In post 706, Haschel Cedricson wrote:Excellent answers, all of you.
I'm going into this FTC with an open mind, and while certain directions are starting to look more attractive than others my vote is not locked in. Every juror gets to choose what kind of game is the best to reward, and I personally want to give it to the best
overall
game.
So what does this mean for all of you? Social. Strategic. Structural. You need to convince me you were the best in at least two of these, and I don't care which two. Do that, and you have my vote.
Please rank the three of you in each of those categories, and be specific when it comes to explaining why your #1 in each category is placed there.
Haschel! Wow! What a killer of a question. All three of us have been pulling our hair out over it in the discord, well done.
SOCIAL
: Me, Zor, Bella
I think I'm number 1 here easily, both Zor and Bella have talked up my likability, but that's not the entirety of a good social game and that's not the entirety of mine. In her rankings, Bella said that it's impossible to be everyone's BFF, and I agree. (In an earlier post I quoted a confessional of mine that said that my strategy was to be everyone's 'secret BFF', which I actually mentioned to Bella was hyperbole. If I had been more literal, I would have written secret alliance member or even just secret buddy or something like that.)
Of course part of a good social game is forming real relationships, but I think that definition is incomplete. I tend to agree more with Zor's: A good social game is not
just
being likable, which I was, but it's using your social skills and your charisma to manage people's perception of you to serve your strategy, and I don't think anyone did that better than I did. I made people perceive me as a helpless newbie, or as an isolated loner they could scoop up, an ear to bounce strategic ideas off of, or whatever I thought they needed me to be in the moment so they would trust and work with me. Unfortunately it's impossible to type up a more intricate description of my methodology here because it's made up of a million tiny choices and interactions that all pushed me in one direction, and the results show I executed it flawlessly: everyone thought I was with them until it was too late to do anything about it.
To add to that, I don't necessarily believe Bella's relationships went that much deeper than mine, even given her head start of already knowing many of you. I've said a few times these last couple days that it literally didn't matter
to my game
who stayed and who went, but that doesn't mean it didn't matter to me, or that I didn't have genuine relationships with y'all. To go off her stated examples: I also talked with Entreri about Fire Emblem and how much we hate permadeath, as well as other video games. I have a collection of heart emojis on my mantle from Vash, so it sucked for me when he went too (<3). I cannot wait to talk more about Wie is De Mol with both Het and Radja when this game is all over. In our too-short time together, Hasch, I got to listen to your Bluegrass music, and we bonded over male-pattern baldness (sorry if that last bit was a secret). I could go on, but my point is: Bella and Zor both gave their definition of a good social game that they felt they had, but I had both.
I put Zor second and Bella third because I value his definition of social game more.
STRATEGIC
: Me, Zor, Bella -OR- Zor, Bella, Me
This one has felt like it's been the hardest part of my game to explain to you all, and I think it all boils down to whether or not you accept me intentionally leaving my foot off the gas pedal as an valid strategy. I've gone into great detail in many of my other posts, so I don't really feel the need to rehash the finer details, but if my gameplan to you is something you consider a valid strategy, then I'm number one. I've shown that I formulated a plan to propel me through the game, I executed it perfectly, and it was successful. But if you don't, as I see a few jurors do not, then that would put me in last. C'est la vie!
STRUCTURAL
: Me, Bella/Zor
The structure of the game lent itself to my natural skillset, thankfully, but I also was able to adapt in places where it did not. Yes, the majority of the challenges were timed puzzles and my hobby is doing speed-crosswords. Yes, the multitude of swaps made it crucial to be able to make good first impressions, and I have a lot of experience with that through my work and hobbies as well. I'd like to highlight, though, where the structure of the game provided an obstacle for me and how I worked around/through that.
NON-ANON
Quick aside, I remember having to ask a buddy in the first round or so why this game is non-anonymous when people still were using usernames and not telling people their names, I was like...isn't that still anonymous lol. Like I was introducing myself by name to everyone on my tribe cuz I thought that's what non-anonymous meant
. Anyway!
Once I realized what non-anonymous
actually
meant for the game, I knew I had some work ahead of me. I was in the dark as to the degree of the strength of the bonds of the players in this community. Going in, I thought that my ability to make relationships with people would be my advantage, but once I learned there had been
live meetups
, I saw I was starting the race a few lengths behind. One of the big red flags was LadyLambdaDelta actually. PanzerJager had jokingly thrown out her name in the main thread, and she was simply inconsolable with grief over how game-ruining this was for her. The vibes were 100% wrong though, and when I discovered that they knew each other IRL, I realized how deep underwater I was, with the possibility of cross-tribal partnerships that I had no way of knowing about. An unspoken alliance could have been wink-formed before the game even started, and bob's your uncle. There were a lot of unknowns.
The way I used the non-anonymity of the game to my advantage was all in my social game. I flipped the disadvantage into an advantage by managing my perception by leaning into it, purposefully making many of my relationships into teacher-students, asking many players MS related questions I already knew the answers to from other players. More than few people showed me that Youtube video of the survivor meet, for example, but each time I pretended like it was new information. Every time someone 'warned' me, for example, about the history/power of another player, I was
so thankful omg what would I do without you.
Same for when people 'filled me in' on where a vote was going, I pretended I was among the last to hear about it even though most of the time I was there when the vote was decided.
This helped me because one, the obvious, is that information power, so the more information coming to me the better. Two, the psychological, is that people love talking about something they're passionate about, so me giving people the opportunity to "teach" me not only made them feel good, but it made it seem like I needed them, and therefore could never turn on them. Three, the strategic, is that it lowered my threat level. The Devil You Don't Know is a real thing, as evidenced by the hysteria surrounding DK's elimination. It was his first MS game too, but his star was shining so brightly due to everyone's worrying about how strong a player he secretly was. I purposefully steered the other direction, making myself seem harmless.
Zor is next because, by Bella's own admission, this was her weakest category. Structural obstacles to her were obstacles, not opportunities.
~~~~~~~~
Well, Hasch, I hope that answered your absolute doozy of a question! The hardest one I had to answer for sure.