The “Guest Columnist” series was a spoof series I created using caricatures of politicians or commentators. Some will be well-known to everyone; some infamous in the UK. I’m sure you’ll be able to recognise most!
Jacob Riche Nobb
For many years now the UK Diplomacy Hobby has been in decline. Numbers have been dropping off and attendance at the bare scattering of Diplomacy meets has dwindled. One has to ask oneself why this is so. And one has to reach the conclusion that the connections with the European and wider global Hobby are the reasons for the poor health of the UK Hobby.
Once upon a time the UK Hobby was the shining light of the Hobby Global. It was from whence came the best players. It hosted the most auspicious tournaments and conventions. It designed the best scoring systems. It was, in short, the ultimate example of how Diplomacy should be run and organised.
And then came the age of internationalism. With this, the UK Hobby began to adopt inferior conventions. Tournaments featured less rigorous guidelines. Scoring systems such as the incredibly pathetic C-Diplo were adopted by some, replacing the eminently superior Sum of Squares system, designed in the UK specifically to score tournaments with increased efficiency. Tournament games became shorter in length, thankfully not as favoured within the European Hobby, ending in 1907 before the game has had a chance to resolve, but still far too short to produce a satisfactory result.
With the adoption of these regulations, forced upon the UK Hobby by our European neighbours, some of whom were immigrants, and indeed some of these had been deliberately sent to increase the European Hobby’s influence over our arm of the Hobby, our beloved Hobby lost its independence and its sovereignty. This is a situation that cannot continue and needs to be corrected anon.
One can only surmise how great the UK Hobby would now be if it hadn’t succumbed to these pernicious elements. We would have stood atop the Hobby world, a beacon of light in the darkness of the Hobby across Europe.
One of the major factors was the accession of the European Grand Prix system. This vainglorious attempt to unite national tournaments and conventions into one, Europe-wide, series was the reason the Hobby declined so markedly. It brought rules and regulations perceptibly harmful to tournament Diplomacy. It had unelected and unwanted officialdom. It brought a bureaucracy that drained the finances and enthusiasm from national Hobbies, markedly so within our shores.
Players who had done well in their own national tournaments now had to travel across Europe to translate that success to the European level. It was exclusionary and divisive, and completely failed in its aim to unify Europe. Let’s be clear: it had to fail and could not, in any sense, have found a route to success. It had to fail because it couldn’t possibly succeed and because of the harm if brought.
Once the Grand Prix system died its predictable and unlamented death, national Hobbies also saw a failure. The French Hobby was forced online to survive. The Dutch Hobby is now one of small size. But it is the UK Hobby that I am concerned with and it needs to be resuscitated and resurrected if it is to return to, and exceed, the greatness it once held.
In his article in issue #2 of this zine, “Diplomacy for the Players”, Jeffrey Borryn esquire suggested the creation of a World Council of Diplomacy. This is, unsurprisingly, Marxist claptrap. The UK does not need to be part of a greater, overreaching, invasive organisation. On the contrary, sirrah, it needs to remove itself from such things and establish a strong, effective leadership that will control the Hobby in the UK for the Hobby in the UK.
What the UK Hobby needs is entrepreneurial leadership at a national and local level. We need strong, committed, expert and patriotic leadership. We need to establish a number of tournaments and conventions, independent but complementary. There are great conventions that still exist, in a lesser way: ManorCon and MidCon. We need to build the strength of these and encourage the adoption of successful exemplars as new, vigorous conventions are created. We need to act on our own to grow.
First published in 34 #4, November 2023.
POSTS IN THIS SERIES
- “The Best Negotiator” by Ronald D Fayke
- “Diplomacy for the Players” by Jeffrey Borryn
- “Earn Your Own Victory” by Opal Winfree
- “Sovereignty Within the UK Hobby” by Jacob Riche Nobb
- “Power in Diplomacy” by Pimp Jung On
THE DIPLOMATICON 
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