Games Theory

Nearly two years of sporadic strikes, riots, sinking trade balances, a franc devaluation and other troubles led French Economist Jean-Marie Albertini to invent a Monopoly-like game called Ec-oplany. In it, players assume the role of finance ministers and try to outwit each other at running a national economy. By rolling dice, each participant is tossed from recessions to failing harvests to baby booms. Unless he learns quickly, a novice will find himself strikebound, bankrupt or on the verge of civil war in no time.

The game, which sells at $12 a set, suggests some transatlantic variations. In a direct adaptation, Americans could play Nonplany, in which participants must act like members of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Other possibilities: Generation Gap (gain points by making the adversary feel middle-aged and irrelevant), Silent Majority (you win by giving the best impression of Spiro Agnew, lose if you sound more like Eric Sevareid), Academic (up for snagging a federal consulting job, down if students smoke your cigars). There could even be Presidency, which no one could possibly win if he was once defeated for the office and then lost the governorship of California.

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