Re: Removing personality from Diplomacy?

From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 00:22:04 +0000

In article <2jnci4$rmm@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
Keith Schneider <keith@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:

>Or, we could attempt to somehow remove the players'
>personalities from the game.
>
>To do this, we would need to develop a standard set of negotiating
>tools that all players would be required to use.  That is, when
>corresponding with the other players, each player would be required
>to choose from a menu of messages.  This would in effect "sanitize"
>the negotiations process.

This was done 5+ (?) years ago by a commercial play-by-mail wargame
company. They called the result CODASYL (or something that one would
confuse with a database standard, I can never keep long acronyms
straight). I saw it written up in Flagship, I think. The designer
thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, but I don't know if
his customers considered it to be a plus or a minus. It's certainly a
nice extension of the concept of anonymous gaming.

I've cross-posted to rec.games.pbm on the off chance that someone
there remembers any more details.