To rehearse against a competitor before you lock pricing, go-to-market, or a launch date, put the plan, the ask in one sentence, and a short profile of the rival you care about into one request, then instruct Pingpong to stay in that seat: read the plan as that competitor would, name the counters it would run first, flag every claim the exhibits leave soft, and say what you would change before leadership sees the package. Do it while list price, channel mix, and timing can still move.
This page is for that competitor role-play at strategy level. For boardroom seats, see role-play the skeptical director or role-play the board chair. For a preferred path against board seats and outside responses, see war-game a company strategy choice. For seats plus scenarios before a vote, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. Executive starting points live under Pingpong for executives.
What a competitor role-play is for
Internal reviews ask whether the plan is consistent. A competitor role-play asks how the named rival would answer it. That seat opens on the list-price cut, the feature match, the channel kickback, or the customer story that would blunt your launch week. Staff who wrote the memo already defend the upside. The role-play presses the moves that force a change to price, packaging, or timing before the plan goes upstairs.
Give the model a real rival: share of the accounts you want, published pricing bands, recent product moves, and how they usually respond to a new entrant. A blank "competitor" label produces generic talk.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. The chief executive of a 95-person warehouse software company plans to ask the executive team next Monday to approve a mid-market launch: a $48,000 list price for a new inventory module, a 20 percent launch discount for two quarters, partner-led go-to-market through three regional systems integrators, and a public launch on the first Tuesday of next month. The pack is a pricing memo, a win/loss export from the last 40 mid-market deals, a partner economics sheet, a competitive feature matrix, and a draft launch brief.
The chief executive names one rival in the request: the category leader that holds about 55 percent of those accounts, lists the matching module at $42,000, and last quarter matched two challenger launches with a 90-day price lock and a free migration credit.
A useful pass opens on the numbers the rival would attack. The $48,000 list sits above the leader's $42,000, so a 20 percent launch discount lands at $38,400 and invites an immediate match that erases the discount without touching the leader's list. The win/loss export shows the leader already won 19 of the last 40 deals on price-plus-migration, and the memo never names a walk-away floor. The partner sheet pays integrators 18 percent while the leader pays 22 percent on the same SKU, so the named partners can earn more by steering deals the other way. The launch brief schedules a public announcement before partner training, which gives the rival a week of customer calls with no trained channel.
The chief executive changes the pack before Monday: list at $41,000 with a thinner launch discount, a written floor if the leader matches, partner payout raised to 23 percent for two quarters with a clawback if the deal lands elsewhere, and launch moved two weeks after partner certification.
A request you can copy
Below are a pricing, go-to-market, or launch plan, the decision I am about to take or bring to leadership, and a short profile of the competitor I care about most. Role-play as that competitor for the whole reply. Open with the first counter you would run after reading this plan. Then list every pricing, packaging, channel, timing, or proof claim your seat would attack, quoting the page or line and saying what evidence would change your response. End with the conditions under which this plan would still worry you, or state that you would ignore it and why. Stay in the competitor seat. Don't rewrite the slides for me.
Paste recent win/loss notes, published rival pricing, and the rival's last response to a similar launch.
How Pingpong runs the role-play
The web review app sends your request through several models in order. Each later model receives the original request and every earlier answer, with instructions to assess the work so far. An early pass might open on price response; a later pass might check partner math or the launch calendar. Check every flagged claim against the source file before you change the plan. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't role-play
A model does not know which accounts the rival already locked on a private renewal, what discount desk authority that company actually has, or which roadmap item counsel has cleared for public talk. Legal, tax, accounting, and personnel questions belong with the people responsible for those answers.
If the next step is a board vote on the same plan, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. For a strategy fork still open across paths, see war-game a company strategy choice. When the call sits inside your own authority with no vote, see review a CEO decision before you announce it. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.