In school I am often referred to as KOOL MC, but I played the variant once and did not like it, sorry :P

Fair enough. Why didn't you enjoy it?

because i could find no way to really use the grey press feature...

I played once and the only way it's really useful that I found was in global to try and influence global ideas one way or the other. Basically analyzing each turn "objectively" trying to put ideas in players heads. I don't see a way it can be effective in private press.

i think greypress ist better than public-chat-only with names.
yet it's not my favourite ...

I was thinking about using it to give a yearly 'European News' report as a bit of extra fun (which obviously doesn't really work as well if everyone knows who is giving it!).

Otherwise I suppose it can be played as a normal classic. Would anyone be up for that?

This variant could be interesting in a public press game where only "grey" message were allowed.

That would be very interesting indeed. Are you up for that, bozo?

I think that it would still be best Anon, though Hirnsaege.

I do not believe the option for only "grey" messages is supported, I think it would have to be agreed upon by everyone in the game.

Yeah, that's fine, it's fairly easy to police.

Who's up for that then? Public press, grey press only.

This is a fun variant IMO. If it were 3 days or more, I could play but that's probably too long for most of you. I don't think I would try enforcing "grey" only press because it would be too easy for people to accidentally not use grey press, and possibly using it for advantage. From what I remember, you have to follow pretty rigid guidelines to get a message to be grey press, I seem to remember people having a difficult time doing it right, however I didn't because I read carefully the rules.

The function doesn't seem that difficult to get right (quoted below).

"Anonymous "grey" messages can be sent to a country or global. First click on the "Grey" tab at the top of the dialogue area. To send a grey message to a country just type the country name followed by a colon and your message. This will then be sent to just that country. To send a grey message to everyone just type global followed by a colon and your message. Anything other than this will not go anywhere and result in an error message printed in the chat window.
For PublicPress only games you need to type grey followed by a colon in the global chat to send your message anonymous. "

To be honest, I'd be up for whatever most people want to do in both phase length and game type, I just want to give it a go. Am I right in saying that the potentially interested are:
- Battalion
- bozo
- Raro
- Hirnsaege?

From memory the gray press variant was implemented after a lengthy forum discussion about the differences between Face to Face dip and Internet dip. One of the things that came up was the ability to 'send' players anonymous messages - eg. in FtF a written note regarding discussions held with other players could be passed to jinx negotiations.

Having said this I don't have time at the moment to join a GP game, but if I did I would definitely be interested in joining.

I would be interested in a grey press only game, but I am not sure it will work if players are not prevented from sending normal messages.

I don't think there is a way of enforcing grey press only. You could do global only and tell everyone that it is grey press only, but what do you when someone types in an important message to somebody and says "oops, I forget to type in global: whatever"?

"This variant could be interesting in a public press game where only "grey" message were allowed. "

@Bozo, excellent observation. This kind of variant is extremely fun. A few years back I played in and GM'd a couple of games on the Imperial map that offered *only* public press, with the options for white, grey, and black press. With the right roster of players it can be a roller coaster.

To summarize the concept, all press was public. In the games I played, this meant sending it via email to the GM, who collected and posted it at scheduled intervals. I'm not sure if the game options support this, but it could be handled in a forum by linking the game (created as anonymous) in each post. Therefore you create the game as gunboat - no press, and then handle press through the forum with strict rules that ALL press most be anonymous (which is accomplished by linking the game in your post).

White Press: a message written by a player playing a nation (Austria), representing that nation (Austria).

Grey Press: A message written by a player claiming no identity of nation at all

Black Press: A message written by a player (Austria) posing as another nation (England).

All press is public and anonymous, so it's a war of wits to decipher who is real, and who is Memorex.

Perhaps the "Classic-GreyPress" variant could be modified to form a new variant, "Classic-GreyPressOnly".