Diplomacy Zine -- Chapter Four EP #135 From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1990 06:40:32 +0000 Issue #135 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: Chapter One contains: NAVARONE, BLITZKRIEG, OPERATION OVERLORD, GETTYSBURG, and HMS HOOD And is published by daybell@aludra.usc.edu/Donald Daybell Chapter Two contains: DRAGONSLAYER, BISMARK, COLD WAR, JACAL, MANHATTAN, and VERSAILLES And is published by tedward@cs.cornell.edu/Ted Fischer Chapter Three contains: TANNENBURG, ENTENTE, MULHOUSE, and DAWN PATROL And is published by xcbe12a@ucrmath.ucr.edu/Wayne Wallace (I am working on publishing the chapters that dragon@agora.hf.intel.com /Bill Wheeler created. He has them but can't transmit.) ------------- Chapter Four ------------- Spring '05 of the game RATATOSK (BNC number 1989IJ) (GM is jall@diku.dk/Mogens Jallberg) Delayed due to Winter vacations. Spring '05 of the game BUSHIDO (BNC number 1989IN) (GM is ronin@cory.berkeley.edu/Sam Parazette) Due Jan 20 Fall '04 of the game HUGO (BNC number 1989IO) (GM is willis@trwind.ind.trw.com/Willis Marti) Due Jan 28 Fall '03 of the game JUGGERNAUGHT (BNC number 1989IR) (GM is rdesper@eagle.wesleyan.edu/Rick Desper) Due Jan 28 Fall '03 of the game TOKUGAWA (BNC number 1989IS) (GM is joseph_harold_thomas@cup.portal.com/Joseph Thomas) Delayed because a player was on vacation Fall '03 of the game PETAIN (BNC number 1989IT) (GM is ssmith@ms.uky.edu/Scott Smith) Due Jan 27 Summer '03 of the game DUNKIRK (BNC number 1989KN) (GM is sjzwange@phoenix.princeton.edu/Steven Jacob Zwanger) Due Jan 24 Fall '03 of the gunboat game VERDUN (MNC 1989AZrb32) (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) AUS: <A Budapest S A Serbia - Trieste>[nso] <A Vienna S A Serbia - Trieste>[***] ENG: F Edinburgh - Clyde F London - Wales <F Norway - North Sea> A Sweden H FRA: F Belgium - English Channel A Burgundy - Ruhr F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - North Atlantic A Marseilles - Burgundy A Picardy - Belgium A Spain - Marseilles GER: A Denmark H F Heligoland Bight S A Denmark H A Holland - Yorkshire A Munich - Kiel F North Sea C A Holland - Yorkshire A Yorkshire - Liverpool ITA: F Adriatic Sea S A Trieste H F Albania S A Trieste H F Ionian Sea - Aegean Sea A Trieste S A Tyrolia - Vienna A Tyrolia - Vienna RUS: <A Bohemia - Galicia> <A Galicia - Ukraine> <F Skagerak - Sweden> <A St. Petersburg - Moscow> TUR: F Black Sea S A Bulgaria - Rumania <A Bulgaria - Rumania> F Greece H <A Rumania - Ukraine> A Serbia H <A Sevastopol - Moscow> Position Report Fall 1903 Game VER AUS: A BUD = 1 ENG: F CLY F NOR A SWE F WAL = 4 FRA: A BEL A BUR F ECH A MAR F NAO A RUH = 6 GER: A DEN F HEL A KIE A LVP F NTS A YOR = 6 ITA: F ADR F AEG F ALB A TRI A VIE = 5 RUS: A BOH A GAL F SKA A STP = 4 TUR: F BLA A BUL F GRE A RUM A SER A SEV = 6 Supply Center Report Fall 1903 Game VER AUS: BUD = 1( 1) ENG: EDI LON NOR SWE = 4( 4) FRA: BEL BRE MAR PAR POR SPA = 6( 6) GER: BER DEN HOL KIE LVP MUN = 6( 6) ITA: NAP ROM TRI TUN VEN VIE = 6( 5) + RUS: MOS STP WAR = 3( 4) - TUR: ANK BUL CON GRE RUM SER SEV SMY = 8( 6) ++ Russia -> Turkey: You slime-sucking Towel Head!! How dare you stab me like that? Prepare to meet thy doom! Russia -> Austria: I'll help you beat off that Heretic Turk in the Balkans. Russia -> All: The Czar has declared WAR on TURKEY. All negotiations with Turkey will end. Russia will aid everyone in a war on Turkey. Germany -> France: Now England is at our mercy. We finish him off, and then go our separate ways ok? Germany -> Russia: All this time you were worried about Scandanavia when your real enemy was your ally, Turkey. Now England can walk into St. P from the North and Turkey into Moscow from the South. Did you really think that I was out to get you? You certainly tried to help England get me. I suggest that you beat a hasty retreat, but it may be too late for you. Germany -> Italy: Your expedition into Tyrolia has lasted longer than you anticipated. Since your main goal is Austria, Germany grants you permanent occupation of Tyrolia. Turkey -> Russia, Austria: You shall die, slowly, but surely. Rest assured that between England, Italy and myself, we shall divide and conquer the world. Rome (UPI): The President of Italy wishes to extend his sincere and heart-felt condolences to the people of Russia. It became clear recently that the Czar of All the Russias has gone completely and irrevocably insane. "Unfortunately," said Italy's ruler, "the Czar's foolery not only puts his own people at risk, but others' as well." When treachery was insinuated, the President responded by shaking his head sadly, and mumbling something about that being too difficultt for the Czar to manage in his present condition. Concern about the facile takeover of surrounding areas by the virtually immovable Turkinsh forrces is mounting all over the south. Film at 11.... Italy -> Russia: It's up to you about Turkey's progress...If you supported me into Vie, I will respond with support to Budapest. Your foolish moves will allow Turkey at least two builds (if not three) and guess who he's going to cream first. If you choose to go it alone, fine. Again the Sultan has no announcements for the press. His only comment is that enough "black press" gets published in his behalf that he would only be confusing the issues even more. Even though it isn't really in his best public interest to allow it to continue, he says he enjoys reading things about himself and his country that he doesn't even know himself. Italy -> Aus/Rus: In view of recent events, it is in our best interests to stop our mindless bickering and stem the Sultan's growing empire. In the interest of self preservation, I hereby vow to cease my attacks on Austria. Italy will now pursue its new enemy, the Turk. Turkey -> ALL LOOK HOW POWERFUL I'VE BECOME!!!!! Petrograd, May 1, 1903 (Reuthers) At a tear fillled press conference, Foreign Minister Mikhail Davidovitch announced his resignation. "The events of the last few months, the failure of our negotiations with Turkey and the rejection of our offers of aid have forced a reevaluation of our foreign policy. As architect of and spokesman for that policy, its failure must be considered as a failure on my part". No replacement for the Minister has been named and there were no indications on what policies were under consideration. Russia -> Italy: Sorry we can't offer you the support into Vienna. Given the current state of affairs with Turkey, we have more pressing matters to attend to. Perhaps we may be able to help at a later date. Keep us posted. Fall '01 of the game BERLIN (BNC number 1989KQ) (GM is cwekx@htikub5.bitnet/Constantijn Wekx) Due Jan 21 Spring '01 of the game BIG WILLIE (MNC number not known) (Blind game, GM is okamoto@hp-ses.hp.com/Jeff Okamoto) Due Jan 19 Spring '01 of the game FIRE WHEN READY (BNC number 1990B) (GM is rlg@ai.mit.edu/Bob Givan) Not due yet. Summer '01 of the game DREADNOUGHT (BNC number not known) (GM is rbk@aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk/Richard Kirby) Nothing happened. Publisher comments: Both articles scribed by rlg@ai.mit.edu/Bob Givan MULTIPLE WORLDS AND THE APPEARANCE OF AN IDEOLOGY IN THE GAME OF DIPLOMACY by Allan B. Calhamer, inventor of Diplomacy Years ago, when I played face-to-face Diplomacy frequently with the same small group, two of the players began the practice of allying with each other in every game. With the other players allying here and there according to no set pattern, these two players obviously had an advantage since, in the even that a war developed at uneven odds, they were far more likely to be on the long than on the short side of the odds. Of course, the pattern in their play was noticed after a few games. It was then quickly mentioned to all the other players at the start of the game. The remaining 5 would then swarm the other two and knock them out, after which their play returned to a more nearly typical pattern. On another occasion, a friend of mine and I made a personal alliance to extend over all our games. We then considered all the possible combinations of countries we could draw (for countries were always assigned by chance...). There are 21 such combination. We decided that 9 of the 21 lent themselves to the particular chicane we had in mind. For each of these 9, we devised first moves which would get the two countries off to a good start as allies. Using these moves, we not only always had a good alliance, but were relieved of the necessity of negotiating it. We usually went out together, for appearances sake, only briefly at the end of the negotiating period, and sometimes came back in looking angry. I do not know whether the crowd sensed the pattern or not, but they were pretty good players, and about the third time we used this "super alliance", as we called it, we began to run into tough resistance on every front. Finally, the other partner decided that I must have a "super alliance" going with someone else on the board, conflicting with his; which notion was wrong, but in any case, he spilled the beans and the super-alliance came to an end. I a sense, one might regard alignment and realignment upon positional considerations as the _measure_, the permanent alliance as the _counter-measure_, and the swarming of these permanent alliances as the _counter-counter-measure_. It is then apparent that there is hardly any need to develop and prepare highly sophisticated counters, where there is little likelihood that one will be faced with the corresponding measures. The evolution described above occurred in face to face games, where the same or nearly the same 7 players played in one game after another. Such an evolution is not so likely to occur in postal Diplomacy, where there are so many more players in the pool, and a player does not play with the same opponents very often. A result similar to that of the permanent alliance can nevertheless be arrived at in Postal Diplomacy by developing a group of players who will continually ally with one another, large enough that two or three members can be expected to appear in each game. It is hard to assemble such a group, and hard to assemble it secretly. However, an ideology which has the effect of assembling such an ingroup will also carry with it all the advantages of such a group. Thus it is not so strange as it seems at first glance that a game as abstract as Diplomacy should also give rise to an ideology. The adherents of this ideology apparently hold as their major principles that alliances should not be violated under any circumstances, and that they will not ally with any players with whom they have had unfavorable experience in this regard. They will thus gravitate toward alliance with each other, and they prefer to ally with each other anyway, as some of these letters have indicated. It's obvious that many letters are necessary in order for the ingroup to develop. They must proselytize; they must build up a file of experience on other players; they must adhere, at least to a degree to their ideology, themselves, as a confidence builder, even in games in which they could do better by discarding it or holding it in abeyance. They must lose this game to win that one. This ideology then requires multiple worlds; that is many games including overlapping personnel. It is, of course, subject to criticism on the grounds of realism. The nations of the First World War did not have the option before them of losing the first 9 in order to win the next six. Let us first consider two simple states into which competition may fall, depending upon the attitudes of the players toward the ideology just described: _State I_: All players generally treat all agreements as void when no longer appropriate to the situation; or, in other words, they "stab". _State II_: All players strictly adhere to any agreements they make. First of all, we note that in _neither_ of these cases does any player have any advantage over the others, based upon the given facts alone, since they are all playing the same way in the same game. It is true that one player may feel more at home in State I, while another may have had more experience or done more thinking better in State II. One player may enjoy a State I game more, although he does better in State II. State I may drive a given player up the wall, although he loses his State II games, and so on, but all these situations require new facts, facts which are frequently of an arbitrary, evanescent or complicated character. The only State we will consider which does not make use of Multiple Worlds is state I. Conceivably a hundred games of State I could be played by the same group, the play in each game being in no way dependent on the course of any other game. However, it is not likely that any group will play State I games continually, because, for competitive reasons, sooner or later the permanent alliance, in one or another of its guises, will arise, carrying the competition into state III: _State III_: Certain players adhere strictly to agreements which they make; other players do not. Those who do, so nearly as possible, make agreements only with each other. In this state, it is obvious that the players of the _cartel_, as I shall call it have the advantage over the other players, just as they did in the Face-To-Face situation described earlier. This situation must be regarded as intolerable by sensible players outside the cartel. One obvious corrective effort, by analogy with the action taken in FTF games, might be expressed as State IV: _State IV_: Players threatened by the cartels of State III form cartels of their own for the limited purpose of defeating the cartel of State III. To the argument that, still, a cartel results, the answer is that the gag was thrown down by others, and this may be the only way it can be picked up. Players attempting to develop an anti-cartel cartel might find themselves cast in the role of defending the "stab". It must be remembered that the other side of the coin to the "stab" is the cartel. Players defeated by a "stab" sometimes become violently angry, apparently because the stab is quick and abrupt in character. It is also hard to conceal. The evil of the cartel is not so obvious. I have recently been defeated by a cartel. It was 6 or 8 moves before I learned, rather by accident, that the cartel members were regularly photocopying and exchanging my diplomatic correspondence. The game might easily have been played thru without my ever learning of the fact. It should also be born in mind that there has been a great deal of propaganda against the "stab"; hardly any against the cartel. Some, but by no means all, of this propaganda has been generated by the idealogues, in the course of developing their cartels. The result is an unfair picture of the relative disadvantages. Would you rather be beaten by a cartel or a stab? Is there any advantage to winning thru a cartel as opposed to winning thru a stab? It must be remembered that the "stab" is permissible in this game. Judging by some of the attitudes I have encountered, I have almost begun to wonder if it were against the rules. It would be possible, though to no purpose, to drive the rook out of chess, by refusing to play with anyone who moved his rooks; eventually, given only sufficient popular support, the variant thus created should rout the original game. What usually happens in a State I game is that the players pay with a small reserve, either a unit or two. Or sometimes only one unit moves conservatively to do double duty of reserve and front line. The basic idea is to make the "stab" unfavorable by being able to delay it until, hopefully, someone will be able to hit the aggressor in the rear. Sometimes circumstances compel the player to commit pieces that he had intended to use as reserves; then, of course, the likelihood of a "stab" goes up, but, in as much as it was enabled by the whole historical development of the game, it is understood and accepted by the victim. One reason cartel players have the advantage in State III games is that they can put everything they have into the line from the very start, not bothering with reserves. In a single isolated game, they run the risk of a bad "stab", but by developing a class of players faithful to this ideology, they are protected by the fact that the fellow member will not break the cartel, since he wants to be inside it in other games. Some players, including those who read this analysis, may prefer to follow the path of the cartel. It should be born in mind that the cartel has certain other problems. If there are, say, 3 members in the cartel, and they get off to a good start, it will soon appear that one of them has the best chances of the three, and another the worst. Now, if the lesser two, bound by the cartel, continue to cooperate with the leader, they are thereby sacrificing, as a practical matter, all their winning chances; although, if they coalesce against the leader, they might have winning chances ((well, _one_ of them might have winning chances)). It is probably true that they, in return, enhance their drawing chances. it may be argued that a 3-way draw is a respectable finish in a 7-way game. This matter depends upon what you mean by "respectable". Players who preferred State I or IV might say that a fighting 3-way draw was respectable, and a cartelized one was not. Such cartel players also appear to want to justify some of their decisions on an ideological basis; notably their decision to turn upon and eliminate some one of the outer circle of their allies, who has not violated the ideology by "stabbing", but who, since he is not a member of the inner circle, will be the next to go, anyhow. Here they have relied on two minor points of ideology. one is to make finicky hairline distinctions concerning what was actually agreed upon. Another is to cite any tactical slip by the victim as an excuse for attacking him. The latter is interesting in the annals of excuse making, because there is nothing else in the ideology which deals with tactical slips in any way, however indirectly; apparently they actually violate their alliances to attack a player so marked out, so that they do violate their ideology themselves at times. No one not knowing that this point was ideological in character would suppose that a tactical slip would have such extraordinary diplomatic repercussions. finally, a player who has winning chances may feel some pressure to accept a draw, in order to remain in the cartel for the next game. If players outside the cartel in Stage III fail in an effort to develop fully State IV, then one would expect the game to drag along in state III, giving the advantage, over and over, to the same knot of people, presumably long time players who have considerable correspondence; in most cases, newer players, less frequent players, and other players continually taking a disproportionate share of the losses. There is some possibility, then that the game would begin to veer into State II. Then the ideologue would presumably be faced with the problem of remaining true to the ideology, in which case his current advantage would become diluted away, and he would appear to be, not a good player, but just someone who caught onto one idea which worked for the time being; or, to be a good player, he would have to devise some counter measure to his own cartel, which would require him to desert his own ideology. The problem has apparently already been encountered, and good play won over ideology, where the inner 3 members of the cartel stabbed the fourth, employing the "tactical slips" excuse. If an effort were made to establish State IV, and the result were a nip and tuck battle with the cartel, a state of affairs might arise somewhat similar to the two-party system in politics. Unfortunately, the first stage of every game would be highly influenced by the mere number of members of each system present. If one cartel had 4 players in the game, the other three would be beaten from the start, without a chance. needless to say, this is not an argument against raising an opposition cartel. Without such force, the game might easily be 3 cartel members shooting fish in a barrel of 4 independents; or, as in a recent game, 4 cartel members knocking off the three independents, after which the inner 3 knocked off the fourth, after which a 3-way draw was declared. The analogy to the 2 party system might be drawn out at great length, each separate game being analogous to a separate state or district. If the effort described by state I succeeded, one would probably expect something like State I, occasionally slipping into State III, necessitating recourse to State IV again. ((Heavy. No doubt a good part of this came from Allan's experience in two "Hoosier Archives Demo Games", 73BI and 74CK, in which he played T both times. Let me quote then from some related comments by Arnold Vagts from _Diplomacy World_ Vol 2, #1 in his endgame statements as Russia:)) "...Since Calhamer had thoroughly demonstrated his belief in purely short term gains (i.e. a country should be expected to pick up an extra SC whenever possible with little regard for the consequences) in the last HA Demo game (73BI) where his continuation with his allies would have lead to a draw, I was not about to ally with him if I was required to trust him..." ((What one person views as a valid cross-game lesson another can view as evidence of a cartel. Later in discussing the F01 moves, which included Germany doing A Tyo-Vie _and_ F Hol S Fre A Pic-Bel, Vagts said: )) "...Calhamer was amazed that Lakofka(g) could attack both E and A without fearing a flank attack by F or R...Jeff Power (F), Lakofka, and myself all believe in keeping treaties as much as possible to compliment an integrated strategy..." ((This of course Calhamer viewed as a Cartel, and the game ended as an FGR draw)) ((The article appeared in at least three different places, including _Diman_ #11. In there, the Editor, Brad Hessel, made a few comments: )) "...The categories that Calhamer attempts to draw are excessively rigid, and tend to break down in actuality. Conder the case of Walt Buchanan for example ((an extremely successful player in the mid 70's)). He is a strong second, or state II player, in that he will refuse to be the first to break down an alliance...however, at the same time, he is an advocate of allying with only _one_ player in a given game. Therefore, in a so-called State III game, regardless of the ratio of Strong Second to Win only players, Walt is likely to ally with one of the former, yes, but no more likely to participate in a purge of the latter than he is to attack anyone else, outside of his ally, whom he will remain loyal to no matter what." (Actually, that overstates Buchanan's loyalty considerably---Walt won nearly all of his games. But it is true that many players exhibit playing philosophies that do not easily fit into the molds required for Calhamer's States II-IV)) ((The article (which first appeared in late 1974) also ran in _Erehwon_. Len Lakofka had some rebuttal, which Rod Walker edited and ran in _Erehwon_ #88:)) "Allan alludes to certain "real world" situations in WWI in which battles could not be exchanged for later victories...but it should be noted that one didn't see England attack France, ally with France, France attack E, etc. In the real world the participants were fighting to a draw excluding some other participants selected because of their nasty habit of killing the former. What we have here is an ideology of _competence_ and _agreements_. What states does the real world of Diplomacy produce? 1. _Cartelists_. These people do form game-long 2- and 3- player (or more) bonds based on trust (and past games) and go to a final result which is usually a draw. A boring exercise for everyone involved. 2. _Limited_alliance_Players_. These people form alliances of precise duration...and do all they can to strengthen and adhere to the agreement if the other in the agreement do likewise. 3. _Short_Term_Alliance_Players. Agreements and alliances are very short-term or even on a season to season basis. Their word is usually good if it is given in precise unambiguous term. 4. _Stabbers_. They will say anything and they expect others to be dumb enough to go along even if they've stabbed them before in this game or other games. A cartel of stabbers is then a gaggle of jackals or a school of sharks waiting for blood---their enemy's or their ally's. How does the real world of Diplomacy players differ from Allan in Wonderland? Players tend to ally with persons they feel they can trust. is that so unusual? If, in past games, a player has demonstrated a penchant for untrustworthiness, missed moves, tactical stupidity, or strategic incompetence, he will be an unlikely candidate for a good ally. A person who goes for short term gains with no overview of the board, no concept of vendetta, no understanding of a promise, will do very poorly in the long run....I have played with almost every player with a CPC rating of 3 or higher, either FTF or in the mail. Most of these players do well because of the amount of trust that can be placed in their written or spoken word....Many multiple winners have a superb overview of good play and good alliances. They will seldom take second or puppet, but they will favor long term agreements that will get them safely into the late middle or end game. in opposition are those who will take a quick gain and then get beaten upon by both enemy and ally alike. The latter group never understands why people dump on them and some even write 1600-word themes to vent their frustrations......... ((As is so often true in such debates, Lakofka and Calhamer are very much at cross purposes. Allan is concerned with the _dynamics_ of the situation, how one style of play, especially expressed across several games, engenders a response. Lee tries to reduce everything to the need to get a reliable ally. Note his four categories above. The first three _always_ keep their word, and the fourth are the villains. Len presents cross-gaming considerations in terms of picking people whose track records in certain categories are approved by Len. Allan's view of the cross-game alliance is that of a marriage of convenience, where the desirable characteristic of the ally is not so much his skill or reliability (as Len views it), but purely his willingness to make such deals. The only place where these two views intersect is Allan's crack about using a minor tactical slip as an excuse to attack. Note how Len puts such a criterion in a very different light. And as we know, almost any excuse will do in a game where, in the long run, you have to attack _someone_.)) Taken from Diplomacy Digest: More Fakes by Mark L. Berch The previous article dealt with what might be called the straightforward fake. There, you are simply writing a letter under someone else's name, and presenting it as the real thing. In this essay, I'd like to look at several other types of fakes. _The_Proto-Fake_: Here, you are acting as if you don't realize that the letter you are referring to is a fake. This is a fairly low-key tactic, and you may not even have to produce the letter. This is the only one of the tactics in this essay that I've ever actually done. After Lee Kendter, Sr. stabbed me in 80AY, he did not write me. I wrote him "back", making a brief and somewhat vague reference to a letter I had gotten from him. It was something along the lines of that-was-a-pretty-strange-letter-but-if-that's-how-you-feel-about-it..... My purpose was to have him think "I wonder which one of my allies has written Berch a fake...." Sow a little suspicion in the new alliance formed against me. Lee is a "printer", so I felt that if need be, I could produce such a letter. But Lee just wrote me back, saying that he was confused and had no recollection of writing such a letter. I don't think it affected the game at all. This tactic lies on the borderline between a fake and a simple lie (the lie that you've gotten a letter when you haven't). It doesn't entail any risk unless you have to produce the forgery. _The_Excuse_Fake_: In this one, you present as your excuse for you moves the fact that you were fooled by a letter which only now you realize is a fake. For example, "I got this letter from you saying that you had changed your mind and wanted standoffs in Rum and Gal, so I moved there. I didn't realize that you hadn't written it." You might even toss in some residual doubts ("Are you sure you didn't write this?") to show how strongly you were convinced originally, although this risks insulting the guy. This is less risky than it seems. You are already in plenty of hot water because of your moves, so you have very little to lose at this point. You'll have to produce the forgery for this one, but if it works, you can accomplish a great deal. Even if he's not persuaded, he still might be unsure, so it may accomplish something (similar to the deliberately miswritten order, in that some doubt will probably remain). In a sense this is an extension in time of the proto-fake, in that in both cases, you act as if you once believed that this was a legit letter. This is a rather versatile ploy, since there are many types of situations in which to use this. In a scaled down version, you can claim that you got a pair of letters from you ally, but didn't know which one was real and which one was the fake, so you decided to ignore them both, especially since you were afraid they might both be fakes. _The_Rationale_Forgery_: Here you take the stance that you are very much offended by fakes. You unexpectedly attack your ally, and then claim that you got a letter in the mail which was clearly a fake, and which you "knew" he had done. You were so mad at him for doing such a dreadful thing, and so insulted that he though you could be fooled, that you decided to retaliate. You'll need to show some ingenuity in how you came to decide that it was he who did the fake. You want the evidence to be strong enough that your conclusion is plausible. But you don't want it to be _too_ strong, in most cases, because you want your ally to be able to talk you out of it, to persuade you, afterwards, that it really was a fake. If you allow him to do this, all is forgiven, and you can stab him a second time the following season. If you can't pull that off, just accept the fact that you're now in a permanent war. This kind of fake, and the net one, can be combined with a regular fake for a particularly devilish combination. Say you are Germany, and you've just attacked France. Your rationale is that you got a letter purporting to be from Russia, but you knew it was actually from France, the dirty forger. And how did you know? You then produce a forged Italy to Germany letter, which says, "France has just told me that he forged a Russian letter to you...." If this works, not only have you explained your sudden attack on France, but you may have poisoned the French-Italian relationship as well. If Italy's vociferous denials tend to be believed by France, you can back up, and treat Italy's letter as an excuse fake! Thus, you'd be saying, "I'm sorry I attacked you, France, but I really did believe Italy's letter saying that you were forging a Russian letter." And if France's reaction is to accept that you really were fooled, you should be able to stab him again. _The_Frame_Fake_: This is a variation on the earlier one, but here, the person who is to be offended is not yourself, but someone else. Thus, as Germany, you forge an England to Germany letter, mail it off to England, and say you got it in the mail, and are sure that Russia is the rat who prepared this obvious forgery. This is done to poison ER relations. The contents might be irrelevant; you just want to paint Russia as a forger per se. Or you may want to present Russia as having tried to put certain words into England's mouth. _The_Non-Forgery_Fake: This very simple procedure has you treating a legitimate letter as a fake. The letter will have to be atypically structured in some way. perhaps it is handwritten, whereas the player usually types. Perhaps it is long when the player is usually short, emotional instead of calm, hurried instead of careful, a wrong postmark, or whatever. If you can establish a plausible case for treating the letter as a fake, then you are free to ignore the letter (and its requests). Alternatively, you could treat it as a rationale fake or even a frame fake...there are many choices. If you need some help in discrediting the real letter, you might want to , you guessed it, fake you own much more authentic looking letter, and say that they came around the same time. If your fake looks much more authentic than the real letter, you should be able to claim that it never even occurred to you that you had gotten the actual situation backwards. This allows you to not only ignore the real letter (or whatever you plan to do with it), but also strengthens your ability to rely on your fake letter, which you're probably going to use as an excuse fake. In short, this non-forgery fake can be used not so much for itself, but as an adjunct to an excuse fake. _Third_Party_Fakes_: In the above discussion, I've assumed that the fake letter you've produced has been one from another player. But that's not the only way to go. The most obvious choice is the GM. Here, however, you want to be very careful, and in most cases, you should discuss this with the GM. Some don't care what you say to other players, period. But others will not accept the idea of your putting out a phoney readjudication, for example, because they feel it interferes with their ability to run the game without undue confusion. Even such a GM, might accept a phoney readjudication when done in the form of, for example, an excuse fake. For example, you forge the following: "Dear Players. OOOps, that Russian build should have been F StP(nc), not F StP(sc). Sorry, the GM". You pretend that _you_ were fooled by this (hence your moves) but now you realize that it was all a fake. The GM might well not object to this, since at no time have you actually tried to present the GM as having put out this readjudication. If you are going to use this as a frame fake (e.g. accuse the Russian player of putting out the phoney readjudication), you must be careful and tell the GM that this is all a ruse. Otherwise, he may view your lodging a false charge of forgery against Russia as deception of the GM. It is essential that you do this if you decide to go so far as to ask the GM to throw the Russian player out for doing such a forgery. Another area is the forging of a non-adjudicatory communication from the GM. This is the sort of thing that Shep Rose likes to dabble in. This can most easily be done as a straight fake. Perhaps you were supposed to change your orders, but you didn't. Your forge a personal letter from the GM, which casually mentions, "Too bad, your change of orders arrived a day late." A greyer area is that of procedural announcements, such as communications from the GM announcing a change in address or deadline, or that seasons will be separated, or a change in House Rules. Use your imagination. A second choice would be a standby player. Ideally, your ally has just NMRed, and a standby player has been tapped. you would, to some degree, be entitled to rely on what he said. in general, this type of fake should be easier to pull off. Since his handwriting, writing style, etc, will usually be unknown to most or all of the other players, the excuse fake should be a lot easier to do. A straight fake will be harder, unless you happen to have some other letters from him to guide you. Moreover, if he doesn't get into the game, he's in no position to retaliate directly against you for forging his signature, etc. In fact, until he's actually in the game, he may not even care what you do. Since standbys are much less likely to write than real players, there's less of a chance that your fake letter will conflict with a real one. The third choice would be someone who is out of the game entirely, either a former player, or someone with no connection at all. The easiest way to do this is the Excuse fake, with the letter providing you with some "information" which you rely on: "Sam told me once that he considers anything larger than a three-way draw to be a complete waste of time." "Roger has pretty much lost his interest in postal diplomacy, and I expect him to drop all of his games shortly." You may have some trouble explaining why you relied on such a letter, so try to make it as plausible as possible. A few other points: 1) The third party does not have to be a real person. It's a bit of a semantic question as to whether a forged letter from a non-existent person is really a fake. 2) You may find it necessary to forge two such letters. For example, the first one from the GM announces that the Russian player has resigned, and has been replaced with So-and-So, and the second one is from So-and-So. In that situation, each letter tends to reinforce the credibility of the other. 3) Don't overlook the Non-Forgery Fake of a GM's correction. Some GMs, particularly those who rarely have to put out corrections, use a completely different format for corrections --- they may just jot it on a postcard, rather than printing something up. That gives you good grounds to discredit it. Well, I've gone on at some length. Many of these ideas require rather specialized circumstances in which to work. But if the idea is at least in the back of your mind, when the circumstance arises, you'll be able to recognize it and act accordingly. Second, even if you never try these, you'll be alert to the possibility that its being tried on you! And finally, at least for some of you, these should raise interesting ethical questions per se. Unlike the straight fake, these do not involve trying to present a forged letter from another player as a real one. Does that matter? ************************************************************************ I need more scribes! I need more scribes! I need more scribes! I need ************************************************************************ I am enjoying moderating this zine, keep that mail coming! Eric Klien Up