Skip to main content

The Ethics of Diplomacy - Part 7: Tournaments and Teamplay

Image
By
Teamplay during an online game is likely to be banned under metagaming rules.  It's clearly unfair if a couple of players enter a game to play together, supporting each other and attacking others, when everyone else in the game is playing as an individual.  Well, I say clearly but that isn't always the case; some people just don't think there's anything wrong with it.
However, it is also something that can arise in FTF tournaments and it has often been banned, for obvious reason... again, I'd say obvious reasons.

It is (or was) common for a tournament or convention to combine individual competitions with team competitions.  A local club or organisation might have a number of players attend, therefore, and this is often true when there wasn't a team competition, simply because it's nice to go with your mates.

It didn't take long for teamplay to be outlawed.  What was happening was that players from the same club would help each other out in games.  It was occasionally a case that a club would nominate a 'champion' who would be given the chance to win the tournament; other members of the club would help her to get the best chance of winning in games.

Essentially, some players would sacrifice their own chances of winning to help their nominated champion.  This caused problems.  When individuals had attended the tournament on their own, to be in a game where one player was playing in such a way as to help another, rather than playing for herself, this was unfair.

The problem was that there is nothing in the rules of the game that prohibited this.  In fact, it was fairly common for players to hand control of their units over to others, both in FTF play and in postal play.  The GM would allow this providing the player owning the units didn't submit her own orders.

Common sense won out, though.  This kind of play was often specifically banned in tournament rules.  It wasn't always be easy to pin this kind of play down, of course, but it was penalised.

The ethical question is whether this kind of play can be outlawed.  In the rules the player controlling a power can do anything she wants with her units.  If she wants to support another player at her own expense, she can.  

But this is where 'house' rules come in.  Whether it's tournament rules, website rules, or a GM's rules, organisers can plug the gaps for play that is questionable.  If you don't like it, don't play. 

THE ETHICS OF DIPLOMACY series:

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What do you think?

Popular posts from this blog

WHAT IS DIPLOMACY? - Part 5: Variants

By
A variant is a game of Diplomacy where the rules or context are different from the standard game as designed by Allan B Calhamer.  There are three types of variants: context variants, map variants and rules variants. Context Variants Context variants are those games that are played with a wider context.  They may be tournament games, other scored games, or remote format  games.  These aren't often recognised as variants as such, as variants tend to be within the other two types discussed below.  But the context the game is being played in will have an impact on how some players will play the game, and so they are certainly a variation of Dip. Maybe they should be called "variations" rather than variants but does it really matter? Map Variants Diplomacy has been adapted to different maps, or boards.  Not surprising as the general idea of the game, pitting competing powers against each other in a localised region and time in history, can be adapte...
Post a Comment
Read more

WHAT IS DIPLOMACY? - Part 1: A Brief Intro to Diplomacy

By
Let's get started by discussing the game itself. The Board The map Diplomacy is played on is based on Europe at the start of the Twentieth Century.  It doesn't reflect Europe literally but is stylised.  Not all the countries are there and some of the spaces are given names that are a little... questionable. The Diplomacy Board The map I've used above is something   like the original board published in Europe.  In the Americas (well, North America, I'm not sure about anywhere outside of USA and Canada) the map was less colourful and more a physical map.  But the spaces are roughly the same. Players control one of seven major powers in Europe: England (yes, not Britain or, even more accurately, the UK) France Italy Germany Austria-Hungary (usually shortened to Austria) Turkey Russia There are 56 land spaces.  34 of these spaces are called Supply Centres (SCs) that, when controlled by a major power, support an army or a fleet on ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Powers - Part 6: Walls of Steel

By
In this series, I'm going to take a brief look at the seven powers in the game of  Diplomacy.   This will be not much more than a brief introduction to each power, looking at their position on the board, their neighbours and the pros and cons of playing them.  More detailed strategy will follow in future posts. The witch in the east.  England and Turkey are often know as the "Witch of the East" and the "Witch of the West" respectively.  They are both incredibly difficult to eliminate, which earns them this sobriquet.  With England, of course, it's because she's surrounded by sea spaces and will - or should - have a number of fleets on the board to protect her.  With Turkey it is that she's always slow to break down.  Even with a Gobbler triple alliance (A/I/R) it takes time. One of the reasons for this is Turkey's position as a corner power.  You can't get in behind her... literally in this case. Turkey's most vulnera...
Post a Comment
Read more