“Well, it is five years since Richard Egan wrote that article and we are all (mostly) still here.”

As opening lines go, this isn’t the most positive one could be but, given that the author of “Why Richard Was Almost Right”, Stephen Agar, shared some of Egan’s concerns, perhaps that is as good as it could get.

Stephen Agar was writing in his own zine, Spring Offensive #36. Published in August 1995, he was looking again at the future of the Diplomacy Hobby, five years on from the article Egan wrote in his zine Vienna #64.

Agar’s take was less than positive, as can be seen in the first paragraph:

“Not that the Hobby isn’t in slow decline, I think that’s beyond doubt. The steady decline in the number of Diplomacy gamestarts since the mid-80’s is there for all to see.”

He disagrees with Egan in that he doesn’t believe the commercially produced postal multiplayer games are to blame. Rather, he provides four reasons for the decline in the Hobby:

1. He states that Diplomacy isn’t as exciting as modern (then) multiplayer games such as Doom or Civilisation, which are PC games whereas Diplomacy is a board game.
2. The game was difficult to get a hold of then with the big UK stores not selling it.
3. The internet was a developing phenomenon. It was killing Diplomacy as was – the future for the Hobby was to be online.
4. Yes, those commercially produced multiplayer games were having some impact, although they, too, would suffer because of the internet.

In fact, Agar then writes:

“All of these things (especially 1 and 2) mean that postal Diplomacy is doomed in the long run. That is not necessarily a bad thing as everything must run its course and be replaced with whatever comes next. Postal Diplomacy is a bit like the old fashioned LP, the refuge of cranky thirtysomethings and fortysomethings unable to come to terms with a changing world.”

Wow.

Stephen wasn’t overly pessimistic, however, which seems somewhat contradictory given this start.  Why not?  Because he had a plan. Advertise… but advertise differently.

Advertising PBM Diplomacy was already en vogue. I’ve mentioned in an earlier article in this issue of 34 – “Into the Hobbiverse” – that I’d been successfully marketed, and that this was the way I’d been introduced to the Hobby. But, Agar says, this isn’t enough. The competition is too fierce and too modern.

Instead, he says, the custodians of the Hobby had to find different ways to advertise the game, reaching out to the enemy, advertising in RPG magazines and wargaming magazines. This would reach people who had once played Diplomacy and then moved on to what he considered to be more attractive games. In other words, reach out to the Diplomacy diaspora.

There was another idea that Stephen Agar thought would help. This had been around for a while and involved some oversight for the Diplomacy zines published in the UK. Whether this actually got off the ground, I don’t know.

As with Richard Egan’s earlier article, the Hobby is very much viewed as the postal arm of Diplomacy. I can understand this. There was a lot of time and effort put into this aspect of the Hobby. And it was the way to get a game! A lot of the idea behind the oversight idea Agar published was about guaranteeing games being continued if and when publishers hit problems. The Postal Hobby, then, was a well-loved aspect of Diplomacy. I think, looking back from the modern ways in which Diplomacy is played, it’s difficult to understand how big an impact PBM Diplomacy had. In a time where the only ways to play the game were FTF or PBM, most games were played by mail.

However, this was already changing when Stephen Agar published his article. This can be seen in another article in the same issue. “Diplomacy on the Internet” was written by Nic Chilton and published in Spring Offensive #36.  He was going to write a second piece on “the World Wide Web and Diplomacy” and discuss Diplomacy Judges. Given where we are today, that would have been interesting, I think, but I couldn’t find it.

However, this shows the beginnings of the Hobby today (if I can get away with calling it that, and I think I can). While PBM Dip was slowly easing its way off the scene, PBEM – play-by-email – was growing in popularity, and the Dip Judges would be the stepping stone to online Diplomacy proper.

Stephen Agar knew the postal Hobby was sliding downhill. The best that could be hoped for, he thought, was to help it to flourish for “up to another ten years”. Realistically, the future for “zine culture” was, he thought, on the internet.

If you want to establish an ongoing Hobby around a game like Diplomacy, you need a solid foundation. The game itself is that foundation, but it’s added to by the face-to-face hobby and was strengthened by the postal hobby. I don’t think it is too far to say that, without the postal zines, without postal play, today’s Hobby wouldn’t exist.

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First published in “34” #2, September 2023.

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POSTS IN THIS SERIES

1. We’re Doomed!
2. Still Here!
3. Evolve to Survive