Whimsy: September 2007 Archives

AmericanHeritage.com / Blog: The Great (Board) Game

A short piece on one of my favorite games from high school. During the summer of 1980, a group of us would gather at someone's house for a game of Diplomacy on a Saturday afternoon and then head to Skelly Stadium to watch the Roughnecks play soccer that evening. The game involves making alliances and sometimes discarding them on the path to European domination in the opening years of the 20th century. Most games, Austria-Hungary was quickly dismembered by some coalition of neighboring powers.

"All the talk of 'Great Powers' over the last few days has reminded me of one of my favorite board games of all time: Avalon Hill's classic Diplomacy. It's kind of like Risk, but without the dice.... The range of possible actions and outcomes is restricted only by the creativity of the players involved. Because there is no element of totally random chance, as there is in Risk, you won't end up having the game dissolve into a series of ridiculous, strategy-free battles and utterly unlikely outcomes. You just might need to patch up a few friendships after a winner is declared."

MORE from Fredric Smoler: "[S]ince repeated betrayal was necessary, you learned to use evasive and ambiguous language, to which you could later point in self-exculpation. The game taught you, with great precision, what the phrase 'diplomatic language' means. People learned that they had to pin you down, and when they thought they had and later discovered that they hadn't, there was rueful admiration for your successful misdirection, rather than hatred for your deceitfulness."

And here is a library of Diplomacy opening gambits.