I was part of a gaming group in the 1980s that played Diplomacy on custom maps that we made (my wife worked for USGS Map Sales, which gave us access to a lot of

I was part of a gaming group in the 1980s that played Diplomacy on custom maps that we made (my wife worked for USGS Map Sales, which gave us access to a lot of nice maps) and some other games. We also had Nomic in the rotation. My experience was that it was a lot of fun with five or six players, but it tended to run quite long (three to five hours) and it was exhausting. I think it’s quite educational about the legislative process. After a few games of Nomic one no longer wonders why it’s so hard for legislatures to get things done. One also gains a certain respect for the sheer stamina (and bladder control) of people who do it for a living, rather than as an occasional amusement. I like to tell the story of one game in which a player, annoyed with the tendency of the players to lard up every proposed change with endless amendments, proposed a new rule that anyone who proposed a fourth amendment to a proposal under discussion would be doused with a glass of water. Everyone else was similarly annoyed with all the amendments, and so the new rule passed unanimously. So that curtailed the amendments some, right? Ha ha, no. Rather, in short order everyone was soaking wet and the word "douse" had been redefined in the rules to mean dipping fingers in the glass of water and waving them in the target’s general direction.