Saturday, March 10, 2007
I used to design lots of Diplomacy variants, many of which are available through the Variant Bank. While I don't play any more, I occasionally use a mechanism that I first encountered in Diplomacy in one of my designs.
It occurred to me to ask myself, what characterizes Dip, what is the essence of the game Diplomacy: what makes someone look at a game and say "that's a variant of Diplomacy".
The list of the "essence" is pretty short. Diplomacy and its variants seem to share the following:
Always, simultaneous movement (but some people call Game of Thrones:the Boardgame a Dipvariant, and it isn't exactly simultaneous movement).
Always, the support mechanism.
Usually, centers maintain units in a zero-sum fashion--and while some games give economic points to spend in various ways, players still must pay maintenance for existing units.
Usually, no-holds-barred negotiation.
Usually, an area board and one unit per area.
What could be added to this list?
It occurred to me to ask myself, what characterizes Dip, what is the essence of the game Diplomacy: what makes someone look at a game and say "that's a variant of Diplomacy".
The list of the "essence" is pretty short. Diplomacy and its variants seem to share the following:
Always, simultaneous movement (but some people call Game of Thrones:the Boardgame a Dipvariant, and it isn't exactly simultaneous movement).
Always, the support mechanism.
Usually, centers maintain units in a zero-sum fashion--and while some games give economic points to spend in various ways, players still must pay maintenance for existing units.
Usually, no-holds-barred negotiation.
Usually, an area board and one unit per area.
What could be added to this list?
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