Diplomacy Rulesets

Version 0.1.0

Coming, to Swarthmore I found that I did not have the same expectations of Diplomacy play as other people. This caused some trouble. So I've put together a list of rule implementations. There are several axes on which to choose from, being: To make a ruleset, choose one from each category. Each rule following the first one is a more formal (or less cut-throat) version of the preceding.

Invalid Orders

Often a player will submit orders that are technically wrong in some way. The most common way is with a misspelling of a province name, but players will sometimes name one province or piece when they mean another or give an ambiguous abbreviation. These options are possible responses. Note that orders that are valid but not what the player intended do not fall under this category.
  1. If the player intended to write a valid order, the order they intended is excecuted.
  2. If there is only one order that would be a reasonable one, that order is excecuted.
  3. If there is only one interpretation of the written order that would be a reasonable one, that's what's excecuted.
  4. If there is only one interpretation of the order that would be valid for that player, it's excecuted.
  5. If the order is not ambiguous, it's excecuted.
  6. Orders that are misspelled, unintelligible, or otherwise invalid are not excecuted.

Deadlines

People miss deadlines. This is bad, they shouldn't do it, but we need some way to deal with it.
  1. If the deadline passes without a player submitting orders for any reason, they NMR.
  2. There is a grace period which should be agreed upon during which orders are not resolved if there are still any orders outstanding. After this period passes, any powers without order in NMR. The default grace period is 1/10 of the time between moves. If a player has an injury or family emergency, orders are not made public until the player can submit orders.
  3. In extention to the above, self-inflicted injuries don't count.

Privacy

Some people like to play Diplomacy in a manner analogous to real-life international Diplomacy. Others, when they realize that this may include going into other's rooms to look for communications or to eavesdrop, are entirely disinterested and possibly afraid of games like this. The separate issue of circumventing access control mechanisms, for example, locks and passwords, is dealt with in the Technology section.
  1. Players may go into others' rooms and belongings in search of information. All players give each other permission to do the above. If you have a roommate, you must get their permission before agreeing to play this variant.
  2. Players may not enter rooms through windows, heating ducts, or other non-standard methods. Unlocked doors, for example, are fine.
  3. Players may look into (but not touch) rooms and belongings of other players.
  4. Players may not examine anything in the course of this game that they could not in normal life.
  5. Players may make no attempt to detect conversations or other information not intended for them.

Technology

People have different knowledge levels and interests in technology. Some people would very much enjoy a game of picking locks and installing keyloggers, but many would not. It is very important to be sure everyone has the same sort of game in mind. Note that submitting orders as someone else is a special case of lying to the GM and so is not allowed in any version.
  1. Players may make use of any technological means they like, unless prohibited elsewhere, for example, in the Privacy section. This would include phone tapping, password cracking, bugging, man-in-the-middle attacks, lock picking, what have you.
  2. Players may not bypass any encryption or access control methods, however simple they may be, even ROT13, or use electronic analogues of eavesdropping, including keylogging and phone tapping.
  3. Players may not pretend to be another player through technological means. Note that this includes sending email with invalid from: lines.

How to reference these rules.

Generally, a good way to reference the rules is {I-n, D-n, P-n, T-n}-version. For example, {I-4, D-2, P-3, T-2}-0.1.0. If the version is left off, assuming the most recent is probably ok, but sometimes there are major changes between versions. I will be archiving old versions.

If anyone has any suggestions, pass them along.


Jeff Kaufman : 2005
cbr at sccs dot swarthmore dot spam edu. Remove spam.

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