The Ethics of DIplomacy - Part 6: Impersonating Others

It's difficult in online play to impersonate anyone else. The websites have power-to-power messaging, and even when you message everyone (known as Public Press on Playdiplomacy) it comes up with your power's name. But elsewhere, impersonating another player, or even a GM, is possible.

Press

Press, in Diplomacy, is when players send messages. When playing on a website you will be able to send messages to players directly. This isn't really press although a couple of websites count it as this.

Usually, press is seen as being messages to be published to all players. It origninated in postal games; when players submitted orders they would submit press which would be published alongside those orders. There were three types: white press, grey press and black press.

White Press

This is press where the player sending it is identified. In the postal game, each power was issued with a standard ID, or dateline, which might be the name of the power or the capital of the power. No other player was allowed to use that dateline.

Grey Press

This is press that was anonymous. Players could use any available dateline for this, including something that might seem to represent a power but wasn't a reserved name. It also allowed press from fictional participants, such as the Swiss Observer, a fairly well-known 'commentator' on the game.

Black Press

This was when there were no reserved names, except that of the Games Master (GM), the player who was running the game. Players could impersonate other powers - very confusing.

Online play is different. Usually you can try to impersonate another power but to do so successfully is not usually possible. Players can often choose to post press anonymously but it's difficult to impersonate someone else.

Impersonating the GM

Although GM's would usually reserve a call sign, other players were free, in Grey and Black Press games, to post pretending to be the GM. There are examples where an extra vowel may have been used. Richard Sharp, in The Art of Diplomacy, recounts the following example:

It is customary in the postal game for GMs to have a ‘dateline’ reserved for their own use in the press section; any press printed under this dateline is guaranteed to come from the GM, and players may not borrow it. ... Nicky [Palmer] was playing in a game run by a Canadian, John Leeder, who used the reserved dateline ‘Moose Valley’. In a moment of insane inspiration Nicky submitted a note — dateline ‘Mooose Valley’ with three 0’s — ‘reminding’ players of a new rule whereby the strongest and weakest countries at the end of 1905 would swap players. The intended victim was not deceived. But Nicky’s ally had not been let in on the joke, and refused to support Nicky’s units the following season as he assumed someone else was ordering them!

In the online game the website will post in Press messages to give information on events. Again, players can try to impersonate the site's messages, but this is often difficult to pull off. I have seen this succeed in fooling some players, however... and I've seen complaints that this is cheating. It isn't, just sneaky.

So, is this ethically acceptable? Well, yes, frankly. Does everyone like it? Players who don't play on a websites are usually more versed in the history of the hobby. I don't mean to offend anyone by that, it's just that the websites tend to attract newer players of Diplomacy. In these games, therefore, it is accepted as part of the Dip hobby.

It is questioned more often on websites. As I've indicated, though, this is usually because these players may not have as much knowledge of from where the practices have come. As is common with a lot of complaints from website players, it's the fact that they've come across something that they haven't considered that causes the 'problem'. More experienced players, and those more experienced on the website, will usually put them right.

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