The Games
Blood Diamonds
Designer: Clark D. Rodeffer
Type: piecepack
Status: Free
BGG entry:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/27481
Available from:
http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/BloodDiamonds?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=BloodDiamonds.pdf
Equipment:
- one Six Pack (a complete playing cards piecepack plus the sun and moon suits from a conventional piecepack)
- an opaque bag
- one reference card for each player (included with the rules)
- the score track from the end of this ruleset
Contrary to popular belief, natural diamonds are not particularly rare. Elemental carbon is abundant in the earth’s crust, and the geological conditions necessary for the formation of diamonds are fairly common. In fact, raw diamonds might be as abundant in nature as gold, if somewhat more difficult to mine. So why are diamonds so valuable?
The truth is, the market value of diamonds has been artificially inflated by anti-competitive business practices. One particular company has a virtual monopoly on uncut diamond supplies in the developed world, and they exercise tight control over that supply, releasing uncut stones in a slow trickle. The market effect has been that the raw diamond distributor, the wholesale jewelers and retail jewelry stores can justify outrageous markups, often in excess of 1000%.
But the monopoly isn’t quite complete. Many of the most abundant diamond fields are in politically unstable countries along the west coast of Africa, in areas where rival factions aim to sell raw diamonds to fund weapons purchases. This went on unchecked for years, until some of the warlords tried to circumvent the monopoly in order to get higher prices for their uncut stones. Obviously, the monopoly didn’t want any new suppliers forcing their prices down, but due to the inherent danger of doing business in this war-torn region, cronies at the top considered squeezing the supply of west African diamonds by traditional economic means to be impractical at best. Unfortunately, instead of taking the high road of working with local governments to stabilize the region and put an end to the fighting, the monopoly took the more expedient low road of political propaganda. Pretending to actually care about the plight of west African people, some marketing genius coined the term “blood diamond.” Soon thereafter, the monopoly spread the word about how awful it would be for anyone to buy diamonds from these impoverished nations, implied that blood diamonds fund terrorist groups, and advertised that the only way to buy an untainted diamond is, you guessed it, to buy from the monopoly.
We, the sheeple, believed the propaganda. Economic sanctions were put into place to maintain the west African culture of violent poverty. The bloodshed continues to this day, and the faceless monopoly is at least as much to blame as the war-ravaged people, most of whom are struggling just to survive. Now every diamond bleeds, and nothing says “forever” like a blood diamond.
Well! Now that everyone is thoroughly angered, offended and horrified by these unpleasantries, even a mediocre game should seem delightful by comparison!
Goal: Blood Diamonds pits west African warlords against one another for control of rich diamond fields. Your goal is to acquire as many diamonds as you can and sell them for the highest profits.