Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 15:53:00 +0000
From: Tournament Headquarters  (by way of Robert F. Heeter)
Subject: W2WT: Diplomacy and Role-Playing Guidelines

*** Important Reminders about the Tournament Diplomacy and Role-Playing ***

Tournament Warlords,

Round A is well underway now, and by all reports the Round A games are
being played with a lot of energy and enthusiasm!  Because of the
higher level of intensity, some rules questions have come up that
were not discussed very much during the Practice Round games.
This message clarifies some of the important rules for diplomacy
and role-playing.

(1) Diplomacy Is Important.  In the four-player tournament games,
everyone tries to get the best outcome they can by Turn 20.
Alliances, diplomacy, and role-playing are very important.
These do not let you *control* your opponents, but you can have
influence.  So you need to do well not only at moving your units,
but at interacting with your opponents.  (For those who simply
want to match military skills - wait for the upcoming Head-to-Head
Warlords Ladder's one-on-one games.)

(2) Warlords Games are not Real Life.  It's wise to treat all
diplomatic archive messages as being in the "game world" that Warlords
live in, rather than the "real world" that we ourselves live in.
If another Warlord insults the Warlord that you are role-playing,
that is not a personal insult to you.  However, all query and
noarchive messages are "real world" messages, and we ask all
of you as human beings to be nice to each other, even though
as Warlords you may slaughter each other mercilessly.  :)

(3) All Games are Separate.  You can role-play any character you like
in a particular game, but you should not refer to any other ongoing
official tournament game.  There should be no discussion of any
games that are not publicly accessible.  (Once a tournament game is
over and the game history is public, you can use it to plan your
strategy, but the information should not be used directly in a
diplomacy message.)  The easiest way to think about this is to
imagine that your character, the Warlord you are role-playing, is
ignorant of everything outside the world of his particular game.

(4) "All's Fair in Love and Warlords".  The only limits on your
diplomacy messages are:
  * you must keep games separate (see #3 above),
  * you must use the Remailer for all game email (see #5 below),
  * you cannot use offensive or foul language (children are playing), and
  * you cannot send more than one diplomatic message
      in addition to your turn report.
Other than that, you can write as much as you like and you can say
whatever you like.  You can even give explicit advice to another
player - but be forewarned that anything you say may have
unintended side effects!

(5) No Private Messages between Players.  Except for moderator
questions, you must use the Remailer for every game-related message
you send.  If someone sends you a message outside the Remailer,
notify the moderator right away.  Private diplomacy messages are
considered cheating.  This is important to keep everything fair,
to enforce the rules on limited diplomacy, and also to allow the
Remailer to archive all the events of each game for future reference.

(6) Sensitive Rules Questions.  Sometimes you may have a rules question
which you do not want to ask publicly (because it might give away one of
your secret plans, for instance, or because it might insult another
player).  You can always send rules queries to the moderator outside
of the Remailer.  Sometimes the moderator will need to reply using
the Remailer, but they should respect the privacy of your question.

(7) Role-playing Prizes - good English skills are not required.
Even if your English is not very good, you can still win prizes for
role-playing and entertaining game histories.  It is only fair that we
take into account each player's English ability when we assign the
role-playing / entertaining game history prizes.  The most important
thing is to stay in character and be creative!  Write as well as
you can, but don't worry if your grammar, spelling, or vocabulary
are not perfect.

(8) Remember that, no matter how exciting things get, it's just a game!


-- The Moderators