I have often been asked how the idea of Payola Diplomacy originated.
Actually, this is a very interesting story.
The most common assumption is that the bribery concept was taken from
the game Machiavelli.
For those readers unfamiliar with it, Machiavelli was Avalon
Hill's first application of the basic Diplomacy ruleset to a different
game; Machiavelli is set in feudal Italy and adds
bribery (though very much unlike that in Payola), garrisons,
assassination, and such chance events as plague, floods, and
famine. Personally, I am not a fan
of Machiavelli, as I consider the introduction of chance elements
to be a ruination of what I think we all consider to be the perfect
ruleset of Diplomacy (basically, if a game uses dice, I consider it
intellectually inferior — this is just me). I only played Machiavelli
a few times, and this was so long ago I that no longer remember the
mechanics of the game. So — although
I knew that Machiavelli added bribery in some form — the
thinking behind Payola Diplomacy neither began with nor centered
around Machiavelli.
The rules for Intimate Diplomacy
were posted to the Diplomacy newsgroup in mid-to-late 1993, with the
notice that a pair of games of the variant would be started on the USEF judge
and that "dummy" players were needed to provide e-mail addresses for the
five "inactive" powers. I volunteered to become one of these "dummy" powers,
and at the same time I roped John Woolley into playing a quick game of
Intimate against me to familiarize ourselves with the variant.
Admittedly, the couple of games John and I played were a small sample, but
from them, John and I found Intimate Diplomacy unsatisfying. It seemed that
any lead was basically impossible to overcome. One other thing I remember
is that we considered the penalty for overbidding to be especially harsh and
unforgiving.
So we set out to improve the game. I came up with
the "let each of the two players offer bribes to each unit rather
than to each power" idea,
and then — before even playtesting the two-player Intimate variant this
way — I quickly applied
the idea to the full seven-player game. I'll just say here that although
I do think that this rule would, perhaps minimally, improve Intimate
Diplomacy, much of the beauty of Diplomacy — the whole alliance and "chase
the leader" concepts — are lost on a two-player game, simply by its nature.
This is not a knock on Intimate, and again, I surely have not played Intimate
enough to pretend to pronounce judgement on it.
Another important feature that Payola provides which is not provided by
Intimate Diplomacy is secrecy of control. In Intimate Diplomacy, both players
know, when writing their orders, exactly which units will be controlled by the
other player. By keeping this information secret until orders are processed
(as Payola does), Intimate would be made more challenging. Indeed, in a
multi-player game situation, this secrecy of control is one of the most
important features of Payola.
Okay, fellas, get a load of this. In discussing the problem of activating
the inactive players in judge Intimate Diplomacy games, he
[John Woolley]
and I ended up
aboard a train of thought that put that problem on the back burner for a
minute. But here's a variant idea that just sounds absolutely fascinating.
I hope it sparks some discussion from you guys. I would LOVE to play it.
Standard seven player game. All units are basically mercenaries, and if you
don't pay your units enough to keep them following your orders, they'll look
to pad their own pockets and follow someone else's....
At the beginning of the game and after each winter, each player gets $5 (or 5
pounds, 5 francs, 5 marks, 5 rubles, 5 lira, etc., whatever you want to call
them) for each controlled SC. So for Spring, 1901, each country has $15
(except Russia, of course, which has $20).
Then in each Spring and Fall, every country may issue orders for any and all
units on the board, whether owned by that power or not. With each of these
orders, the power submits how much money it is willing to pay to get that
unit to follow the order. Each unit then follows the order which would pay
it the most money, all bids considered, with bids for like orders summed
together.
If a unit receives two or more orders that would pay it the same, the owner
of the unit decides which of these orders his unit will follow.
All money offered for a followed order is spent, gone either as pay to your
own soldiers and sailors or as bribes paid to the soldiers and sailors of
other powers. All other (losing) bid money is retained in each country's
treasury.
The power whose order is followed during movement also controls that
unit during retreats, if necessary. If more than one power contributed money
to issue the order that the unit follows in the movement phase, the owner of
the unit chooses which of these powers will control the unit during the
retreat phase.
If a power "wins" control of so many units that he spends more money than he
has in his treasury, all his bids are lowered by one
dollar, and every
unit that would have accepted the order he issued it decides anew, based on
the new bids, which order they should follow. If a player is still in this
position, his bids go down another dollar, etc.
Builds and removes are entirely the business of each power, acting alone and in
its own best interest.
Players may not give money to other players. Well, I guess they could, but it
would be a pretty stupid thing to do, and just an extra headache for the
adjudicator, so, like I said, they can't.
So, as you can see, the ideas in Payola were nearly fully formed on its very
first day of existence. In fact, acceptance lists and retained control by the
unit owner in retreat phases are about the only key concepts missing from the
above broadcast. Also, at this early stage, the concept of secrecy — not knowing
exactly who is controlling each unit — is not to be found.
The interesting part, though, is how John and I tested the Payola principle.
When
we gave the idea some thought, we realized what the addition of bribing for
the right to make every move — both yours and your opponent's — does to
normally deterministic games. It is a fascinating change! To test the
idea, we applied it to tic-tac-toe ("naughts and crosses" outside the United
States), giving both the "X player" and the
"O player" 100 units of currency each to begin with. Both the players then
secretly write down how much they will pay to place the first "X", and the
high bidder
places it, and his treasury is reduced by his bid amount. Then the players
bid for the right to place the first "O". It is absolutely amazing what an
interesting game tic-tac-toe becomes;
tie games are much more rare, both players seem to have an equal chance
to win, and a player always has no one to blame but himself if the outcome
is against him.
Oh yes, tic-tac-toe will never be the same again. From now on, every
tic-tac-toe player will have my name on his or her lips.
Tic-tac-toe will certainly soon become a professional sport, rivalling
soccer ("football" outside of North America) in the hearts of the world.
Next: applying Payola to Chess! Can you imagine?! The winning bidder makes
the move for whosever turn it is — any legal move...!!!
Payola is, to pat myself on the back, a revolution in gaming, since it is a
variant that can be applied to basically any game. Diplomacy is called the
chameleon game because it is uniquely "variantizable," while other games are
not. However, Payola's "bid for the chance to make a move" idea is a
legitimate "variant" for just about any game in the world.