The gavel

Rules arguments, and how they end

Every board game night reaches the same moment. Somebody has done something the rules did not anticipate, two people have strong views, and the game has stopped. What ends it is not a better reading of the rulebook: it is somebody being given the authority to decide and using it quickly.

That is what a gavel is. Hand it to one person for the evening and the game keeps moving, because the ruling is final by agreement rather than by argument. The house rules set here is written for exactly that: not guilty or otherwise, but allowed, disallowed, allowed this once, and allowed with the rule written down for next time.

When the gavel should decide instead

Sometimes nobody wants the authority. The dispute is silly, both sides are half joking, and whoever rules will be blamed for it all evening. Switch to the gavel deciding and the verdict comes from the draw, which nobody can take personally and everybody agreed to in advance.

The record keeps what was ruled and on what, so the third time the same question comes up you can point at the ruling instead of holding the argument again. It lives in the page only, and clearing it clears it.

Mock trials and debate clubs

A class running a mock trial needs three things: a case, a bench and a verdict everybody hears at the same time. Type the case, let the jury or the teacher choose, and bang it. The guilty or not guilty set is there for exactly this, and the thumbs set is the gentler version for younger classes judging a story rather than a person.

For a debate club, write your own verdicts: carried, defeated, carried on a technicality, back to committee. If the question is who speaks first rather than who was right, the hat or the blind draw settles that in one move.

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