Narrativist Diplomacy -- Second Draft (long)

[xiombarg]

Okay, in an attempt to leave my abject stupidity in the GNS forum behind me, I'm going to take some of people's advice from the last thread on this and try to make this game less "abashedly" Narrativist. Here's my attempt. I welcome, nay, I REQUIRE comments. ;-)

Narrativist Diplomacy

Familiarity with standard Diplomacy is assumed. Familiarity with RPGs, particularly Narrative ones, helps. The idea here is a game of Diplomacy where one is not aiming to win, but to produce an interesting neo- or pseudo-historical story.

The Premise here is the exploration of the Great Man Theory of history. Even if you think it's a crock, you have to admit it makes for  great, sweeping stories. The idea here is to create such a story, where the actions of a few individuals change nations. Where, in a sense, individuals ARE nations.

A secondary theme is the idea that Great Men rise in the face of adversity.

1. Gather together players. At least three are needed, five and up is ideal.

2. Pick a Diplomacy map. The decision has to be unanimous, and there needs to be a number of powers on the map no more, and no less, than the number of players. You don't want to have a  country that doesn't have a player, or vice-versa. Check out http://devel.diplom.org/Online/variants.html to find a varient that suits everyone. It shouldn't be hard.

Optionally, one player may sit out and be the GM. This is extremely optional.

3. Unless decided otherwise by unanimous consensus, the rules of Payola Diplomacy, as modified for the board being used, are in effect. (See http://devel.diplom.org/Zine/W1995A/Payola/ for information on this variant.) If you have a GM, you may want to consider playing the game Blind, as outlined in http://devel.diplom.org/Zine/W1995A/Payola/notes.html#blind.

As an aside, Payola Diplomacy is used to add an additional piece of "currency", in this case literally: money.

Another aside: The Payola rules assume a GM. If there is no GM, it is assumed that eveyone will be honest. Perhaps physical money tokens can be used. After all, if the point isn't to win, but co-operate together on a story, why cheat? However, if this bothers you but you prefer not to have a GM, just use the normal Diplomacy rules, as modified below, rather than Payola. It's almost as good.

If all players agree, other rules varients can be introduced; there are too many to mention here.

4. Everyone chooses countries as is usual in Diplomacy , or as the group prefers. Money is associated with a particular power, not a particular persona. (More on this later.)

5. Once powers are chosen, the players should brainstorm a context, a historical situation that they are going to act within. Some sort of historical or pseudo-historical context is associated with the map, and the players can choose to go with this or to make something else up that uses the same map. The idea here is to create a context to creat personas in.

6. Each player creates a set of personas associated with their country. Essentially, one is creating the Great Men (and/or Women) associated with the Great Power in question. The important things to define is the way the persona relates to his/her country, and their major personality quirks, especially in regard to negotiation. Also, the player may want to define "recent events" in their country, as Narrativist Diplomacy is often an exercise in alternate history.

A player can create as many or as few personas as he likes, but he has to create at least one.

Example: Bob is controlling Italy on the standard map. Bob has decided that in this particular version of history, Italy had a Soviet-style communist revolution in 1898, and has created pesonas appopriately. The first is Benito Travia, who is has the position of "party negotiator" -- he conducts the most important negotiations with foreign countries. Benito is fiery, insistent, passionate about communism, and unwilling to compromise. In contrast, the "less important" foreign policy is handled by the Party President, Luigi Vancetti. Luigi is cool, collected, cynical, and has a weakness for pretty women. When talking to other countries, Bob will take on the role of either Benito or Luigi, describing either a face-to-face conference with one or the other or correspondence.

Each player should decide the connection between their own personas, and how they feel about each other. Bob decides that Benito hates Luigi, because Benito suspects Luigi slept with his wife. However, Benito hides this under a veneer of professionalism and communist zeal. On the other hand, Luigi likes Benito, considering him a dependable ally with a beautiful wife.

Players can create new, "minor" personas at will, as needed for the story. For example, Bob may choose to define the personality of Benito's wife, as she has effects on the story, even if she never directly negotiates with foreigners.

These "minor" personas (personas that affect the story but do not directly decide/affect a country's policy), may be "gifted" to another player, if the creating player and the player recieving the "gift" agree. This adds some interesting randomness to these relations, and the controlling player may choose to add some depth to the character. Bob asks Mary to play Benito's wife, Tara. Mary accepts, and expands on the character, deciding that Tara is, indeed, having an affair with Luigi, and secretly desires a return to monarchism, with herself as Queen.

7. After everyone has created personas, choose a player at random and then proceed clockwise around the table, each player taking a turn.

On each player's turn, the player must make a statement that links his character to another player's character. It doesn't matter how odd this linkage is, just so long as it makes sense. If there is a GM, the GM can veto connections that don't make sense.

This becomes an established fact for the purpose of the game, and cannot be contradicted by the players that follow the player making the statement. It may help to draw a diagram of these connections as they are created.

After everyone has had a turn, players can propose other connections as well, if they like. These optional connections become a fact only if both the players whose personas are being connected agree.

When everyone is done with their turns and proposing optional connections, proceed to the next step.

8. Going in reverse order from the previous step, each person gets to add an "exception" to the game. An "exception" is a rule that reflects a certain reality of the game in a direct game-mechanical fashion. It can be anything, really. The idea here is not to create something that give you a huge advantage, but to represent those odd little hiccups in history that even Great Men have to consider, such as the quirky histories of individual places on the map.

When it is Bob's turn to make an exception, he decides that whenever someone conquers Rome, they have to pay 10 silver pieces to make sure they handle the potential propaganda problems surrounding the Pope correctly. No silver in the account and the order that takes Rome is considered to be a NMR (hold) instead. To make things more interesting, however, he decides if Rome is taken and he has to re-capture it, he has to pay 20 silver pieces, considering the antipathy between the Vatican and his communist regime.

8. Everyone is issued a certain number of Story Tokens, usually equal to 10 minus the number of supply centers you control. Yes, that's right, the weaker you are, the more tokens you get. Players may trade tokens amongst each other freely, and at any time.

A token can be spent at any time to change the game. Any change is possible, temporary or permanent. You can propose a new exception, or something more temporary, like turning an order into an NMR or disabling a persona. However, you must give an explaination for the change that fits with the story. You can't just cause a unit to NMR, you have to explain that the particularly harsh winter in Russia bogged down the troops, and then explain the game effects, in detail. Also, one of the Great Men the player controls must be mentioned, at least in passing, if only to talk about how that Great Man knew what was going to happen, or was surprised by the events: The narrative is always in terms of the important personas.

For example, in 1906, Bob decides to spend a tokens to change the story. Luigi tells the Sultan Haakif (the persona that runs Turkey) that he will regret invading Russia, that the Russian winters will defeat him. Bob tells the players he wants a particularly harsh winter in Russia this year. Throughout Fall 1906, no unit in the borders of Russia can move, but neither can they be dislodged.

Once the change is proposed, everyone but the player who proposed it vote "yay" or "nay" simultaneously (one player, one vote -- just use a quick thumbs up/thumbs down) to determine if the story change will happen at all. GM breaks ties, or, failing that, a tie vote counts as a "yay" vote. If the majority vote is "nay", it doesn't happen, tho the player can propose something else. If the majority vote "yay", proceed to determining the cost, in tokens, of the change.

In the judgement of the players, a change costs:
* 1 token if it is permanent
* 1 token if the change is likely to come up frequently in play
* 1 token if the change is particularly extensive, affecting a lot of people
* 1 token if the change has a lot of mutable applications (i.e. is very flexible)

Any change costs at least one token, at most 10. The categories above may be invoked more than once -- if the change is very mutable, that might be 2 tokens rather than 1. All players (including the player that proposed the change) hold up from 1 to 10 fingers at the count of three, indicating how much they think they change should cost. The majority determines the cost; in the case of a tie, the GM breaks the tie, or go with the lower cost.

After the cost is determined, the player must pay the cost in tokens if he can afford it. At that point, the change to the story happens. (If the player can't afford it, nothing happens.)

Changes may be proposed and voted on at any time.

9. A "normal" game of Payola Diplomacy is then played, with the following changes to the rules:

* There is no time limit on negotiation. However, for two countries to negotiate, they must agree which persona is talking to which persona, and how (face-to-face, correspondence, exchange of diplomats, whatever). Without such an agreement, no negotiation is possible. During such a negotation, the players must act as appropriate for the personalities in question: The quirks of Great Men are important. Negotiation ends, and orders are written, when a majority vote determines it ends. For the purpose of this vote, a Great Power has one vote per Supply Center it controls. Once a majority of votes declare negotiation over, players have five minutes to finish their negotiations, though tokens can be spent to extend this time -- five extra minutes per token spent.
* At the end of each "year" (during the build phase), there are a number of Story Tokens generated after build orders are put in, equal to the number of players in the game. These tokens are given to the player whose Great Power controls the least number of supply centers. If several players are tied for last, divide the tokens evenly between them, with any "odd" tokens lost. The players who recieved those tokens must give at least half (round down) of their tokens to people who have not recieved any tokens that year.

Example: It's Winter 1910, and Bob is down to only one Supply Center: Rome. His only rival for "least number of SCs" is France, who has 2 SCs. Since Bob is playing on the standard map, there are six other players, so he gets 7 Story Tokens, at least 3 of which he has to give to someone who didn't get any Story Tokens. He decides to give two to France and one to Russia, because Russia's player always does interesting things.
* An "elminated" player can still negotiate and spend Story Tokens. In fact, by definition, someone with no Supply Centers has the least number of supply centers on the board. An eliminated player is still considered to exist for determining the number of Story Tokens generated each Winter (build phase).
* The game does not end until at least 5 build phases have occurred. Also, all standard victory conditions are suspended. Instead, on the 6th and subsequent build phases, there is a vote. Each player gets 1 vote, period. The players vote whether or not to end the game yet. If the majority vote to end the game, proceed to the next step. If not, the game continues.

10. Endgame! Each player gets one vote, two if the Great Power the player controlled was eliminated. The players vote on who gets to perform the Monologue of History; you cannot vote for yourself. Whoever gets a plurality of votes wins; if there is a tie, hold a run-off election. You can vote for yourself in a run-off. If there is a GM, people can vote for the GM, and the GM gets two votes in this process.

The person who gets to deliver the Monologue of History gets to tie up all the loose ends of the story. Starting where the story generated so far left off, speaking with the voice of a historian, the player describes what happens in the future, the fate of all the personas and countries involved, ending that chapter of history.

Example: Bob's game has ended. Italy and Austria have ceased to exist; most of the map is controlled by Russia, with France, England, and a Turkish-Government-in-Exile hiddling in the West, and a unfied Germano-Austrian state stradding the center of Europe. Bob is elected to give the Monlogue of History. Bob describes, in the dispassionate voice of a historian form the future, how internal dissent caused by the tension between two of the major Russian leaders [two of the Russian player's personas] rips Russia apart, allowing Germany to step in, growing even stronger. In the meantime, the Moorish lands controlled by the exiled Sultan are absorbed by England, and France is forced into a humiliating armistice treaty. The Sultan dies years later of a drug overdose. Bob explains how this sets the stage for the rise of fascism in France, which leads to [an alternate history version of] World War II.

The entirety of the game is oriented toward creating a interesing story upon which to draw for the Monologue of History. Make it good.

[Zak Arntson]

I've only played a partial game of Diplomacy via email, once. Even then, this looks like an interesting addition to the game. I'd like to play it. Questions:

- Why do you have picking countries before picking the context? Try swapping steps 4 & 5.

- Step 6: You should provide a maximum number of personas, just to keep things under control. I would suggest 3, and pointing out that these need to be uber-personas. Not just average shmoes. Likewise with minor personas. There should be some cap on the amount floating around.

- Exceptions will stack up quickly, won't they? One exception per player per turn looks like it would lead to a lot of paperwork. How about everyone rolls, whoever rolls highest gives an exception?

[Mike Holmes]

- Exceptions will stack up quickly, won't they? One exception per player per turn looks like it would lead to a lot of paperwork. How about everyone rolls, whoever rolls highest gives an exception?

With a penalty to the roll equal to the number of Supply centers you currently own.

I'm stil not feeling the effects of the Great Men on the conflicts. I mean you can work them in as it stands, but there should be a more solid link betwee the two elements from the start, IMO. I'm thinking that everyone gets as many personas as they like, but only two or three Great Men. When writing orders, each Great Man can count as an extra army in support of a particular maneuver. This, of course, has to be explained in the context of the game and the character. A general can be said to be leading the troops. A diplomat can be said to be converting enemy provinces. Whatever you can come up with. Oh, and the Great Man should have to be in or adjacent to the location just as though he were an army, so that he can get dislodged himself (he doesn't count as an Army for that purpose). If dislodged, his support can fail.

What you get is leaders as a third resource (in addition to units and cash), and players are forced to explain how they are affecting history, thus creating the looked for story. Howzat sound?

Mike

[xiombarg]

What you get is leaders as a third resource (in addition to units and cash), and players are forced to explain how they are affecting history, thus creating the looked for story. Howzat sound?

As loath as I am to create a third unit for Diplomacy, that's not a bad idea at all. They should be easier to move than an army, though.

Exceptions will stack up quickly, won't they? One exception per player per turn looks like it would lead to a lot of paperwork. How about everyone rolls, whoever rolls highest gives an exception?

Perhaps I wasn't clear, but aside from the one exception per player free at the start of the game, all subseuqent exceptions are to be purchased with tokens, which should limit their number...

[Mike Holmes]

Perhaps I wasn't clear, but aside from the one exception per player free at the start of the game, all subseuqent exceptions are to be purchased with tokens, which should limit their number...

Ahh, my bad, not reading closely enough. That's very good. Yes, that all sounds like it should work.

Allow leaders to travel on any ship OR army as though they were convoying. So they can get to anywhere you control as long as they are not cut off. A good "Spy" exception would be to allow players to set up networks that would allow them to know the current location of Great Men. Or maybe only if they moved further than adjacent spaces. And then you can pay off spies to be counterspies (lots of posibilities for secret handling with a GM).

Nifty.

Mike