The Model Diplomacy Player

By Scott Marley

From Diplomacy World #28

I am the very model of a player of Diplomacy:

My armies like to stay on land, my fleets prefer to roam asea.

I know the sections of the board I'm not supposed to travel on,

Like Switzerland and Iceland and the hill that's known as Avalon.

Then I can take my army Brest and convoy it to Picardy,

And make a stronger ally think that I'm his little chickadee;

But if I find a way to trap an unsuspecting foreigner,

I'll stab him in the back and then buy off the county coroner.

Then I can write an order that is strictly unambiguous,

And tell you when North Africa and Spain can be contiguous.

My fleets, I say again, are much inclined to sail the foam asea,

Which makes me quite the model of a player of Diplomacy!

On every aspect of the game I've written very wittily,

From "How-to-Pick-a-Phoney-Name" to "How-to-Run-From-Italy".

I have a special opening I published in FREDONIA

That guarantees in Fall oh--two that France will take Livonia.

I'm very good at gimmicks, the strategic and the tactical,

From hopelessly outrageous down to patently impractical.

On stalemate lines I'm just about considered an authority

By everyone except an insignificant majority.

My papers and my lectures and my speeches to the media

Would probably suffice to fill a small encyclopedia.

So all of you who aren't in a stupor or a coma see

I am the very model of a player of Diplomacyl

In fact, when I can tell a lie without complete transparency,

When I stop trying “SPRING OH-ONE: St. Petersburg to Barents Sea",

When I can play a game and keep a couple of my promises,

When I can make a move without consulting what my swami says,

When I have learned a little of the art of modern puppetry,

When I can stab my closest friend without my ending up a tree,

When I stop getting Austria each time that I begin a game,

Then maybe in a year or so perhaps I'll even win a game.

For my knowledge of the game with all its details and its particles

Entirely derives from writing lots and lots of articles:

As long as I am published from Savannah to Sonoma, see,

I am the very model of a player of Diplomacy!!

«With of course a grateful bow in the direction of Sir W. S. Gilbert.»