Team Diplomacy

May 2004

A "true" team game has many differences than an Individual game with allies. It is important that teammates can communicate and coordinate well within the team (or bad things will happen).

It is also VERY true that there should be agreement (within the team) of how communications with OTHER teams will be handled!

While certainly outside any Gamemaster responsibilities, all parties (within any team and with all 5 teams) need to understand ALL the ramifications of any agreements that might be made. Let's NOT have hard feelings; making "hard" deals is one thing, misunderstandings and hard feelings is something else.

Being able to work with your teammates is vital. Those that might look forward to this "team" environment, but don't have "buddies" that will join them NEED to discuss their concepts of game and "team" play BEFORE agreeing to be a team. Better (in my opinion) to NOT get into a team game at all than get into one and soon discover that there are major disagreements.

This is NOT to say that there will not be discussions about tactics, sharing resources, or many other things. There WILL be these discussions and things can be worked out. As most of you should know (a look in Valhalla will confirm) that I have played in many "Team and Epic" games. I enjoy them a lot and find them more challenging than many of the Individual games I have played (not all, just many). But EVEN Phil has changed his ideas to work within the "Team" or "Epic" concepts of his Teammates.

There is certainly NO attempt to frighten anyone away from this or any Team or Epic game. I encourage these types of games! I just want to say, in this message, what I have advised many times over many years: be sure of what you are getting into.