So the only good games of diplomacy I’ve had were with other strategy gamers, where there was no pity or misunderstanding - we all wanted to win. The game is naturally self balancing in a sense, weaker players have some utility so they tend to get strung along as puppet states. By the end of the game, we just respect what likely crazy shenanigans the winner pulled, then go eat together and dissect.

That said, I’ve been roped into diplomacy games with RPG groups, which tend to go south long before any real double-crossing occurs. After about two turns, someone is already dead, people are realising there’s another 7 hours of doing the same thing over and over, and the game gets abandoned.

If you want to strengthen friendships with games it’s important to pick the right games. Playing diplomacy at work would… not be a great idea. It would be like suggesting murder-and-incest-sim CK3 over a family zoom call.