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Special to The Diplomatic Pouch:
Yes, But is it Really a Foreign Hobby?
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Other than winning myself at WDC VI --- a possibility so remote that even Hong Kong's bookies, who will wager on anything, refused to offer odds; and Lloyd's of London refused to insure against such a risk --- I couldn't have been happier with the results of this year's WDC event.
There are a variety of reasons for this as I have explained in other "Specials" that will appear in Diplomacy World and Lepanto 4-Ever. Here I want to focus on the impact The Diplomatic Pouch (TDP); in the personages of Manus Hand, Simon Szykman, and Pitt Crandlmeire; had on this year's DC/WDC event; and vice versa. Remember, as always, this is my peerispective. It may not agree with yours if you were in Columbus. But, if you weren't, and you read a variety of the reports on this year's event, perhaps you will discover a bit of the truth in what I have to write. As you will soon discover, this is not a Con report and I have no stories of great Dip games played and won to tell. This is a story of three adventurers in the style of a Dumas novel; out for fame, fortune, and romance! Well, two out of three wouldn't be bad, would it?
I suggested to some people early on at this year's event that I considered the TDP team to be just another group of "foreigners" at DC/WDC. They thought that was pretty strange since all three (Hand, Szykman, and Crandlemire) were from the States. That, I thought, was a typically parochial attitude. I regarded the TDP as "foreign" because they were practically unknowns as far as the old-time FTF/Con/Tournament players at the event were concerned; because their links to the Diplomacy hobby were through the PBEM/Internet/Web hobbies; and because they had no prior FTF/Con/Tournament playing experience. In fact, in most ways the three Swedish and two French players had more in common with the other players at this year's event than did the three TDP representatives. This difference, and I am not implying it was good or bad, would, I think, have a major impact on how things were to go during the Tournament.
Foreign groups are nothing new at DC/WDC events. I remember years ago when an unknown group of Diplomacy players from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill appeared at the DC being held in Fredericksburg, Virginia. At first it was their attire (long sleeve shirts and ties in the summer), their politeness, and their funny way of talking that impressed the rest of us. By the end of the Con it was their Diplomacy playing skills that had earned our attention, and our respect. From that first encounter with the CADs (Carolina Amateur Diplomats) came one of the hobby's best and longest lasting events, DixieCon, which will for the second time host a WDC in 1998.
Today those young students are, mostly, solidly in the grasp of middle-age; raising families of their own; but still likely to show up for DixieCon. I remember telling David Hood at Fredericksburg that he ought to hold his own event down at Chapel Hill. I also told him that if he did, I would come; and sure enough, a few years later, I did attend my first DixieCon. It was at one of those DixieCons, or perhaps an AvalonCon, that I met a young fellow who told me he was attending his first Diplomacy event. I don't even remember his name, but I do remember he said he was from Charlottesville, Virginia; and he was seriously thinking about starting a Con of his own. He even had a name for it, PrezCon, I think it was. I encouraged him, pointing out to him that Hood had started his by now hugely successful event in just the same way. Well, this year I heard that PrezCon has become so big it is looking for a few home.
I recount these stories of days gone by to make a simple point, many of the best things in the hobby have happened because one person was in the right place at the right time to give another person some good advice and some encouragement. This one on one positive approach has done much to keep the hobby going, in contrast to much of the multi-personal factionalism and feuding that has kept the hobby from progressing.
But I see I am digressing. What's new?
It has been, I think, well over a year since Manus Hand and some of his associates started The Diplomatic Pouch. Those who are not into computers, the Internet, PBEM Dip, and the Web probably don't know much about TDP. And even if those are into those things still may not know much about the publication that has made itself the Diplomacy World of the PBEM Dip hobby. Reading and using TDP isn't easy for me. Just about the time I figure out how to do it, Manus starts tinkering with the zine's format, and I have to start all over again. And, unless you have a fast modem, a good printer, and a lot of fairly sophisticated software (heh, if it can't be run on a Commodore 64, it's sophisticated to me!), it can take a lot of time and effort to read and/or download TDP. Still, it's worth it. At least I think so. I've tried to encourage Manus and his crew, and contributed to the zine where I could, not because I believe in all their fancy bells and whistles, but because I believe in them.
So, I was looking forward to meeting these folks at the Con, and they seemed very excited about the opportunity to meet each other face-to-face. During the weeks before DC/WDC a lot of ideas were discussed, and abandoned, about how TDP could be used to bring the True Wisdom of PBEM Dip, et al. to the FTF Con/Tournament players that would be at DC/WDC. As is usually the case the harsh demands of reality overcame the shimmeral illusions of fantasy. Resources just didn't equal needs. Still, the important thing here, I think, was the fact that these people were thinking and were having ideas. Good ideas. In fact I suggest that if you go back through their email exchanges of the last few months you will find more good ideas among these three individuals than you will find in the whole worldwide postal Diplomacy hobby in the last five years! What kind of ideas? I'm not going to go into that. I'll let these guys discuss them publicly when they are ready.
What I was waiting to see was if the vibes that had felt so good on the Net/Web would cross over into the FTF world of Con/Tournament Dip? Although a three day encounter, even one as intense as a DC/WDC event, cannot replace years of association, I suspect, unless I missed something, the face-to-face meetings between these three were a positive thing, and bode well for the future of TDP.
Another question I had was, how would the TDP group adapt to a FTF encounter with the FTF Con/Tournament and PBM Dippers? In the past, more often than not, I have seen such encounters turn into confrontations, often resulting in a self-imposed exile from the hobby mainstream. I detected none of that with this group. What I did see was an increased determination to share their kind of hobby with other Dippers, computer-literate or not.
Still, this was high-tech Dip with a human face. Manus, Simon, and Pitt proved that people who do Dip on the Net/Web are still people, and likeable people at that. Believe me, that's not something that always comes across on a monitor.
One of the more fascinating side-shows of this DC/WDC event to me was observing the interactions between the various sub-hobbies and factions that were present in Columbus. There were the traditional, old-time FTF Con/Tournament players who have been attending and dominating DCs almost forever. There were a few old-time WDCers, usually more interested in the mega-Dipping than the tournament play. There were the walk-ins, that group of forty to fifty people who played on Friday night and then disappeared. There were the veteran WDC class players, almost all of whom were foreigners. There were the Net/Web/PBEM Dippers, not quite unified as a group and probably having a hard time communicating without a mouse to push around. And, of course, there were the foreign teams and individual players. All in all, a diverse and eclectic group if there ever was one.
Amazingly, they all seemed to get along pretty well, no doubt being on their good behaviour to impress the foreigners. In comparison to Cons of by gone days, this year's event was notable for the lack of smoking among the participants, the lack of alcoholic beverage drinking among the players, their generally good personal hyigene habits, and their civility toward each other. I don't know if we're just getting mellower as we get older, or we really are getting more civilized. Scary thought, huh?
Still, DC/WDCs are a matter of dreams, of fantasies, and of some minor parts of substance and reality. For a long weekend we can come together and pretend to pretend to pretend; and the Greatest Pretender of All goes home the World Champion!
Pitt Crandlemire was and is, in my opinion, a perfect choice (fate? destiny? The Gods of Diplomacy?) to be this year's World Champion. Did you notice how many of the Big Dippers at this event had mouths to match their size? I asked one of the foreigners what he thought of all this boorish, brutish, and loutish behaviour; and he said he liked it, assuming it was all being done in good fun. I wonder about that. Pitt, on the other hand, was more like Bruce Baumgartner or Smokey the Bear; big but gentle. Still, Pitt has the stature of a champion, and that will prove a big asset in Sweden.
But size, without grace, isn't always good. Fortunately, as Pitt demonstrated on Sunday night, he also has that, and a sense of class; which will also hold him in good stead as the new world champion. Combining these things with his already demonstrated intelligence, literacy, computer skills, and ... (did I forget anything, Pitt?) ... Pitt may be the world class world champion we need to take the American hobby into the next century.
Pitt is also proof that a newcomer can win, a pleasant change to the usual pattern of things. In Pitt we have a puff of fresh air, a shot of new blood that the entire hobby needs badly. With his FTF victory at DC/WDC Pitt has become one of a handful of Dippers with solid credentials in all of the hobby's sub-hobbies.
Now, if you weren't there you may think I am over-doing it in singing Pitt's praises, but let me tell you that in comparison, for example, to the last American WDC champion, Pitt is a huge improvement, both literally and figuratively.
I regret very much that I didn't get to play any Diplomacy with Pitt, but at least I can say that I had nothing to do with his winning the event. Nor did I get to play with Simon or Manus. In fact, I didn't get to play with anybody I really wanted to. Again, no doubt, an act of the Gods of Diplomacy!
Thus, I had precious little time to spend chatting with Simon and Manus. Simon was the one that looked like a cherub from a Rubens, and had a wife and baby to match. Manus, on the other hand, looked like a Germanic version of me, sans the double-chin! Still, the conversations we did have left me convinced that under the benevolent patronage of these guys, and the rest of their crew, TDP's best days are still ahead. Perhaps it also will be around to help lead us into the next century. The obvious question, however, is who will follow? But that's a subject for a different article.
So, to answer the question I posed in my title: yes, it is really a foreign hobby! Foreign to everyone! But it won't be that way for long. Betcha!
Footnote
A few weeks before DC/WDC this year I received a call one weekend afternoon from a young student Dipper in St. Louis, MO asking me about DC/WDC and what it would be like. He and two of his friends were thinking about going and he wanted more info. I chattered away for awhile about what they could expect in Columbus. I remember thinking later that I had probably scared him off. Well, lo and behold, the three of them did come to Columbus, as I discovered on Sunday morning when I found the three of them carrying on another old DC tradition, that of sleeping under the tables in the gaming room. That was the way the CADs started. In fact, that was the way I started more than thirty years ago. So, perhaps the future of the hobby doesn't look quite so bleak after all. If the younger generation is still willing to drive half-way across the country, sleep on the floor, and live on Subways for a week just to play Dip; perhaps the hobby is in better shape than I thought. That's a nice thought.
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Larry Peery (peery@ix.netcom.com) |
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