New Variant

I am toying with the idea for a new variant (I think it is new) and 
want to get some feedback from fellow GMs before presenting it to the 
general community.  I call it Alias Diplomacy.  After having played 
in a couple of different Diplomacy communities for several years it 
has become obvious that each of us has tendencies that influence how 
we interact with other players in subsequent games.  Player A knows 
that Player B likes to convoy, while Player C is known to stab just 
for the fun of it no matter what the game circumstance.

So in order to overcome that influence, and rather than play a 
straight gunboat game with press, I have come up with Alias 
diplomacy.  The board and rules are the same as standard diplomacy 
except that none of the players know who the others are.  The players 
will communicate using email addresses that I create, each will be 
provided a user id to an email service that I control and can only 
reach each other via that address alone.  Each player will have to 
book mark the log-in page to their email, but I don't see that as a 
major obstacle.  The players will only be identified by their 
country.  Adjudications will be posted solely on my website.  In this 
way, players get to communicate, but not base their actions and 
diplomacy on previous experience with other players.

Of course another alternative is for players to each create an alias 
on thier own, but I thought it would be easier if I provided a set of 
email addresses that all have the same suffix, thereby making it 
easier to maintain an address book for the other players.  After all, 
I know of some players who have more than one alias they play under 
and sometimes it is fun to be somebody else and rather than use those 
alias, I will provide a disposable address that will be deleted after 
the game is over.


I haven't completely thought this through and wanted some input 
before presenting the game for a test run.

TY,

Libby

wnrytyrsd





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