Thinking about a casual, instructional game format

[President Eden]

I had an idea of starting a private game (in my mind, gunboat, but could be any format) with vetted 'good' players, and then allowing any number of people to 'follow' a player as (s)he plays through the game.

Say "good" players ABCDEFG are playing a Classic game.
Players HIJK are interested in getting to see a "good" player's game, "under-the-hood" as it were. H "follows" A, I follows C, J&K both follow F. (we'll say there was no more interest and B, D, E, and G have no followers)

Player A sets up a PM/QuickTopic/etc. with H. C with I, F with J&K together.
In it, A, C, F each post their running thoughts on a turn-by-turn basis. As H, I, J, K see fit, they ask questions and discuss those running thoughts to try to understand the thought process of their chosen "good" player.

I see it as being a 'reverse' SoW: the more experienced person is doing the playing, and is also doing a mini-"professor" commentary on just their particular position and concerns, and the less experienced people chime in as they see fit.
The advantage vis-a-vis SoW is that it takes less commitment from the people trying to learn, and potentially can cover more advanced concepts, since the players are all experienced. Ideal for the player who perhaps has moved too far up the ladder to gain much from participating in SoW, but still wants to learn from people they consider to be stronger players; or also for the player who would love to do a SoW-style game, but can't commit the time and effort to actually playing and keeping up with a mentor's advice all the while.
The disadvantage is that it is quite a commitment on the player side. I would expect the level of effort needed to be comparable to writing a detailed EoG (and doing it as you play, not just recollecting everything at the end) plus actively conversing about the game with your followers.

So far, I can tell that a person should only be able to follow one player per game (to avoid accidental or, heaven forbid, deliberate cross-conversation knowledge leaks), and the player should probably have some control over their list of followers (capping a maximum total number for instance). I'd also want a mod to go over the finished process before starting a game like this, to remain within all other site rules.

Would there be any interest in a game like this?

[Claesar]

I'd be very interested to follow!

[Octavious]

That's dangerous. My diplomacy reputation (as much as I have one) has been manufactured almost entirely by pretending that what actually happened was what I intended all along. Telling an attentive audience what's actually going through my mind in real time will put the kibosh on that good and proper.

I take it there won't be a peanut gallery? There's nothing like a peanut gallery for making a game go to pot.

[President Eden]

That's dangerous. My diplomacy reputation (as much as I have one) has been manufactured almost entirely by pretending that what actually happened was what I intended all along. Telling an attentive audience what's actually going through my mind in real time will put the kibosh on that good and proper.

I take it there won't be a peanut gallery? There's nothing like a peanut gallery for making a game go to pot.

I like the idea of a peanut gallery, and perhaps a commentator to guide that thread. I would need to figure out to what extent players and followers should be able to participate in the thread though.
For instance, having players stay out of it makes a lot of sense to me intuitively, but should the followers (who are privately getting unique insights into a particular player's thought process and decision-making) be allowed to talk in it? They might inadvertently leak something that shouldn't be made public. I would think they shouldn't, on that basis... but then who would be participating?

[ziran]

i'd love to be a follower.

[Octavious]

Well, I couldn't take part in a gunboat game unless you'd want the followers treated to persistent mild cursing and exclamations of confusion. I could potentially sign up to a full press game, but I'm very much against any public commentary. Perhaps it's worth putting the comments to the followers in the notes tab, and publishing all comms including commentary to followers after the game for whoever wants to read them.

[Yoyoyozo]

I could play, and I'm sure if you PM a few of the other highly rated gunboat players, they'd be interested as well, as long as it's unranked.

[TheJok3r]

I like this idea in concept but it obviously has multiple dangers that you've already alluded to in your post. I think all of these games would have to be Unranked by default mostly because of how easy it would be to corrupt these games. I also think there should be very strict punishments for players who corrupt them. Anybody following a player in this style of game should know the information they are privy to is highly confidential.

[Octavious]

There are far too many unranked games these days. We're getting to the stage where ranking will grind to a halt if we're not careful!

I think we run the risk of over exaggerating the dangers. It's a game iin the spotlight, and it would be between 7 well thought of players. It's about as low risk ad you can get.

[President Eden]

I don't mind unranked for this as it's meant to be an instructional game. My hope is that the players selected to play will give it their all because of the nature of the game, and won't need a ranking incentive to do it.

Octavious sold me on no public commentary. If people see a particularly compelling reason to have it, I'm listening, but right now I'm off it.

For variant/format, I'm going to send out some feelers in PM for a gunboat game over the next couple of days. I'm open to setting up a full press game as well if there's interest in that.

I'll start Follower signups now. If you want to be a Player and haven't received a PM yet, feel free to reach out.

Gunboat Followers:
1.
2.
3.
<...>

I'm not going to set a signup cap on followers for now. Rather, as part of signing up to play, each Player will submit their own individual cap on the number of Followers they want to take with them in the game. I think a lower cap probably will entail higher-quality communication (since there are fewer people dividing the Player's attention), but at the same time, I do want to encourage higher caps so that no one is left behind.
I may not actually end up playing (depending on how many qualified players want in), but if I play, I will not have a cap personally, so everyone will get paired with somebody (even if you end up in a big room with little ole me).

[Claesar]

Gunboat Followers:
1. Claesar
2. Ziran
3.

[swordsman3003]

I am interested in this project. I would be willing to walk other players through my game.

I don't think the game has to be unranked necessarily; I would trust the actual players in the game not to cheat. Already have to do that anyways.

[ziran]

bump

[President Eden]

Sorry for my neglect on this. I'm tied up with more games than I should have signed up for + some IRL things. "Luckily" I'm not doing well and will have a considerably freer schedule after some merciful eliminations in the next week :) :|

I have a couple of very good players who were interested in doing this. If we want to get the ball rolling on this now then I'll turn over the organizing to someone who has room on their plate to get it done. If I don't have a volunteer or people don't mind waiting then I can revisit this in a week or so.
Sorry again for the delay.