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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!knight
From: knight@rlgvax.UUCP (Steve Knight)
Newsgroups: net.games
Subject: Re: Diplomacy play-by-electronic-mail
Message-ID: <1868@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Apr-84 04:07:17 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1868
Posted: Tue Apr 17 04:07:17 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Apr-84 07:05:04 EST
References: <200@jett.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 43

I tried to go the mail route, but rlgvax doesn't know about jett...yet?

Anyway--the question of a Usenet Diplomacy game keeps resurfacing from
time to time.  I think this was the third such posting I've seen since
I ran (or tried to run) such a game early in 1982.  (If there's anyone
out there familiar with the existant postal Diplomacy hobby, the game
itself had Boardman Number 1982CK.)  There was a fair amount of interest
from net types, in spectating as well as playing, and we even set up a
newsgroup (net.games.dip) to distribute the adjudications in an
electronic zine of sorts.

Alas, Usenet itself ended up doing the game in...sort of.  Unlike the
commercial networks, such as Compuserve and the Source (both of which,
by the way, have Dip games running on them), Usenet is sufficiently
anarchic that there was no real guarantee that mail was getting through
consistently enough to play a good game of Dip.  There were far too many
missed turns by players, and we had general communication problems.  The
very first turn had a player claiming that his moves were changed
en route to me (definitely possible, since spool directories on many
machines are wide open).  One player in the game had the precious uid=0
and happened to be on the same machine as another player who didn't;
we had to resort to an honor system of sorts, and anyone familiar with
the game is certainly aware that honor is a fickle commodity among
Diplomacy players.  We tossed about the idea of using encryption to
combat these and other problems, but never really got around to it.

Now, on the other hand, the net seems to be a good bit more established
and reliable now than it was then, so it may very well be possible to
play a successful game this time around.  It is not, however, a project
to be undertaken lightly, by either the players or the GM, for there's
a good chance that you'll have to end up fighting the communication
medium.  Regardless, I'll be more than happy to help such a game in any
way I can (yes, the benefit of my, cough cough, *vast* experience...),
if it does get off the ground.

Oh, yeah, if there are any net historians/Dip players out there who
are interested, I'm pretty sure I still have the complete records for
the previous Usenet game somewhere around here.
-- 
"If you lived here, you'd be home by now."

	Steve Knight
	{seismo,allegra,some other sites}!rlgvax!knight