If someone's actually offering money, I'll throw a game or two.

Me too. Or if only points could be transferred :-)

Hypothetically speaking, what's the lowest dollar?

I would not consider anything wrong, the only thing I would not do is hack someones accounts and read his mails/messages. The law on "secrecy of correspondence"(?) is also applied to electronic messages in my country. :(
Usually I will just turn down any payment, just for the matter that this is a game which I play to enjoy it. Making money off of the game would be nice, but is certainly not a requirement.

I was under the impression that talking about the game outside of the "official" channels was fine so long as you were playing a non-anon full press game. Was I wrong?

If I have a particularly interesting game I will talk to people not in the game about it and even ask their advice.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. Obviously paying someone to win a free game is ridiculous and kind of sad.

Nonoyesyesyes

Sex. I forgot the last question :S

Paying seems like metagaming to me.

I think communicating with other players in any manner other than through the game messaging is wrong. Otherwise you give unfair advantage to players who know each other outside the game. To me, this is metagaming. Asking advice of someone who has no inside info or stake in the game is okay.

As long as it is a full press and non-anon game, you can share phone numbers and call each other or meet up if you live in the same town and plan your moves. There is nothing underhanded about taking advantage of every form of modern communication if it doesn't involve breaking the rules of the specific game or trading favors across games or doing a favor outside the game for one inside.

Buying off (real money to throw a game) is metagaming and against the rules of the site. Money is outside of the game. Meta by it's very definition. And I'm sure the mods would ban anyone they could confirm was involved in that.

As far as talking to someone outside the game, as long as it isn't on the forums, it isn't against the rules in non-anon full press. In anon (where you could unknowingly be talking to another player in the game) it is against the rules and just plain stupid and in public press and gunboat, it is against the rules to talk about the game ouytside of the public press tab or at all.

I suppose you could make extraneous skype accounts and chat anonymously that way. I've skyped during several games, which reminds me, whatever happened to the skype live public press game?

@Disraeli
Asking someone for advice will actually put him in having a stake in the game. (his honor and respect of you to him)
@Draugnar
Agree on first message, on your second post: it is untraceable when well executed and is thereby in my opinion allowed. But make sure you don't get caught, then its okay (as always).

carpenter, allowed and possible to get away with are completely different concepts. The question was whether it's wrong. It's meta gaming, and thus wrong.

thats the reason i like rule number 9
use common sence and act honorably ,just dont do things that you know will ruine the game
be fair and think about other players and what they can do to you
i expect much more from diplomacy players,this is not travian and most of the players are not children
honor must be the key word

@taos - Honor my ass! Rule 9 says use common sense. It says nothing about being honorable. I have no honor when it comes to a game. I win at all costs and draw only when I have to. That said, I won't break clearly established rules like violating press rules (gunboat and public only) or...

@carpenter - No. Making deals outside of the game is against the metagaming rules. Crossgaming is given as an example, but what you propose, even if you get away with it, is cheating according to the Kestas and the mods.

The only one I see an immediate problem with is:

"logging on under someone's name and reading the messages of someone you're in a game with?"

This will get you permabanned from the site.

Honestly, I don't really care about the money, because there's no way to force a player to pay up or actually follow through once they've been paid.

I agree with Draugnar on this one. There's no honor in war and there's no honor here. The only really honorable thing I'll do is draw a game when a country CD's if it gives one player a huge advantage. Other than that, everything goes, pretty much.

"meeting up" and "logging into someone's account"? That's nuts. You obviously can't do those.

Taking bribes is clearly wrong but for the right price I would gladly do it.

@taos, what do you mean by honor? What are some examples of play you consider dishonorable (aside from cheating)?

@abge, "Honestly, I don't really care about the money, because there's no way to force a player to pay up or actually follow through once they've been paid. "

Sure there is, if it's a repeated offense. Anyway, doesn't this go for all metagaming? If I threaten to smash your car windows if you don't support hold Brest, well, there's no way to be sure I will, but surely that would be metagaming.

Metagaming is a very broad term and not all of it is unallowed for various reasons.

Trading favors in different games is a good example of illegal metagaming (crossboarding).

While monetary rewards and personal threats are metagaming, I'm not convinced they're a big deal. As I said, they are empty promises. Even if they've done it before, there's no reason to think they'll do it again.

@sem, "smash your car windows if you don't support hold Brest" lmfao, pure gold.
could you just imagine it? or explaining it to the cops? "well, i didn't support hold Brest" hahahahahaha

If I was a cop, the conversation would end right there.

"A loyal ally, and you wouldn't support hold Brest just so you could order a virtually-certain-to-bounce move to the Irish Sea? And you think YOU'RE the victim here? You're under arrest."

@Draugnar
I don't *think* you should do any of these points said by Tru Ninja, and never said you should. You're saying that you should get a ban even if no-one notices that you're cheating, I tend to disagree with that.
@semck
Wrong is a very subjective word: the fact I wouldn't (or people shouldn't) do something, doesn't make it wrong. (e.g. I would not curse in a lot of discussions, but is cursing therefore wrong? No!) I think that people should be able to allow more than what they think is wrong, just for the mere chance that other people might think different about things that are wrong. In the past there have been enough persons that tried to teach the people what was wrong and what not (I could name a few, but since you'll possibly see that as an accusation I won't).
I don't think meta-gaming is wrong. I think it's part of the game: if you want to play the game, follow the rules on this site. If you want to use your own rules and the mods do not agree, don't start whining when you're getting a ban.

@spyman
ill give you an example of what i call honor
in a game i was playing one of the players needed a pause,we paused the game
when this player came back we unpaused the game except for two players
germany with one army in holand and france with a fleet in western med and no sc
they didnt want to unpaused and be eliminated
its not very honorable
after some time the mods unpaused the game and the only active players were me(england) with 2 sc and austria with 9
rusia and turkey were open to him so he can get 18 in no time but iwas sorrounded by all the players unit that left
i asked for a draw and he accepted
thats honor
not to play an unfair game just for some stupid virtual points
in another game(you may not believe me)a friend i introduced to the game asked me about a game was in and i told him not to talk about it with me because its not fair to other players
is not hard to do metagaming without been caugth but is not hard to do the rigth thing just for walking the rigth path

I see what you mean taos. There is definitely room for that type of honor in Diplomacy. I agree. Players may lie and stab all they like in a game, but so long as they remain dedicated to making it a "good game" they are honorable.

@carpenter. You do a crime you *should* get punished. You *won't* get punished if no one notices it, but that doesn't mean you *shouldn't* get punished for it. there is a difference between practice (crimes not getting punished) and theory (all crimes should get punished). In theory, if you commit a crime (in webdip, that would be break a rule) you shoud get punished for it. In practical terms, not all crimes get discovered or solved, so all all criminals get punished. But it doesn't change the fact they commited a crime and are criminals (in webdip that would be cheated and cheaters).

@abgemacht - I am *shocked* that you, a mod, would condone outside of the game deals. I'm tempted to ask Kestas and the other mods what they think of that view and to see if they want youto continue to be a mod with that particular view. It's no different than refusing to unpause because you are losing. *Shame* on you, abgemacht! Shame!

Well, for the record, I think that supporting hold Brest for money is more of an issue with prostitution.

For the record, abge never condoned anything, he just said it was silly.

classy ninja, very classy indeed.

I said it in the other thread, but I guess I need to say it here. As amod, making a statement that a certain action is "no big deal" is giving tacit approval. Yes, you mods are players, but you also represent law and order and your words carry more weight. He has since said if it became a problem then it would be handled, but at the time saying bribery and threats are "no big deal" without any qualification *is* tacit approval to perform such acts.