[all games] Peek a player's cards if a spectator

[Starbuck]

Hi!

This is a function I've seen on other gaming sites. It works like this:
- Player A is playing; Spec A is a spectator of the game.
- Spec A "requests" to see Player A's cards.
- Player A accepts or denies the request. If he accepts, Spec A can watch Player A's cards; essentially, he takes player A's point of view, but of course he cannot interact with the game.

Of course, this is not allowed if Spec A is a player and not a spectator.

There is a similar function already here, during replays, where you can "watch" the game from the point of view of any player.
"Peek" is essentially the same, although it's done during the game, not after it.

Why is it useful?
a) Very often, I just peek games where friends are playing. In games like Seasons, it's just dull without watching the hands of others.
b) It's a good way to help newbies when teaching games (and you're not playing).

Concerns against it
There might be concerns against it, i.e., it might boost cheating. To address these:
a) You can't peek a player's cards, of course, if he doesn't let you.
b) There are already screen sharing tools, if someone wants to illegally "cooperate", so nothing changes here.

Thank you for the consideration.

[Sawyer Einherjar]

I agree with you that sometimes it feels a bit dull to observe while not being able to watch someone's hand. Meaning you only see whats going on, on the table but if you join in halfway you have no clue who has a better adventage with his hand.

My first thought was as well that it would be more fun if you could peek at someone's hand. But the oppertunity this would create for trolling is a very very undesired effect. I guess if its implemented it should be a check box /option on the table creation screen.

So either its available for the whole table or for no one at that table.
I'm afraid that when you pick the solution you provided, people who feel like trolling would just spam a request to peek at the hand on a target player. Then even on declining 24/7 it would ruin the fun of playing.

It's a great way to give advice to new players, but it's also those players that would be easy targets for trolling. When i started playing on this site during some games you get many accept options, which made me click wrong things sometimes. Accidentally clicking an accept for a request to show your hand can then be fatal . Ofcourse this would likely happen only once, learn from mistakes, but it would ruin the first impression of some1 playing their first game. There are also already people who play with 2 accounts to increase their elo more effectivly. If these people would also be able to see opponentes hands that be crazy!

Agreeing this is worst scenario thinking, there is still loads of non-trolling good helpfull people out there!

In short: i'd like such an option as well, as it increases the fun of observing. But i think its best if this option does not get implemented. ^^
Besides you can still give advice to players on the decisions they should make while not being able to see their hand. Like: do not forget to get food for your workers!

cheers,
Sawyer