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Well, this is about Diplomacy, the game, for which the best reference is the Diplomatic Pouch website. See that website for everything you want to know.
This document is relating to GMing games of Diplomacy, and what I'm likely to do in certain situations that may arise. Note, this is a work-in-progress, and I may well change my mind about things I have written here, and will definitely be adding more things from time to time as I think of them.
This GM House Rules Document was last modified on 2003-Aug-11 Mon 18:10:15 GMT+1000.
This section describes the various published rules available, and how they take priority over other published in games that I run. The later in this "Rules Priority" section that a set of Rules appears, the higher its priority, in the sense that later listed Rules overrule earlier ones, if there is a contradiction.
If I'm GMing you on a Ken Lowe judge, there will be times when you'll be away from your email, need to go on holidays, whatever. Generally, if you ask me a while before the deadline falls, then I will generally move the deadline for up to a week without even bothering to ask you why.
If you want a longer deadline extension, then I'll want some sort of good reason, and provided there is one, I won't mind, and will grant the deadline extension too.
Also, I highly recommend sending "GET absence" in the body of a email message to any email based judge you are playing on (especially if it is sending you email in the form "JUDG:gamename -..." as that indicates it's a newer judge which supports absences). This enables you to automatically request deadline adjustments for seasons in advance of the current one, without needing me to manually approve them, unless they are exceedingly long.
Please note, however, that deadline changes are a privilege, not a right. I may not be around when you request a deadline change, and the earlier you ask for it, the more likely it is I will be able to give it to you.
If you repeatedly violate deadline, I will eventually kick you out of the game, especially if the other players are champing at the bit.
That brings up another side issue... the grace period is not meant for negotiation. It is supposed to be there to cover purely technical difficulties only, eg, judge downtime, ISP downtime, and similar situations.
If you're late with your orders, you are expected to get your orders in as soon as you can, before doing anything else. Delaying orders through the grace period in order to get a negotiating advantage is considered cheating, and if you do it, I will eventually kick you out of the game. Also, on the newer KL judges, I will be doing "SET NOLATEPRESS" flag, which means that if your orders are late, the judge will not allow you to send press to anyone except the GM.
If you do have your orders in, feel free to send negotiations to other powers with their orders in, but do not negotiate with powers who are late. You are allowed to change your orders after deadline, just be sure to wait for a judge response that indicates no errors, so you don't make the game any later.
The generally accepted procedure for ensuring that you are never late with your orders is to submit a set of valid orders (whatever you think is most likely to be good), along with a SET WAIT command, as soon as the move results come out.
With the SET WAIT, the judge will wait until deadline arrives before processing, even if everyone gets their orders in. Hence, you can keep negotiating through until right up the moment before deadline, updating and modifying your orders as negotiations proceed, as well as waiting for and reading carefully the judge response, to make sure that each update goes through correctly.
If you do that, you'll almost certainly always have a valid set of orders in, and you'll never miss deadline. You (and the other players) will be a lot happier if the game proceeds according to schedule, so this is really worth doing.
Besides, people do have a habit of actively ganging up on countries that are regularly late... After all, if someone regularly misses deadline, that probably means they're not paying close attention to the game... And, if they're not paying attention, they're easier to kill...
Generally my judge games are set as List (as well as the EP House Rules required NoNMR), which means that if you go past the deadline and the grace period, your power is marked as (*abandoned*), and the game is put on the DipPouch Judge Openings List.
Once a game is on that list, it is presumed to be open for anyone to sign on as the abandoned power, immediately, with no consultation required of the GM, other players, etc, so long as they meet whatever odd requirements are described in the game comment, if there are any, and any other judge enforced requirements (eg, dedication, different-site, etc).
As soon as you have gone abandoned, you have forfeited your right to the position entirely. If someone replaces you, and you decide you want to come back, you can, of course, ask politely of the replacement player (or if the game is gunboat, you can ask me and I will ask the replacement on your behalf) that they give you your position back... and if they agree, then you might be allowed back into the game.
It's every player's responsibility to make sure the judge has acknowledged their sent moves, and to ensure that those moves are what they think they sent in and intended.
It is my strong suggestion that players always wait online for the judge to acknowledge their orders, and that players check that those orders are exactly what they meant, before logging off. Verifying their own orders is the player's responsibility and is expected in any games that I run.
Given that, I am unlikely to issue a turn rollback under most circumstances (unless all players unanimously agree). It's possible that there might be one, but I don't see it as likely.
Using any kind of mechanism that tries to impersonate another player outside of within the game itself (eg, sending normal email purporting to come from someone else, stealing someone else's judge password, faking an order sheet for someone else and sneaking it into the GM's order's box, etc) is viewed by me as cheating, and grounds for immediate removal.
Of course, by all means, if I'm running a game that allows fake press or grey press, then hey, feel free to send PRESS via the judge that purports to be someone else... that's the whole point... but don't do it outside the judge mechanisms.
Don't send email to me as the GM outside the judge mechanisms, if you can help it. Obviously, if the judge is down, then hey, okay... but I much prefer to receive GM email via "PRESS TO M", because then I know it's from you with your password, and not from someone pretending to be you.
I require that players on a KL Judge (even in non-gunboat games) must use the judge press mechanisms to communicate, as opposed to sending email outside the judge mechanism to each other. This is in part because that is much less susceptible to email spoofing, but also so that I can be snoopy.
If you do not understand how to do so, send a line: "GET package" to any KL judge email address, and it will send you all the files you need to understand how to do so. Or email me.
As a GM on a KL judge, I will generally be viewing all partial press (by using the game option "SET ALL PRESS"), as well as seeing the broadcast press.
I may or may not be keeping a record of the partial press... but if I do keep a record, I will not be forwarding it on to replacement powers while the game is still going. I may publish the full partial press record once the game is completed, but only then.
A lot of the games I GM are novice games from the Dip Pouch queue system... one of the questions that arises is, "what's a novice, anyway?"
For me, as a GM, I think the answer boils down to the following:
If you feel like there are areas (basic tactics, basic strategy, judge
syntax, basic diplomatic communication) of the game where you don't
really "get" what's going on, then I think that classes you as
"novice".
If you're starting to get a handle on all of the above areas, develop theories about how to do things, what to say and when, what to do and when, and some of those theories appear to be working... then in my opinion, you're not a novice any more.
Obviously, there's still some grey area in between... but ultimately, I'll usually let people make their own call on whether they're "novice" or not.
If you're not a novice, and you play with novices, sure, you might win a lot, but you won't get any better at your game. The way to get better is to play people better than you, so you can analyse your mistakes. And, even if you are a novice, it can be worth playing with experts, just because you'll get a better class of advice and negotiation during game, and you'll see better strategies and tactics in play to learn from.
I am quite willing to provide advice about the judge syntax and likely theoretical move resolutions to players in my games, particularly newbie ones. But, bear in mind that I cannot take responsibility for that advice being correct!
This is because I'm only human, and I cannot read minds to ensure that you phrased your question correctly, nor can I be absolutely certain that I got the answer correct. It's up to every individual player to ensure that their moves are what they intended and that they understand the rules (including house rules) as they are being applied.
No rollbacks will be given on the grounds that I (or anyone else) gave you incorrect advice! All care taken, no responsibility assumed.
Diplomacy is a game. It's only a game. If someone wants to use foul language within the game, then I'm extremely unlikely to intervene. Bear in mind that the game is about interpersonal conflict, as well as conflict between dots and blocks on the board. If you can't handle that, then you're going to have problems playing Diplomacy, and you should perhaps reconsider.
On the other hand, taking it beyond the game, and going into personal attacks upon the real person, and similar activities, is going too far, and I may well intervene if I receive complaints.
There's plenty of grey area there and my personal opinion is that one should retain a level, calm disposition all the time... But that is just my personal opinion. There are certainly people who think that going a little apeshit in public is useful in certain circumstances and, hey, they may be right. So long as they keep it clearly within the game, I'm not going to intervene.
To add to this, I will adopt Jim-Bob Burgess' abuse rule. If you are deciding to attack/abuse a player, you are required to level the same level of attack/abuse against me as the GM. I am very thick-skinned, so don't worry about offending me. But, if you're not willing to level attack/abuse against me, then don't do it against another player. If you are, then go right ahead. :-)
If the game is nopress I will not broadcast draw proposals (even anonymous ones), because I feel that that breaks nopress. On the other hand, if I see that the game situation has become static, I may remind players off my own bat that they are entitled to SET DRAW, and that they need to do so in every phase.
The newer KL Judges have a "PRFBOTH" setting, which allows players to
opt out of the normal preference-list mechanism, by sending:
SET PREFERENCE *
to the judge. I will most likely have most games I run set to this, so
if you wish to be assigned a power totally at random (this occurs before
any preference lists are taken into account), please use the above
option.
The EP House Rules and the Judge House Rules describe a three game year draw clock, which allows the GM to warn the players that if no provinces change hands within three years, the game will be called a draw. I don't quite like the draw clock as described there, so I have my own version of it...
Under no circumstances will I as a GM accept player requests for the draw clock to be set. Generally under those circumstances, it is up to the remaining players to be setting up perfect stalemate lines, and ensuring that their defensive lines are unbreakable, and that their allies aren't going to stab them, then ordering SET DRAW in every phase.
That all falls squarely in the realms of expert play, and I feel that the GM is not here to provide expert advice... not to mention that GM is entirely as likely to be incorrect about the situation as the players when it comes to hairy stalemate lines and similar tricky issues.
That being the case, if I allow players to request a draw clock, that puts me in the situation of validating or invalidating the players' request, and checking whether their orders really are a stalemate line or not. That is not the GM's job. It's up to the players to SET DRAW in every phase if they feel that there is a real stalemate line, and to persuade the remaining other players to do the same.
However, if I see that the game is definitely static, and that I feel that the current stalemate lines are definitely unbreakable, and that the game is dragging on because a player absolutely refuses to believe that a stalemate line really is a draw despite it being clearly obvious from the map, then I may announce that the draw clock is on, and for how many years it is set for.
I will always set it for at least 3 game years, set to end in the Winter Adjustments phase of a particular year, but I may set it for longer, depending on circumstances, and I will cancel it immediately if a province changes ownership. Ownership for provinces with SCs is defined the same way SC ownership is. Ownership for provinces without SCs is defined as follows. The last player to have a unit that can change SC ownership (eg, Army or Fleet units, but NOT Wing units) occupy a non-SC province after the end of a movement-and-retreat phase, regardless of season, owns the province.
Petitions for cancellation of the draw clock may be made to me, and I will not provide any indication of whether I agree or disagree with those petitions. If the clock still expires without any provinces changing hands, then I will announce whether or not there is a draw. If there is not, then one can presume that I called off the clock, and I will probably not issue a broadcast saying why.
It is very unlikely that I will be GMing a game that will require me to just call the game a DIAS draw or even a noDIAS draw, or just flat out terminate the game... but I do reserve the right to do so, if I really need to. I'm not likely to need to do so without at least attempting to use the draw clock first... but there may be circumstances where the game has essentially fallen off the rails sufficiently that there's no point (eg, all seven players go abandoned, at one extreme) continuing the game.
If I do feel I need to terminate a game in this fashion, I will most likely consult with the judge-keeper first, as well as doing a reasonable amount to try to ensure that I don't have to.
I feel that as the GM, I'm there to serve the players' desires. Thus, before the game starts, I will almost always accept a unanimous vote of all players to change game parameters such as deadline times, press settings, and even rule interpretation changes, game flags, etc. I will usually be setting most KL Judge games I run to "manualstart", to allow players to ask me about game parameters, and suchlike things before I start the game.
Some game parameter and rule/flag changes, however, may require that the game be set to non-rating, because the game moves beyond what's considered normal. If this is the case, I'll be telling people that before the issue goes to vote.
Once the game has started, however, I am unlikely to change any game parameters unless the change is acceptable to all the players and myself. I am unlikely to be agreeing that a change after the game has started is acceptable unless the parameter change has an utterly trivial effect on gameplay.
This is because I feel that when you sign up for a particular game, you should be ensuring that you are playing that game to the finish. The time to change game rules is before and after the game, not during the middle of the game. If you want to change rules in the middle of the game, try Nomic instead of Diplomacy.
Also, if for some reason I do conduct a rules/parameters change vote after the game has started, eliminated players do get a vote, unless they have actively resigned their position. Abstentions will count as no votes, for both eliminated players and non-eliminated players. This is because I strongly feel that it would be unfair on the eliminated players to change the game parameters, since the changes may advantage the still alive players.
There has been at least one notable example in the past where a "dead" player influenced the course of the game... For example, in USVG:escher, around 1994, in a game for novices with proxies enabled. A few of the living powers granted proxies to all their units to a single dead power, who then put in a consistent set of orders to pull off a successful Stop The Leader defense.
Also, in the KL Judge House Rules, it is clear that powers who have been eliminated are explicitly allowed to continue to send press, conduct negotations, etc, etc. That is, they are only "mostly dead" dead, not "all dead". If a player has actually resigned their position, then I will certainly consider them "all dead", and they won't get a vote if I conduct one, etc... but for all other things, a power isn't "all dead" until the game is fully over - ie, someone has achieved victory, or a draw (of whatever kind is allowed by the game parameters) has been declared.
This implies that yes, you are entirely allowed to keep talking to other players after you've been eliminated. There's no requirement to stop simply because you no longer have units on the board. You are fully allowed to help and/or hinder whoever you wish by continuing to spread (dis)information as you will. This applies in Face-to-face games too, not just PBEM ones! Of course, whether the other players will listen to you is entirely up to them...
Note that this problem does not apply on the Ken Lowe email based judges. Those judges require that you specify the coast for move you are supporting and, if you do not, they will insert a coast specification for you (which may not be the coast you expect!).
France: Army Marseilles Support Fleet Mid Atlantic Ocean Move Spain(South Coast) France: Fleet Mid Atlantic Ocean Move Spain(North Coast) Italy: Fleet Western Mediterranean Move Spain(South Coast) Italy: Fleet Gulf of Lyon Support Fleet Western Mediterranean Move Spain(South Coast)
Okay. The Italian moves are fine... The French moves are a little mixed up. The rules are a little unclear on this point. Support orders are supposed to match the move order... but they are also not required to specify the coast. Unambiguous orders must be followed, ambiguous orders are to be resolved in context... and invalid orders are void.
I think the problem resolves as follows...
This is because supports are arguably not required to specify the coast, but nothing says they can't specify the coast, if they so wish. And if they do wish... then they can indeed specify the coast, and risk that the move order is not to the same coast (or, quite usefully, ensure that the move order only succeeds to a specific coast).
The 1982 Avalon Hill version of the rules says that if a unit has been ordered to a province, and could get there either over land or by convoy, one or the other route must be chosen based on the "intent as shown by the totality of the orders written by the player governing the army".
That's not particularly clear. The classic situation is this:
England: F Nth C A Hol M Bel
Germany: A Hol M Bel
France: F Bel M Hol
with no other supports or attacks involving those units going on.
If Germany's army goes "over land" then there is a bounce. If Germany's army goes "by convoy" then there is no bounce, and the French and German armies exchange position. Depending on what other moves come out, there could be significant controversy based on whether Germany wants to "accept" the convoy or not.
On the Ken Lowe Judges, this doesn't matter, because you are required to specify convoy routes explicitly (eg Germany: A Hol M Nth M Bel), so there is no possibility of your army being "kidnapped" and being forced to board ship when you didn't mean it to.
The Hasbro 2000 edition rules clarify the situation, by saying that if the player expects the Army to go by convoy, he needs to say so in his own orders (whether by ordering one of his own fleets to do the convoy, or actually writing "by convoy"), and thus there is no such thing as "kidnap convoy". It doesn't quite clarify what happens if the convoy is then disrupted. I suspect that by a strict reading of what the Hasbro rules say, if the convoy is disrupted, then the army does not move, but it doesn't explicitly say so anywhere.
Given all this confusion, I'll make my own rule, just to ensure that
I've covered all cases. If I am GMing by hand, I am allowing the
phrases "over land" and "by convoy" (or similar clear phrasing, eg,
"feet on ground the whole way", "via ship", etc) to clarify the
situation for the Army in question. Those phrases have meaning as
follows:
Specific cases which should cover everything:
Germany: F Nth C A Hol M Bel
Germany: A Hol M Bel
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes by convoy, since Germany ordered a convoy for their own
unit and should expect it to go by convoy, so A Hol and F Bel swap.
Germany: F Nth C A Hol M Bel
Germany: A Hol M Bel (whilst having a tea party)
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes by convoy, since Germany ordered a convoy for their own
unit which is not marked specifically as travelling over land and
should expect it to go by convoy, so A Hol and F Bel swap.
England: F Nth C A Hol M Bel
Germany: A Hol M Bel (by convoy)
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes by convoy, since Germany has specified that he
expects to go by convoy, so A Hol and F Bel swap.
Germany: F Nth C A Hol M Bel
Germany: A Hol M Bel (over land)
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes over land, since Germany clearly indicated that they
wanted the unit to go over land, and thus bounces with F Bel.
This is because even though Germany also ordered the fleet to convoy,
the unit's own order always takes precedence. This is analogous to the
situation with the orders A Hol M Bel and A Bur S A Hol M
Ruh. Obviously, A Hol's own orders take precedence in both
situations.
England: F Nth C A Hol M Bel
Germany: A Hol M Bel
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes over land, since Germany has not specified that he
expects to go by convoy, and thus bounces with F Bel.
Note: This is the controversial ruling -
essentially I am disallowing "kidnap convoy". It is consistent with the
Hasbro2000 Rules, though.
England: F Nth Hold
Germany: A Hol M Bel (by convoy)
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes over land since there is no valid convoy available,
and thus bounces with F Bel.
Note: This is counter to the KL Judge behaviour, since on there, if
you don't have a convoy, the unit holds as "no convoy". It is probably
also not consistent with the Hasbro2000 Rules.
England: F Lon S F Eng M Nth
England: F Eng M Nth
Germany: F Nth C A Hol M Bel (dislodged)
Germany: A Hol M Bel (by convoy)
France: F Bel M Hol
means A Hol goes over land since there is no valid convoy available,
and thus bounces with F Bel.
Note: This is counter to the KL Judge behaviour, since on there, if
your convoy is dislodged, the unit holds as "no convoy". It is probably
also not consistent with the Hasbro2000 Rules.
Also, I highly encourage players to write "By Convoy" and "Over Land" next to the army's orders in all cases where there might be ambiguity, just to ensure that there is no confusion. If I can't interpret a phrase that's next to the unit order as anything involving movement by convoy, then it is the same as if the phrase was not written.
There are a whole set of complicated very rare paradoxes involving support cuts and dislodgement of convoying fleets. I am not about to try and describe them here. However, these are apparently not fully resolved by any of the published Rules available. The KL Judge does avoid the paradox, because it has a specific ordering of support cuts and convoys that is multi-pass and clearly described.
For a hand adjudicated game, I will simplify things by saying that if I find a rules paradox, the units involved in the paradox do not move. Any other resolution method just goes in the "too hard" basket for me, since it's difficult enough just reading the analysis of the first order paradox situations, let alone second or third order paradoxes which exist.
The various sets of Diplomacy rules are not totally clear about whether a player is allowed to choose not to build a unit when there are builds available.
The Ken Lowe email judges allow you to do so explicitly (via ordering some or none of your builds, then declaring "WAIVE" to waive the remainder). If I'm GMing you by hand, I will allow you to leave out builds by choice (or even by accident, via a mis-ordered build, eg, "Build Fleet Munich"), even if you have builds available and home centres available to build in.
The KL judges generally accept the last builds in the last set of orders received by them, if you have fewer builds than you ordered.
If I am GMing you by hand, though, I will perform builds in the order from top down on the build order paper, starting with the last set of orders received, and moving on to builds, again top down, on earlier sets of received orders if you run out of build orders and have turned in earlier orders.
There are a few links which are of particular use to people new to Diplomacy and/or playing it on the Ken Lowe email judges.
For anyone who is using HTML email, I highly recommend you turn it off. The email judges are likely to get confused about it, and mess up where it thinks your commands begin and end, possibly exposing your password and doing all sorts of other potentially bad things. See: Configuring Mail Clients to Send Plain ASCII Text - http://tertius.net.au/~thorfinn/borrowed/nomime.html for details.
There are situations (mostly described above already), where I may need to remove a player from the game. I also reserve the right to kick a player out of the game for whatever reason I feel like. I do promise not to do so for frivolous reasons, and I will explain in detail why I am kicking a player out of the game (always directly to the player, and to others in the game and elsewhere only if the player wishes), and am very willing to listen to reasons why I should not do so... but I do reserve the right to be final arbiter, barring appeals to the judge-keeper if on an email judge, or a similarly appropriate higher authority (eg, tournament organisers, etc).
The reason I feel I need to reserve that right is that, well, the list of possible reasons for me to get rid of a player above is far from complete... and I don't want people rules-lawyering it. Basically, if you're reasonable, I'm not going to kick you out of the game. But, if you make lots of trouble for me, I'll get rid of you.
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