Talk:Slobbovia

Legacy
The claim that the meme of crottled greeps originated in Slobbovia had bothered me for a little while; I remembered seeing reference to it elsewhere in SF fandom. It in fact predates Slobbovia by some years: Dean Grennell's fanzine FILLER in 1953, in which in issue #378 we find the question "But if you don't like crottled greeps, what did you order them for?" MarkVolundNYC 10:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I am fairly certain that "crottled greeps" migrated into Slobbovia, rather than directly out of it. They appeared in a variety of places in the Diplomacy hobby, which had strong ties to the science fiction fan community. A quick perusal of the internet reveals references that predate Slobbovia.

On the subject of the origins of the actual Zhurnal's early years, I once had a letter from one of the original players (James Ritchie) that outlined it, but it is lost in time (or perhaps buried in my box of Zhurnals, which I have begun to poke through again). If any of the players can clean up the area on that, please do so (it is flatly credited to Charles Sharp at the moment). BCNU - Two-Tonic Knight 21:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

My high school age students today drew my attention to this article. I confess I haven't thought much about Slobbovia since 1982 and I was astonished to see the following it had developed. I've added a few details in keeping with the general article, which I thought was very good. The game began as a joke at a Scout Camp on Turtle Mountain on May 24, 1969. Venturers (hence Venturia) are the teenage level of Scouts in Canada. That strong connection to the Scouts, led to the transfer of the game to a canoe-based clash on a real lake (5 miles by 1 mile). (The early power-brokers tended to be the guys who owned the canoes.) Then came wrestling matches on land for "territory". The transfer to a Diplomacy rule base was led by Roger Nelson, and through postal Diplomacy we were introduced to people such as John Leeder and Conrad von Metzke who encouraged the development of Slobinpolit Zhurnal. I've also added a detail about our last live battle as "hyperactive teenagers" which involved a real motorcycle and two horses. Obviously the game had got to a point where someone was going to get hurt if we didn't convert to an abstract gaming system of some kind. The suggestion of a Diplomacy variant lent itself well because the rules were very simple. It's correct that Dungeons and Dragons had not appeared yet, but we had been exposed to roleplaying in History class in the form of "Dangerous Parallels", a simulation of the Korean War Crisis which was promoted as a teaching aid by the United Nations Association. The open ended aspect of the Slobbovia game was already present in the real-time face-to-face version. When our first age-cohort left high school for university in the mid-seventies the Zhurnal expanded in importance and improved in look, but was still a spirit duplicator or sometimes Gestetner product. This was the situation when the game was introduced to others at the Toronto sci-fi convention. A little later around the time I could no longer support the Zhurnal, John Carroll at Penn State College brought Charlie Sharp into it. Sharp was as I recall manager of the book store and so had access to good copying equipment. So, while Charlie Sharp did not create the game structure or the Zhurnal, he is really responsible for evolving both into something that other people could play. Otherwise it would have never got passed being an geek-crowd thing at a handful of rural Manitoba rural high schools. J. Ritchie, May 25, 2009

This contains some additional detail that was not in your letter to me (oh, so long ago now). I don't know the name of the Korean War political simulation that my history class participated in Junior High (1967 or 68 for me), but as I recall, there was something like five factions with conflicting political agendas, and a group of students had various titles within each faction (the names of the countries were changed, but most of us figured out that it was about the Korean war). For me getting involved in Slobbovia: it was a plug in Von Metzke's Costaguana Diplomacy 'zine for the Zhurnal. I had been a enthusiastic indulger in "press releases" and enjoyed the creativity of it, and a game that was actually dedicated to it! Well, that was for me! It would seem that my collection started with Sharp's first issue - I do not have any of the earlier non-Sharp issues. I just randomly typed in Slobbovia in some search engine somewhere and discovered this page - it seemed to need some love and attention at the time. I have had plans to write some short stories on put them on a web-site, but haven't had the opportunity yet (though I'm actually noting down story ideas, so it may still happen). Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 18:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've edited the article to more accurately reflect the role of crottled greeps, among other things. It would be interesting to know which of the players actually introduced them; they were already well established in Slobbovian "reality" when I joined. MarkVolundNYC 19:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall it as John Leeder, publisher of the Canadian Diplomacy 'zine, Runestone. But perhaps they predate the earliest copies of the Zhurnal that I have (which only go back to the mid 20's). Further, it can be rather cryptic at times figuring out who wrote what. Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 18:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree that John Leeder probably deserves the credit for crottled greeps (and for many other things,) but whether he pulled it from another source or not I don't know. The term "greeps" as I recall was already in the game -- a common nonsense word but had little meaning other than something faintly insectoid that would be eaten. The whole "crottling" idea, and the migration of the greep from animal to vegetable to mineral were contributions made by the players who joined after the "Torcon" World Science Fiction convention in Toronto in 1973. That's where the game initially spread from the original rural Manitoba high school age group to a new milieu of science fiction/gaming fans. I cannot be absolutely sure about all those references of course, because other people from the high school/teenager phase may well have read a term in a science fiction story and then pulled it in. Certainly I did, and I know that others were science fiction readers besides myself. "Cronk" by the way was taken from an actual surname in our community which we thought (rather unfairly to the real family of that name) was hilarious. The attributes of the critter should not be ascribed to the family. A lot of detail about cronks were added when our Biology teacher contributed his own parody article "A Field Guide to Cronks." J. Ritchie, May 25, 2009

Irreverency and relevance
I've restored a phrase in the section "Holy Sativan Church" which had been deleted: "(it is left to the imagination on how he is mounted, keeping in mind he was known as Tostig the Perverted)" I will grant that some (including, possibly, the contributor who deleted the phrase) may consider it to be in dubious taste. However, it does accurately reflect the atmosphere in which the game was played and the mindset of many of the players, many of whom were young men of college age or slightly older.-MarkVolundNYC (talk)

I was of two minds about restoring what I typed originally regarding Tostig the Perverted (which you went ahead and did). I try to exercise a reasonable amount of descretion but still convey at least the intent of the original game. Thus, when someone absolutely came out with a more exact translation of "Fecundar Strakh" (even with asterisks, it was pretty obvious which four letter anglo-saxon invective for sexual intercourse was involved), I toned it down to "something rather more obscene". Similiarly, how does one convey Tostig the Perverted without at least some kind of implication of the "pose" for the statue? Implied but not graphically detailed. The overall thrust of the "strakh" was humor, and hopefully that is what is being conveyed here, even when it gets risque. Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 02:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I still think it was a funny line about Tostig's statue. J. Ritchie, May 25, 2009

Military Ranks
I added a couple of specific military titles to the warfare section. All I could dredge to mind were Oberhorc and Unterflunky, two terms that were in general use. There were some more specific listings of ranks for given countries, but I haven't bothered to look them up. Title unique to Slobbovia were what I was looking to add more than Vurklemyerian lists. Let me add in here: perhaps the title of the section should be "Military and Warfare".Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 02:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There was an NCO rank, Grundjerk. I know the Novarians used them. Of course, the Novarians had the uniform sense of the pre-1940 Soviet Army and the military competence of the Battle of Adowa Castrati Choir.GABaker (talk) 04:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with the first comment - I've gone ahead and changed the section title (plus added a bunch of links).MarkVolundNYC (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Other Nations
I decided to start this new section because the Empire simply was NOT all that was important on the board. As stated, I think it should be limited to those that were of fairly long standing (including intermittent occurrences over a major chunk of the game's life, such as Rabbitania or Valgoria) or generated a fair amount of strakh from multiple players ... or both. (Notice the absence of Barataria; but perhaps Phumpha should be mentioned?) If it's going to be more comprehensive, it probably should be hived off into a separate article. My blurbs on Rabbitania and Valgoria are from memory plus what old material I could refer to. I may eventually take a crack at SoC, unless someone else beats me to it, but somebody with a longer history than I should attempt Venturia/Triarchy and Jamul.MarkVolundNYC (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely right, the Empire was a main theme, but so too was revolt, or even indifference. There were always competitors, Rabbitania for one never acknowledged the Empire as superior. The first Triarchy and the complicated rules of polyandry and polygamy came about because we had several girls in the Venturer group, and some of them began playing, bringing in their friends. The girls were not interested in our physical battles, but they were interested in playing dynastic politics! In fact, it was the girls who introduced the families as an important playing element. The second Emperor, Breht the Barbarian thought it'd be cool to have a harem -- the two Boleski sisters. They and their buddies countered this with the new "ancient custom" of anyone having five husbands or five wives, and that led to the ridiculously complicated family trees. I went along with as a teenager for the simple reason that 'hey, we had girls playing in the game. I gotta admit, it changed it from head-bashing to political. Breht's bright idea of having a harem led to the usurpation of power by the Boleskis. J. Ritchie, May 25, 2009


 * There ya go, I made the initial attempt at Venturia and the Triarchy. It of course lacks depth, but I hope gives some overview/flavor of a part of the game that engaged a very significant portion of the board and of the players. MarkVolundNYC (talk) 17:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I also corrected what I wrote about Valgoria. I had conflated Zhebatinsky's attempted usurpation (which Raoul the Rude has opportunistically tried to turn into the "War of the Valgorian Succession") with the later mess which included Vasili's revolt/crusade, Chekov's being revealed as a Satinist and the Gorean incursion. MarkVolundNYC (talk) 14:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I filled in Jamul - I swear half the fun is finding obscure things to hyperlink to - but I was always peripheral to Venturia, which was more the domain of the original Canadians. Perhaps the title of the section should be Major Powers and combined with the seperate one for the Slobbovian Empire. Upon sleeping on it, I now seem to recall that one of my characters was a Triarch Minor in the Triarchy, though for the life of me I couldn't explain it. Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 05:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I seem to recall that, it being around the point when I joined the game or a little before. Ra-Man the Rotten was Czar; Dimitri Valgoricanus was Prinz of Venturia (until he abdicated to Nikolai), and was nominally co-Czar, but really wasn't (depending on who you asked); Julian B-V was Triarch Major. And your character of Jurgen was also a Triarch Minor, opposed by Ivan Dragomilov and his Dreadites and I think also the Tarnkaps and their Pseudowikings, who represented Ra-Man's interests in that part of the south. (It is amazing and scary just how much of this I remember ... ) MarkVolundNYC (talk) 15:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * In fact, Jurgen made specific mention of having been a Triarch Minor in the strakh release detailing the Imperial election that brought Aleksandr Illanov-Rabinsky to the throne, when he cast his own vote for Constance Dmetrievna Vurklemeyer (something about standing up for or sticking together with a fellow Triarch). MarkVolundNYC (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You remember it all better than I do - I wrote the Triptych Demon and I remembered the right head as being Alfred Aardvark, and yet glancing through issue 97 I see it is Krypton Chandrashankar (the beginning of the quest for St. Jethro Aqualung's Magic Flute - ahhhhh, that was the lost storyline!). Anyway, I just found my original Fourth Imperial Survey Map! I'll have to photograph it and upload it somewhere (I suppose I'll have to check the rules for images and hosting for Wikipedia). Oooooo, and all my other illustrations for Slobbovia, too! Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 16:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That actually makes sense; how could Alfred Aardvark remain Slobbovia's eternal bogeyman if his fate was known to be dying and becoming merely part of a demon (no matter how powerful)? As for the illustrations, as artist I'd assume you have the rights to those, right? Would that include the map? Lastly, I wonder if a Fourth Survey map could be manipulated to reflect the extent of the board at the point of each earlier survey (or at least the 3rd, which is known to most contributors here)? MarkVolundNYC (talk) 16:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, while I own the actual original illustration, the rights to reproduce the map are held collectively by APA-Slobbovia, and thus any and all of the publishing members are free to post it anywhere they like (it would be nice if they left my name on it). The other illustrations that I drew I would prefer that people ask me for permission before posting them anywhere - if Greg wanted to retrofit my illustrations for his article from Different Worlds, I would not mind that at all (beyond noting I did them, I hold the copyright, and that no one else has said permission without asking me).Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 07:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Somewhere in my library are all the later copies of the Zhurnal up to the end, and perhaps a map of Slobbovia. If I can find them and scan them in, it would be worth it.GABaker (talk) 17:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I also have the later (perhaps up to the last?) issues of the Zhurnal, from when I joined (in the middle of Ra-Man's reign). Lipton had also been kind enough, back in the day, to give me photocopies of the Sharp issues (and maybe some of the early Apa-Slobbovia issues? Have to look.) The problem with a lot of the material is, of course, that it's on twilltone ... MarkVolundNYC (talk) 15:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

My students forced me with a gun to my head to get out my archives. I found that I have photocopies Roger Nelson sent me from issue 3 with a few skips to the 20s, and then it's intermittent up to issue 100. My collection ends at 107, so I don't think I ever saw 108 and 109. I also found a bunch of notes, half finished stories, colour drawings, annotated maps, and even another installment of Curt Shoulz's comic "Unlikely Tales" which I never submitted and therefore were never published. One of the stories is a Sherlock Cholmskyh collaborative story, it being my turn to add to it. I also have photographs of impromptu costumes we wore during the live-wrestling canoe-battle phase of the game. There's a nice one of Alfred Aardvark and his cronies beating me to death with a pluglunk. Sorry I missed the deadline by over 25 years. J. Ritchie, May 25, 20009

End of the Great Ice Age?
I was wearing black pants, black shirt, and a black leather jacket when I wrote that. :-) Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 17:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Great Families
Okay, whoever wrote this section originally had it as 2 Czars and a Grund Patriarch. Costikyan's article, cited in the outside links, has it as 1 of each. I'm wondering whether anybody who has contributed here who was a player has a better memory. Some of the older examples of what were referred to as Great Families seem not to have fulfilled either criterion. For example, the Boleskis were universally regarded as a Great Family: they had 3 Czars/Czarinas (Mo'reen, Janun and Egor the Fink) but none of the prominent Churchmen in that family (Guru Guy, Cardinal Justinian) ever became G.P. MarkVolundNYC (talk) 17:17, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

It was simply a convention that was under discussion between Bob Lipton and myself. First and foremost, there is no "rule" for strakhish positions other than that which the players themselves accept. Some people tried to impose their will on those kind of things at various points of time, some with less success than others. A "Great Family" properly is one that brought a great deal of Strakh to the game itself. Old and venerated families (basically players who had been there for a long time such as Ritchie) qualified regardless of what positions they may have held - they had defined the game.

However, for newer players to achieve this goal, how does one determine this beyond acclaimation (which is really the only thing that counts)? Bob's idea (as I recall it) was for one czar and one grand patriarch within the family. I thought that too easy to achieve. Anyone could be Czar - once! Being allowed back in with another character was a better test of strakh and staying power, or so I felt. Grund Patriarch is a more difficult proposition in that you could effectively be it simultaneously with another (non-player) character. It was much more a position that could be controlled by a single player rather than require the support of a number of players. I could see "great family" mills with rotating trades just to achieve it. Which would not be strakhful at all - the danger in providing any hard and fast definition immediately opens it to abuse from the "strumph-mad" and would ultimately be self-defeating for a title meant to reward superior strakh. So my concept was the two plus one, and even then, I felt they could never actually claim it, it had to be bestowed. It's kind of like a pilot claiming that they had the "right stuff" - it's just a tacky thing to do.

So, what got typed up was the one that actually happened - the Zhukovski's were the last to become a great family, and they had two czars and a grund patriach. Simply put, I don't accept that the Zhukovski's were a great family until Tostig was Czar, so I think my opinion is ultimately the defining one, with all due respect to Bob. Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 07:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely right, there was no rule. It was really based on strakh. J. Ritchie, May 25, 2009

Yes on both counts. There was a convention, and then there was a basis in strakh and consensus. I've edited the passage to reflect that. As an aside, it seems that there were several Great (and near-Great) Families that had sunk into obscurity. For example, whatever happened to the Strakenviches? The Gregovitches? MarkVolundNYC (talk) 20:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

In Universe/Overly Complex
I'd never heard of Slobbovia before now, much less ever played it, but this article was very confusing. The rules section on differences from conventional diplomacy was fine, but as it got into strumph and strakh and then descriptions of the obscure politics of imaginary nations in an already obscure board game? I was just confused. Is there any way someone could tone down the level of "in universe" description so that it means something to a non-player? Tiger Khan (talk) 14:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I played the game for a decade and I'm confused - you don't need to feel special about it.

Wait! That was an "in universe" approach.

But then, that's probably the best way to explain it - Slobbovia was about a state of mind. Achieving that state of mind (an aspect of "strakh") was the end goal. It wasn't to win (an aspect of "strumph") - heck, there was no way to win the game. In that state of mind, nothing was a disadvantage - everything was simply an opportunity. It's kinda like trying to explain zen. There's no easy way to do it. If it was easy, what would the point be?

From a more prosaic viewpoint, it is simply a shared world, detailed by a collective mind that pulls simultaneously in every direction, rather than under the control of a single coherent mind such as Tolkien. It is at its core, refined chaos. The game is there merely to add structure and give everything a mutual reference point. When you come down to it, it was just an excuse to write amusing stories.Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 05:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Still, I think that there are much better ways to describe that "state of mind" than by chronicling all of the obscure religious/political/etc. aspects of Slobbovia. This article could really be simplified and I don't think it would lose anything. Wikipedia isn't a dumping ground for all of the aspect of something: it's about explaining something in a coherent, concise way. This article explains very little in a way that is distinctly neither coherent nor concise. Tiger Khan (talk) 00:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Numerous entries within Wikipedia contain plot synopsis of movies, books, and plays. This isn't any different, beyond that it is covering numerous story lines. However, at a certain point some times an entry is better off broken down into supporting entires so that the main body isn't so cluttered, and I think that we are approaching (or surpassed) that point.

As to "state of mind", that was only one aspect of the game. Stating that the other parts don't always support such is true - that's not their point. Yes, it is a lot to digest, but my 17 year old son could figure it all out based solely on what was written, so I don't think it is as incoherent as you suggest.Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 19:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

As per your request, Tiger, I added a needed expansion on the term "Strumph" that I realized was missing. Hopefully it's meaning is now clear. Fecundar Strakh, as we Jamulians like to say. Two-Tonic Knight (talk) 04:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm hoping that the short bit I added under "The Never-Ending Game" might also help explain things a little, at least re the mindset of the players. Nersh skivosk, as we Venturians are wont to say (at least at home) ... MarkVolundNYC (talk) 19:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

A couple of things about the "state of mind" and the "never-ending game" aspects, from the guy who was there at the beginning. What's been said about "strakh" is quite correct. It was taken from Jack Vance's story "The Moon Moth", which you should probably read if you're curious about the antecedents of this idea. In Vance story, strakh is the currency used. If you had greater strakh than me, then my strakh increased by my giving you something (as opposed to selling it.) In turn, my increased strakh would give me greater currency to use elsewhere. J.D. Webster (the player who originally invented the language after a theatre workshop) said "Mit Strakh merst Strumph, Mit Strumph merst Moshstruk" which he translated as "With cultural and spiritual prestige comes physical strength, which (in combination) brings practical power." Well, that's more or less what he claimed he'd said. Who could tell? So strakh was really what others thought of you -- a kind of "cool". Webster introduced strumph as a countervail, the other side of the coin, but definitely an inferior principal among the elite. So the idea of conflicting claims and realities was always there from the very beginning. Strakh, the consensus of one's peers, determined what lasted and what didn't, what was "real" versus what was ultimately judged to be illusionary.

Turning to the "never ending game" aspect, from the beginning the game was viewed a parody of real life, not intentionally a simulation. It was an excuse to tell jokes, to make puns, and to try sink each other or bash the other guy. It's pretty hard to control territory on a lake, so there was always the possibility of a comeback. The game also became an extension of our interests as students (a trend carried over into the play-by-mail versions later.) My interest was history primarily. Some of the other guys were interested in religion so they invented the various churches. As I said earlier, the girls playing the game invented dynastic politics. When we converted the game to Diplomacy based rules, it was a given that we didn't want a rule condition to apply which would create a "victory" and terminate the game. We actually had a meeting in the high school of all the active players (about 15-20 showed up as I recall) to discuss how to convert the game, at which Nelson and I laid out the Diplomacy rule proposal. The interesting thing was that because there was no way to win the game, only build or lose power, the game had become a more accurate simulation of historical process than were most so-called historical simulations. Empires really did rise and fall in the Slobbovia game. Diasporas happened, so too did Renaissances and civilizations could become "lost" and so on. I still use games today to teach history, although none so elaborate as Slobbovia, and usually much more structured for a limited duration. The lasting relevance of such games is that the participants learn without even realizing that they are learning. J. Ritchie, May 25, 2009


 * I think the original point, though, is a fairly relevant one--I stumbled onto this page from Al Capp's biography page, and cannot help but notice that this page is longer. Like, I understand that even though this article may seem confusingly unimportant to the average reader, that it does have historical value--but seriously, it is way, way, way too long.  There are countless real nations with shorter entries. 97.113.109.44 (talk) 17:54, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Cited Sources
Sources are given within the article, but none are listed at the bottom of the page, nor are there any concrete examples of maps, articles, or format for any of these anecdotes. A fuller examination of the rules or an adjuncation map would liven up this article considerably. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.156.95.226 (talk) 05:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Maps and Rules
I added a composite of the best maps I could find through WorldCat, however these are from issue #69 and do not contain the final map expansions. Could someone look in their personal collection and upload a more recent version of the map? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Triskelli (talk • contribs) 01:12, 21 January 2014 (UTC)