Why not just play Middle-earth Play By Mail? It's a well established game that has an email and web interface now and has been going for decades. It isn't free, but it is worth the small turn cost.

Looks like a completely different experience, not at all like Diplomacy. You're implying the two games are inter-changeable, and I don't think that's true. Complexity and number of players seem very different, for example.

Yes, complexity and number of players are different. But stacked units and various racial/nation based powers are very different from diplomacy. And if you pls the Battle of Five Armies on MePBM then the number of players is more in line and the co.plexity becomes more in line. My main point is: Why invent a dip variant that is so radical as to be nearly unrecognizable as dip when we have a perfectly good strategy game already that includes stacked units and special characters?

It's still diplomacy at heart, same move and support rules that underpin the system. If you're not interested, that's fine.

I'm interested. I was just wanting to make sure you knew about MePBM if you're a Middle-earth fan. I'll read up from my laptop later.

I am interested but allow me some time to read up and digest the content.

Per my pm I'm also interested. Like Lukas, will need a little time to digest rules. Do we have anyone lined up for gm? If not, I'd possibly be willing to take the responsibility given enough time to digest and make sure I understand the rules.

OK, cool, looks like we have 6 out of 9 needed (8 players and a GM; 2 are from another forum). I was going to run it by email for lack of an obvious alternative, unless someone suggests a better way. If we manage to get enough players, I'll PM everyone.

drano: Currently I'm GM'ing it, although if we manage to get a second game out of this it'd be nice to play. :)

YouCan'tHandleTheTruth: Ah ok. Really I'm more of a Diplomacy fan than a LotR fan, so maybe that explains my preference. :)

Will the GM issues maps or do we need to print and track our own?

I'll make maps.

For example: http://i.imgur.com/OCdTDfO.png

With hidden units like Nazgul and Saruman, you're gonna have your hands full. I don't envy you but do look forward to playing.

Heh, yup. I'll have to be careful not to accidentally reveal anything.

Here's a summary of the special rules: http://pastebin.com/sZqNY1U0

It's not a replacement for reading the full rules, but it's a good refresher and reminder of stuff that can affect you, and an overview of what's in there.

bumping this for interest. From what i know, we still need 3 people.

Yup, need three more.

Just need two more now! Reply or PM if you're interested.

I am in if there is still room in Middle Earth.

There is! Just need one more player now.

Join and conquer Middle Earth!

Out of curiosity, can we get a list of who's interested?

Hmm, good thing you asked because I realized I counted Lukas Podolski twice. There's three from this site:

1. YouCan'tHandleTheTruth
2. Lukas Podolski
3. drano019
4-6. 3 more from other sites

So, two spots left.

Stirrings in the dark ... has the winds of change yet to be blowing in Middle-Earth?

We've been stuck on two open spots for a while, even after asking around in different places. If one day I manage to get more support for this somewhere, I'll definitely PM the people here who were interested.

I am not joining but saw the interesting game and some of the takes. The way things are highly automated on this website is VERY cool, please do not think I am about to disparage the way things are automated! But human moderated and mapped games can offer a LOT of interesting possibilities. The games will no doubt take longer while you wait for the GM to adjudicate and map and some variants take a lot more time than others. You WILL also have a few errors made by the GM, simply learn to expect them and hope they have little to no real effect on the game, keep your eyes peeled for mistakes and they can usually be fixed with ease.

Get over these minor inconveniences and you can see a whole new world of possibilities open before you! And if you like, I am CERTAIN you can use space on Redscape for posting the game results online. The two sites have many common players and they are not automated, here you are. The two sites really do not "compete" for players/members and are quite mutually beneficial. If you requested a forum slot you could post results that are easy to access by all, and if any become members there, they can post public global postings similar to the global postings here. Some games get very interesting when that aspect is used. (yet as here, they tend to start strong and fade over time)

Just an idea to consider
I mention this because I saw Drano had posted this opening on Redscape, maybe some there will jump on this opening?

and if you get to October and still need someone. I will join you then, but please start without me!

Thanks for the tip (and the conditional interest in playing!); Redscape has a decent forum, seems fairly active.

Organizing this game has made me lament how splintered the Diplomacy community is. There's so many different sites and forums, all with their ups and downsides. I can understand why it happens, especially with full press games where a sense of community helps with the quality of play and enjoyment, but man...

I do really like that vDiplomacy supports the enthousiastic development of automated map *and* rule variants.

I;m in! Will this be by email, or snail?

Great! It will be by email.

We may actually have the full 8 players now, I'm going to message everyone and confirm that everyone is still in. Here's who I have from vDiplomacy:

1. YouCan'tHandleTheTruth
2. Lukas Podolski
3. drano019
4. KingCyrus
5-8. 4 more from other sites
plus: Tomahaha after Oct (we may still need you if one of the original 8 is no longer interested or if we get a dropout later!)

Will we do teams? Good vs. Evil?

No it's a real Diplomacy game, everyone out for their own glory. Make sure you read the rules; Sauron (one of the powers) is a threat that constantly grows, until the ring is finally dropped in Mount Doom after 9 turns and is automatically eliminated.

For a summary of the rules see http://pastebin.com/sZqNY1U0 , but make sure you take a look at the full rules eventually: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/irene.rich/Gary/Diplomacy/Necromancer/rules.htm

There were a couple dropouts, real life intervening, so if you're interested in playing, please join us!

1. Lukas Podolski
2. drano019
3. KingCyrus
4-6. 3 more from other sites
(7: Tomahaha, after Oct. 1)

We need 8 total.