Armaments Chapter Two Verses Nine to Twenty-one: And St. Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying: “O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the Lord spake, saying: “First thou shalt take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.” Amen.

Parlement is a game for seven players. Each player is the Party Leader of one of seven parties in the fifty-member parlement of a mythical but typical European country. The game consists of sessions of parlement followed by elections. The game is won by the party which obtains a majority of the seats in parlement after an election.

The game consists not of teams but of individuals who form free coalitions. Each move is written out by the players after a period of negotiation; the moves are exposed all at once, so that the players are moving simultaneously. During the negotiations the players may say anything to each other they wish, secretly or publicly, but they are not bound by anything they say. The game thus mimics real life.

The basic mechanism of the game is that each party has one or more factions who vote as a unit on bills. The votes during a session are recorded as the Legislative Record of that faction. The fifty voting districts of the country have five voting blocs distributed throughout them; these blocs take a stand on each item of legislation. During the election a candidate of a faction gets the bulk of the bloc’s votes if he has the best Legislative Record in the eyes of that bloc.

The above description is taken from the game’s introduction.

Parlement was designed and published by Charles Frederick Wells (2nd edition copyright 1969). The game consists of a 22-page rulebook mimeographed on both sides of standard 8˝”x11” paper, three-hole punched and stapled in the upper left corner, with 13 pages of rules, one page of tables and six pages of forms. There are two different forms: the Legislative Record, and the Election Form. The designer noted that the game was still in an experimental stage, and that revisions and corrections would be issued from time to time. There is no information available about the final edition or its date.

In S&T 16, editor Chris Wagner gave Parlement a glowing review, as “a highly realistic political game based on the British legislature” with excellent realism, outstanding complexity, fair playability and excellent rules. “We would strongly recommend that you invest the very small amount required to get the rules and the changes. Somebody is eventually going to buy up the rights and put this one in a box for seven or eight dollars a shot. Highly recommended.”

Boone does not list this game, and it seems to have faded away into obscurity. But I am pleased to report that it is not a figment of someone’s imagination ... I acquired a copy recently for $22, so it’s another Berg’s Paradox.