My Personality Weakness was Exposed by the Game of Diplomacy

And how my friend saved our relationship after my brutal stab

Conventional wisdom says Diplomacy ruins friendships. At best. At worst, it ends them. Here’s why that colloquial truism isn’t actually true, and what you might gain if you can remain friends with your victim after backstabbing him.

If you lose friends over a game of Diplomacy, it says more about you than the game. In Your Move: What Board Games Teach Us About Life, game writers Joan Moriarity and Jonathan Kay explore both the dangers of breaking the magic circle and how some games create contradictions in the player contract.

Diplomacy is one of those games. It is neither solely collaborative or conflict-driven, but rather both at the same time. Because the face-to-face version of the game is driven by rounds of private negotiation away from the table, the tension between these opposing forces is amplified by the difficulties of managing in-game relationships. With six other players. Each a flawed human, equally capable of good and ill.

How Diplomacy Threatens the Player Contract

Here is a list of reactions or reflections I’ve seen on the subject of perceived betrayals in the game of Diplomacy:

I learned something about my friend I didn’t like. He betrayed my trust. After working so long with other players, I prefer not to stab them — but you have to in order to win.

These are only a few ways to respond to the difficulties Diplomacy presents. There are positive responses too, which we will get to.

More than most games — possibly more than any other game — Diplomacy tests the player contract and puts players through an experience they’d rather not repeat. We break out of the magic circle. We forget that what happens in the game should stay in the game.

Why? Because your closest ally could be the player who is the cause of your elimination. It is common to see two players work together for several hours before one of them turns on the other. The initial investment, conflict, and ultimate breakup are analogous to the arc of a relationship. Things were so good! But they didn’t work out.

How My Personality Weakness Was Exposed

In late 2018, I joined the Minnesota Diplomacy Club. After a few games, I was asked to join the leadership council, which provides vision, organization, and execution. One ongoing challenge is helping new players acclimate to the shifty nature of who is an ally and who is a foe. And dealing with inevitable setbacks from failures of judgment or simply from being outplayed.

As a club, we are on track to run 19 games in 2019, 3x the previous year. In a game notorious for being difficult to play face-to-face (you need exactly 7 players), we’ve had over 30 different players in those games.

In this recent game, live-streamed on Twitch, my firm ally and I pressed back a coalition on the opposite side of the board and each emerged with gains. As the clock ticked down on our 5-hour timebound game, I made a crucial decision.

With a chance to solo (an 18-supply-center, all-out victory), I managed to stab my ally and nearly got there. When time was called, I controlled 14 centers, which elevated me to the top of our league standings.

Sleep Did Not Come Easy

You might think that later that evening I drifted off to dreamland without a glitch. But I didn’t sleep well that night.

The next day, the ally I’d stabbed texted me. He didn’t understand why I did what I did — I could have remained allied with him and still gotten to 14. Especially considering the impressive gains we’d made together, why did I punish him while rewarding his enemy?

I started my apology with a mention of lost sleep and my desire to solo.

He soon replied:

I lost sleep last night thinking about it too. Funny how this game can do that. Now that I’ve had some time to collect my thoughts, let me explain why. Despite your score, I think you made a long term metagame error.

After responding to some of the finer points of his text, I summarized my position:

All this said, I think I agree with you on the metagame error, and I believe I was already feeling it as it happened on the board. It was a big risk to get 18 that didn’t work out, and now I get burned, rightfully so, in my near-term metagame with a player — you — who I like working with.

I thought we’d settled it. But deep down, I was troubled. I still didn’t know why I played the way I did.

Where Memories Deceive Us

My wife is an incredible listener. Even after discussing all this with her, I still was unsure of myself. Even now I can drift back into estrangement as if there are two people here, one person who played the Diplomacy game — seemingly punishing an ally and friend for little to no gain — and another person who is writing this article.

As it happened, we had live-streamed the entire game. When you watch the tape (orders are read beginning at 4:51:10), you can see the discomfort both of us display. This matched my memory of not entirely enjoying the decision I’d made. A little later, I am on camera awkwardly offering to help him. His response:

It’s too late.

I continued to help his enemy whilst slightly improving my own position. Even though I felt terrible about it, I felt committed to my decision. My former ally ended with 0 centers.

The fact that I am writing this illustrates that there is creep from the game into real life. After all, any game we play is embedded within this structure we call existence. It is dishonest to imagine that we are not changed by playing a game. We are all Ships of Theseus. We are changed by what we do and what we choose not to do. All of life is a wager.

Understanding My Personality Weaknesses

It took some more back and forth to uncover a crucial weakness in my personality. That is, I am afraid to ask uncomfortable questions. The truth is, I don’t particularly like conflict.

The next day I wrote him a short email:

An easier explanation for my moves: Greed, not proud of it.

He replied shortly thereafter:

I’m not sure the issue was greed, actually. My reaction to Saturday’s game wasn’t so much your moves against me, it was *****’s moves against me with your permission. That was my hangup with it. So not so much greed that cost you the alliance, but a failure to communicate intentions.

As my goals in the game changed — from a possible 3-way draw to desiring to win outright — I did not communicate this with my ally. I did not want to have that difficult discussion. So I led with force instead of starting with negotiation.

This revelation was worth both the five-hour struggle of the game itself and the five days worth of agonizing over my behavior. The answers I normally come up with to explain my behavior are so often self-serving, too often protective.

When I create space to wrestle with my shadow, truths not previously accessible reveal themselves.

The explanation the mind first provides is not necessarily true, like anxiety which masks deeper and more unsettling realities.

After negotiation, orders are read, which reveals players’ intentions.

Have I Lost a Friend?

Despite the betrayal, the lack of communication, the sleep loss, and asking my wife to listen at length to my descriptions of psychological turmoil — all from playing a mere board game — I don’t expect I’ve lost this good friend. That is an immense tribute to his maturity. We were able to address our relationship, but also quickly move beyond questions of whether we would remain friends.

His curiosity into my behavior marked a path into my inner depths. Diving into these dark caves allowed us to explore the myriad personalities composing me, personalities that make up any individual. I can only wish this opportunity for personal growth upon as many people as possible. Please, go forth with courage into the lion’s den that is the game of Diplomacy. It is impossible to predict what you will learn about yourself. But, and though it will not be easy going, I believe that you will understand yourself better for it.

When I first played Diplomacy 17 years ago, as a sophomore in high school, I never suspected this game would still be teaching me as much as it is. I can’t wait to discover what lessons the next game will bring.