Round 19 Announcements

[TedderBear]

Announcements from the admin team go here.

[TedderBear]

via @Conrad: Can we please be a little more expansive with our family history? Otherwise I will be forced to make people up. And they will be really embarrassing names.

via @Tuna: There will be snap presidential and congressional elections (House + Senate) this cycle. So when choosing a biography, be aware of the fact that seats up for reelection in 2024 may be flipped by the opposing side.

via @Conrad: Invision Power have agreed to provide me with a backup of the old forums, otherwise known as the database. This means that everyone’s work will not be lost to the annals of history. Should the migration to Tedder not work, I will likely no longer be owner of the game and will provide this database to whoever takes over. I hope this alleviates some concerns folks have.

[TedderBear]

via @TedderBear: VGS Round 19 will officially begin on Friday 9/20!

The IC game calendar has been released for 2024-2026, including the snap 2024 elections and the 2026 midterm elections. You'll notice that the game will be closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's days, with the 2026 elections being pushed until after the holidays. https://www.dynamicsim.online/forums/topic/671-game-calendar

via @Tuna: 

Good morning everyone,

R19 will begin with snap presidential and congressional elections. While some information will remain under wraps until the appropriate time, we do want to give you as much guidance as how to prepare for each...

2024 Presidential Election Prep
You will not be submitting a formal policy platform. We instead strongly recommend each prospective candidate research and flesh out their opinions on the most important issues of the day, including the War in Gaza, border and immigration, the Supreme Court, abortion/reproductive rights, inflation and the economy, January 6th and democracy, and more.
There will NOT be primary rounds so there is no point in drawing up long-form speeches now. Don't worry, there will be a "primary" for each party to choose their nominee. Stay tuned to see how it happens.
For the general election, instead of full speeches for campaign events, we will be doing excerpts. We are looking for the main thrust, the soundbite portion of your speech that you want voters to be left with. This will hopefully reduce the workload for everyone. Quality over quantity.
We recommend you begin networking with your fellow players and bargaining for their support. It will matter in ways you will soon see.

2024 Congressional Election Prep
For the 2024 midterm elections, we will be going with the RL slate of Senate candidates. However, each side has the opportunity to replace up to 4 NPC Senate candidates with an alternative. However, any replacement Senate nominee  must have the approval of all three party caucuses and the AB.
Senate and House campaigns will be using a combination of Events with excerpt speeches and talking points.
There will be two rounds to the congressional campaign.

One more thing for the presidential race. There will be a debate between the two nominees. And the debate will matter a lot.

 

via @TedderBear: I've corrected about a third of the states in the Senate Roster to fix their senate classes. It is now correct if anyone needs to update their bio. My apologies for the confusion. We also corrected an error of party affiliation for a seat in New Hampshire. The party breakdown is 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans following the RL Senate in 2024. 

[TedderBear]

Per @TedderBear: As part of my efforts to instill increased AB accountability and strengthen trust and integrity in this community, we are implementing and enforcing a precedent that will govern how someone re-enters the player base after serving on the AB. 

They will take a 2 week break after leaving the AB before having a player character approved.
They will not be elected to party or Congressional leadership for a month.
They will not run for POTUS for the entirety of the current reset.

This precedent can be waived only with permission from both the Lead Admin and the Owner in extreme circumstances. It is a precedent that has helped other games avoid the awkwardness of an admin returning to a partisan player base and I believe it will help VGS in rebuilding our reputation. If you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out.

 

per @Baudin: For the mini session, the Presiding Officer of the Senate will be simulated by the AB. The floor leaders will remain Schumer and McConnel, but we are asking that a player from each party selects someone to simulate these roles for the good of the session.

per @TedderBear: I have made a couple of tweaks to the the website layout to help highlight VGS, make it more user-friendly, and prevent confusing crossover between VGS and DynamicSim:

1. The sidebar has been moved to the right side of the page for the Light Theme. This will make things a little cleaner for those using the light theme on mobile as the sidebar items will now be at the bottom of the page instead of the top.
2. I've removed all sidebar items from the forums except the Who's Online box. This should help keep DynamicSim and VGS in their separate areas. Eventually there will be some ads here to help generate a budget for the game to do advertising for new players.
3. The Information and Help Center forum now has a subforum that links back to this Discord server. Thank you to @Charlotte O'Hare (Blake)  for this suggestion.

 

per @Tuna: Senate candidates are due on Day 1 of the RNC and DNC (10/15)
 

per @Tuna: Two announcements regarding Dark Secrets:

 After the last 24 hours of learning about Mark Robinson going freaky Uncle Ruckus in the chat rooms and RFK Jr chainsawing off the heads of humpback whales while hitting on reporters, I will allow you all submit one additional Dark Secret if you wish. Because it’s 2024, ethics be damned apparently. 

Second announcement, the AB will be amending its Lion special talent due to issues with maintaining the privacy of its recipients. Changes to be finalized tomorrow.