Why Players Prefer Draw-Size Scoring

[nopunin10did]

Luck plays a non-trivial part of standard diplomacy; if nothing else, there are plenty of times where a situation will boil down to coin flip type attack/defense positions, where it really is basically just RNG who "wins" an action

None of that is actually RNG, however. It's certainly coincidence, but it's a result of interlocking human decisions. After initial assignments, there's no independent source of inputs for the game. Everything is player-driven.

Even a player that chooses to flip a coin for a given decision is still the one ultimately responsible for his/her orders.

[David E. Cohen]

The vast majority of times, that tactical coin flip really isn't a coin flip in the larger context. One choice or the other often leaves you at lest a little better positioned for future operations or a little less threatening to or in a better position to help an ally or a potential ally.

[Octavious]

Quite a fun little conversation. I'm very much of the view that luck plays a massive part in diplomacy myself. How well your game goes can depend as much upon whether your neighbour has had an argument with his wife as a carefully crafted message on your part. We've all had games where we've played particularly well and got nothing, and games where we've done very little of significance yet ended up walking away with a solo.

There are vast numbers of players who go out of their way to adopt strategies that make it damned near impossible to win, but ignoring those non-entities the deference between a good player and an ok player is simply that good players are better able to adapt when the Fates give them a bit of a kicking.

[bunp]

I disagree with the argument that we are the ones playing word games. We have gotten way off topic arguing over the use of a term that is tangential to the original topic of discussion. No one here is being introduced to Diplomacy for the first time. No one here is making the claim that there is randomness built into the rules of diplomacy.

The original point Tibarius was attempting to make (as I understand it) is that one of the reasons DSS is preferred is that it mitigates the impact that factors outside one's control (whatever term you want to use to refer to them...) have on your final point result. A skilled player will be able to recognize when the wind isn't blowing their way and be able to make it into the draw much more reliably than they would be able to climb to a high SC count in the same situation.

If that is what you were saying I agree with it and note it as a point in favor of DSS.