It is our understanding that there's kind of an unspoken agreement between the game copyright owners (Hasbro, who purchased Avalon Hill) and website developers that they are unlikely to interfere so long as you're not using any of their art or instruction text directly and so long as you're clear that your version is "inspired" by the original and provide attribution. This is the reason that every site you visit has their own handwritten version of the rules, for example.
In our case, we really do encourage people to go buy a copy of the board game, preferably from your local nerd shop. There's a lot to recommend playing Diplomacy online (I believe it was the second game playable by mail published after chess), but there is something special about playing in person and having all the physical materials.
It's not really so much of an unspoken agreement as the fact that they can't do jack squat about it. Game mechanics can't be copyrighted because they're not a concrete form of expression, only the art and instructions can be.
For what it's worth: The namespace for Diplomacy sites is pretty homogenous. (PlayDiplomacy, WebDiplomacy, etc.) We were originally PlayDiplomacyOnline, but that didn't solve the homogenous problem and was easy to get confused with other sites. One of the big things we were trying to do was bring some Web 2.0 sensibility to the game, so a cheeky name seemed in order.
We didn't consider the impact it would have on new or potential players but it doesn't seem to have scared many newbies away; in fact we get regular feedback that our site was easier for new folks to get into. Personally, I think knowing that backstabbing is a core part of the game going in helps soften the blow when it first happens.
Please don't read my comment as a criticism, I'm not trying suggest it's going to ruin the game or anything. It's certainly a much catchier name (and an -r ending is a nice tongue-in-cheek reference). I'm just always fascinated in the nuances of language and the subtle effect word choices can have.
Hi, I'm a dev on Backstabbr and can help answer that question. Backstabbr was written in Python and is hosted on Google App Engine. The web interface uses Django and relies pretty heavily on Bootstrap 3. (At some point we'd like to migrate from Django to Jinja2, but that probably won't float to the top of our list anytime in the near future.)
Replying to you because you're the dev, just thought I'd let you know that your gravatar system is case sensitive, it seems to only work with all minuscules, yet google login seemed to automatically add capitals. So the combination means gravatars dont show up.
Hi, I'm a dev on Backstabbr. At present the only way to access anything is to login, and the only logins we use are Google accounts. We have talked about making a demo Sandbox available to guests, but I'm not sure when we'll get around to that.
Thanks for your site, and thanks for letting me steal some karma despite having nothing to do with it. :)
Our group started on playdiplomacy a few months back, but migrated to backstabbr for our games shortly after. PD's good too, but responsiveness, clean visuals, easy sandboxes, and strong mobile support were huge draws for backstabbr.
I think we originally tried PD just because after a 20 second review of each site, it looked like you had to have a GM on backstabbr (not true at all, adjudication is easily fully automated, we realized after a longer look). Also, the google login requirement kept one friend from joining our game, but most of us saw the google login as neutral to a perk.
I've been really impressed with the site, really hope it takes off and you all find some way to get handsomely compensated.
Hey, thanks for the kind words! I'm really glad you and your friends are enjoying the site. It's been really gratifying to see so many people enjoying our work and also to watch new players discovering the game for the first time.
Sure thing. If you would like to see what a game looks like without having to login, you can go directly to this (randomly selected) game in 1905. You can wind back the game turns using the controls at the top.
I hope you won't mind if I promote my site, http://backstabbr.com. We felt like none of the other Diplomacy sites on the Internet had a modern interface (and they weren't compatible with mobile phones) so we set out to fix that. We also have a Sandbox that you can use to play around with potential moves. If you give it a shot, I'd be eager to hear your feedback. Thanks!
I'm going to need to actually see how the controls work during play, but signup and creation are far better than any of the other web judges I've played under. Good job!
The Sandbox is definitely where I'd recommend you start. It'll give you an immediate feel for how everything other than press works. (And the press is pretty straightforward.)
Well, our website is only partially responsive (if that's what you mean) but you can definitely use the site from any of the major phone platforms. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other online Diplomacy sites are fully playable via phone.
And yes, the game is fully implemented. We lack a lot of the alternate rules and maps you can find on other sites, but our goal was to make the best possible experience for the core game instead of trying to cater to all the variations.
I'm afraid so. We presently use Google exclusively for user management. For whatever it's worth, the only thing we take from your profile is your email address.
When you look at the resolve phase, to have the lines/units tween into their new position (or bump one another in case of a draw), makes it easier to see what went where and makes it a bit juicier.
Ah, yes. Well, I can tell you that one of the things we've talked about a fair amount recently is changing the color of displacement/retreat move orders, so that they are more visually distinguished from a regular failed move.
In our case, we really do encourage people to go buy a copy of the board game, preferably from your local nerd shop. There's a lot to recommend playing Diplomacy online (I believe it was the second game playable by mail published after chess), but there is something special about playing in person and having all the physical materials.