What is a Draft Game?
You, optionally with a partner, will sign up and randomly receive a slot in the draft order. Each time it is your turn, you will draft one item -- in this case, a country (UN member state). You can't draft the same country as someone else. Once the draft is complete, players and spectators (bona fide POG members) will vote for whoever's total selections are best.
What is the theme for this draft?
You will be setting up an imaginary food festival which begins the evening before a four-day holiday weekend. Visitors will pay a single entry fee to get access to unlimited food and beverage for the entire weekend. Each country that you draft will receive a tent in the festival grounds. Several qualified native (and multilingual) cooks will prepare a variety of dishes that are commonly associated with their country. This may include breakfast items, main courses, sides, desserts, cocktails, and anything else that you can think of. All native fruits and other ingredients will be available. Beer, wine, coffee, tea, etc may be imported as well if it's culturally significant. The quality of the facilities will be adequate for all types of cooking, and the food will be similar to that of an above-average restaurant in the native country. (Extra charges apply for premium-brand alcohol. Sorry.) Portions will be small so that visitors can sample as much as possible. As the event manager, you may discuss your ideas with the cooks, but ultimately they are free to make their own decisions about how to best represent their countries. Generic entertainment will be provided so that people stay throughout the duration of the festival.
How do I win?
You must convince other people to vote for your festival as the one that they would most like to have in their hometown. (With the demographics of this forum, you might struggle to convince people to go to a festival full of American, Canadian, and British cuisine. Just food for thought.) If you sign up for this game, you are expected to post a writeup for each individual selection at the time that you make it, or at least by the end of the day. At the end of the draft you are expected to make a final writeup which ties together all of your selections. You'll want to convince people that not only will you have good food, but also that the different offerings complement each other. You are not limited in the arguments that you make: you can use your own judgement about which foods and drinks qualify as "commonly associated" with your countries. However, you don't have direct control over the cooks who will be doing the actual preparations, so voters may be wary of players who stretch the limits, and they will be allowed to share those feelings in the thread prior to the voting.
What are the rules and other details?
All of the rules (or at least most of them) are open to debate. To kick things off, I'll start with the following proposals:
- Size: 10 players with 8 rounds (80 total selections out of 193 possibilities)
- Draft Order: Snake (ABABABAB - top to bottom, bottom to top, repeat). If people think that #1 in the order has too big of an advantage, then we can do ABBABABA, but my instinct is that it's not necessary for this game.
- Research: Allowed and encouraged. (How else will you include pictures in your writeups? Hint hint.)
- Trades: You are allowed to trade future picks as well as countries you've already drafted. It's allowable to end up with a different number of total picks as a result. (Variety is the spice of life.) You are allowed to discuss trades by private message or in the draft thread. It is assumed that all trades are being made in good faith. Voters may be unimpressed if two friends make a clearly lopsided deal.
- Time limits: I don't remember what is standard. Let's say a six hour clock, and each player can also set a fixed six hour sleep period where it pauses for them. Each player's sleep period would be posted in the OP for quick reference. (Is that too complicated?) If the clock runs out, you are skipped. You don't lose your pick, and you can make it as soon as you return, but someone behind you may draft the country you had in mind. To prevent this from happening, send your pick by private message to the person behind you so that they may post it for you if you know that you will not be around when it's likely to be your turn. You're expected to be ready when it is your turn as much as possible to keep the game moving along. If you have a partner, your team is expected to make a selection when either member comes online.
- Voting: All players are required to submit a ballot. To avoid ethical dilemmas, players will omit themselves on their own ballot. Spectators may vote. It is not permissible for players to contact non-players to ask them to vote, or to try in any way to influence the voting by any means other than through posts in the draft thread. Votes from spectators will only be counted if they are from bona fide POG members, at the discretion of the game mod. To vote, rank each entry (except your own) from best to worst. Assuming 10 players, first place will receive 9 points and each subsequent place will receive one point fewer. Voting will be done by private message and ballots will remain private. Players are expected to vote in good faith rather than try to sabotage the strongest competitors.
- Undrafted countries: Players and spectators may not mention any countries yet to be drafted. This includes conversations made by private message to discuss trades. Granted, we have a closed set of possible draft items, so this is less of a concern than in most draft games, but I think it's best to keep the rule in place anyway.
- Placeholder: Because I probably didn't remember everything.
Who is in charge?
My intention is to run this game myself as a non-player. That could change if the game needs an additional player.
How do I sign up?
Post in this thread to sign up, and please also comment on any aspects of the rules and setup that you have thoughts on.