Another aspect of the game is lost. I knew it was just a matter of time.
Now that the winner certificates are gone, team memeber are asking not to
forward a team report but to send your PDF file to them.
You have made a very important point here, but you seem to have derived
it very strangely. Sending the .pdf to your team instead of a well
written turn report, is a cheap cop out, and I would always try to
discourage players from resorting to it. The problem is one of context
- the other players are _not_ fully aware of what's going on around you,
they can't remember what happened to you last turn, and they often can't
remember what it was that you said you were planning. Your pdf needs to
be interpreted by you, for your team.
The problem then arises when someone says "OK, I'll send my pdf and a
turn report". That sounds good, doesn't it, but after a while, the
report gets shorter and shorter, and the occasions on which the player
is "too busy" so will "just" send the pdf increase over time. I've know
just a couple of players who have the self discipline to resist this
pattern, and _do_ submit a full report and a pdf
Personally I like to do a full turn report and attach the map. The
problem is that this means copying it as a jpg which means big size,
which some don't like. Apparently there is a utility which can cut the
pdf, and still keep it as a pdf, but I haven't been able to find it, and
I certainly can't afford the full version of Adobe Acrobat.
So that, was Gary's good point, but I still don't see how it connects to
his other comments, which were:
I'm a team player
as well as the next guy but I was wondering what if...
1. Your the new guy in the game and some old timer keeps tell you want to
do. The worst part is, the old timer will be right but the new guy will
feel like he is just paying and watching, not participating. How long will
be last?
Yes, we have gone over this one before. It's a basic problem of any
team game. Cricket, rugby, whatever. If you're a rookie, other players
are going to tell you what to do. The art of guidance can sometimes be
about doing it gently - "I really feel that you might wish to reconsider
your idea of disbanding all your armies... because..." OTOH you have a
responsibility to the _rest_ of the team to state your mind, urge,
persuade, badger, and persist, if one player is doing something which
you believe will significantly weaken the team effort.
All of that though is part of the team dynamic, and a game like MEPBM,
with a diplomacy element, is designed to maximise this sort of activity.
If you _really_ don't manage to cope with the idea of other people
telling you what to do (and I've seen one or two who really can't take
criticism at all) then you _should_not_be_playing_team_games. Go try
Ludo, or, the most excellent game of chess - as someone asserted earlier
with me, it's more popular and simple than ME and therefore better 
2. Your the kind of player that just like going againest the grain alittle.
You want to be in the top 3 even if there are no certificates. Sometimes,
you can do this prolong the game a little.
What would you do if you were a football manager, and you had a player
who "just liked going against the grain a little"? If he's a first
class player, whose actions do not substantially reduce your chances of
winning, then you tolerate him. If his "individual" tendencies start
costing you goals, then you tell him what he's doing wrong, warn him,
and ultimately you drop him. There are players in the real world of
football, so I'm told, who like to see their own name in lights as the
goal scorer, and therefore play to the detriment of the team. You can't
drop another team player in MEPBM, but you _can_ choose who not to team
up with next time.
Best answer: drop the VCs and VPs, and if you want, vote for each team's
"man of the match" or top three, at the end.
Regards,
Laurence G. Tilley http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk/
···
Gary Drebit <Lord-Greco@home.com> wrote
