Et Tu Weasel?

According to legend, when asked to define the term, "human being," the Greek philosopher Plato responded, "A featherless biped." Then some wiseacre handed him a plucked chicken.

Words are awfully shifty things, even at the best of times. Definitions are less a matter of delineating parameters than of pointing in a general direction. That's why, in attempting to define the term "weasel games" in this series of articles, I have opted for discussing various aspects of such games and offering examples from my own experience. If you have played similar games, my descriptions should strike a resonant chord in your memory. And if - heaven forfend - you haven't played any such games before, I hope that these vignettes will pique your interest and encourage you to get involved in them.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKSTABBING

When I bring up the topic of weasel games among colleagues, there is always some debate as to what delineates the class. One commonly cited criterion is "backstabbing." In my opinion, a game doesn't have to incorporate backstabbing to earn a weasel designation. But for most people, the two terms seem virtually inseparable.

So what exactly is backstabbing? For players of at least one well-known fantasy RPG, of course, backstabbing is the sinister ability of thief characters to gain bonuses to hit and do damage to targets by sneaking up behind them and striking without warning. But the term has a somewhat different meaning in general parlance. In that usage, stabbing people in the back implies that they trust you as a friend so much that they allow you to be behind them with a weapon, and you heartlessly use that friendship to strike them cruelly from behind.

Therefore, when my colleagues speak of backstabbing in weasel games, they are referring to the shifting conditions that create allies of convenience, with the full awareness that those allies could become enemies at any moment - and strike when least expected.

SOME TREACHEROUS EXAMPLES

In Cosmic Encounters, players each have a chance to make two attacks on their turn, with the target of each determined by a random draw from the "Destiny Deck."

In each attack, other players around the table can be invited as allies. But the randomness of the Destiny Deck means that a person who allies with you on the first attack might actually become the target of the second attack. So much for the continued alliance.

The Castle of Magic game makes alliances even more iffy. Everyone starts the game with a secret background defining country of origin, guild membership and desired position of bell, book and candle for the grand spell to be cast at the end of the game. As the game progresses, players gain chances to learn secrets about other players' backgrounds. But when a players learns a secret about you, you have no way of knowing what that secret is!

Consequently, that player may know that the two of you are deadly enemies in the game, while you are ignorant of the fact. Armed with that knowledge, your enemy may convince you to help with some aspect of the grand spell, only to betray you when the time is ripe. This makes for a wonderful political game.

But Diplomacy is undoubtedly the most treacherous of all backstabbing games. (Actually, this game is useful in illustrating quite a number of weasel game aspects, but we'll confine ourselves to discussing backstabbing, for the present.)

At first glance, Diplomacy appears to be a fairly standard wargame. In this product, armies are maneuvered much as in Risk, for example. But what sets Diplomacy battles apart from those of other games is that there are no dice. An attacker gains territory simply by outnumbering the defender's forces. Considering that everyone starts the game with the same number of counters, that may seem something of a trick to accomplish.

But this is where the game's title comes into play. Between each set of combat turns, players spend ten or fifteen minutes away from the table, talking in small groups, trying to convince one another to support their battles. The trick is to make deals in which you gain more advantage than you give away.

Not surprisingly, that often involves knowing when an alliance is about to become a liability, and dissolving it just before that happens. Frequently, the first signal that an alliance is dissolved is betrayal of one of its members by another -- i.e., the backstab.

Here is a particularly apt example from my own experience. I was playing France, and a friend was playing Russia. Those positions put us on opposite sides of the board (which represents Europe, Northern Asia, and Northern Africa).

Consequently, we were natural allies, having nothing to fear from each other as long as there were other players in the middle for us to battle. My friend Russia had sent several fleets through the North Sea and down the western coast of Europe, to finally arrive in the Mediterranean. By this time, I had captured the entire Iberian peninsula, so his fleets were just off my shore; but I didn't worry much, because they were too far from his armies in the North to do any long-term damage to my territories.

In Tunis, however, another player had part of his dwindling forces. I wanted him to do me a favor in Austria. During our diplomatic talks, he agreed to that favor, if I would promise not to invade Tunis. I assented, and my Russian friend added his assurance that if I broke the agreement, he would use his fleets to punish my Iberian homeland.

A deal was struck, and Russia and I went away to discuss other things. When the time came for movement and battle, the "Tunisian" fellow kept his promise to me in Austria.

Then in a surprise move Russia invaded Tunis, and I treacherously supported his attack with some of my units. By the "letter of the law," Russia and I had both kept our promise to Tunis. I did not invade; he did. By doing so, he certainly insured that I wouldn't. Either way, our poor Tunisian victim lost Tunis to two supposed allies.

It was a perfect backstab. Years later, I'm still ashamed of it.

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