In a face to face game, if you locked your opponent in the trunk of your car or in a closet or something, so they couldn't continue playing, would that be okay?

No, of course not. Unless you are all close friends and just goofing around. This guy obviously isn't a close friend, so no.

Now if you really wanted to show you had balls, you'd wait until you saw him playing again and on the game you were in and then you'd walk up to him and say "Hey, I saw you playing this the other day too, looks kinda like Risk, what is it?" And then let him show you all the ins and outs of the user interface, including his current orders and messages to different countries. The reason to mention Risk is to force him to show you since everyone knows Diplomacy > Risk.

Even that would be a bit much though.

A third option, instead of screwing him over two different ways, would be to try and form a face to face diplomacy club with him and the other guy and whoever else you can get.

You say "of course not"! I say "well, it's a bit hardcore but hey - if it wins you the game..."
All's fair in love and war right?

Not quite. The scenario you described would be blatant cheating, just as much as hacking the site to gain access to others accounts would be cheating. I don't believe you did this, though.

Whoah I totally missed the post about you logging him out and changing his password.

This puts things into perspective.

No that wouldn't be reasonable.

To those saying this would never happen though - I was doing a bit of mod-work in the library at my uni, and the guy next to me said 'Oh cool, you play diplomacy. In fact, I've got an account on there'...

Yeah I've located a couple people in my dorm who play on this site. Now they knock on my door with multi accusations all the time :(

"To those saying this would never happen though - I was doing a bit of mod-work in the library at my uni, and the guy next to me said 'Oh cool, you play diplomacy. In fact, I've got an account on there'..."

I know at least three people that have played on either here or on Facebook. And I didn't introduce any of them to it.

It would have been perfectly acceptable if you had set up the girl to distract your foe, as you lucked out in the femme fatal attraction area, then -1

Is there any precedent for this situation in, say, postal Diplomacy? (I think postal is arguably more analogous to webdip than face-to-face is.) How would postal players view acts of sabotage such as intercepting mail containing another player's orders?

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/rules.php
Rule 6: You may not access another player's account without permission

imho, spying on their messages/orders is going a bit far... but encouraged by the rules... you should at least mention in global that you know they go to your college...

second, stealing their account is a blatant rules violation. You should be banned for it.

@ajohnson: I'm sure there is definitely a precedent of this sort of behavior in postal diplomacy. I have read articles with anecdotes about people who have sent in forged orders etc, and the postal hobby has been going on for decades so I'm sure a lot of crazy things have happened.

However, whether or not such behavior is cheating really depends on the established code of conduct between the participants and game master.

The game of diplomacy may condone deception, betrayal, and manipulation, but as game, with defined rules and being a collaborative activity to have fun, it does not condone cheating.

In a game where some degree of espionage and sabotage could potentially make things more interesting and create a lot of fun, one has to clearly define where the line between acceptable behavior and cheating lies. It's up to the parties involved to set that line. If everyone agrees that a certain act is acceptable, then it's fine. However, it's tough to cover all possible scenarios and I feel that with any situation that's questionable, one should err on the safe side and not do it or ask the game master or other parties involved first.

I've heard of a general rule of thumb when it comes to defining what is cheating, the golden rule of diplomacy "You may not deceive the game master". In the context of this website, the game master is the website. Therefore, using someone else's account without their permission or controlling two accounts in the same game constitutes a deception of the game master and hence is cheating.

http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/resources/god/twelve.htm

It's definitely metagaming and definitely against the rules. You cannot let out-of-game factors influence your decisions in game, since it gives you an unfair advantage over other players in an online game.

@yebellz - but I never controlled two accounts - just put one out of commission. Surely not the same thing
@youradhere - I didn't let out-of-game factors influence decisions in the game. Quite the reverse - I let game factors influence decisions in real life. Orthogaming, if you will.

are you still pretending this actually happened?

@parallelopiped: don't try to get around rule 6 on semantics. I'm sure the mods won't see it that way.

Paralell: Are you still claiming you actually did this? Because if you did, I want you banned. That is blatantly cheating. And that was the worst organic chemistry joke ever.

Let me see if I follow:

Parallel (FRI 2PM): "I...changed his password and email address"
Parallel (SAT 12:34): "..but I never controlled (the account)"

If you didn't control it by having the only password and controlling the email address, then how do you define "control" lol.

Spying is fine. In FTF, one could listen at doors to opponent's diplomacy. But if one had locked them in the negotiation rooms (preventing move placement), no game would allow that.

+1 for creativity, -1 for common sense when extrapolating to new circumstances

Nowhere in the rules does it say you can't lock someone in a cupboard to stop them ordering. Anything that isn't specifically precluded is fine.

As for me having the only password - I didn't. I typed some random characters into a word document, copied a section and pasted it into the gaps on the settings screen. I then deleted the document and shut the computer down. The email address I put in was one of a Japanese researcher of a paper I'd read. I seriously didn't control that account.

"Anything that isn't specifically precluded is fine."

Murder is fine by diplomacy rules guys.

And Parallel, you're being absurd. You had control of the account. Arguing otherwise is bullshit.

Admit that you're making up this entire story, already. Because if you're not, I'm putting you on my blacklist and lobbying for you to be banned.

a) How did I have control of the account. There was no way I could take any action on it.
b) Don't bother about the blacklist - just don't leave yourself logged onto webdip
c) Lobby away - there's no way you could prove anything. If I'm ever asked by a mod I'll just deny it and claim that this was all made up :P

You know, you'd think if this story were true the victim would actually create a new account and maybe see this thread in the forum... and maybe say something. Just maybe.

You took an action on it, namely, changing the password and e-mail (if the story is to be believed). So you controlled it to take that action.

//
Well we're all here reading this and getting more and more suspicious as you keep going!

Oh hey Figle. This is definitely and completely made up and not in anyway true. Nothing to worry about.

Maybe you can just ban him for wasting valuable time then?