[MN-dip] Thanks for coming out to diplomacy today

[Chad Walstrom]

Jeremy <Diplomacy at lizakowski.com>  wrote:
> That's actually not meta-gaming, as the announced intention of a
> player to leave is knowledge within the game.  If another player
> arranged for you to have a reason to leave early, using resources
> from outside the game, I believe that would be meta gaming.

In role-playing, we often use the term Player knowledge v.s. Character
knowledge to differentiate between information the Player has about
the system v.s. information a Character has about his setting.  I
don't see how this differs that much.  You can choose to be pedantic
with a specific definition of "meta-gaming", but the concern still
applies.

I wouldn't make such a fuss over this except that I can't ever see
myself wanting to spend more than an 8 or 10 hour stretch playing
diplomacy.  No, really.  If you know that about me as a player, then
why would you *ever* ally with me.  "Don't ally with Chad, even though
he has a great position right now.  He's leaving in 3 hours...  in 2
hours... 15 minutes."  Really, I don't see the point then.

> I would think it would be within the realm of the game to act on
> knowledge provided by your opponent.  In fact, it would be hard not
> to act upon it, when you consider the nature of the game.  

Agreed. We're all fiercely competitive, otherwise we wouldn't play a
game such as Diplomacy.  We have been exploring in other posts, there
alternative rules to mitigate this meta-gaming (I will stand by this
classification).

> I would agree with Ry4an that it's best not to announce the time you
> intend to leave.  Or, alternately, you could announce it, and try to
> form a strategy around the fact of your departure.  That would be
> tough, but very interesting. 

Perhaps, but I would argue that we have alternatives to make it a
non-issue.

-- 
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>           http://www.wookimus.net/
           assert(expired(knowledge)); /* core dump */