Dungeons & Diplomacy

In light of my theorizing in my earlier post about the influence of Diplomacy on the development of Dungeons & Dragons, there's this paragraph from Jon Peterson's magisterial Playing at the World:

By the end of the 1960s, both Gygax and Arneson had long histories with Diplomacy; some of their exploits receive consideration in the later sections of this chapter. The influence of Diplomacy on Dungeons & Dragons is subtle, but not insignificant. In something of the same matter as Diplomacy, Dungeons & Dragons stipulates the existence of coalitions of players – that is, parties – but without in any way defining how players might ally and cooperate in a party.

Anyone interested in a more thorough examination of this topic should probably check out Peterson's book, which goes into far more detail than I ever could. Still, I think it's worth remembering that Gygax, Arneson, and their contemporaries were playing a wide variety of different wargames in the years leading up to the creation of D&D and all of them probably contributed in some way, often unconsciously, to the game that would ultimately be published in 1974.