory I read a long time ago that many male anthropologists completely overlooked the hierarchies of primitive tribes because the general decision maker was female.

[Cunt]

Originally Posted by Zeluvia

Anarchists are just people having a temper tantrum because they aren't in the hierarchy. Anarchy is unnatural and unworkable.



Hierarchies are biologically inevitable. Organization is necessary. Leaders emerge. But once a society grows past Dunbar's limit, Social cues can no longer be used to set the hierarchy. This is why there is always a form of government eventually. The idea that all humans lived in bands of hunter gatherers without any hierarchy isn't born out by the evidence. Leadership may be subtle, and it may vary according to the circumstances, with different people taking charge of different aspects of tribal life, but it's there.


There is in fact a theory I read a long time ago that many male anthropologists completely overlooked the hierarchies of primitive tribes because the general decision maker was female.

Most of the families I know are led by females, or the males think they are, with females consenting.

I'm not sure where these 'patriarchs' are hiding. Maybe in churches.

[Carlsson]

Bet those anthropologists never visited mindromp

[gib]

Originally Posted by Carlsson

Bet those anthropologists never visited mindromp

in fairness, who does

[Timewave]

Originally Posted by gib

in fairness, who does

[charlou]

Originally Posted by Zeluvia

Anarchists are just people having a temper tantrum because they aren't in the hierarchy. Anarchy is unnatural and unworkable.



Hierarchies are biologically inevitable. Organization is necessary. Leaders emerge. But once a society grows past Dunbar's limit, Social cues can no longer be used to set the hierarchy. This is why there is always a form of government eventually. The idea that all humans lived in bands of hunter gatherers without any hierarchy isn't born out by the evidence. Leadership may be subtle, and it may vary according to the circumstances, with different people taking charge of different aspects of tribal life, but it's there.


There is in fact a theory I read a long time ago that many male anthropologists completely overlooked the hierarchies of primitive tribes because the general decision maker was female.

A lot of statement there.

[Gonzo]

This game is still going; it's become a monster.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

This game is still going; it's become a monster.

Did they pull the troops out of Afghanistan?

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Enso

Here is the invite link: https://discord.gg/quT6vAg.

expired


Thus, self flagellation at this point.

[Jerome]

Running the simulation as if no new generation of people will exist is why communism is always a failure.

[Enso]

Originally Posted by Jerome

expired

Fresh link: https://discord.gg/bbDxSxepqG

Thus, self flagellation at this point.

Nah. Although I wish I had unlimited time to work on it b/c there are a ton of moveable parts to the game now.

[Enso]

Originally Posted by Jerome

Running the simulation as if no new generation of people will exist is why communism is always a failure.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with this sentence.

[Enso]

We just had our second server reboot thus far; except this time we relocated servers completely. Mostly just lost our inactive members in transitioning but there were many of those: ---
Will see how we re-structure the game mechanics going forward; but quality > quantity, anyway.

[Enso]

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