A new board game will take players through the history of the Supreme Court from 1789 to present. It’s called First Monday in October and designer Talia Rosen believes it will be fun for both DC nerds and apolitical gamers with a competitive spirit.
“I think that this is a fun, engaging, interactive sort of strategy way to remove yourself from the present and sort of dive into some of the deep past,” Rosen told Straight Arrow News.
The game lasts about two hours with up to four players. Each player gets 15 turns. During those turns a player can take three of six actions listed on the board.
There are four constitutional tracks to follow throughout the game: the scope of congressional power, the scope of executive power, free speech and equality and liberty.
”You are playing this sort of tug of war with the players over whether these clauses will be interpreted more broadly or more narrowly, whether you’ll concentrate power at the federal level or more at the state level,” Rosen said.
Each player represents a legal philosophy like strict constructionism, unitary executive or natural law. It’s by no means necessary to be a legal expert.
“If you don’t know anything about the law, you can absolutely still play it and win it,” Rosen explained. “It’s really rooted in history.”
At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins. Those points are earned by predicting who will win cases, getting justices on the bench, getting them to retire and overall, influencing the court to follow the player’s judicial philosophy.
Rosen hopes players will have fun and learn.
“One of the players the other day said to me that this is less about law and more about the history of American society,” Rosen said.
The team has a kickstarter campaign which is raising money for the production of 4 to 5 thousand copies.
