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