Quote from: RPGPunditThis discussion belongs in the "Electronic and Other Games" forum.

I'd rather it go to the Design and Development Forum, because I'd like to get some ideas on how to avoid these, from the ground up. But whatever I guess, I probably should have made that clearer in the initial post. Maybe I'll start another thread like that in good time.

QuoteFor the record, I've seen a lot of arguments over Diplomacy; i know there's certain people that I would never play that game with.

What parts, the negotiation part ("LISTEN TO ME DAMN IT!")? Getting angry about being lied to? Arguements over specific rules (over the years wasn't there a change in the map's appearance to remove a certain country/country link ambiguity)? Or some other general asshattery?

Are there any other games or types of games you would avoid playing with these people?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityAlso, IMO Turkey = rawk, and anybody who wins as Germany is better than me or played with foolz.

I was given the impression by someone that Turkey was hard because you sort of sit on the outside looking in, that it's hard to break out of the corner until someone else is in control of the game. Maybe I just was agressive enough with my navy to break out. I've since looked around and Turkey - Italy is not one of the 12 "standard" wars.

Minor note in answer to your question, Dwight: some early Diplomacy boards differed from the Avalon Hill one I grew up with in the syria/armenia/sevastopol area. I forget it they actually showed an additional connection or were simply less ambiguous about an unnamed land area that belonged to one of the aforementioned provinces.

Our gaming group has a strict rule: we do not ever play Axis & Allies or Diplomacy with any other member of the group.  If you want to play, go play elsewhere.  Most of us have seen friendships end over issues with those two games.  

It's tremendously odd because we play LOTs of competitive "take that!" betrayal/bluff games, but those two are off our game list forever.

Diplomacy is great. Just don't play it with friends. It is quite unhealthy for weaker friendships when you lie, conspire and make all those treachearous moves...

Quote from: Spinachcat;219872Our gaming group has a strict rule: we do not ever play Axis & Allies or Diplomacy with any other member of the group.

On a related note, my friends created a "Never play Avalon Hill's Civilization for money" rule after an unfortunate incident at Origins in 1993.


TGA

Sadly most Diplomacy games I've played came down to a popularity contest and not a strategy contest.

It is very rare to find a good Diplomacy group.

I've played mostly PBEM, and everyone seemed to be good sports. To me, that's the way Diplomacy should be played. Everyone is anonymous, and the nature of writing your diplomatic correspondence makes it all agreeably civilized.

FtF is an entirely different beast. For starters, it's more about tactics than diplomacy (at least with 15-minute negotiation sessions). Then you get into all the meta personality issues and out of game friendships/grudges. We have quite a thriving FtF Civ community here in Calgary, but I've seen enough fishy alliances and abuse of newbies to make me steer clear.

I've never played Diplomacy but Wednesday, I was introduced to a German game called Intrige . I was warned that it was a short backstabbing game and that if I was the kind of person who might get frustrated by Diplomacy, I better pass. Having no experience with Diplomacy, I took the plunge.

Jesus fucking Christ. I wanted to physically hurt the guy sitting right next to me in less than 20 minutes. All in all, it was an eye-opening experience. There were five of us and I was stabbed in the back by two guys in less than an hour. None of us had experience with the game and three of us were pretty surprised by the viciousness.

It's just a game. But during gameplay it gets pretty intense. I finished second last. The guy who finished last was one of the two players who had the most experience with that kind of games. Perhaps demonstrating that maybe, it's in all of us, if only for fun

I love Diplomacy. I own a copy. I've never won.
I made WAR GAMES style combat scenarios for opening moves for each of the different countries, depending on which country (player) I wanted to eliminate first, with cute names like "French Fry" and "Austria Hungry."

Rob Shetland said, "This game is evil. Richard Smith stabbed me in the back, and he's the nicest person on earth."

In other news, I sold TALISMAN (with all the sequel boards) after I'd played it for years, and won almost twice. Every single time I played, the other players would team up to kill me first. Every time. The one time I won, the other players were such poor sports about me finally winning, that instead of congratulating me on my first win EVER, they said I must have cheated. The second time, when it was clear that I was about to win, they lost interest in the game and stopped playing. I sold the game shortly after. Sometimes it's not the game, it's who you play with.

If anyone is up for Diplomacy ftf, I'm in.