The Diplomatic Corps is a nonprofit, worldwide player group chartered to help support and promote the Diplomacy hobby -- be it face to face games, tournaments, e-mail or postal play.

The organization will be providing a network of personal and organizational contacts around the world who will be available to demonstrate the play of Diplomacy and to act as hosts and game masters for local events. It will be providing services to players such as disseminating information on play and various rating systems, offering support for local/regional/international tournaments, and working with Hasbro to bring new players into the hobby.

The Diplomatic Corps Website
contains full details on all Corps activities and resources,
and is constantly updated!

Initially the group will be headed up by Edi Birsan who has been in the hobby over three decades and has had experience with hobby groups going back to the early 70's.

Membership fees will be collected and used to provide for prize support as well as to promote the international aspects of the hobby. The membership fee is set at US$15. Registrations are most welcome in the following fashions:

Some of the projects already underway are:

1. The donation of Best Country award plaques to the World Email Masters Tournament (currently going with 79 boards in the initial round).
2. The establishment of a donation fund for International overseas housing support for the World DipCon 2000 in Baltimore next August. Currently collected is $300 to provide some housing for the long distance travelers.
3. The drafting of a Tournament Rules Guide to help provide tournament directors with an overview of different approaches taken by and methodologies used by past tournaments. The Diplomatic Corps recognizes the importance of the autonomy of local tournament directors and hopes the Tournament Rules Guide will be used as a source book and reference, but not as a rule book.

The Diplomatic Pouch will be the official zine of the Diplomatic Corps and will handle much of its information distribution needs. Postal arrangements will be made for those members without email or web access.

More information about the Diplomatic Corps can be found at www.diplomaticcorps.org.

Edi Birsan (edi@mgames.com)

If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the envelope above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface.