Read, Play, Game
Executive Decision - Read (feat. Sam Bible-Sullivan)
Get acquainted with the members of your president's cabinet while they prepare a live response to a pressing issue and we get ready to play Executive Decision!
Want to try out the game yourself? Check out Greg Stolze's website at https://www.gregstolze.com/execdecis.html to download it!
If you have a suggestion for an RPG we should try out, email us at readplaygamepod@gmail.com or leave a comment on our socials: https://linktr.ee/readplaygame
Theme song is "Do You Really Wanna Know?" by Captain Qubz
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Duration:
- 40m
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[music] Hello and welcome to this episode of ReadPlay Game where we look at tabletop role-playing games from every side of the table. I'm going to be our rules lawyer and also a bit of a player today. My name is Emma Skaggs and I'm going to be playing today. I'm Anish Peneraju and I hope I'll be playing today. I'm Tori and I deserve to go last but I forfeit it for our next speaker. I'm Mikey and I always go last so I'm also playing. Jokes on you neither of you are last. Introducing our friend and joining us today. Who is a guest today? Joining us today as a special guest is Sam Bible Sullivan. Sam, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. That was a lovely introduction. [laughter] Sometimes you feel the warmth and yeah, comradery. We're just trying to reflect the tension that's in the political climate. Sam, do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree? No, I exist in the context of all the game before me. [laughter] Show me one time. Shame on you. You know the thing. Now watch this drive. [laughter] For people tuning in for the first time, this is-- I'm sorry. For people tuning in for the first time, this is actually different than our usual structure, which normally we'd be doing a three part structure where we do a read episode, then a play episode, then a game episode. It's sort of a hybrid read play episode because this game is-- there's not much rules to it, so we're just kind of kind of jump into it. But we'll be walking through the rules as we go and talking through it and playing the game. Then we'll do a follow up episode where we discuss the game and share our thoughts right after playing. So feel free to listen to whichever of these interests you, and feel free to skip whichever ones don't. Real quick editor's note, as always, we ended up talking way too long, so we did end up actually splitting this into a read and play episode, as you've probably noticed at this point. So disregard anything we say about that and not being the case. Sorry. Also some news, we are launching a Ko-fi or a Ko-fi, however you like it. The money comes just as good, you know? If you got a couple cents, you got a dollar, you got a hundred dollars, shoot, we'll take it all. Every dollar counts, and read play game is funded by mostly independent sponsors. Of less than five dollar amounts. I think that we should release this episode on November 5th. It is a Tuesday. Be sure to vote. Today, we don't receive money from super PACs. Speak for yourself. So we do play sub, super, super, I don't know. Okay. Today we're going to be playing executive decision, which is a game that was designed by Greg Stolzy. This game was released in, I believe, 2005. So it's a pretty old one. It's kind of complicated. It's hard to call it necessarily a role-playing game. Like it's kind of debated whether it's like the official term is like role-playing game, a larp, like a party game. You know, there's a lot of things. It feels in structure almost like a board game in that it's competitive and there's a winner to it. Unlike a lot of RPGs, which are collective storytelling games. However, we are telling a story in playing this. So it's like a nice little hybrid. What is it? I believe that the author listed it as a real-time RPG on his website, which is interesting because a lot of times RPGs have, you know, like combat mechanics or stuff like that, where it's kind of vaguely describing things in time is kind of weird. But we're going to be having conversations in real time and setting a timer, which is great so that we won't talk for fucking ever, for freaking ever. I do have a question. Yes. So usually, and this is a little peek behind the curtain for our listeners, usually we do edit things, but this is played within, isn't it? Like you can either pick a one-hour window or a two-hour window. Are we going to release like how are we sticking to, are we going to be like, this game is played over an hour. We're releasing 45 minutes. Well, we're definitely, okay, we're going to edit out like boring stuff. So like, but we're going, we in real life are going to be under the time limit. So you are going to be timing us. If we have any disputes that last more than a couple, you know, seconds where we're confused about something, we can maybe pause the timer or something. I don't think we'll be confused about anything, because that doesn't happen on this part. Could you hear that intro too? We have made a lot of political jokes. Have we talked about what this game's whole vibe is? Oh, we haven't. Yeah, I'll get to that. So this game is, what's it described, a white knuckle game of real-time political crisis that is summary is a game where one player takes the role of the president of the United States and everyone else plays members of the president's cabinet during a fictional crisis. The game sessions are scripted and last one to two hours. By scripted, it's like predefined scenarios that you do. I believe there's like six in the game. What's interesting is that there are, the different scenarios are written each by different game designers that are, I don't, let me see, there's a list somewhere on the rules, but it's included somewhere. They were like, Greg Stolzy, the author is also a book author. Like writes, I believe, a fantasy book series and a lot of other RPGs too. He's got like a whole website that's set up. He and some other people came together to collaborate on this. Yeah, it's listed on the first page. Under credits, it says, "Crisis, David's a Baker, Dennis, Deb Willard, Ron Edwards, Greg Stolzy, and Chad Undercoffler." Probably mispronounced one of those, but... And the game, interestingly enough, something that I wanted to mention too, was that this game was fun. It was released using what's called the ransom method, which, like I said, this came out of 2005, which I believe was probably before Kickstarter and stuff like that. Maybe it wasn't. I don't actually know about that, but it's a lot of, you see a lot of RPGs these days that are funded by Kickstarter and stuff like that. And Kickstarter, I feel, is similar to the concept of the ransom method. But what the ransom method is, once apparently was pioneered by Greg Stolzy for a different game, they set a goal and don't release the game until they hit that fundraising goal. So he set a goal of $1,000, and once that was reached, then the game was released, and the entire sum of donations was then donated to the Red Cross. So it was created as a fundraising game, but now I feel like a lot of games like that exist today, where it's funded at least solely to make the game too. And this is a game that I don't imagine probably takes much production, though every game does, but it seems very much like a short little fun, small game. So, with all of that in mind, this game is going to have some, it's going to obviously have political discussions, and it has some very realistic scenarios in it. It almost feels like it's reflecting something like media like the West Wing or something like that, where it's attempting to emulate those back and forth discussions between people that are high up in political positions. And so there's some scenarios that we don't really feel very comfortable doing on the podcast. Plus, I mean, there's so many scenarios. It's different when you're doing it on a podcast versus when you're doing it with your friends. We don't like each other. Yeah, we all disagree politically severely. I think we just don't want to make light of things that are like, yeah. Yeah. And you do want to make light of things that are. No, no, no. I think we were talking, before we started recording, I think we were talking about what we wanted the tone to be like. And I think instead of West Wing, we decided on Veep, kind of funny scenario. Very, like, egotistical characters that are really invested in that, not like necessarily the good of the country, which I think is going to be, in my opinion, more fun to play. But I wouldn't want to play those kind of characters talking about a super heavy topic. I'm hoping to find a topic that matches that vibe. The good of their bottom line. So that being said, because this is the read portion, you are not supposed to look at the, what do they call them, crises? Yeah. You're not supposed to look at the crises before they come up. You're supposed to kind of be hit with that and have to deal with it. But because of those thoughts, we did go ahead and cherry pick some out. Yeah. Yeah. We read like the beginning summaries to get an idea. Maybe let me love you down. Tori, never mind. Tell me. Is the mustache getting worse? I was going to say I must ask you a question and then I. And so cut that out. Cut that out. Cut it out. For the listeners, Tori has a mustache. I have, I have goatee an answer. Goatee an answer. I don't get that one. I've got an answer. Oh. Yeah. So I think that's pretty much covered. Are any other thoughts before we jump into playing? Damn. Is that it for the read episode? I'll be talking. Fair. Okay. I'll be talking through the rules like as we're going through them and actually doing them. But I think yeah, that's. Because we can't move forward with like quote unquote character creation until we start play by selecting a president. All right. That makes sense. Yes. So to begin, let's jump into the setup portion, which before the actual nitty gritty debate begins, decide which player is the president. In this reference, the president's role is to moderate the discussion, weigh the arguments presented by the other players and ultimately decide what action to take. The president's final score. There are scores in this game is determined by whether their decision is seen to be ultimately to ultimately harm or benefit the country. I see Tori, you have a raised hand. I would like to be president. Oh. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Do you want to share? Wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to share the president cannot win. Okay, which one's which one's easier for our non reading inclined participants? The president is essentially the DM. What would what would the president have to do other than listen to arguments and make a way decision? The president's job is to keep the argument going for the full hour. So anytime that it reaches a lull, you have to like spike it back up. There is complications that occur. So like it's doable. There is a winner at the end of the game. So if you're interested in winning, it does say the president has a score, but they can't win it says. I was elected to lead not to read. I was what I was going to say was I nominate Tori. Thank you. So I wanted to say that before you nominated yourself, but I second the motion put forth by Tori. Tori, the only reading you might have to do is for a section later called how to be presidential. And we can read that, you know, for you. Also, wait, Tori, you told me yesterday at work, you told me yesterday at work that you read the Reddit on the train. To read and to comprehend are not the same verb. Comprehend play game. Okay, any other. Are there any other. Yeah, I'm down. Opposing party. You are about to go down. No, I'm down for Tori to be the president. I mean, Tori, when they hear you're a constituent now. Oh, no, okay. The only other person I could see would be like would be a niche. A niche would be a great president. I'm interested in a niche making arguments. I want to be. I want to be argument. Yeah. Sam, what do you think? Do you have any nominations? Um, I mean, why not give the presidency to the person who wants it most? You know, that's what they say. The best presidents are the ones who want it the most. The best leaders. Yeah. Yeah. So a unanimous vote for Tori has taken to California and Texas. I'll go in by one. One by one are ballot vote. Well, okay. So the way that this works. There's no one in the chat. There's no one in the chat. Put it in the chat. Put it in the chat. Use an emoji. We don't have an electoral vote. I put it in my vote in the chat. Abstain. Not voting is not voting is bad. You gotta vote. No contest. You can't vote. Hey. Okay. You went with one vote. Sorry. Tori gets to vote as well. I believe. Oh, did you vote? I voted for Joe Biden. No. Not voting. I voted for somebody else to tie it up. What if I was a spoiler? What if I was what if I was glad if you don't vote for yourself, Tori? If I did it, just tie it up. Or you can vote for me. I mean Sam. Sam. Can I? You won by a hair. Is yay your officials? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yay. Yay. As in as in Kanye as in as in as in as in as in as in. Okay. Okay. Okay. We're getting all of. Okay. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. You're getting all of that. We're getting all of that. How would you like us to refer? Mr. President, Madam President, Madam President, Madam President. Why was I thinking like Supreme Commander? Commander. Commander in Chief is one. Commander in Chief. That's true. We could call you mixed president, like MS. Yeah. Yeah. Mixed president. I'm trying to think of how I can really milk this. Like, what if the free, what if the title was you are a good person? No. And every time you had to talk to me, you had to say that. No. No. That's going to be really confusing, really quick. Well, not for my loyal constituents. You all have it right now. You were a good person. You were a good person. Thank you. Really? Excuse me. Yeah. Already passed in executive orders. We could just do Mr. President and stay in line with historical accuracy. Oh, that's true. There's never been any win president. We'll see. We'll see, though. At the time of this episode's release. Right. Right. Yeah. That works for me. Okay. So you can call me Mr. President, but it has to be in song. No. Mr. President. That's not part of the game. Mr. President. Unanimously agreed to this as well. Incredible. So we would like to call the election. We are calling Mikey for whoa. Sorry. Mikey. Last minute. We got some mail in ballots. Mikey's with some last minute votes for Mikey. Wait, what? Literally looking in the zoom chat at Mikey's message that said Tori and it changed to Mikey. As I was looking at it. You edited it. Listen, you go last. Okay. Okay. So Tori is president. The next part is that Tori, you get to decide what the rest of us are. Okay. You get to appoint us to positions on the cabinet. Oh, fuck. I also did not read this too thoroughly. Okay. So do you have it written down? Okay. Well, I have it here. Do I have it here? No, no, no. Just like you see it. You're reading it. I see the secretaries and the vice president. So to be clear. Thank you. To be clear. Not all of these are getting assigned. Everybody's just getting one. Just one for each of us. Okay. I think it's going to be an inter-circle. Okay. Anyone have want to make a case for anything they like? Or should I just. Do you see what their positions are? Because I think that yeah, I think getting whatever you think is funniest for us to have. What do you think us? What do you feel on your get? All right. So Sam, welcome. You're new. I have to imagine, you know, first impressions can be scary. So I'm giving you Chief of Staff. We're very concerned with what our listeners, our reader player gamers and our voters care about. So it's voter satisfaction. Yes. It's your primary concern. I mean, it feels a little too obvious to give Mikey agriculture. I like that one. Okay. Done. You know what? I like the the affirmation. Why don't you take vice president? Okay. Okay. That's called networking. Okay. Um, I want to give you something I feel like, um, am I using this word right? Idios in credit and I definitely want to give you something pro military. Because you're very, um, you know, uh, what do you say? Compromise oriented. So I'm going to give you, I guess, secretary of defense. All right. Which base do we not have coverage? Should we do treasury or treasury or state? Okay. So treasury or state. Sorry. Sorry. The treasury or the state. There is also secretary of labor, which is focused on healthcare, which is interesting. And secretary of interior is just focused on conservation, which I feel like are like funky ones. I feel you should give me treasury or state. Uh, you know what vice president, I think I'm going to go on a retreat. I'm going to leave this last assignment to you. Do you really want treasury or state? Like, do you care treasury or state? Oh, and then why not? When we're all settled, I should read the description of that. Yeah. Treasury or state? Okay. Are you saying? What is this? What is this? What is the reference to? What is going on? Do you do you use Hamilton treasury or state? Is it not Hamilton? It's Hamilton. It's Hamilton. Oh, it is Hamilton. But, but are you just fucking around? Or are you serious? You know the answer is about to be treasury or state? Okay. You get to be, um, you get to be-- Where did the banana come from? Don't worry about that. You get to be agriculture. You get to be secretary of the interior. Well, hold up. That's not treasury or state. All right. I know. You're secretary of the interior. You care? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't remember voting you in. Is this a coup d'etat? Okay. The president went on a retreat. Okay. Okay. V.P. Understood. Understood. You're the secretary of the interior. You care about conservation. I presented you with the binary of state and treasury and you gave me a third option. Yeah. And none of us, none of us on this podcast dislike binaries. Let's be so real right now. Whoa. Mikey and I majored in computer science. So. Okay. One zero zero one. Ironic. Okay. Okay. I'm a joke. Presidential decree. That was your joke first. I got it. That was the joke. I was making it. I know. Pardon. None of them. Okay. Okay. The computer science again. I'm already getting into the character of the military. Stealing stuff right away. I sense are never respected in their game. Wow. Or after. You get the most money you do it. Let's go into the agendas. Okay. Excuse me. Excuse me. President here. If you don't mind. Is there a role description for president? I should read. Yes. Okay. How to be presidential. Well, no, no, I mean a description for like I would love for each of you to state your position again just for our readers and the description that's in the manual. Love it. Yeah. There's no. I can, I can go first. If you want, you can talk through the, the, how to be presidential after we do the agendas. Cause that's right after this session. Yeah. But to, to go back over what all of the roles that we were just assigned were, I've been assigned vice president. Here's the description. The vice president has a lot to gain from tax revenue, usually gearing up to be a candidate. The vice president knows the current president will take the heat for the taxes, but the party reaps the benefits of spreading the wealth to supporters. That, that means that you're going to be focusing on tax on tax. Yeah. Yeah. Tax revenue. I'm trying to get tax revenue. Chief of staff. Why don't you tell us what you do? Yeah, I'm chief of staff, which means that as the, as the most political advisor, the chief of staff is the most concerned with voter satisfaction. Got to get those votes. Let's hear. Who do you want to hear from next story? Uh, Jess, why don't you take it away? As the secretary of the interior, apparently, the secretary of interior can typically be counted on to favor conservation. All right. Let's hear from agriculture. Uh, last again. Uh, actually, no, that's incorrect. Secretary of, what? Oh, true. Right. For the first time, secretary of agriculture. This is the one post without a select agenda. Pick a couple and try to fake people out. All right. And finally, last, please, uh, secretary of defense. Uh, yes, the secretary of defense favors military as their agenda. So you may be wondering, what are the agendas mechanically in this game? We each are assigned an agenda, except for the agriculture, uh, secretary, as, as we just said, but we also get to pick additional agendas if we'd like to. These first agendas we get, we know what we're pro. So we've all just indicated what we're pro, then I'm going to talk through what some of the other agendas are essentially, depending on the results of the executive decision, the end result of the game, uh, the advisors' agendas get closer or further from completion. Their final score is based on how well their agenda or agendas got advanced. So we can either be pro or against a, a given agenda. In addition to the agendas assigned by position, players can pick up to three more agendas, where they may share openly, which they may share openly or keep secret. These must be written down in advance, however. You can't add an agenda in the middle of a crisis. Some groups may want to assign a few agendas randomly, so that every agenda is given to a one player or another, then players have the opportunity to decide if they're four or against. This is not mandatory, though having more than one agenda is a good idea. Anyone have a, I'm, I'm more interested in us picking than being randomly assigned, like how else do we put ones? But I, I think it would be good to have different ones. I'm not telling y'all what I'm picking, though. That's an aspect of my, that's an aspect of my role. You're trying to, trying to trick people. Yeah. That's a, I think we'll be okay. I don't think we'll all pick the same ones. Yeah. This kind of reminds me of a civ six, how it's like, you know, different rulers like have their public agenda, and then they have their secret private agenda. So the agendas, I won't read through what they all are just in their descriptions, but I'll read through the options. There's balanced budget, conservation, centrism, development, military, international prestige, voter satisfaction, tax revenue, and health. And I don't need an agenda, right? I just listen to the agendas. No. So we each have our agenda and we can pick up to three more. And then once you pick an agenda, you say whether, like in your head you write down, you write down in addition to the agenda, whether you're pro or against it, so you can have up to four. I have a fun question just about some wording, tax revenue, if somebody favors tax revenue, like the vice president, that means Emma's character is openly in favor of increasing taxes. Yes. I don't, I don't know if like quote unquote openly, but yes, I want more tax revenue. You want more tax revenue and it would be, if Emma, let's say hypothetically were to be like, also secretly opposes tax revenue. Is that possible? No. I think you have to be basis. Gotcha. Points. But I can't hold up. But I could go to the point system later. I could be like pro tax revenue, but anti development, yeah, be anti economic development or something like that, you know, so they can connect in weird ways. Tax revenue also doesn't just mean increasing taxes could mean decreasing the stuff that we spend taxes on. Do we have to? Are we all picking four or is, you can pick up to four. You don't have to pick. Okay. And that up to four is including your initial one. Okay. Cool. Cool. So you can pick three more. Sweet. Am I going to have to tally the points? You just have to decide what gets done. The point tally will be something we do at the end. And if there's a tie, you get to decide, Troy, you're the tie breaker. I'm learning a lot about ties today. And then that's the part of the edit where we're going to have a flashback effect to when you learn how to tie a tie. And it's like the time I want to replay podcast. I also have a mechanical question once everybody's picked their agenda trying to decide what to be against. I'm starting, I'm young young young young young who was who did that not Ron DeSantis. Hmm. Hunkies. Hunkies. Or was it yummers? It was something like that. No. Yeah. That's home. Yummers is crazy. Hunkies. Is it? Yummers. Put your pencils down when you're ready. I also have a question. Do our characters have names? I think we should name them. We should name them, right? Yeah. Has everyone got their agendas? Okay. Housekeeping question. Given that this is a debate focused game and we can't have too many voices overlapping, do we want to do a zoom hand raise function? How do we want to make sure that- I think we should have them overlapping. I think we should interrupt each other. Yeah. That works audio wise. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You can- I'll start reading the- the- a little more of the instructions. So once we've been assigned our positions and have chosen our private agendas, it's time to start the clock. The president picks a scenario out of those presented in this book. I guess we'll talk about which one did we want to do? Do we want to do- which one to do said was good, Emma? The one that I was looking at that I was like, this seems fine. I didn't read the whole thing. Was the Cavendish memo? Ah. Okay. Ah. I love it. Juicy. I'm excited. Yeah. All right. I don't know how this game works, but I'm taking a quick look at the mirrored version. It seems that there are pieces of text for the- At different times. Beginning 20-minute mark, 40-minute mark, 60-minute mark. Yes. Would it help you, Tori, if we told you specifically like, hey, we just reached 20 minutes? I want to say yes, but I also want to believe in myself that I could do it and y'all could just focus on what I need to focus on. We can just keep- We'll keep an eye on it. We'll keep an eye on it. Okay. While we're still wrapping up character creation, I have decided on the name Zack Gordon and my presidential campaign, Zack. Oh. He wasn't being president. So yes, used images of like Flash Gordon, the Zack attack. Of course, my adversaries said Zack Moron, but look who's in office. So if anyone else got a like brief bio, I will get to hear it. This is your first- I think we could also just hop into the debate and be like, hello, I'm a little wah, I don't know, like- Oh, you wouldn't- Because you want to do an introduction. We wouldn't know each other. You know, we would know each other in the cabinet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is your first, your first four years, right? Yes. Love it. One, year two. What is this? How deep are we in? Our first hundred days. I like the idea that it's close to an election, so like third year or fourth year. Yeah. Just juicy. Absolutely. I'm Madam Vice President Shannon Wilson. While we were on the campaign trail, there was a lot of hosiers, Jackie and Wilson, but we would do Zaki and Wilson, you know. The people like a jingle, yeah, that's me. What else? Anything else that I should say? Are we Democrat or Republican? Does it matter? It allows you to pick whatever you would more like to be. I don't think it matters that much for this thing. Okay. I'm Secretary of Defense Shaw. Play it close to this. I'll work, all business. All business, and we have stuff to do, so let's get on with it. I don't know, are we all going around and saying our names right now? Yeah. Got it. Yeah. I'm Buster Ballot. I've been brought on to bring this election home. You know, I'm not going to have this president be a first term president. I make sure that my president gets results and gets the votes. Come on. Let's go. They're going to make it two. They're going to make it two. If I could, I'd repeal that 20th of the amendment and you'd be president forever. Okay. Okay. Secretary, who wants to go to Secretary of Agriculture? I don't know if I like my name. I like it. I loved your name. Okay. All right. I'm Secretary of Gallup. Greenhorn. I'm from the, from out west and I'm here to support the president and his ideals to help spread the good, the good of our corn and other kind of agriculture throughout the country. You know, we've recently been having a little bit of trade war over corn, but we're bringing up potatoes and other soybeans and things. The Lord draw. You know that? Think about the helium. That's true. I looked that up. And our last, our Secretary of the Interior. Changing my name. Okay. Okay. Good. What? You don't like still, John? No. I'm, I'm Senator, I'm, I'm Secretary Joseph Mitty. I am well about the Secretary of the Interior and I'm all about conservation. That's my thing. Are you evil? What's going on? No. I love the environment. What are you? Are, are you Secretary Joker? Yeah. What's going on? I'm the Joker, babe. I'm obsessed with it. I am. There may have been accusations of eco-terrorism. Oh. I won't confirm or deny them. Oh. You're why we're, you're why we're missing with the corn. Y'all ever play Final Fantasy 7? Okay. So we want to dive into the, the concept or are we going to read the how to be presidential? Well, so here's, here's basically how the, the gameplay is going to work. President looks. Okay. Look, as we kind of mentioned, are mirrored. And so in a real, you know, physical game, the president would hold them up to the mirror, but also there's just a PDF with the unmeared versions, which Tory will look through, slash has looked through. So that start section will be read aloud by the president. And this initial situation briefing sets the stage and introduces our crisis. Once that's done, the advisors and the president discuss the issue. The debate is free, unstructured and in-character. That is, you don't speak as Martha, the suburban professional. You speak as Martha, the secretary of defense, or in our case, several other things too. As part of the debate, advisors may make assertions. Basically, you bet your credibility on some element of the issue. If your assertions play into the scenario, you gain points. If the scenario later contradicts your assertions, you lose points. This conversation continues until it's time for the next part of the scenario to get read. So that's why you should set a timer. Some groups may run out of things to say before the next development. If that happens and everyone agrees to skip ahead, you can read the next development earlier. So we should not be looking at the unmarried version, only the Tory should. So essentially, like the 20-minute mark, 40-minute mark, 60-minute mark, et cetera, of the discussion, there's going to be a development that's going to change the situation a little bit. So Tory, would you like to summarize how to be presidential, or would you like one of us to tell you how to be presidential? I think after about three years of being presidential myself, I think I can handle it. And I would say for any future presidents out there in the context of executive decision, while your cabinet is picking agendas, maybe you go ahead and look at the different scenarios just so that you're both working on stuff at the same time. All right, so the rules of executive decision are very simple. There's no element of luck the way there is when you're shooting craps or playing poker. There isn't a concrete, hard-edged strategy like chess. It's based on verbal persuasion, cajoling, debating, and screaming. The democratic process. Your voice clipped. Anyway, I probably won't read through this whole thing. Basically, let me tell you what I think it is, and you can tell me if I'm right. That's literally probably what the cabinet is. God, you're the best president in this country. You said, "I can't read all this." When y'all are debating, if there's a lull, or maybe something that I think we should get into further, I'll stoke the flame a little. I'll get the debate going. And if we reach a real lull and decide, "Let's just skip to the next development." We all can do that. I will make decisions based on what the party decides, and it's in my best interest to genuinely follow what y'all think the best way forward is. It's not fun, game-wise, if y'all tell me x, and then I do y. Yeah. If we're in all agreement, yeah. Yeah. All right. Excellent. And then we do points at the end. Yes. What was so funny? So Anish made a reference to how Italian politicians might like Final Fantasy VII, because famously a few years ago in an Italian parliamentary meeting, instead of putting a presentation on the screen, they accidentally put on 3D-animated Final Fantasy VII porn. Yeah. How does that look like two of the scenarios? That was one of the scenarios. I have no idea. There are scenarios. It's such a funny video. Oh my God. That reminds me of this one time when the Chipmunks got the Chipmunks. We mentioned mirrored scenarios, but I don't think we actually talked about it in the rule book. The final section that talks about the actual crises themselves, that only the president can view. Something cool about the rule book is that the textual pages are literally flipped. You can only read them in a mirror, or if it's in a PDF document like we're looking at, you can reverse it. And this is to prevent any of the cabinet members from actually reading the crises to the spoilers. Really, really fun concept. And it really shows that 2005, where it's like, you will take it to a physical mirror and yeah. That's true. Yeah. I love it. 20 years almost. Yeah. Okay. Let's not. Let's not. Yeah. No. When we were talking earlier and you were like, yeah, it's so old, 2005. I was just like. That's prettier. Fucking older. Especially for old. Oh my geez. There's. You're more than 20. What? We were saying 20, it was 20 years. Oh, I don't know why I heard 25. I'm dumb. No. I'm 20. Okay. I saw this. Somebody had like a fucking cut this from the podcast. It was a newborn baby. On the comments. We're like, imagine being born in 2024, bro, everyone's already been born. Bro, just got here. Anyway. I love when people randomly hate on just life ain't all cookies and that's why you're the president. Forgetting kids and babies. We're punching them now. Corey, it was so funny last night at work where you kept like making these references. And they kept laughing. So now what? They kept laughing. No, no, no. I was not throwing shade. That's why I said it was so funny. I don't mean it when I say it's so funny. You think I'm trying to you think I'm trying to start some. We're going to play the game. Let's play the game. Let's play the game. All right. Are we actually going to be singing Mr. President when we address? I will say 2005 is old for RPGs simply because there was such a huge boom in the late 2010s in RPGs. And that is like so many more were created in that time. So just like I feel like it's like it's like a exponential curve upwards. So OK, pop quiz, whoever gets it right, can have a free point. When was D&D published in like the 1982 1980 one that 79. I thought it was earlier. We all got that. I think it was 78 79 75. It looks like 74. All right, I don't know if I can give points out like that. I just. You're the president. OK, we ready. You're the president. You could do whatever you want. You can seamlessly do it. Everybody else. I have a three through one layer section. It's the impeachment section. If we decide that we don't like to exist, are you trolling? Is that actually? Yes. We're playing the game. the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.