I think this may be the first ever (attempt at a) PBEM game of Die Macher, so we will all be learning, to some extent. Some ground rules:
1. The game is open to anyone, though I do request that you have read and understand the rules. I can only manage running one game at this time, so any interested players beyond 5 will have to be satisfied observing and/or serve as backup players.
2. I'd like to keep to a reasonable pace, so please try to respond with your actions within ~48 hours (or otherwise as agreed to by the players). If you will be travelling or unable to reply for an extended period of time, no problem but please let us know. You can also provide proxy instructions indicating how I can act on your behalf while you are gone. I may also occasionally disappear for a few days here and there but will try to let everyone know.
3. Please commit to finishing out the game. If you disappear for more than a few days without notice, we will seek a replacement player or I will take some nominal action on your behalf.
4. If it's your turn and you can proceed without anything from me, please do so. Don't wait for me to prompt you if you're ready to go.
5. Die Macher has a mix of public and private information. I have created a neat spreadsheet to track the public information (example below) which I will post in the forum whenever there is a significant change in the game state. I will also email/geekmail each player their private information. Please keep track of your private information. I will periodically update it with additional emails, but because it is somewhat difficult to do for everyone all the time I request that you try to keep a record of that stuff on your own.
5a. Money will not be reported publically. It is of course possible that you could compute someone's cash holdings by reviewing past actions and recomputing, but I request that we make a gentlemen's agreement not to do so. Rely on memory and gut feel as you would in a face-to-face game. [alternately if all players agree we could make money public, but I think that hurts several parts of the game]
6. Post all public actions here; send private actions to me by email. For example, if you wish to play a shadow cabinet card, post publically that you are playing a card on a particular state and simultaneously email me privately to tell me which card you are playing. Or you can simply email me privately and I will post the public action on your behalf.
7. All discussion of the game must take place publically in this forum. No private emails/discussions between players about this game.
8. Rules: we will be using the Valley Games (3rd edition) rules but with a few variants. Seems like Die Macher has as many variants as Mornington Crescent, but these are what I plan on using:
8.1 We will use the 'shift left' variant for the National Board. When an opinion on the National Board is replaced, it is first removed, then the cards that were to its right are shifted left to fill any space vacated by the removed card, and finally the new opinion card is placed in the rightmost slot.
8.2 [this one I’m on the fence about and suggest this variant but can be talked out of it if the players wish]: We will use the 'flood' variant for the exchange pool. The exchange pool may contain more than 6 cards. Cards may enter the exchange pool in three ways: (1) when swapping an opinion due to media influence; (2) if opinion cards in a region are uncovered that are duplicates or opposites of a card already present on the region board, they go to the exchange pool; (3) when clearing the region board after the current election, remaining opinion cards go to the exchange pool.
9. This will be a friendly game. I will be the final authority on handling disputes, errors, etc. I’m happy to provide minor mulligans if someone makes a serious error that I or other players point out and recovery is not too disruptive. Generally, however, once the next player in turn has acted, it will be too late to change your prior action.
10. If you would like to play, please reply below. Once we get 5 players we will begin!
- Jim
Example game state display (I will help explain once we get started):
Posted Tue Sep 9, 2008 2:46 am
