Newsgroups: bit.listserv.dipl-l
Date:         Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:36:10 +0100
Reply-To:     Robert Rehbold <rehbold@SMARAGD.ZFE.SIEMENS.DE>
From:         Robert Rehbold <rehbold@SMARAGD.ZFE.SIEMENS.DE>
Subject:      Guess what: NMR

Having read all this "NMR is good/bad to the spirit of the game" discussion
I want to throw in my two Pfennig (no cents in Germany :-) :

Diplomacy is a board game. I.e. FTF (face to face), i.e. you have (hopefully)
seven players sitting at a table or doing private negotiatons in the corners of
one room. NMR is simply not happening in such an environment. What can happen
is that somebody who has been stabbed leaves in anger before his/her units
are completely finished off. If no substitute player is available (usually not)
there is no other possibility but to let the country go CD. However everybody
else *knows* that the country will remain CD for the rest of the game and can
act accordingly. Of course some immediate neighbours will be able to take a
bigger advantage than others, but the others at least know and may try to
rebalance the game. People usually don't leave the table because "their workload
has gotten too high, they caught a flu, they lost mailing connections etc.".

In comes Diplomacy as a PBM (play by mail) game. NMR as a surprise CD enters
the scene. And a NMR can happen to the best player if he/she didn't get the
results, gets ill, can not look at his/her mail for a while. Compared to the
FTF game a PBM game -even with NoNMR- is a slightly different thing (you can
spent hours to analyze the outcome of dozens of your move possibilities on most
of your opponent's moves; you can interact more secretly etc.etc.) but IMHO
with NMR it's really quite different from FTF. Not worse, just different.

Now the question seems to be whether PBM should be as similar as possible
to FTF or not. In what the judge calls a 'standard game' (normal map & powers,
private communication lines, NoNMR) I see the most similar version. Adding
a rule that lets the other players reenter their moves if a power gets CD (of
course *before* their former moves got processed) instead of having a
replacement player take over may even add a little more of the FTF feeling.
NMR moves the PBM game away from the FTF version.

While I have tried up to now not to show any preferences I am aware that
people out there may already have gotten foam on their mouth from what I have
written so far. To those let me repeat what somebody posted some hours ago:
Please keep this discussion objective and don't flame; argue instead.
Thank you!

Ah, and now for the fun part -please let me first put on my asbesto suit-
crrrck, zzziiiipp - ok: I prefer NoNMR. Because I like to be surprised by
players' moves, not their non-moves. However I do agree that 1 SC positions
may be allowed to go CD *by the GM*, especially in gunboat no press games if
the player drops out. But I have participated in/observed several games where a
1 SC player managed to survive quite a time - even into a draw (ha, Austria with
16 SC, me as Italy with only F Tun, but the stalemate was there and Italy was
included into the draw). So don't underestimate 1 SC positions if the SC is
an interesting one (e.g. Mun, Por, Tun, ...). Having a skilled player play
such a nation vs. playing it as in CD can drastically change the outcome of
a game. Summarized, I like the EP houserules and prefer NoNMR with replacement
players a lot over NMR.

Robert
Xref: sparky bit.listserv.dipl-l:471 rec.games.diplomacy:782