{"id":19192,"date":"2013-02-27T14:33:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T19:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=19192"},"modified":"2021-09-17T16:16:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T20:16:28","slug":"rip-allan-b-calhamer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/02\/27\/rip-allan-b-calhamer\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Allan B. Calhamer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The creator of the game <em>Diplomacy<\/em> died this week:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Allan Calhamer, designer of Dimplomacy &#8211; possibly the most perfect boardgame &#8211; has passed away. <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/Z9RexYTzTB\" title=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Allan_B._Calhamer\">en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Allan_B._\u2026<\/a> \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search\/%23fb\">#fb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John Kovalic (@muskrat_john) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/muskrat_john\/status\/306813499290570752\">February 27, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I was a big fan of the game for many years, even publishing a play-by-mail &#8220;zine&#8221;, as I mentioned <a href=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/12\/29\/your-past-will-indeed-come-back-to-haunt-you\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a couple of months back<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Long ago, in the days before personal computers were ubiquitous, there were &#8220;zines&#8221; (short for magazines, correctly reflecting both non-professional status and less-than-totally-serious content). There was a wide variety of zines for all sorts of interests &mdash; rather like the back corners of the internet today, except they were physically distributed using the post office (and therefore had to stay within certain boundaries to be safe). Clive and I used to publish a zine for postal <em>Diplomacy<\/em>:<\/p>\n<table align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/12\/29\/your-past-will-indeed-come-back-to-haunt-you\/infidel-11-cover\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18342\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-11-cover-116x150.jpg\" alt=\"Infidel 11 cover\" width=\"116\" height=\"150\" class=\"aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-18342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-11-cover-116x150.jpg 116w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-11-cover-464x600.jpg 464w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-11-cover.jpg 570w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 116px) 100vw, 116px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.whiningkentpigs.com\/DW\/oldzines\/infidel11.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Download PDF<\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/12\/29\/your-past-will-indeed-come-back-to-haunt-you\/infidel-12-cover\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18343\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-12-cover-117x150.jpg\" alt=\"Infidel 12 cover\" width=\"117\" height=\"150\" class=\"aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-18343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-12-cover-117x150.jpg 117w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-12-cover-471x600.jpg 471w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Infidel-12-cover.jpg 602w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 117px) 100vw, 117px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.whiningkentpigs.com\/DW\/oldzines\/infidel12.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Download PDF<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Update<\/b>: Should have included a hat-tip to John Kovalic, who linked to a highly appropriate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dorktower.com\/2012\/04\/04\/table-trap-dork-tower-04-04-12\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Dork Tower<\/em><\/a> strip from last year.<\/p>\n<p><b>Update, the second<\/b>: The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.suntimes.com\/news\/obituaries\/18566253-418\/lagrange-park-mailman-who-invented-board-game-diplomacy-is-dead-at-81.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Chicago Sun-Times<\/em><\/a> obituary:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To people in La Grange Park, Allan B. Calhamer was the guy who delivered the mail.<\/p>\n<p>But to those who have played <em>Diplomacy<\/em> \u2014 the popular board game he invented while a law student at Harvard \u2014 Mr. Calhamer, who died Monday, was a geek god.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the Fortran era, the game was a sort of board-game version of TV\u2019s <em>Survivor<\/em> set in pre-World War I Europe, with its shifting alliances, deception and back-stabbing. <\/p>\n<p>[. . .]<\/p>\n<p>In an article he wrote for <em>diplomacy-archive.com<\/em>, Mr. Calhamer said the game can &#8220;make some people almost euphoric and causes others to shake like a leaf.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s pitiless because, in the game <em>Diplomacy<\/em>, there will be one winner,\u201d said game designer Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games. \u201cYou negotiate, you make deals, you lie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Game experts and industry analysts say \u201c<em>Dip<\/em>\u201d influenced generations of designers.<\/p>\n<p>More than 50 years after Mr. Calhamer invented it, enthusiasts still engage in <em>Diplomacy<\/em> all-nighters, their long stretches of quiet strategizing punctuated by occasional shouts like: \u201cYou gave me your word you would attack Berlin!\u201d And: \u201cMy own mother took part of Russia from me!\u201d That\u2019s according to chatter on boardgamegeek.com.<\/p>\n<p>The game is jokingly referred to as a pastime that has been \u201cDestroying Friendships since 1959,\u201d said Mike Webb, vice president of marketing and data services for Alliance Game Distributors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The creator of the game Diplomacy died this week: Allan Calhamer, designer of Dimplomacy &#8211; possibly the most perfect boardgame &#8211; has passed away. en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Allan_B._\u2026 \u2026 #fb &mdash; John Kovalic (@muskrat_john) February 27, 2013 I was a big fan of the game for many years, even publishing a play-by-mail &#8220;zine&#8221;, as I mentioned a couple [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7],"tags":[1439,432,658,293,623],"class_list":["post-19192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","category-history","tag-boardgames","tag-diplomacy","tag-illinois","tag-obituary","tag-wargames"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4Zy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19192"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68401,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19192\/revisions\/68401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}