1948 Deadline: 1:00 AM GMT, Sunday, March 15, 2015.
A brief conversation in the American Politics thread over in GD has brought me to the conclusion that trying to simulate American elections using an RTD game could be a lot of fun.
We're going to start the game in 1948, with Truman vs. Dewey vs. Thurmond. Initially, I'll try and keep us within the bounds of actual history, but because of the butterfly effect and player input, we'll gradually get further and further away from it, and I'll have to do more storytelling. White House and Senate elections will both be simulated. I'll have to come up with another system for the House, though.
Here's how the presidential elections, at least, are going to work. Let's suppose we're still close enough to actual history that we can use a real election as a baseline- say, 1960. You can cast a vote for Kennedy or Nixon. You vote Nixon.
Back in my secret spreadsheet, I'll have randomly assigned you a state. (If we have less than fifty players, which is probable, I'll use the players' vote margins to weight randomly selected votes from invisible players for other states. Let's suppose, for example, that there were only twenty people who casted votes, but 12 voted Kennedy and 8 voted Nixon. This means that I'll use a weighted random number generator to cast "votes" for the other thirty states, where each "invisible" player had a 60% chance of casting a Kennedy vote and a 40% chance of casting a Nixon vote.)
Now that we have player votes, or simulated player votes, for all fifty states, I'll use the roll to dodge system with a six-sided die to create elections that deviate from the baseline. This works as follows:
Roll a 1: Your campaign backfired spectacularly. An extra 2% of voters voted for your opponent.
Roll a 2: Nothing happens; historical margins are used.
Roll a 3: Partial success. 1% of voters switch to your candidate.
Roll a 4: Success. 2% of voters switch to your candidate.
Roll a 5: Outstanding success. 4% of voters switch to your candidate.
Roll a 6: Backfiring success...7% of voters switch to your candidate, but there is an additional 10% probability that voter fraud is uncovered and the ballots are thrown out. (I know it never happens in real life that a state's ballots get thrown out this way, but it makes for a better game.)
If an incumbent president rolls 6's for himself in more than a quarter of states, Watergate happens.
I have a midterm right now. When I get back, I'll outline additional procedures for the House and Senate, and how I'm going to do voting margins for imaginary match-ups later in the game, like, say, Rockefeller vs. Wallace, or an incumbent Reagan in 1980.
You can start signing up now by posting below. The deadline for the 1948 election is going to be on Saturday night or Sunday morning, depending on where you live. You can vote Thurmond, Dewey or Truman. If you vote Thurmond, indicate a second choice (he wasn't on the ballot in all states.)
Don't worry about Congress just yet. I haven't figured out what to do with it.
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Topic: RTD: American Politics Edition- NP: 1948 (Read 6517 times)