11-01-2004 08:07									#1
	Musical Chairs Diplomacy: Rule Variant Idea Inflate your Upload Space

While having some trouble falling asleep last night, I came up with a diplomacy variant with a single simple rule change that would turn how the game is played upside down. Basically what happens is you get seven players on a standard map (or any map really) and assign them to random countries and have them play out the first two seasons normally and then after fall retreats are dealt with, people would be assigned random powers all over again. And so after the first year everyone would due winter builds/disbands and then a spring and fall turn before being assigned a new power randomly every year.

After every fall phase is completed the GM writes down the gain/loss of SCs of every player and adds them up year after year. And when the game ends (the game ends in the normal manner), the person with the most SC-gain points wins the game (actually controlling the country that hits 18 SCs when it does hit 18 SCs means nothing).

Alternately instead of assigning powers randomly every turn there could be a rotation order of countries, perhaps alphabetical perhaps in some manner as to move the player around the map as much as possible. This would lead to some interesting diplomacy (ie "I'll support you into Belgium if you support me into Serbia next year when you're Russia"). What this also has going for it is that it makes sure that there is no element of chance in the game just as in standard diplomacy. This would also make it possible to scrap the point bit of game and have winners decided in the normal manner, which would lead to some interesting diplomacy (as in "hmmmmmmmmm, I want to hurt Russia bit now but no so badly that I have no chance to solo with it when I play it in three years")

But the random country assignment would make the game nicely surreal and unpredicatable with you never knowing who your next neighbor is going to be.

Either way, I think it would be a fun game to GM since I'd get to watch countries changing their plans so much that they resemble crazed demented hampsters and I think that it would be a fun game to play since it'd put you in a lot of interesting diplomatic situations.

As for as power names go, each player could choose an international "conspiracy" (Mormons, Illuminati, Templars, Elders of Zion etc.) that would be pulling the strings of various countries.

Any comments on this would be greatly appreciated as well as to ideas as to whether random or rotational country reassignments would be more fun. I definatley want to get a Musical Chairs Dip game up and running, and I'm sure I can come up with seven people somewhere.

	11-01-2004 23:56									#2
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How would you determine victory?

	12-01-2004 00:22									#3
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Chegitz:

quote: After every fall phase is completed the GM writes down the gain/loss of SCs of every player and adds them up year after year. And when the game ends (the game ends in the normal manner), the person with the most SC-gain points wins the game (actually controlling the country that hits 18 SCs when it does hit 18 SCs means nothing).

Actually, I'd rather have done a game under the Goofy variant. But completely random switching of countries is goofy enough for me.

How would we handle eliminated countries? One conspiracy sits out a turn?

	12-01-2004 09:11									#4
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What I was thinking is if you control a country while it gets eliminated you don't get to play any more (but you could still win if you did good up to that point).

I was also thinking of capping the ending date to 1910 or possibly 1914 too keep people from dragging things out too long.

	12-01-2004 21:08									#5
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You should keep track of how many SCs a player has won and lost. Otherwise winning isn't a matter of strategy and diplomacy, but rather randomness. In effect, you'll be randomly selecting a winner, which is fine for lotteries but isn't very interesting for a game.

	13-01-2004 04:55									#6
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i think that was the idea Che. Only problem I see is - what happens when a country is eliminated. Which player do you eliminate? Perhaps the player with the fewest points up to that stage of the game? And so on? That could add an element of really wanting to keep small countries in the game, especialy if you control a country that has the power to rape them, but also being in a position of having the fewest gained points, which means eliminating a rival country would be eliminating yourself.

	18-01-2004 13:34									#7
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Just have a relegation dogfight. If you have the fewest SCs conquered, look out if a nation is going to the dogs. 'Cause you'll be going down with it.