Interest Check: Mentor Challenge

[IronJelly]

If i understand the purpose of this forum, it's for organizing challenges and events, right? Well, I have an idea for one...

Ok, so there are a number of players who visit the Tavern, and have never won a game (i'm one of them, having only ever gotten one rune once). I'm curious if there would be enough people here who would be interested in a Mentor Challenge (i would need both mentors and Players who have never won a game on the servers both to sign up) to make Mentor and Trainee teams working together to get the Trainee a win.

Basically, Players and Mentors would be paired up randomly before the start, and free to do mentoring however they like (so it's ok to watch live and give immediate advice, but so is email if either participant is often busy).

The winning team is the first to have the Trainee escape with the orb, using the the Challenge Combo (announced right before start so it can't be practiced with definitively), that started the game after the competition began.

This is just an interest check. Discussion can also be had on rules (should there be a minimum or maximum allowed amount of contact between teammates? can we check in some way to be sure someone who has won isn't competing? Should there be minor achievements? etc.). But please post here if this is something you would be interested in, and as a non-winning player, or as a mentor.

I don't know anything about the mechanic of actually tracking games played, but I can do the organization work outside the mechanics (randomizing teams, organizing play reports, picking a combo, etc.).

//and of course, if this topic doesn't belong here, sorry.

[ackack]

The winning team is the first to have the Trainee escape with the orb, using the the Challenge Combo (announced right before start so it can't be practiced with definitively), that started the game after the competition began.

First should be games taken, not time; this makes the competition less sensitive to who has the most time available.

[IronJelly]

oooh, i like that! Winner is the team that wins with the least number of deaths using the combo after the start time.

[WalkerBoh]

I love this idea but don't know if I'd run it as a competition. The true competition, after all, is the trainee trying to beat the game. To me this would work best as a feature in Dungeon Crawling Advice where players can ask for a "mentor" to help them through the character/goals of their choice.

I think this happens quite naturally anyways, but having an organized place for it would also be a good idea.

[IronJelly]

I disagree. Sure, nothing stops someone from asking for help in the forums, but as a competition, you have both players and mentors with a vested interest, an obvious timeline of games to compare (maybe it's possible to document effective mentor tips or ways to train someone), and the PCs are all going to be the same combo.

This opens the avenue for learning by competition. Who will be first to get a rune? First to enter Zot? First to kill some unique that only occurs at a high depth? This gives the same concept of "asking for help" and applies rules and structure to it.

[WalkerBoh]

Fair points. I wouldn't mind being a mentor, for what it's worth.

[mopl]

I find that's the idea is pretty cool.

I already was the mentor of my brother I wanted to initiate to Crawl (BlessedChild) and used to advice while spectating his games.
It was sometimes hard for me to let him take bad decisions. Indeed, I decided not to warn him about situations he already encountered before and was already told about : ie, when reaching Lair, if he decided to run into a pack of death yacks (who killed him at least once previously), I let him do... Because I think it's part of the Crawl self-improvement.
I didn't want to become the player, and him to be a key-presser-robot !
He played almost only DrAK and CeHu. He finally got a win with a MiFi, and I felt really proud !
Now he's back to CeHu and does pretty well, I still am a mentor :p

I sometimes do the same with a player nemed miro, who wants to play only spellcasters (DE/HE-Wz). That's quite hard but I hope he gets a win soon

To summarize, I think that doing it as a competition could induce the mentor to become the player, and the trainee a zombie !! One again, I hated let my brother die, but I'm convinced it was the right choice. Today he's able to say : "Rupert, I've no MR, he can paralize me, I go away" instead of "let's try to get a bunch of XP"

[treerex5]

I'd like to be in, but only on webtiles, and not as a mentor.

[khalil]

I'd love this, cuz I suck at this game.

[Lasty]

Can Tim Gunn be my mentor?

[Guppyfry]

I'd consider being a mentor for beginners looking for a regular win (and I'd like to be a trainee for extended, I can't seem to get a 15-runer)

[tasonir]

I'd be happy to train, my only issue would be scheduling, I don't have much free time as of late. But if the trainee has a flexible schedule it could work