Hey,

Nothing worse than a sore winner at a game like Diplomacy. But I personally welcome a bit of trash talk. In my opinion this is inappropriate for some games, like chess, but to some games it adds something. In fact, there are some games that I feel are incomplete without a bit of trash talk, for example basketball.

It so happens that I'm playing a PBEM game of Diplomacy. It started out rough - a couple of players seemed to go a bit out of their way to take a throw a wrench in my gears, even where it didn't, I believe, especially suit their purposes. After the first couple of seasons I resolved myself to face a crushing defeat, and tried to go down fighting.

Rather unexpectedly, the tables have turned. I'm now doing quite well in this particular game. Now I understand why it's bad form to try to make people feel bad for loosing. And why it's bad to try to grief people either for winning, or for backstabbing you. But in this particular case I'm inwardly gloating, and I admit that I would get more than a little bit of satisfaction from lording over those who used me so roughly.

Am I entitle to gloat a little bit? Under what circumstances is gloating appropriate. When is it clearly ungentlemanly?