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Diplomatic games

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Fri, 04/01/2005 - 02:33
Hedge-o-Matic
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In recent years, I've put considerable effort into designing games that follow the Diplomacy model, of player interaction being the primary force for achieving game goals, and these tend to be darkly themed games. Given that Diplomacy has serious meta-gaming issues, and emotions run high, I was just wondering what everyone here would think about a new batch of games with a similar negotiating format, yet each employing very different mechanics.

The first, and most well developed, is my 1984-ish Inner Circle, where players are the upper echelon of The Party. Another is Forever War, a large-scale all consuming conflict. The most recent is Council of Fire, where players are the high council of magic, and fight for dominance in a fantasy seting.

Do you all like these sorts of games? If so, what are the aspects of them you especially like? If not, what, specifically, turns you off of them? Have you had bad experiences you can relate?

I really enjoy making these sorts of games, but have had difficulty in getting large enough groups together to heavily playtest the designs. Any imput from the group is appreciated.

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Tue, 04/05/2005 - 01:09
#1
Hedge-o-Matic
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Diplomatic games

Hmmm. Okay, it looks like negotioation games are out of vogue.

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Tue, 04/05/2005 - 03:43
#2
sedjtroll
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Diplomatic games

I personally don't like pure negotiation games, like Traders of Genoa for example. Never played Diplomacy, but I doubt I'd like it.

I'd still be interested in hearing your take on these though. Maybe you should start a Journal entry with a brief outline of each of the games you mentioned- a blurb describing them and maybe an outline of the rules.

A note about the Journal though, you have to use html code to format it... for line breaks, for bold, italic, or underline,

for a bulleted list.

- Seth

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Tue, 04/05/2005 - 07:28
#3
jwarrend
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Diplomatic games

Hedge-o-Matic wrote:
Hmmm. Okay, it looks like negotioation games are out of vogue.

I think it's a mistake to interpret a failure of folks to respond to a post as an answer to the question the post raised. There could be a lot of reasons why people don't respond (or take some time to respond), so don't read too much into that kind of thing.

I think it's a fine idea to solicit other designers' opinions, but a lousy idea to build your own projects around what people here have to say. Even if every single member here said "Diplomatic games stink!", that has absolutely no bearing on whether you should be working on such a game; the question is, do YOU like such games? And, probably equally importantly, can you get people to play such games with you? If the answers to both are yes, then go for it!

I like some diplomatic/negotiation games, like Diplomacy, Chinatown, Samurai Swords, Republic of Rome, Dune, and Game of Thrones. I think that such games have to be designed and played carefully, since it's often the case that the silver-tongued players can manipulate the less-experienced players, which makes the whole game less fun for everyone. There's also a chance of negotiation and deal-making taking a long time. Sometimes, imposing some restrictions on negotiation can help that. Diplomacy has limited time for deal-making; Dune only allows alliances to be formed at certain points in the game.

The one downside of such games is that a game like Diplomacy or Dune, to really shine, needs the full complement of players -- 7 and 6, respectively. You need to have enough people to be able to negotiate with! But such games also tend to be long. It's hard to get 6 or 7 people together on a day when everyone has 4 or 5 hours with nothing else to do. So if you are looking to design a mass-market game, I'd look to get the game length down, and to permit negotiation among players in a shorter context.

I have a couple of negotiation games in development right now; one is a "free for all" style sort of like Chinatown, and the other is an exploration of some new concepts in "restricted" deal making. So, I hope the genre isn't dead!

Good luck,

Jeff

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Tue, 04/05/2005 - 10:38
#4
Hedge-o-Matic
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Diplomatic games

My second post wasn't meant to be a "woe is me" post. Perhaps I should have added an emoticon to it. I was more hoping to get feedback on the pitfalls of these games, as I haven't played enough of them to really have a deep understanding of nuanced play. Since I enjoy designing them, I wasn't considering scrapping the project in any case. The Journals sound like a good idea. I'll give them a go.

Your notes about size (7 players) and time (long) are dead on, as these are what have foiled most playtesting for me in the past. The trouble is, the way Inner Circle is designed, players who drastically miscalcuate each other can win the shorter, introductory game in 5 minutes with a totally unopposed coup. The real tendencies of players of these types of games is difficult to detirmine beforehand, and these tendencies could reveal weaknesses in the rules. I was hoping to preempt that sort of problem by getting feedback on other games here.

I agree that time limits must be imposed, so I've designed all of my negotiation games with a 5-minute+ negotiation phase. There are five guaranteed minutes to plot, but after that, the negotiation phase ends when the first player hands in their play list for the turn. After that first set of orders are turned in, everyone has exactly one minute to turn theirs in, or it's just tough luck. that way, people can keep talking for a little while, hoping that they can write their orders in 60 seconds, or stop early, hoping to preempt opposing dealmaking.

I'll start a journal on these soon, probably Inner Circle, to give more details.

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Fri, 04/08/2005 - 23:32
#5
Anonymous
negotiation thoughts...

Okay, since I like negotiation games, and I like games that have a negotiation element to them, I'll pipe in my thoughts, and hopefully they will help you out.

I think that negotiations have to have a limit in scope to them. Meaning, don't allow players to negotiate everything all at once. This confuses people. If you can negotiate for resources, limit that round, or that part of the turn for just resources. Otherwise, while some people are trying to work out resource related things, others will have their mind all about negotiating for land and it won't be constructive.

You may have to limit exactly who you can interact with too. This would be very game specific, but Diplomacy games last a really long time because you want to be sure you've talked to everyone to see what they are up to if possible, and often go back to someone you've already talked with too! One way is the "you can only deal with the person whose turn it is right now" type of thing.

You may want to make deals binding. (depending on circumstances of the game you design) In this way, when a deal is made the players can make the deal and get on to other things without having to spend the time worrying whether or not you've made a deal that you are going to backstab them on. This can slow down the game, and give assurances to players. (but then again if you want the explicit joy that is non-binding agreements, do that instead)

Sometimes time is not such a big issue. In fact people used to play games by mail, and now do so by email (as it is much faster, but still very slow by most people's thought process). So if it takes a long time, design it as a play by mail game in the first place (though play testing with this method would seem painfull).

Oh, also make sure people realize what is negotiable and non-negotiable. If you write in your rules that "anything can be negotiated" people will see that as an opportunity to grant outside-the-game favors or all sorts of odd things you wouldn't think people would use to negotiate.

Keep the down time to a minimum, make it so no one gets isolated out of the wheeling and dealing if possible too easily.

As to my own experiences in these types of games - I enjoy the "take that" aspect of it. I like the "long-term" plotting that can be had by spending half the game gaining someone's confidence, only to betray them near the end of the game. I enjoy the uncertainty of negotiation games. I also enjoy the psychology of such games, because you are playing on your understanding of the people involved, as much as a system. The emotional aspect you mention is also enjoyable, if I don't care about the game, there isn't such an incentive to really win, or try something unconventional, at least for me.

This is all very general and game design is very game specific, but maybe some of my rambling will be of help.

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Sat, 04/09/2005 - 12:55
#6
Hedge-o-Matic
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Diplomatic games

Well, would anyone be interested in starting an e-mail game of any of these? Inner Circle, especially, will work through e-mail. I'd send everyone a copy of the rules, and they could digest them for a week or so. When people were ready to begin, we'd b rolling. Inner Circle contains rules for rnning the game via e-mail. Any takers?

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Thu, 05/12/2005 - 11:07
#7
Nestalawe
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Diplomatic games

Hey Hedge,

New here, first post, but i'd be keen on playing through an email game with you/others.

If yer still up for it, pm me and send me your rules to browse through, then we can get some playtesting underway ;)

Nestalawe'

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Fri, 05/13/2005 - 00:25
#8
jkopena
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Diplomatic games

Myself and several members of my local gaming group are huge fans of Game of Thrones and Twilight Imperium, so I thought I'd chip in one comment. A problem I see with many of these games is that there isn't interaction between all players. For the most part, you're really only dealing with the people right around you. In TI, you probably have too much to worry about in your own sector to be overly concerned with the guy across the table. In GT, Greyjoy's probably not going to make a lot of deals with Baratheon or those green or orange (expansion) guys, because he'll be swamped just dealing with Stark and particularly Lannister (Greyjoy basically starts on a small island surrounded by these guys. at least in our games Greyjoy and Lannister typically get stuck in a brutal back and forth to the death).

Now, yeah, a counter-argument is that they should be wheeling and dealing with those people to help them out, but I haven't really seen that happen. In all our games of GT, really the only time people actively help people is when someone's starting to get ahead and people join up to cut them down. As green, I'm not going to be terribly upset if Lannister & Greyjoy fight it out in their own world and run each other to ruins. The limited interaction between some players can be a bad thing, I think.

It's also true that these games bring in a lot of extra-game stuff. For a long while, we couldn't play GT because in one game I stabbed one of my friends in the back pretty good. I may have invaded his homeland, then begged off him crushing an army of mine on the promise that I'd give back his home, then come swooping in with that army to reinforce on his home, but that's neither here nor there. He dedicated every game after that for some time to fighting it out with me, which made things pretty unbalanced and weird. However, stuff like that makes those games awesome. We sat there a long time and had that back and forth about whether I was leaving his home or not, and it's part of the group's lore now that I turned right around, broke that promise, and made a great surprise move. The interaction makes for great stories, drama, and role-playing (I was playing Greyjoy, whom are supposed to be nasty and traitorous), which is why these sorts of games rock.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of these kinds of games so I wanted to gush for a little bit. Apologies for not being super on topic.

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Fri, 05/13/2005 - 05:00
#9
Nestalawe
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Diplomatic games

I am also a big fan of AGOT, and though I would be keen to, have not yet played a game of TI3, though I have been following discussions on it very closely...

Like you, our group, especially those of us who have played it alot, get into some pretty fierce diplomacy, but it will mainly be when discussing borders, trying to to get others to attack each other etc. Otherwise the main player interaction comes in when fighting each other, aiding each otehr in battles (which doesn't happen so much...) or when bidding. It is a war game, so the aim is to take each other out, but there are ways to help each other, however temporary. Because the map is so small however, there will be players (i.e. Stark and Tyrell) who will not have much to do with each other throughout the game, unless working against Baraethon for example. So the main diplomacy is in trying to convince other players to fight :wink:

But these are war/strategy/empire-building games with diplomacy, and mechanisms to structure some forms of diplomacy in-game included, rather than a 'pure' game of diplomacy.

I'd like to see more games like these where players have more interaction, and ways of aiding/working against one another. TI3 has political stuff happening as well, where all players get to vote, but I can't comment so much as I haven't played it yet...

I also agree that rivalries may carry on from game to game, or even knowing who the more experienced players are will affect things - I always end up helping the less experienced (or less 'game geek') players, while fighting the more experienced, which will sometimes result in the newer player making a surprise win, which I suppose is good to keep them wanting to play next time. But still, would be nice, yet impossible, to have a group of equal players coming into a game...

Also as jjacy1 wrote, discussions can add a lot of time to the game, which is less exciting for those who are not directly involved in the discussions, its just a matter of balancing the lengths of negotiations compared to actual 'game-play'

However, games of 'pure' diplomatic and negotiation strategies are differents beasts, and getting the balance of time is even trickier. Pbem games have the advantage of time, so all negotiation is taken away from the 'board', which allows for a different type of game...

I haven't played as many 'pure' negotiation board games, though I am interested in checking more out, if only to learn strategies and techniques and ways of including effecient negotiation mechanics into other strategy/war games which are more my interest...

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