Session Report 1.9.08: Diplomacy

Patrick, Michael, Mikey, Franco, Tom and I spent the lion's share of our Labor Day playing Michael's copy of Diplomacy. It's only in the last couple of years that I've become really enthusiastic about board games, and so there are quite a few classic games, Diplomacy included, that I've never had a chance to play. Having finished a game, I can easily say that it's an excellent design, and I enjoyed playing it a great deal - though not without a few caveats.

Within the first two or three turns, the game's appeal had become clear. I realize that this is a kind of strange comparison, but the tone of the game almost reminded me of something like Werewolf or Mafia, in that a very light rule set provides the framework for some very rich social interaction. Naturally, that means that the quality of one's game depends even more than usual on the other players. Luckily, we all seemed to be enjoying ourselves a great deal, and more than willing to throw ourselves into the game.

Well, most of us seemed to be enjoying ourselves. Patrick was put into a pretty tough position early on, and eliminated from the game about halfway through. That might not have been much of a problem in a shorter game, but this meant that he spent hours sitting out while the rest of us finished playing. Of course, Diplomacy is from a time when player elimination was par for the course, and Michael later said that usually more than one player will be eliminated, so that at least no one would be killing time alone. Still, even the possibility that a player could be shut out for so long is pretty big shortcoming for me these days.

Mechanically, of course, Diplomacy is the progenitor of a lot of what we enjoyed about A Game of Thrones - particularly in its emphasis on negotiation and its secret and simultaneous issuing of orders. I don't know if it was the lack of other rules, or the formal negotiation phase, or perhaps the significantly longer playtime, but I felt like Diplomacy was a lot more conducive than AGoT in creating those meta-interactions. Our game lasted about six hours, which is a lot longer than I can generally play a single game and about an hour longer than I would've liked, but there's definitely something to be said for seeing one's plans slowly unfold over such a long period.

Overall, I thought Diplomacy was great. It more than deserves its classic status. At the same time, the anachronisms of its design and the fact that it's such a time investment mean that I can't really see playing it all that often. When I do have a chance to play, though, I don't doubt that I'll enjoy it immensely.