Strategy game vs RPG

[Theodoric]

I've been thinking about a difference in play styles that seems to divide players on here and lead to some amount of frustration.

Some players, including myself, play the game as a strategy game. By that I mean that we see it as a game with a clear objective: try to win, and if you can't win, try to get the best outcome possible (depending on scoring system, a small draw or a large number of centers). We might sometimes act on other motives too, like wanting a good outcome for one player or a bad outcome for another, or wanting to be the biggest empire at the end of a draw even in DSS, but we only tend to do so when they don't conflict with the goal of getting the best outcome out of the game.

Other players seem to play the game a bit more like a role playing game. By that I mean that they see the stated objectives of the game as sitting alongside whatever their personal objectives are--whether that's getting a big empire, settling scores with someone, never betraying a friend, or something else. They don't necessarily not care about getting a good outcome, but they're happy to do stuff that doesn't help them do well in the game if it meets those other objectives.

I think both styles are legitimate and can be fun. If everyone's playing purely as a strategy game, the fun comes from the fact that you have to find clever ways to cooperate with or deceive other players who want the same thing as you. If everyone's playing more of an RPG game, the fun comes from the fact that you have seven characters on the board and you're trying to figure out what makes each of them tick--more of a social psychology game.

I think what can be frustrating is when people come into the game wanting different experiences, so that a strategy game person ends up watching a draw get blown because one player doesn't really care if they lose, or watches a player stay in who could be easily eliminated because of loyalty. Of course, one response to this frustration is, basically, that people who get annoyed by this should get over ourselves--we're playing a multiplayer game and we have to figure out how to deal with whoever ends up in a game with us. But I can't quite shake the feeling that the way I see the game is the "right" way, or at least that it would be more fun if I found some way to get games where all seven players were trying to win.

Anyone else have thoughts about this?

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

Diplomacy is a strategy game, especially on WebDip. Roleplaying is fine, but being unable to handle a stab is problem-causing.

[CaptainFritz28]

To me, it comes down to the fact that ultimately, it's a competitive game. If I'm not playing to win, then I'm making the game all about me and my personal tastes, rather than making the game enjoyable for others or actually fulfilling the purpose of a game. Stabs, eliminations, and draws aren't personal, so when people make them personal, they're blowing the game out of proportion.

Role-playing as a press style can be really fun though, as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the competitive nature of the game.

[sweetandcool]

To me, it comes down to the fact that ultimately, it's a competitive game. If I'm not playing to win, then I'm making the game all about me and my personal tastes, rather than making the game enjoyable for others or actually fulfilling the purpose of a game. Stabs, eliminations, and draws aren't personal, so when people make them personal, they're blowing the game out of proportion.

Role-playing as a press style can be really fun though, as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the competitive nature of the game.

I agree with this.

Yet I did a big double-take when I saw that you had said this, since it seemed to completely contradict your behavior in the one game I had played with you in the past.

So I looked at my game history and found that I had not played with you before. The game I had in mind featured the player, ColonelFritz28. Is there a special reference that you are both referring to with your usernames? I notice they also had the same Napoleon Bonaparte quote on their player profile and they seem to have quit the website around a month before you joined.

Is this a relation of yours, or a crazy coincidence where someone else made an account with a similar name referencing the same thing as you?

[Theodoric]

To me, it comes down to the fact that ultimately, it's a competitive game. If I'm not playing to win, then I'm making the game all about me and my personal tastes, rather than making the game enjoyable for others or actually fulfilling the purpose of a game. Stabs, eliminations, and draws aren't personal, so when people make them personal, they're blowing the game out of proportion.

Role-playing as a press style can be really fun though, as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the competitive nature of the game.

This is largely how I see it too, but with some caveats. If you set up a game with a clear set of ground rules/norms that it's RPG-style, I think that's fine. There was a game on here a while ago that was advertised as something like "try a silly opening," and I think that's great, and that joining that game and *not* doing a silly opening (in order to win) would be kind of against the spirit of the game. Similarly, if you created a game called "alt-history roleplay" and said that the goal was to have players act out the roles of each of the great powers, it would be totally legitimate to play Russia as laser-focused on Constantinople (or whatever it may be), and kind of illegitimate to just try to get to 18 centers without playing as your assigned "character."

But my default expectation is that you join a game to try to win, and I tend to get frustrated when people don't do that. Some of this is that the rules say what we're trying to do, but some of this is a belief about what the general norm or expectation is on webdip. I'm curious whether there are people who don't feel this way who want to weigh in.

And, I guess more broadly, for those of us who do feel that you should play as a strategy game and not a roleplaying game, is there a way to get games that reflect that? Just doing invite only?

[CaptainFritz28]

To me, it comes down to the fact that ultimately, it's a competitive game. If I'm not playing to win, then I'm making the game all about me and my personal tastes, rather than making the game enjoyable for others or actually fulfilling the purpose of a game. Stabs, eliminations, and draws aren't personal, so when people make them personal, they're blowing the game out of proportion.

Role-playing as a press style can be really fun though, as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the competitive nature of the game.

I agree with this.

Yet I did a big double-take when I saw that you had said this, since it seemed to completely contradict your behavior in the one game I had played with you in the past.

So I looked at my game history and found that I had not played with you before. The game I had in mind featured the player, ColonelFritz28. Is there a special reference that you are both referring to with your usernames? I notice they also had the same Napoleon Bonaparte quote on their player profile and they seem to have quit the website around a month before you joined.

Is this a relation of yours, or a crazy coincidence where someone else made an account with a similar name referencing the same thing as you?

That was the result of trying to figure out how to change my username. As I'm sure you well know, you cannot do so. Eventually, I settled on scrambling the password, creating a new account, and leaving the old one behind. I've requested that it be deleted, but that was long ago, and I don't know what became of that request.

When I was newer to the game of Diplomacy, I was much more sensitive to stabs, and thus likely acted/stated things contrary to what I stated here. Playing Diplomacy has actually led to personality development in myself, away from taking games personally and more towards recognizing that a game is much more fun when one realizes that it's just a game.

So my statements here were somewhat of a "what I've learned from Diplomacy," and thus I'm not surprised that I acted differently when I first began. I apologize for my past behavior.

[CaptainFritz28]

To me, it comes down to the fact that ultimately, it's a competitive game. If I'm not playing to win, then I'm making the game all about me and my personal tastes, rather than making the game enjoyable for others or actually fulfilling the purpose of a game. Stabs, eliminations, and draws aren't personal, so when people make them personal, they're blowing the game out of proportion.

Role-playing as a press style can be really fun though, as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the competitive nature of the game.

This is largely how I see it too, but with some caveats. If you set up a game with a clear set of ground rules/norms that it's RPG-style, I think that's fine. There was a game on here a while ago that was advertised as something like "try a silly opening," and I think that's great, and that joining that game and *not* doing a silly opening (in order to win) would be kind of against the spirit of the game. Similarly, if you created a game called "alt-history roleplay" and said that the goal was to have players act out the roles of each of the great powers, it would be totally legitimate to play Russia as laser-focused on Constantinople (or whatever it may be), and kind of illegitimate to just try to get to 18 centers without playing as your assigned "character."

But my default expectation is that you join a game to try to win, and I tend to get frustrated when people don't do that. Some of this is that the rules say what we're trying to do, but some of this is a belief about what the general norm or expectation is on webdip. I'm curious whether there are people who don't feel this way who want to weigh in.

And, I guess more broadly, for those of us who do feel that you should play as a strategy game and not a roleplaying game, is there a way to get games that reflect that? Just doing invite only?

An important caveat to note, I agree. I think the trouble lies in the fact that really no matter what, even if you create a game like "try a silly opening," you're going to get someone who doesn't try a silly opening, if not a whole game full of people who don't try silly openings. Similarly, for those of us with the expectation that games should primarily be competitive, we have to realize that in almost every game there's going to be someone, perhaps like I once was, who takes the game more personally than it should be taken or role-plays themselves to their demise. I don't like it, but it is the way it is.

I think perhaps the best solution, as you alluded to, is posting games as invite only and then making a thread on the new games forum. People are more likely to respect the competitive nature of the game (or silly nature, or whatever you created the game for) if there's a process that they have to go through and instructions they can clearly read through to get into the game, and someone who just wants to role play isn't very likely to join a game via a thread that says "competitive game."

webDip's ranking system leads to the conclusion that the site was built for competitive games, but it was also made for people to screw around and have fun with random game ideas and/or roleplaying. However, when you get players from those two very different categories mixing into one game, and each player has totally different expectations of how things will be, it isn't likely to end well.

[FlaviusAetius]

If I've been with someone through thick and fin in a diplomacy game, stabbing them is the last thing I want to do. I understand the nature of shifting alliances, and I do the same, but usually there's that one guy that you have spoke too over weeks in a course of a game, so extensively that you get to a point where there is essentially complete trust between the two of you.
Once I reach that kind of relationship with someone, I will virtually never stab that person, ever. I also think some people in this game from the getgo are trying to get a solo, but thats now how I play the game. If there's a solo opportunity that I see sure I'll take it, but thats not my goal, my goal is to get the smallest a 3 person draw size in Classic, or the most amount of centers I can in sum of size scoring. I think thats a difference between some others who play the game with the intention from the beginning to try to get the solo

[sweetandcool]

To me, it comes down to the fact that ultimately, it's a competitive game. If I'm not playing to win, then I'm making the game all about me and my personal tastes, rather than making the game enjoyable for others or actually fulfilling the purpose of a game. Stabs, eliminations, and draws aren't personal, so when people make them personal, they're blowing the game out of proportion.

Role-playing as a press style can be really fun though, as long as it doesn't come into conflict with the competitive nature of the game.

I agree with this.

Yet I did a big double-take when I saw that you had said this, since it seemed to completely contradict your behavior in the one game I had played with you in the past.

So I looked at my game history and found that I had not played with you before. The game I had in mind featured the player, ColonelFritz28. Is there a special reference that you are both referring to with your usernames? I notice they also had the same Napoleon Bonaparte quote on their player profile and they seem to have quit the website around a month before you joined.

Is this a relation of yours, or a crazy coincidence where someone else made an account with a similar name referencing the same thing as you?

That was the result of trying to figure out how to change my username. As I'm sure you well know, you cannot do so. Eventually, I settled on scrambling the password, creating a new account, and leaving the old one behind. I've requested that it be deleted, but that was long ago, and I don't know what became of that request.

When I was newer to the game of Diplomacy, I was much more sensitive to stabs, and thus likely acted/stated things contrary to what I stated here. Playing Diplomacy has actually led to personality development in myself, away from taking games personally and more towards recognizing that a game is much more fun when one realizes that it's just a game.

So my statements here were somewhat of a "what I've learned from Diplomacy," and thus I'm not surprised that I acted differently when I first began. I apologize for my past behavior.

I think that is really neat. Congrats on the character development (:

I have a feeling your request slipped through the cracks, but given that you stopped using it, you could hardly be accused of malicious multiaccounting.

In our game we actually had a good time together, but you got really upset with another player because they stabbed a lot.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I've seen role playing merge well with a commitment to strategy.

Humour, story telling, and novelty can all be useful ways to get attention for your press and define the story of the board in your favour.

Developing a personal character can give you options to reinforce your preferred press narrative, so long as you're not so committed to the character that you make bad decisions just to satisfy some desire for consistency.

One wrinkle here is that being perceived as a committed non-strategic role player may itself be a good strategy in some cases. For example, if another player really thinks that I'm committed to my role as "The Salty Sultan" and expects me to make bad moves because of this, then I may have just gained an advantage. It's hard to know what's in people's hearts and just because a role-playing centered press strategy fails doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't part of an earnest attempt at strategically-useful manipulation.

[sweetandcool]

I actually don't care how my opponents play. Even if all players were seriously going for the win, there still is a variety of skill levels and styles of play. My job is to analyze and assess the most likely course of action my opponents will take. From there, it is up to me to maximize my chances of victory.

There will be times where there is nothing I can do to avoid failure, and perhaps in some of those circumstances it is due to the actions of a "poor player". But the best measure of skill is how often, on average, I succeed.

[JECE]

Yet I did a big double-take when I saw that you had said this, since it seemed to completely contradict your behavior in the one game I had played with you in the past.

So I looked at my game history and found that I had not played with you before. The game I had in mind featured the player, ColonelFritz28. Is there a special reference that you are both referring to with your usernames? I notice they also had the same Napoleon Bonaparte quote on their player profile and they seem to have quit the website around a month before you joined.

Is this a relation of yours, or a crazy coincidence where someone else made an account with a similar name referencing the same thing as you?

That was the result of trying to figure out how to change my username. As I'm sure you well know, you cannot do so. Eventually, I settled on scrambling the password, creating a new account, and leaving the old one behind. I've requested that it be deleted, but that was long ago, and I don't know what became of that request.

I have a feeling your request slipped through the cracks, but given that you stopped using it, you could hardly be accused of malicious multiaccounting.

Malicious or not, you should fix this. The site also has a strict 'no multi-accounting' rule. This has only been relaxed a bit recently because of the relatively new relationship system that lets users self-declare that they control multiple accounts. To avoid getting banned, you should take a second to use that feature on your profile:
https://webdiplomacy.net/userprofile.php?userID=179657

Send a message to the mods if you need help:
https://webdiplomacy.net/modforum.php

[CaptainFritz28]

Thanks, JECE! I'll be sure to do this. If it came down to a mod reviewing the case, they'd find that there was never a game played by the two accounts together, or any such improper behavior, but it's still best not to take that risk. I wasn't aware of this new feature; I appreciate you bringing it to my attention.

[Octavious]

All in favour of demoting Fritz still further to Lieutenant say aye

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

All in favour of demoting Fritz still further to Lieutenant say aye

aye

[CaptainFritz28]

All in favour of demoting Fritz still further to Lieutenant say aye

Not even a court martial? Dang.

[CaptainFritz28]

Looks like my old account was in fact banned upon request, so thanks to whichever mod did that!