I ran it past my game master friends (create mobile & board games for a living; also: very frequent conference speakers). Their full feedback is below, but the points I think are most interesting:
there is no removal step here that is rule defined, essentially you just need to be a brilliant orator and hope the other players don't want to be jerks and keep talking even after you've made a devastating comeback to their stupid question
this feels like it started by "hey we could adapt Werewolf to be about crowd control" not "hey can we use a game to teach crowd control?"
I think something better would be to perhaps have a speaker and then a room full of placeholder jerks…after everyone has had a go at being speaker, everyone can then discuss who did best and why…you also don't need EVERYONE to be a jerk/have a turn as speaker just enough so people can see some different approaches
[20:08:17] <@GameMasters> vmbrasseur: so what you've got there is VERY involved with lots of steps
[20:08:52] <@GameMasters> you also kinda loose the core aspect of Werewolf which is identifying the baddies so you can remove them
[20:08:57] <@vmbrasseur> I'm not sure how best to simplify it.
[20:09:04] <@vmbrasseur> Hm. Good point.
[20:09:10] <@GameMasters> there is no removal step here that is rule defined, essentially you just need to be a brilliant orator
[20:09:34] <@GameMasters> and hope the other players don't want to be jerks and keep talking even after you've made a devastating comeback to their stupid question
[20:10:24] <@vmbrasseur> Yeah.
[20:11:37] <@vmbrasseur> I may need to study this in depth tomorrow and think it through more than I have.
[20:11:53] <@vmbrasseur> Which I confess to be minimal, since I'm a little burned out from slide writing. :)
[20:12:16] <@GameMasters> this feels like it started by "hey we could adapt Werewolf to be about crowd control" not "hey can we use a game to teach crowd control?"
[20:12:47] <@vmbrasseur> I can't confirm that (I wasn't there when the rules were created), but that sounds right.
[20:14:26] <@vmbrasseur> I believe the idea started as, "So if one person is a speaker and some people are the jerks but you don't know who they are…Hey, that sounds kinda like werewolf, doesn't it?"
[20:15:29] vmbrasseur isn't writing the exercises. :)
[20:15:32] <@GameMasters> at a total guess, why not change it so there is one speaker, a few jerks, and everyone else is quiet
[20:15:54] <@GameMasters> the jerks have to try and control the flow against the speaker, the speaker has to try and control it back
[20:16:08] <@GameMasters> the quiet ones get to try and pick if someone is a jerk or not
[20:16:14] <@GameMasters> hmm, no that doesn't work either
[20:16:26] <@GameMasters> quiets have no reason to talk
[20:17:14] <@vmbrasseur> Right. Kinda against the idea of "quiets." :)
[20:17:34] <@GameMasters> yeah I don't think this concept can actually teach room control
[20:18:39] <@GameMasters> games rely on rules to structure the flow, bad audience members don't follow the rules of a room
[20:19:02] <@vmbrasseur> And this is why I ask game specialists.
[20:19:09] <@GameMasters> I think something better would be to perhaps have a speaker and then a room full of placeholder jerks
[20:19:19] <@vmbrasseur> That's a great point, but I never would have considered it when reviewing the rules.
[20:19:20] <@GameMasters> the jerks ask all jerky
[20:19:34] <@GameMasters> and this is essentially just up to the speaker to try and control it
[20:19:40] <@vmbrasseur> All the audience are jerks?
[20:19:44] <@GameMasters> sure
[20:19:46] <@vmbrasseur> That sounds kinda brutal.
[20:19:55] <@GameMasters> and it will never be that bad
[20:20:21] <@GameMasters> after everyone has had a go at being speaker, everyone can then discuss who did best and why
[20:20:48] <@vmbrasseur> Hm
[20:21:14] <@vmbrasseur> That may scale better than the original idea.
[20:21:35] <@GameMasters> you also don't need EVERYONE to be a jerk/have a turn as speaker
[20:21:44] <@GameMasters> just enough so people can see some different approaches
[20:21:45] <@vmbrasseur> A problem is we don't have any idea of how many to expect in the tutorial. It could be anywhere from 30 to 200.
[20:22:16] <@vmbrasseur> And only 2 of us to walk around & watch/guide.
[20:22:19] <@GameMasters> so you can scale it back to say 5 people get to speak and say 10 people have turns at being jerks
[20:22:46] <@GameMasters> first thing I think you need to do is list out EVERY bad audience member you can remember
[20:23:09] <@GameMasters> that way you can make sure you aren't overly focussed on something that doesn't really happen
[20:24:15] <@vmbrasseur> It looks like this commit includes some cards in a .odt file. I didn't see that until now.
[20:24:33] <@vmbrasseur> I think I'm too fried to think clearly about this right now. I'm making stupid mistakes.
[20:25:28] <@vmbrasseur> I've blocked off 2 hours to work on it tomorrow afternoon.
[20:26:12] <@vmbrasseur> Thanks so much for all the info, GameMasters. I'd not have thought of most of it.
[20:27:30] <@GameMasters> no worries
I ran it past my game master friends (create mobile & board games for a living; also: very frequent conference speakers). Their full feedback is below, but the points I think are most interesting: