[Standard] Survivor: Know Your Enemies (Summer wins!)

zoraster · Post Post #0 (isolation #0) » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:05 pm

Survivor: Know Your Enemies

A 24-player non-anonymous Survivor Game by Zoraster and PrivateI (aka Monty/Preston) and reviewed by CuddlyCaucasian (aka WillFromAmerica)

To play this game you must have BOTH a Mafiascum.net account AND a Discord account.

New players and those outside the community are highly encouraged to apply.

To spectate, PM or DM Zoraster

Summary of Game

24 Players
The game will be played on both mafiascum.net and Discord. Other methods of communication ARE allowed.
This is a low twist game, but it has a relatively high number of advantages and idols.
Do not Pregame. If someone tries to pregame with you, let us know. It is cheating.
It is labeled as a “Standard” game.
Yes, this game uses a traditional challenge structure.
Application Deadline: Friday, August 28th at Noon
Predicted Start Date: August 31st, 2020 at 6pm EDT (subject to change on player prefs)
Earliest Predicted End Date (if no ties, etc.): October 19, 2020

To spectate, PM or DM Zoraster

Discord

Discord is

mandatory.

Discord is a free popular text and voice chat program. It can be accessed via web browser, it can be downloaded as a program on a computer (highly recommended), and it can be used on both Android and iOS phones. It's free, and it tends to work very well. You'll need a username to sign up for the game as either a player or spectator. You can do so here.

As both a player and a spectator, you'll be given access to the game's Discord channel, which will include Tribal areas, confessionals, decision booths, and more!

You must also have a Mafiascum.net account (that's this place!) to sign up.

Beginners

This game is beginner

friendly

, but it is not designed as a new player game. In other words, there is no expectation that players will lead you by the hand. However, given the low twist nature and the fact that so much of the information about this game is in the rules, new players should have an easier time understanding the basic parameters of the game.

That said, I have written a little down and dirty New Player guide you can find in this thread here.

A Note About Application Time

We will continue to cast until the deadline of August 28th. However, we’ll be in the process of casting for roughly a week before the game’s start. So while everyone who applies has a shot, applications from the first week or so will get looked at more often and often find a little more luck getting cast as other people are slotted in around them. We will start to add people to the Survivor: KYE discord server around this date.

To spectate, PM or DM Zoraster

zoraster · Post Post #1 (isolation #1) » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:05 pm

Table of Contents

Rules and Information

Opening Post
Game Specific Rules (has its own TOC)
General Survivor Rules for This Game
Newer Players Quick and Dirty Guide

Current Tribe Composition

Links to Challenges

Links to Tribal Council Results

TC1: T-Bone and Grody Voted Out
TC2: Rahladala Voted Out
TC3: kdowns Voted Out - SWAP
TC4: Reundo Voted Out
TC5: Gamma Voted Out
TC6: CreativeMod1 Voted Out
TC7: Cheery Dog Voted Out - SWAP
TC8: VashtaNeurotic Voted Out
TC9: Animorpherv1 Voted Out
TC10: Aronis Voted Out
TC11: DeasVail Voted Out - MERGE
TC12: Mist7676 Voted Out
TC13: DK Voted Out
TC14: D3f3nd3r Voted Out
TC15: Pine Voted Out
TC16: Awoo Voted Out
TC17: Espeonage Voted Out
TC18: Haschel Cedricson Voted Out
TC19: SleepyKrew Voted Out
TC20: Malkon Voted Out

zoraster · Post Post #2 (isolation #2) » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:05 pm

Game Specific rules

Table of Contents

Spoiler: Table of Contents

Deadlines

There will generally be 24 hours for each challenge followed by 24 hours for the voting phase.
There will be an extra 24 hours for the voting phase (so 48 hours total) for the game’s start, after each swap, and after the merge.
There may be certain challenges that extend the challenge period.

Discord

Important Contacts

Head Moderator: Zoraster#9525
Co-Moderator: MontyWhittaker#6697
ProductionBot (add to your conversations): ProductionBot#7336
Listmod In Charge: xofelf#1697 (if you have a complaint with the game)

Friend Requests

You are REQUIRED to accept friend requests from ProductionBot and the moderators (i.e. Zoraster and Monty). You do not have to accept friend requests from other players, spectators, etc.. You may remove us as friends once you are done with the game (pre-jury when you’re voted out, jury when the game ends).

Requirement to use Discord

You are required to use Discord on a daily basis.
You are required to join the S:KYE Server (it’s where you’ll vote!)
You are required to accept friend requests from the moderators and ProductionBot
You are required to set a custom avatar on Discord.
You are NOT required to use discord to talk to any individual user, but not using Discord at all to talk to other users will be considered inactivity and may result in you being removed from the game.
You MAY use other forms of communication to talk to other players.

Multiple Party Conversations (ProductionBot)

You MAY use Discord to talk to more than one other person at a time on your tribe,

BUT you must add ProductionBot.

If you are having a private conversation with 3 or more players (including yourself), add ProductionBot (ProductionBot#7336) and NOT any of the mods themselves. This will keep our personal DMs clean for player questions and so forth.

You are also encouraged to add ProductionBot to 1 on 1 conversations with other players, but this is

not

required, particularly if you plan to have very personal conversations you don’t want viewers to see.

Do not DM ProductionBot with any questions about the game!

Those should be directed to Zoraster (Zoraster#9525) or MontyWhittaker (MontyWhittaker#6697). ProductionBot is there to monitor the game, not to respond in any way.

ProductionBot may send the occasional DM reminder to add it to your conversations but otherwise will not respond to any messages. Please remember that just because ProductionBot technically CAN see your DMs does not mean that anyone on the production team DID see it, so if you want the mods to know something, make sure to tell them directly.

ProductionBot will have several people accessing it from time to time including Zoraster and Monty and other people marked “Production Assistants.” The listmod and other Spectators will not have access to this bot.

Start New DMs to Add People

Please do NOT add other players to preexisting DMs. There is no way to prevent other people from seeing what was said if you do this, and if it’s done in order to gain an advantage, it will be viewed as cheating in the same way that copying and pasting a conversation from another player is.

Confessionals

You are provided with a “Confessional.” By default, all spectators and moderators will have discussion access to your confessional and may engage you in discussion about the game. We highly encourage you to post your thoughts about the game, copy and paste interesting conversations you’ve had, and so forth.

You may if you wish to remove spectator access to your confessional by requesting it from Zoraster. Zoraster and Monty may still copy and paste thoughts from your confessional into spectator chat.

You may request a Private Topic for use as a confessional. However, only Zoraster, Monty and Xofelf will have access to this.

Decision Booths

Your voting will be done in your Decision Booth provided.

Votes that are marked (edited) will not count, and the next valid vote will be used instead.

You will also use the Decision booth to use most advantages and idols.

Vote counts

We may use a variety of ways of doing vote counts, depending on the time and availability of the moderators at the vote deadline. If we have time/are able to be fully on at the vote deadline, we may do live Voice Call vote count readings in the tribe’s voice chat room or the tribe’s discord room. The vote counts may be done one at a time (ala real survivor) or done in a single post for the sake of time. The vote count results (e.g. X votes for Player A, Y votes for Player B) will always be posted as a summary in your tribe’s discord channel after any live reading, and who is voted out will be posted in this thread.

We will try our very best to get all votes out and the next challenge posted within 30 minutes of the vote deadline ending.

Twists

Twists, if there are any, will be very mild in this game outside of the information provided here.

Challenges

Challenges in this game will generally have a 24 hour deadline. Most challenges have a maximum time limit to keep players from having to dedicate too much of their time.

Where to Find Challenges

Challenges, challenge results, and voting results will all be posted in this thread.

Things You Need

Image editing software (MS Paint is fine, Paint.net, Photoshop, etc. are all fine)
Access to an image posting site. Imgur is easy.
Generally these challenges will be easier to do on a laptop or desktop computer, but most can be accomplished on a phone.

A word of advice

Many challenges are timed and require a screen shot that is then uploaded into an image site like imgur. On windows computers, you can hit Windows Button+Shift+S and then drag a window around the screen shot you want to copy. Then hit Ctrl+V on the Imgur new post site to copy that screen shot quickly. Even if you are editing something on MS Paint, it’ll generally be quicker to screen shot that rather than export it as an image.

It also pays to have your image posting site open as well as the submission form filled out (don’t hit submit obviously). In many challenges, seconds can make the difference.

Did Not Finish/Did Not Start/Maxed Out

Unless stated otherwise, in the event of not finishing, not starting, or reaching the max time limit scores for challenges will take the worst overall correct submitted outcome (e.g. longest time for a fastest time challenge, lowest score for a high score challenge, etc.) and apply a modifier to it. Many challenges will still have a maximum time so that no one has to struggle for too long.

Did Not Start

: Worst correct submitted outcome made worse by 40% (if applicable), not limited by the max time limit. Make sure you start every challenge!

Did Not Finish/Submit

: Worst correct submitted outcome made worse by 20%, up to the max time limit (if applicable)

Incorrect

: Worst correct submitted outcome made worse by 20%, up to the max time limit (if applicable)

Reached the Maximum Time

: Worst correct submitted outcome made worse by 20%, up to the max time limit (if applicable)

Examples: if it’s a puzzle where the max time limit is 60 minutes and the fastest time is “best” where the slowest correct answer was 34:12. If someone started but did not finish or it was incorrect, they will have their time set to 41:02 (which is 20% slower than the slowest correct answer). If the slowest time was, on the other hand, 55 minutes, then an incorrect answer would earn 60 minutes as that is the max time.

If a challenge uses a high score where the lowest correctly submitted score is 200, then an unfinished challenge would earn a 160.

Anti-Throwing Measure

If there are no submissions that are incorrect, did not finish or did not start, the worst correct answer shall be set to no worse than 20% worse than the second worst correct answer. This is to prevent there being incentive to DNF/submit an incorrect answer.

Idols and Other Advantage Information

General Known Info

There are quite a few idols and advantages in this game.
You will
always
know how Class A and Class B idols are going to be awarded and how to get them.
Other advantages, including revote idols, may be awarded in non-transparent ways.
There are no “hidden” idols that require doing weird things within the game to earn.
The prevalence of idols and advantages given out will reduce as the game progresses.
The method of awarding advantages will vary, but generally it is to your advantage to do as well as possible in challenges.

Giving Idols or Other Advantages to Other Players

Unless the idol or other advantage says otherwise, all idols may be given to another player in the same tribe by informing the mod in the decision booth that you are giving the idol or other advantage away. Idols given to another player are received at the start of the

Take note that this is different than many other games!

Clarification: You may still PLAY your idol for someone else's benefit at any time before the deadline. This rule is only about giving the idol to another player.

Trashing an Idol

You may choose to trash your idol at any time (most useful if you are worried about the Idol Detector). Trashing an idol will be processed before Idol Detector results are processed after a challenge.

Using an Idol

To use an Idol and most advantages, say that you are doing so in your decision booth. If you do not indicate who you are playing the idol for, it will be assumed you are playing it for yourself. If the mods read the votes live, either via voice or text in discord, they will give people the opportunity to play their idol.

However, this is only for dramatic effect.

The idol must have already been played in the decision booth, and an idol played in a decision booth will be played at the tribal regardless of whether someone actually speaks up.

Choosing a Revote Idol

Any time you would have been awarded a Class A or B idol, you may immediately tell the moderator you would instead like a Revote Idol. You must do this as soon as reasonably possible.

Types of Idols and Other Advantages That Are Possible

Not all will be used in this game!

Class A Idols

Class A idols are normal idols. They may have an expiry date (expressed as “Final X”). They may be countered by an idol nullifier (see later), but will still work if other Class A or B idols are played. Class A idols are always played after Class B idols. Class A idols are not detected by Idol Detectors. No idol may be played after Final 5.

Class B Idols

Class B idols work as normal idols IF and ONLY IF there is no Class A idol played. In the event both Class A and Class B idol(s) are played, only the Class A idol(s) will work. Class B idols may have an expiry date. Class B idols may be countered by an idol nullifier. Class B idols are always played before Class A idols. Class B idols may be detected by an Idol Detector. No idol may be played after Final 5.

Revote Idol

A revote idol is AUTOMATICALLY played by whoever holds it if there is a tie where the holder is eligible to be voted in the revote (i.e. is one of the tied players). In the case it gets played, the mod will announce it to the group and a revote will be held if one is necessary (i.e. it was a 3+ way tie to begin with). If it is not necessary (i.e. it was only two people tied) then the one without the revote idol is removed. A revote idol CAN be countered by an idol nullifier. A revote idol may be chosen instead of an idol with the same restrictions (e.g. Final 9) as the idol the player would have earned, provided the player indicates to the moderator immediately that they wish it to be a revote idol.

Idol Nullifiers

An idol nullifier may be played during any Tribal Council. To play, indicate who you are playing the nullifier on. If an idol is played on that person, the idol does not work and votes against that person count. An idol nullifier only nullifies one idol, so two idols COULD be played to still protect a player. Class B idols are always played before Class A idols, so in the event of a Class A and a Class B idol being played on the same player, the Class B idol is the one that will be nullified.

Class B Idol Detector

Allows a player that holds it to detect Class B idols. It does not detect Revote idols or Class A idols. This advantage is used by telling the mod in your voting booth that you want to play it on another player that is in your tribe. You may

ONLY

use it during the challenge phase (i.e. not at TC). It only works once. Results will be processed at the end of the challenge you use it in. Idols that are no longer operative will not be detected.

Steal A Vote

During any Tribal Council through the Final Seven, the holder may tell the mod whose vote they are stealing and who they’re using it to vote for. If the person whose vote was stolen used a Double Vote that round, the user of this item would not steal the extra vote.

Double Vote

This advantage gives the holder the power to cast one additional vote in any Tribal Council through the Final Six. The holder may tell the mod they wish to vote for the same person twice or one time on two people. If a Steal A Vote is used on someone who used this item in a round, only one vote would be stolen. If the person who used this item voted for two different people in a round where a Steal A Vote was used on them, the person they listed FIRST in their final voting decision would be voted for.

Safety Without Power

If you get this power, you may use it by telling the mod in the public game thread that you are leaving that Tribal Council. This power may only be used by the holder, and it must be used before six hours have elapsed in the Tribal Council it’s used in (you may also conditionally use it prior to the Tribal Council beginning).. When this occurs, the player is removed from the Tribal Council and cannot vote and cannot be voted for. They also may not communicate with other players until the relevant Tribal Council ends. If applicable, a deadline extension may be granted if any players require it.

Communication Device

This allows the finder to give a walkie-talkie to one other player on their tribe. It must be given to someone by the end of TC. If swapped, it allows them to continue to communicate with each other using a channel the moderators will set up on the game’s Discord server. Once two players are connected, it cannot be given to anyone else. This lasts until a second swap (in other words, two players are connected then a swap occurs and the two can communicate. Once the next swap occurs, they may no longer communicate using the communication device).

Avoidance Advantage

Don’t want to be on the next tribe with someone? You don’t have to! Tell the mod in your decision booth who you don’t want to be swapped with next swap. You may pick anyone still in the game. You may change your pick as many times as you want until 1 hour before the final TC’s deadline before a swap. If you don’t pick anyone, your advantage will go away on a swap, so it’s your best interest to pick someone as soon as you get the advantage.

Majority Advantage

You

may

choose to use this by playing it in your decision booth. On the next swap, if your current tribe makes up the majority of any of the new tribes, you will be placed in that tribe. If neither new tribe has a majority from your current tribe, you will be placed in the tribe with the most current tribe members. If all tribes have a majority from your current tribe, this advantage will have no effect. If there is equality among all new tribes, this advantage will have no effect.

Final Tribal Council

Format

This game will use a Final 3 Final Tribal Council (FTC).
The winner of the Final Immunity Challenge at Final 4 will automatically go to FTC.
If there is a tie in votes at F4, there is a known firemaking challenge (see later)
The FTC will take place entirely in this thread. No discussion in Discord is allowed except between the three finalists (good natured banter!)
Players in FTC will have 24 hours to write an opening statement.
The winner of the Final Immunity Challenge will choose the order for the players to give their Opening Statements. Players will post their opening statements in a Private Topic provided by the moderators, and the moderator will post it for them.
Jurors will then get 48 hours to both ask questions AND vote.
There will be no official closing statement, but players may obviously post their final post at any time during the 48 hour question and voting session.
Each FTC participant will cast a vote during this time too. In the event of a tie, the person with the fewest votes will cast their vote to break a tie. For example, in the event of a 4-4-0 or 3-3-2 jury vote, the person with the 0 and 2 votes respectively will cast the decisive vote as a tie breaker.

Jury Questions

Each of the 8 jury members will get THREE posts in the Tribal Council. These posts can be as long or as short as you wish. FTC contestants may make as many posts as they wish.

Firemaking Challenge

(

Important!

)

At

the start of the game

, the firemaking channel will be open. The channel will have a 2 hour time control. Every midnight-to-midnight EDT period if you post in the channel, you earn a point. You do not get any additional points for posting more than once. If you are eliminated, you

may

(it is not mandatory) "will" your points to another player still alive in the game (not necessarily in your tribe). The player will not be told that you willed them your points. You will will any points that you received as well, even though you don't know you have those. If there is a tie at the Final 4 tribal council, the tied player with the most points (their own points + any willed points) will win the firemaking challenge and be the third player in the FTC.

Spectators, Production Assistants and Ponderosa

Spectators

Spectators (also known as Viewers) are people watching the game for entertainment. By default they have access to:

Spectator Chat, along with the mods. This is the primary place they’ll chat with each other about the ongoing game. There will generally be new channels created as the game goes on so that it’s easier to search after the game.
Edgic/Summaries (View Only).
Confessionals. They have both read and write access to confessionals by default. Players MAY opt-out of this by informing the mod/hosts.
Tribe Chat (View Only).
Ponderosas (View Only).
Voice Chats (Listen Only)
Reading Votes Voice (Listen Only)

Notably, they do not have access to Player DMs or Decision Booths

Production Assistants

Production Assistants have access to all of the things Spectators do plus they help monitor ProductionBot, write summaries, etc. Players again MAY opt-out of having Production Assistants in their confessionals just like Spectators.

Pre-jury

Pre-jury members will get access to all the things Spectators do EXCEPT they will not have access to Confessionals.

Jury Members

Jury Members will not have access to anything except their own Confessional, Decision Booths, and a Jury Member Ponderosa Channel. They will retain View Only access to the firemaking challenge andthe Merge Tribe channel, irrespective of whether they made the merge. They will have Listen Only access to the Tribal Council Voice channel.

Other Things You Know About the Game

Jury begins at 11. The merge may be at 11 or before or after the jury starts.
There will be at least 3 “rounds” after each swap (a round is an immunity challenge and a tribal council)
There are few, if any, live challenges (a live challenge is where everyone has to be on at the same time to play a game)
Most challenges will take an hour or less to play, but there
will
be exceptions to this.
The first tribes will be sorted non-randomly. There are a number of ways the game may be cast, but it is possible that the game will be cast on the basis of experience (a “Fans vs. Favorites” type of arrangement). However, with the exception of possible advantages that are listed before (i.e. Majority Advantage and Avoidance Advantage) any swaps will be made randomly.
Don’t read too much into this information (or even what constitutes a “puzzle”), but just to give you a vague grasp on what to expect the challenge landscape to look like: expect
roughly
half of challenges to be puzzles of various types and half to be other types of challenges. Again, this is not necessarily exact but will be
roughly
the case both before and after the merge.

zoraster · Post Post #3 (isolation #3) » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:06 pm

General Survivor Rules For This Game

Rules

{01} This is a game. The main objective is to have fun; so no excessive flaming, spamming, or otherwise being a jerk.

{02} This is a game. The secondary objective is to win.

{03} We are not infallible, so if we make a moderating mistake, please point it out and we will correct it if needed.

{04} We have worked extensively to produce a game that is enjoyed by all involved. As such, we promise to offer each player respect but invite you to show us the same in return.

{05} Exercise common sense. If you are unsure as to whether an action conflicts with the rules, ask. Yes, this is a competition, but do not attempt to undermine challenges or game mechanics for your own gain. This violates the spirit of the game and will make me sad.

{06} Private communication with players outside of your tribe or eliminated players is strictly prohibited. Any player found in violation of this rule will be penalized however the mods see fit, up to and including their elimination from the game.

{07} The posting of messages between players (whether via text (paraphrasing is fine) or via image) in a public forum is explicitly disallowed. You are also prohibited from taking a screenshot of private messages and showing them to other players. Forwarding is not allowed. Basically, just don't share images of messages, and don't straight copy/paste whole message logs. Once again, if you have any questions about whether something conflicts with the rules, just hit one of the moderators up.

{08} You ARE allowed to create group chats among the players you're allowed to talk to. Go nuts. Have fun. Just remember to invite ProductionBot to these!

{09} The moderators may discipline any player that breaks the rules however we see fit, depending on the specific situation. We also reserve the right to implement new rules if needed.

{10} Failure to submit entirely in a challenge (when a player is supposed to participate) will earn a player a strike. Failure to submit a vote during a Tribal Council a player is attending will earn a player a strike (and a public self-vote, as detailed below). Getting two strikes in a row may result in a player being modkilled. Getting three strikes during the game may result in a player being modkilled. A player getting modkilled during Tribal Council will nullify the results of that Tribal Council, at the moderators' discretion.

{11} While it is important to remember that this is an extended commitment that you are signing up for, if worse comes to worst and you simply have to quit the game, contact a moderator posthaste so we can discuss the options available. In the event that no satisfactory solution can be identified, you can quit the game and be removed. The moderators will make the decision on how to handle this unexpected event.

Immunity Challenges

{01} Every round will possess an Immunity Challenge. Winners of the Immunity Challenge will be safe from elimination that round and cannot be voted out at the Tribal Council. The number of Immunity Challenge winners can vary.

{01a} Immunity necklaces MAY be transferred to someone else during Tribal Council but ONLY if done conditionally in your Decision Booth at least an hour before the challenge is complete. To do so post in your decision booth:

Code: Select all

@S:KYE Moderators/Hosts Give X my necklace if I win immunity

If you win immunity, the challenge result post will show you give the necklace to the player you have selected.

Each immunity necklace can only be passed to someone on the same tribe, and it cannot be refused by the recipient. Immunity necklaces may each only be passed once per round.

Time will not be added to the Tribal Council.

{02} The outcomes of all Challenges are final. That said, however, be sure to keep Rule 03 of General Rules in mind.

{03} We appreciate the fact that prospective contestants will enter this game with a range of skills. With this in mind, understand that we as mods can't cater to all players' needs, strengths, and time constraints in challenges.

{04} It is against the rules to lie about having started or finished a challenge. You can lie about how you did, etc. but lying about completing is cheating because often players will reveal how they did in response to learning you’re done.

Tribal Council

{01} Tribal Council is where players are eliminated. Before the merge, generally, only the losing tribe or tribes will visit TC, and will vote one player off. After the merge, all remaining players will go to TC, including immunity challenge winners.

{02} Tribal Councils will generally last 24 hours from the scheduled end of the challenge, but will last 48 hours in the case of the game start, a swap, the merge or other events. If a player fails to submit a vote within the given time frame, they will receive a selfvote. This vote will be publicly revealed, and the player who failed to submit will receive a strike. In the event that a player knows he or she will be unable to vote by deadline, that player may notify the moderators and cast a conditional vote to avoid penalization. All votes will be submitted via your discord decision booth.

{03} The results of Tribal Councils will never be posted before the deadline. We will always err on being late rather than early.

{04} The modification of votes after they have been submitted is allowed

by posting a new discord message

. PLEASE DO NOT EDIT YOUR VOTES. Just submit a new message! Players are able to change their votes as many times as they want until the Tribal Council is posted. I recommend placing a place-holder vote at the start of every tribal council and then just changing your vote as you get closer. That way you’ll never self-vote.

{05} The outcomes of Tribal Councils are final.

{06} Questions concerning ties in the Tribal Council may be found below:

Breaking Ties

I. In the event of an initial tie, a revote shall take place. Contestants may only vote for one of the tied players, and all tied individuals may not vote. Reward items may not be used in this revote, but any reward items that have already been played will remain in play.

II. If a majority (or unique plurality) is not met in the revote, all tied players and immune players become instantly immune and the remaining players will draw rocks for elimination.

III. Please keep in mind a Revote Idol, if held, is played automatically if a player is one of the people who has a tied vote on them.

zoraster · Post Post #4 (isolation #4) » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:06 pm

Newer Players Quick and Dirty Guide

So you’re new to Survivor. Or Online Reality Games. Or Mafiascum. This is for you.

First, this is not intended to be the be-all and end-all guide to playing Online Survivor. The game changes with the players too much to be able to confidently say with any certainty that if you do X then Y will happen. People are unpredictable, and ultimately that’s what you’re playing against. However, hopefully I can set a baseline that might help avoid some common problems. BUT this is just one guy's musings on Survivor here. If you disagree with any of the advice, reject it!

New to Survivor

Start binging! This guide’s purpose is not to familiarize you with Survivor as a process. As someone who played his first game without having watched any Survivor, I can tell you that it’s extremely difficult without some basics from the show, and really only watching the show can teach you that.

New to Online Reality Games

If you haven’t played online reality games, this guide is really for you.

Activity. Activity. Activity. You joined the game thinking you’d kind of step into it and say hello and it’d just sort of fall into place. No. Your goal is to talk to people and talk to them a LOT. If you’ve only had a brief conversation with everyone in your tribe once before your first Tribal, you’re likely to be the first boot. Inactivity stops being a reason to get rid of people later, but the first boot is often about the easy vote because no one wants to risk anything Day 1.
This activity starts BEFORE tribal council. If you’re ever talking to someone once Tribal Council started, you’re behind the ball. It doesn’t even mean you need to talk game (different people will want to talk more or less about personal life stuff). People are naturally less trustful of someone that just shows up when they’re at risk.
If this isn’t natural for you, use Improv’s “Yes, and…” approach to conversations. Never answer a question with “yeah” or “nope” and let it drop. Your goal is to say something that makes them respond with something. That can be a question or just something interesting enough you expect they’ll follow up.
Err on the side of aggression. Overplaying can be a real thing in Survivor, but typically I see new players fail because they played passively for too long. Get involved. Ask people to ally with you. Make final 3s. Worry about consequences later. If you go out because you overplayed, you’re going to find your experience with the game much more enriching than if you go out because you did nothing the whole game. Plus, it’s going to give you far more experience for your next game than if you did nothing.
You can avoid a lot of trouble if you say who you LIKE rather than who you DISLIKE. There can be reasons to pick fights with other people, but that can be a complicated play.
Be as effusive as you think you can be while still being genuine. You like someone? This isn’t the time to be squirrely about it. Tell them! Tell them you want to work with them! Even if they don’t really reciprocate, they are now WAY less likely to want to put you up.
There’s a tendency with new players to focus on challenge results. Yes, having a good challenge player can be good for your tribe. And even more so having a bad challenge player can result in going to Tribal Council a whole bunch. You can use that as something to spur conversation, but if you ever find yourself arguing ad nauseum about how bad a player is at a challenge, reel yourself back and start to use different tactics to target them.
This may be more geared toward more “strategic” players, but use your confessional as much as you can to think things through, talk about things that happened, etc. It can be clarifying, it can make you a more purposeful player, it can help you see relationships that you would have missed before, and it can help you review what’s happened in the game. It also tends to be helpful in making the game entertaining for spectators!
This game is ultimately about
individual
relationships. Alliances can be valuable tools, but if you don’t put in the individual relationship work on a daily basis, you’re going to have trouble.
With that in mind, remember that someone is likely on the bottom of every alliance. That becomes more true the more people are in the alliance. Maybe it’s you and you need to shake things up. Maybe it’s someone else and you need to work hard to make them feel like they aren’t or else
they
are going to shake things up. But always look around and think about who is on the bottom or feels they are on the bottom.
Assume anyone but your absolute closest ally is going to tell other people what you said. They need to bond with other people too, and giving information is one way to get information. So while gossiping can be a good way to bond, be careful!

New to Mafiascum

This portion is really more about differences you might expect in a game on this site.

Players on mafiascum often know each other very well. This
can
color their interactions with those players, but typically friends on this site are fairly competitive and often are just as likely to gun for each other as they are to automatically ally with each other.
Mafiascum games tend (though you’re free to do differently!) be more text based. Sending messages via text DMs, for example, rather than engaging in long video calls.
Players are often a wide age group. This is written before casting, but past games have had those in their 40s.
Most games on Mafiascum are played
anonymously
(aka “alias” games) where players play on a forum with a hidden identity. Before this one, there have only been two non-anonymous long form games since 2016. This game is
not
anonymous.
Survivormeets: There have been three semi-official real-world games where people from Mafiascum have played survivor over the course of a long weekend. Depending on the players in this game (this guide is written before applications much less casting) there may be those who have played in these games. These may or may not end up being relevant, but just so you know the lingo.

General Information for Players

This is a Standard Game

To find out what this means, you can find the rubric the list moderators use to categorize a game here:

Spoiler: Categorization Information

Advice for Challenges

For timed challenges, open and fill out the form for both the Start AND Finish before starting.
Get comfortable with an image sharing site like imgur and figure out how to post from it as quickly as possible. Make sure the site is working before starting your challenge as technical difficulties will not be taken into consideration.
Ask questions before you begin the challenge. Each challenge is written by either Zoraster or Monty and you’ll be told who to ask first.

Resources

New Player’s Guide. This is a more robust guide to playing as a new player. It focuses a little more on forum-based anonymous games and is a little dated, but many of the suggestions still hold true. Particularly helpful is the second post.
Mafiascum Survivor Wiki. This is a wiki of all the survivor games that have played on Mafiascum.
Other Social Games. While these aren’t survivor games, they often have major elements of survivor.
Survivor Elo Rating. These are the mafiascum ratings for

anonymous

games. But that can still be helpful in figuring out whether a person has been successful or not. Remember that in Survivor people who are threats are often taken out and those that are perceived as easy to beat can make it far.
Character Database. If you want to actually read games of a player you’re playing with, you’ll need to know who they were as an anonymous player. This link shows who was who.
TRTWIUAA. This is the game link to the last non-anonymous game that was played on site. This game is different in a number of ways (32 players vs. 24, Discord “optional” vs. required and heavily utilized, this game has a lot more known information, etc.), but to a large degree it’s your best look at what this game is going to be like.

zoraster · Post Post #5 (isolation #5) » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:06 pm

Saved for Clarifications, etc.

zoraster · Post Post #7 (isolation #6) » Mon Aug 24, 2020 4:54 am

Thanks for the feedback everyone! While a number of potential complaints were raised, by far the biggest one was the firemaking challenge. Because I am nothing if not responsive to my players' desires (and because I agree with some of the criticisms) we are changing the challenge as so:

Summary: Old-style firemaking as tie breaker rather than new-style. No longer spam based but rather "check in" based. Still retains "willing."

Details: At

the start of the game

, the firemaking channel will be open. The channel will have a 2 hour time control. Every midnight-to-midnight EDT period if you post in the channel, you earn a point. You do not get any additional points for posting more than once. If you are eliminated, you

may

(it is not mandatory) "will" your points to another player still alive in the game (not necessarily in your tribe). The player will not be told that you willed them your points. You will will any points that you received as well, even though you don't know you have those. If there is a tie at the Final 4 tribal council, the tied player with the most points (their own points + any willed points) will win the firemaking challenge and be the third player in the FTC.

I am on vacation at the moment, so it may take me a bit to catch all references to the previous firemaking challenge in the rules.

zoraster · Post Post #8 (isolation #7) » Fri Aug 28, 2020 2:49 am

Just a reminder to get those applications in as the deadline is in just over two hours!!

zoraster · Post Post #9 (isolation #8) » Sat Aug 29, 2020 12:56 am

Casting notices will be sent out by Monty today I believe. If they aren't, they'll be sent tomorrow. I am driving cross-country all of today and much of tomorrow, so I'll be very slow to respond to any PMs or DMs.

The game will begin at 6pm EDT on Monday!

zoraster · Post Post #11 (isolation #9) » Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:22 am

Tribes will be announced at around 17:00 EDT. At this point, I'll start to add tribe permissions to players so that everyone has access right at 18:00. You may, of course, strategize with yourself in your confessional but

do not DM anyone until the game begins at 18:00 EDT. Do not post anything in tribe chats. Do not join Voice chats.

The game begins at 18:00 EDT tonight when you'll get your first challenge! Hype!

zoraster · Post Post #12 (isolation #10) » Mon Aug 31, 2020 10:00 am

Here are the tribes! We will be putting people into their discord groups shortly, but DO NOT START THE GAME (Do not DM, do not chat in the groups, etc.) The game will only begin at 18:00 EDT

The game has not begun! You may of course talk about it in your confessional, but don't start to DM tribe mates and so forth.

For anyone looking on, don't hesitate to PM or DM me to get spectator access.

zoraster · Post Post #13 (isolation #11) » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:00 am

GAME ON!

You May Now Begin to DM, Voice Chat, Post in Your Tribe Channels, and in the Firemaking Channel!

Challenge incoming next!

zoraster · Post Post #14 (isolation #12) » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:01 am

Challenge #1, Search Your Heart (And the Web)

Challenge Number:

1

Challenge Name:

Search Your Heart (And The Web)

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You are encouraged to discuss which tribe member will take on which subject, but discussion about the specific questions used in this challenge is strictly prohibited.

Link to Form:

This is the form

Winner Determined by:

The tribe that gets the most questions correct first will win immunity.

What needs to be submitted to win:

The correct answer to a question which will be provided when you start the form. You ARE allowed to Google during this challenge.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

This challenge should not take longer than a few minutes for each person to complete. However, the max time will be one hour.

Description:

This is a very simple challenge so you can get to know each other. We have made eight questions on eight different subjects. The subjects are listed below. You will assign one person to each subject. Each person can only answer one subject, so be careful to coordinate, as each person may only complete the form once. You ARE allowed to use Google to look up the answers to your question. You are NOT allowed to discuss the specific questions used in the challenge while the challenge is ongoing.

Each question will be assessed individually, and the FASTEST correct response will earn a point for that player’s tribe. The tribe with the most points will win immunity, and the other TWO tribes will attend Tribal Council. In the event of a tie for the most points, the fastest average response for point-earning answers across the tribe will win immunity.

If multiple people complete the same subject question, only the first response will be taken, regardless of its accuracy. If one person completes the form twice, only their first submission will be used.

Here are your subjects: Science, Social Studies, Speeches, Sports, Stories, Sundries, Suppers, and Survivor.

Deadline: September 1 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #17 (isolation #13) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:06 am

T-Bone from Alexandria and grody from Bangkok were voted out

zoraster · Post Post #18 (isolation #14) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:07 am

Challenge #2, Sliding Puzzle

Challenge Number:

2

Challenge Name:

Sliding Puzzle

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

As long as you do not directly help another player with their puzzle or share any information about the specific puzzle such as what the image is of or a screen shot of the finished puzzle, you may discuss the puzzle including how you felt you did, which one you selected and so forth.

Link to Form:

This is a link to the form. (Remember: timer starts with the "Start" form and ends with the "Finish" form. You'll submit two forms)

Winner Determined by:

Taking only the seven SLOWEST members from each tribe, the tribe that has the fastest mean time among these players. Note that players will NOT see the individual results of each player.

What needs to be submitted to win:

You must screen shot the entire browser that contains the solved puzzle.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

60 minutes

Description:

Each player may choose whether to do a 4x4 sliding puzzle or a 5x5 sliding puzzle. The tribes that win immunity will be the two tribes whose seven SLOWEST players have the fastest mean time.

Players will NOT see any results other than which tribes are going to TC.

Why in the world would you pick to do a 5x5 puzzle, you ask? Because there's an...

IDOL AT PLAY!

The fastest time (whether 4x4 or 5x5) in EACH tribe will get a Class B idol good for 3

attended

tribal councils OR until the merge, whichever is first

IF and ONLY IF

the player with the fastest 5x5 overall is not in their tribe (see next).

The fastest 5x5

OVERALL

will instead get their pick from: (1) a Class A idol good until the merge; or (2) a Class B idol good until Final 7. The selection must be made by one hour before the TC2 deadline. They receive this choice

ONLY

if their time is at or below the mean AND median time for

all

players (including those doing the 4x4s). If they do not meet that requirement, they will only receive a Revote Idol good until the Merge unless they are somehow the fastest solver in their tribe (in which case they get the previously mentioned Class B idol good for 3 attended TCs or merge, whichever is first). If a 5x5 puzzler gets the fastest time

overall

(including 4x4s) they instead receive a Class A idol good until Final 7.

This means: Two tribes will have someone who receives a Class B idol good for 3 attended tribals or merge (whichever is first). One tribe will have someone who receives either (a) the previously mentioned Class B for 3 attended tribals/until merge; (b) A Class A idol good until the merge; (c) a Class B idol good until Final 7; (d) A Class A idol good until Final 7 or (e) a Revote Idol. In total, then, 3 idols will be awarded by this.

Yes this is kind of complicated, so I encourage any questions about this in your confessional or decision booth.

You may practice puzzles by going here: https://puzzel.org/en/slidingpuzzle/create just upload your own image and set it for either 4x4 or 5x5. When I played, I found this article helpful on how to solve a sliding puzzle: https://www.wikihow.com/Solve-Slide-Puzzles

Deadline: September 4 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #19 (isolation #15) » Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:09 am

Clarification: 2 tribes get immunity!

zoraster · Post Post #20 (isolation #16) » Fri Sep 04, 2020 11:00 am

Challenge #2: Sliding Puzzle Results

Bangkok and Casablanca earn immunity!

Alexandria, you'll see me at Tribal Council tomorrow.

I'll post in idol winners' decision booths with their win in the next few minutes. If you don't have one in the next 5-10 minutes, you can assume you did not receive one.

Vote Deadline: September 5th @ 20:00 EDT

Note the later time

zoraster · Post Post #21 (isolation #17) » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:03 pm

TC2 Result: Rahladala on Alexandria has been voted out.

zoraster · Post Post #22 (isolation #18) » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:04 pm

Challenge #3, Word Web

Challenge Number:

3

Challenge Name:

Word Web

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may not discuss this challenge with your tribemates.

Link to Form:

This is the form.

Winner Determined by:

The two tribes with the fastest average time will win immunity.

What needs to be submitted to win:

A screenshot of the puzzle, with the word highlighted or circled.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

The max time for this challenge is one hour.

Description:

We have created a grid of letters that are connected by lines. Your goal is simple--find the one place in this grid where a specific word can be spelled by connecting grid lines and not repeating letters. Here is an example from a previous iteration of this challenge, where the task was to identify the word “lyricism”.

You’ll find the one place in the grid where the given word can be found by connecting letters, and circle or highlight or otherwise indicate the letters in the word. The two tribes with the fastest average time will win immunity!

You will need some form of editing software (paint, photoshop, etc.) for this challenge.

Deadline: September 6th @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #23 (isolation #19) » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:09 pm

Clarification: Yes, you will be given the word you need to find at the same time as you're given the puzzle.

zoraster · Post Post #24 (isolation #20) » Sun Sep 06, 2020 11:00 am

Challenge #3 Results!

Post 1

Before I begin, a quick reminder: please pay attention to the rules for discussing the challenges. We're using a variety of different levels of communication you can do. Challenge 2 allowed for a ton of communication, but this one was NO communication. When that happens, please take it seriously and don't discuss the challenge, including your result (e.g. "I did really badly").

Anyway!

Why don't we reveal these one at a time?

Let's start with Bangkok!

animorpherv1 with 1:00:00
D3f3nd3r with 0:04:15.9
DK with 0:10:05.7
Malkon05 with 0:17:01.7
mist7676 with 0:01:27.2
Pine with 0:20:28.2
VashtaNeurotic with 0:05:42.5

Bangkok has an average time of.... 0:17:00.2

zoraster · Post Post #25 (isolation #21) » Sun Sep 06, 2020 11:01 am

Challenge #3 Results, Post 2

On to Casablanca...

Aronis with 0:01:38.1
Cheery Dog with 0:09:44.2
Espeonage with 1:00:00
Gammagooey with 0:23:12.7
Haschel Cedricson with 0:16:40.2
Reundo with 0:16:21.1
SleepyKrew with 0:12:33.4
tris with 0:04:18.5

Casablanca has an average time of... 0:18:03.5

Therefore, Bangkok has secured immunity! Let's see whether Alexandria can beat Casablanca's time of 18 minutes!

zoraster · Post Post #26 (isolation #22) » Sun Sep 06, 2020 11:02 am

Challenge #3 Results, Post 3

Finally Alexandria. Did they do enough to beat Casablanca?

Aristophanes with 0:50:36.1
Awoo with 1:00:00
CreativeMod1 with 1:00:00
DeasVail with 0:07:26.5
kdowns with 0:08:39.9
SummerinWonderland with 1:00:00.0

for an average time of 0:41:07.1

Therefore Casablanca joins Bangkok in safety while Alexandria heads to Tribal Council for a third straight time!

Deadline: Sep 7 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #27 (isolation #23) » Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:14 am

kdowns was voted out by Alexandria.

Drop Your Buffs!

zoraster · Post Post #28 (isolation #24) » Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:15 am

Challenge #4, Tribal Thumbtacks

Challenge Number:

4

Challenge Name:

Tribal Thumbtacks

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You are encouraged to collaborate with your tribemates as much as you wish without submitting for each other.

Link to Form:

No form is required on this challenge, use your Decision Booth

Winner Determined by:

The tribe with the most points will win immunity.

What needs to be submitted to win:

Each player must submit individually in their Decision Booth, and one tribal tiebreaker submission will be decided on in the tribe chats.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

There is no time limit, anyone who fails to submit will just not be able to earn their tribe points.

Description:

This is a simple game--it’s Thumbtacks! Each player will pick a number to fit on their board, and will score points equal to the number they placed minus the next lower number. In addition, anyone who picks a number that someone else picks will knock each other off the board for the purposes of scoring. Let me show you some example rounds.

On a board with a max height of 10, Monty chooses 10, Zoraster chooses 6, Xofelf chooses 3, and Kison chooses 1.
Monty would score 4 points (10-6), Zoraster would score 3 points (6-3), Xofelf would score 2 points (3-1), and Kison would score one point (1-0).

On a board with a max height of 10, Monty chooses 10, Zoraster chooses 5, Xofelf chooses 5, and Kison chooses 1.
Zoraster and Xofelf would knock each other off the board, and would each score zero. Monty would score 9 points (10-1), and Kison would score 1 point.

At the end of three rounds, the tribe with the most points will win immunity! The board heights for each round will be as follows:

Round 1: 75
Round 2: 90
Round 3: 110

To preclude the event of a tie, each tribe will be asked to submit an answer to this question: “How many points will both tribes get, in total?”. If a tie occurs, the tribe that comes closest without going over will win immunity. If both tribes go over, the tribe with the closer answer will win immunity.

Deadline: September 8th at 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #30 (isolation #25) » Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:06 am

Reundo has been voted out by Delhi

zoraster · Post Post #31 (isolation #26) » Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:07 am

Challenge #5, Learning is Fun!

Challenge Number:

5

Challenge Name:

Learning Is Fun!

Contact First for Questions:

Monty or Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

Discussion of this challenge with tribemates is strictly prohibited.

Link to Form:

This is the form. Submit to start, submit to finish.

Winner Determined by:

The tribe that has the fewest seconds off of the correct answer cumulatively will win immunity.

What needs to be submitted to win:

The time that the screenshot was taken from.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

The max time for this challenge will be one hour. (not a screenshot, just the time)

Description:

We have found an educational video that we would like you to watch! However, we really want to make sure you’ve watched it. To do that, we’ve taken a screenshot of a specific moment in the educational video. Your goal is to identify the exact place in the video (in minutes and seconds) that the screenshot was taken from. Everyone will complete this challenge individually, and your submission will be turned into a “score”. A perfect submission identifying the exact time the screenshot was taken from will receive a score of 0, while any other submission will receive one point for every second removed from the correct answer. For example, if the answer was 0:30, and a player answered 1:00, that player would receive 30 points for their tribe. The tribe with the fewest points will win immunity! In the event of a tie, the tribe with the fastest average time to complete the challenge will win immunity.

Deadline: September 11 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #33 (isolation #27) » Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:04 am

Gamma has been voted out by the Delhi Tribe.

zoraster · Post Post #34 (isolation #28) » Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:05 am

Challenge #6, Maze of Deception

Challenge Number:

6

Challenge Name:

Maze of Deception

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster or Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You are allowed to discuss which parts of the maze you will attempt to do, but discussion about the maze itself is prohibited.

Link to Form:

This is the form. Submit the start to start. Submit the finish to stop the clock.

Winner Determined by:

The tribe with the fastest mean submission time will win.

What needs to be submitted to win:

For

each

maze you choose to do, you must submit a screenshot of the completed maze (there will be a space for a url for each maze). The completion must go through the “expected” format, no drawing a line around the exterior of the maze to connect points or anything like that.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

The max time for this challenge is one hour.

Description:

We have prepared a fun dilemma for you. For this challenge, each player will choose to complete one, two or three mazes. Each player’s time will be determined by how long it took them to complete however many mazes they decided to complete (i.e. the total cumulative time). The winning tribe will be the tribe with the fastest mean submission time.

Everyone must complete Maze #1.

You MAY choose to complete Maze #2 next. IF you do a somewhat smaller Maze #2 you MAY choose to also do Maze #3, an even smaller maze. Note that the mazes do get a bit more complicated though!

Why would you choose to do this? Because there are idols at play, my friends! Here’s how that’ll work.

Of all players who choose to do Maze #2 on a tribe, the fastest time to do both (remember, cumulative time) will get a Revote idol good until Final 9. However, if this player’s time is ALSO faster than the overall mean AND median time for

all

participants, they instead receive a Class B idol good until Final 9.

If the player who would have won a Class B idol in the paragraph above ALSO completed Maze #3, they will instead receive a Class A idol good until Final

SEVEN

. Note that this requires having the fastest Maze #2 time in the tribe, being faster than the mean and median times overall AND doing Maze #3. A tall task with a big reward!

Results will be announced ONLY as the total submission time from each player. Players will not be informed of who did how many mazes.

To do this challenge, you’ll need an ability to manipulate an image like Paint, Photoshop, etc. to draw a path for the maze.

Just to be clear: if you do Maze #3, you must do Maze #2 and #1 as well. If you do Maze #2, you must do Maze #1.

Deadline September 13 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #36 (isolation #29) » Mon Sep 14, 2020 11:08 am

Challenge #7, Cheaters Prosper

Challenge Number:

7

Challenge Name:

Cheaters Prosper

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You are not allowed to discuss this challenge at all with other tribemates.Don’t talk about how you think you did. Don’t talk about methods of cheating. Don’t talk about anything other than “good luck” and letting them know you finished the challenge if you want.

Link to Form:

This is the form.

Winner Determined by:

The fastest average tribe to submit will win immunity.

What needs to be submitted to win:

Solved anagrams, a screenshot of a solved sudoku puzzle, and an unscrambled cryptogram phrase.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

Ninety minutes is the maximum time to submit.

Description:

Ordinarily, cheating is not allowed. However, this is your chance to clean up by getting dirty! You are allowed to use WHATEVER tools you can think of to solve the puzzles EXCEPT for talking to another player on this challenge. That starts right NOW, so you are not allowed to discuss how to cheat various puzzles with any player. You’ll be given a series of puzzles when you start the form which you must complete. You may only submit once. The tribe with the fastest average time to complete the challenge wins immunity.

zoraster · Post Post #37 (isolation #30) » Mon Sep 14, 2020 11:08 am

Ooop. CM1 has been voted out from TC6.

zoraster · Post Post #39 (isolation #31) » Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:00 am

Challenge #7 Results

There was a LOT of variance in how good people were at cheating. And that cryptogram gave a lot of people a lot of trouble. Let's see the results!

Spoiler: Delhi Tribe

Spoiler: El Paso Tribe

Leaving us with

Spoiler: Average Times

Deadline: Wednesday, September 16 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #40 (isolation #32) » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:03 am

Cheery Dog has been voted out.

zoraster · Post Post #41 (isolation #33) » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:03 am

SWAP TIME

Welcome to your second swap! Here are the new tribes:

STOP TALKING UNTIL TOLD YOU MAY BEGIN TALKING IN YOUR NEW TRIBES.

We will be assigning access shortly.

A quick note: Yes, it's weird to me too that the tribes ended up split evenly AND distributed alphabetically. However, I did this randomly and in front of the spectators. I have triple checked that this was accurate. You may audit it after the game is done.

zoraster · Post Post #42 (isolation #34) » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:12 am

Challenge #8, Teamwork Timing

Challenge Number:

8

Challenge Name:

Teamwork Timing

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

Discussion about this challenge is encouraged.

Link to Form:

https://forms.gle/n7uhL6vmoRqUskCe7

Winner Determined by:

The tribe with the best timing collectively will win immunity.

What needs to be submitted to win:

Just enter your info and hit submit! But uh… talk about it first with your tribe.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

N/A

Description:

Each player gets one entry. The first player to submit their form on a tribe will start the timer by submitting their entry. Then players will try to get closest to:

1 minute after the first submission
15 minutes after the first submission
60 minutes after the first submission
2 hours after the first submission
4 hours after the first submission

The closest entry to each timing will be scored (you have 8 players, so there are 2 extra entries). The team with the lowest cumulative time away from “perfect” wins immunity. Only one entry will “count” for each timing, so make sure your team organizes itself so people know the timing they’re going for.

We will use the time on the google form submission to determine closeness. You may use any time keeping device you want to try to coordinate. You may use voice calls, video calls, streams, etc. to coordinate, but you may not show yourself submitting the form or show the secret code you use.

Deadline: September 17 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #44 (isolation #35) » Sat Sep 19, 2020 11:03 am

Vash has been voted out by Florence.

zoraster · Post Post #45 (isolation #36) » Sat Sep 19, 2020 11:05 am

Challenge 9, Shaping the Future

Challenge Number:

9

Challenge Name:

Shaping the Future

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You’re allowed to discuss general strategies for this kind of puzzle, but may not discuss the specifics of the challenge with anyone on your tribe.

Link to Form:

This is the link to the form,

Winner Determined by:

The fastest average time to correctly submit.

What needs to be submitted to win:

A screenshot with the correctly solved puzzle.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

The max time is one hour.

Description:

You’re going to see a grid divided into regions. Some circles, some triangles, and some squares will be scattered throughout the grid. Your goal is to place shapes so that one square, circle, and triangle is in each region, while ensuring that none of the same shapes are in adjacent cells, even diagonally. (No circle touching a circle, or square touching a square, etc.) In addition, all shapes must be adjacent to another shape either horizontally or vertically. You’ll submit a screenshot of your completed puzzle to complete the challenge. The tribe with the fastest average time to correctly submit will win immunity.

Deadline September 20 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #47 (isolation #37) » Sat Sep 19, 2020 11:43 am

Sample puzzle with Sample Solution:

zoraster · Post Post #48 (isolation #38) » Sun Sep 20, 2020 11:09 am

I hope this one didn't get you all bent out of shape. Har har har

Spoiler: Results

Deadline is September 21st @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #49 (isolation #39) » Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:03 am

Animorpherv1 was voted out by Florence.

zoraster · Post Post #50 (isolation #40) » Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:05 am

Challenge #10, One Line at a Time (OLAAT)

Challenge Number:

10

Challenge Name:

One Line at a Time

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may in your tribe discord post to say (a) that you have posted; (b) that you are about to post; (c) to keep a running tally of which members have posted; and (d) to ping individuals on your tribe in the discord chat if there are 15 posts left to your tribe or you are in the last hour of the challenge. Do not post anything about the content of the posts. Do not coordinate with other players,

including about availability

(you may discuss your general availability), the story, etc.

Link to Form:

You will receive a Private Topic on mafiascum.net linked in your Tribe’s Discord.

Winner Determined by:

A 3 judge panel

What needs to be submitted to win:

See description

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

Deadline (Sept 22 @ 18:00 EDT)

Description:

Each tribe has 24 hours to put together a great little scene! Here’s how it’ll work: each tribe will get a PT (Private Topic) and a few prompts from the spectators (see below) to make up a little story! Both tribes get the same prompts. But there’s a catch! Each player may only post one sentence at a time that is no more than 25 words long, no one may post more than one sentence in a row, at least (7 for Guadalajara/5 for Florence [i.e. max - 1]) people from the tribe must participate, and there can be NO planning ahead or communicating with each other about the task other than what is SPECIFICALLY mentioned in the “Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe.”

Players may start their sentence with <paragraph> to insert a new paragraph. This does not count against the word maximum. The PT will be cut off after 100 posts, not including the mod’s. So it will be at maximum 100 sentences and 2500 words long. But it is certainly not a requirement that the story be this long!

No identification of the participants should occur in the story.

A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, exclamation mark, question mark or quote marks if preceded by a period, question mark or exclamation mark. If you forget, a period will be edited in (but please don’t forget so we don’t have to edit so much!). Any post with more than 25 words will be edited to end at the 25th word and a period will be inserted. A player posting twice in a row will have their second sentence not included in the story and reduce the maximum number of posts for the tribe by 5. Not having at least 7/5 players post will end in a disqualification for the tribe. If both tribes are disqualified, both go to tribal council.

A 3 person judging panel consisting of spectators has been selected: CaptainMeme, NotAJumbleOfNumbers, and Skelda. They will not have access to confessionals or the spectator channel during this challenge, so you may talk about the challenge in your confessional. But they’ll be presented the story all in one post, and they will not be told who the writers are. The winning tribe is the one that two of the three judges picks as the best story!

Judging Criteria: Judges are asked to judge on the basis of use of prompts (25%), making logical sense (25%) and being an enjoyable story (50%).

Emphasize:

Don’t post more than once in a row.
At least 5 people must post for Florence and at least 7 must post for Guadalajara
Don’t tip off who you are.

Prompts

A place you’d fall in love: Paris
Name of a Woman from 1880: Edith
Trendy Name of a Boy Born Today: Aiden
Waterpark Name: Drippy Swifty
Greek Myth: Daedalus and Icarus

It'll take me a few minutes to assign PT access, I'll post again when it's ready.

zoraster · Post Post #51 (isolation #41) » Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:08 am

Access has been given to the PTs. You may now begin to post

Deadline: September 22nd @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #52 (isolation #42) » Mon Sep 21, 2020 6:13 pm

A clarification: as the rules state, only one sentence per post. Posts with more than one sentence will have the second+ sentences removed and a 5 post penalty applied, just as posting twice would. This is an attempt to stop anyone from trying to prompt other players as to what to post.

zoraster · Post Post #53 (isolation #43) » Tue Sep 22, 2020 11:08 am

Finished OLAAT Stories

The tribes have code names and have randomly been drawn to see whose story will be posted first. I have to say, I really enjoyed watching you guys do this!

Here are their stories:

Tribe Code Name Idaho: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2P ... HfHKJn/pub
Tribe Code Name Montana: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2P ... JgD_lW/pub

Note:

It is very possible that there is some violation I have not noticed or other error I made in editing this together. My apologies if so, but the stories are FINAL unless I did something like miss an entire post.

The judges will now deliberate until 18:00 EDT tomorrow (September 23rd) and your surprise is about to come...

zoraster · Post Post #54 (isolation #44) » Tue Sep 22, 2020 11:10 am

Idol Challenge, Return of the Zone

Challenge Number:

N/A

Challenge Name:

Return to the Zone

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may discuss as much as you want with others in your tribe

Link to Form:

https://forms.gle/xxsMvkXYUThacKrX8

Winner Determined by:

Highest submitted score before the merge

What needs to be submitted to win:

A screen shot of the end of the game. You MUST enter a name if you had a high score.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

Until the Merge

Description:

We wanted you to have a little fun while the judges are deliberating on your stories. So from now until the merge, you get to participate in an exciting competition: Return of the Zone. To play, click here.

Players will have until the merge to try to rack up their best score. The highest score will receive a Class B idol good until Final 5. If you beat the second place score from TRTWIUAA -- 4,400,000 -- and you are the highest score you will receive a Class A idol good until Final 5 instead. If you beat Zoraster’s legendary score of 5,738,420 you will receive the Class A idol good until Final 5 AND Zoraster will record a song singing your praises to post in your confessional (this may not be shared with other players).

In order to win, you must screenshot your score with the “You Lose PRESS RETURN” screen showing and submit it via the form. This screenshot should include all of the game area. If the score you are submitting gets a “HIGH SCORE” you

must

enter a name (not necessarily your own!) and click “I’m Awesome.” We will check each day of the competition to see who is submitting scores. If we don’t spot your submitted score, it may not count!

You MAY submit as many times as you want until the merge, but ONLY your last one you submit will be looked at unless there’s a technical problem.

Results will not be revealed to anyone but the winner.

If you want to stream your attempts for Spectators to watch, contact Zoraster to create a Very Special Voice channel for you! If you for some reason want the rest of your tribe to see you do it, you can use the voice and video channel for your tribe to stream to.

zoraster · Post Post #55 (isolation #45) » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:00 am

Challenge #10 Judging!

It's time for Judgment Day!

First up, we have Mr. Jumbles:

Spoiler: Jumbles

I'll give you a little time to digest Jumble's judgment before we get to another judge.

zoraster · Post Post #56 (isolation #46) » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:04 am

Next is Skelda!

Spoiler: Skelda

Spoiler: So that means...

zoraster · Post Post #57 (isolation #47) » Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:06 am

Spoiler: CaptainMeme

Spoiler: Winner

Deadline: September 24 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #58 (isolation #48) » Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:04 am

Aronis has been voted out.

zoraster · Post Post #59 (isolation #49) » Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:05 am

This is where normally Monty would have me make a joke about dropping your expectations, but given the bad run of luck for the Florence crew, we'll dispense with that. Instead, here's your next challenge!

zoraster · Post Post #60 (isolation #50) » Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:05 am

Challenge #11, Seesaws

Challenge Number:

11

Challenge Name:

Seesaws

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may discuss with your tribemates as much as you want! You may

NOT

communicate about this challenge with the other tribe via the firemaking challenge, communication device, or any other method.

Link to Form:

https://forms.gle/r3XaXo7zwwsYbJRr5

Winner Determined by:

Points first. A tie results in a shipwreck, all players in one tribal council voting off one player.

What needs to be submitted to win:

Just fill out the form!

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

No

Description:

Guadalajara: you need to pick 3 people to sit out this challenge.* Five people will play from each tribe. There are six seesaws. Each tribe places weights onto their side of the seesaws. A team wins the seesaw’s points if at the end their side has more weight. Each player has 8 weights: a 5 lbs, 7 lbs. 10 lbs, 12 lbs, 15 lbs, 20 lbs, 25 lbs, and 40 lbs. They must decide which of their weights goes onto which seesaw.

A player may place more than one of their weights onto a single seesaw, and they must place all of their weights.

The order matters! The lowest weights will be placed onto a seesaw first. If there’s no more space for the heavier weights, the heavier weights will go unused. No points are awarded if the seesaw is perfectly balanced. Here are the seesaws:

Seesaw A: 4 spaces, 2 points
Seesaw B: 6 spaces, 2 points
Seesaw C: 7 spaces, 3 points
Seesaw D: 3 spaces, 3 points
Seesaw E: 6 spaces, 4 points
Seesaw F: 10 spaces, 5 points

The tribe with the most points at the end wins immunity! In the event of a tie, there will be a “shipwreck” for this tribal where both tribes will be combined, everyone will vote and no one will be immune (still only a 24 hour deadline).

You may change your selections up to the deadline.

*If more than 5 entries come in from Guadalajara the last 5 players to submit entries will have their selections used.

Deadline: September 25th @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #61 (isolation #51) » Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:15 am

Clarification: each tribe has the number of spaces indicated on each seesaw. There are 40 weights total for each tribe and 36 spots for each tribe.

zoraster · Post Post #62 (isolation #52) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:03 am

Challenge #11: Seesaws

Hello and Welcome to Seesaws! I should mention that Florence only had 4 submissions. Let's see if they can overcome that!

First up, let's do our two 2 pointers:

Seesaw A

Florence placed: 10, 12
Guadalajara placed: 15, 20, 25, 25

Guadalajara wins with 85 to Florence's 22

Seesaw B

Florence placed: 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7
Guadalajara placed: 12, 12, 12, 15, 15, 15

Guadalajara wins with 81 to Florence's 34.

Let's take a quick commercial break!

zoraster · Post Post #63 (isolation #53) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:04 am

Zorios. They're Cheerios, but they're in the shape of an otter. Cute and edible with enough milk!

zoraster · Post Post #64 (isolation #54) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:05 am

Okay! Back to it! Let's do the 3 pointers!

Seesaw C

Florence placed: 20, 20, 25, 40, 40, 40
Guadalajara placed: 15, 20, 20, 20, 20, 25, 25

Florence wins with 185 to Guadalajara's 145!

Seesaw D

Florence placed: 10, 10, 10
Guadalajara placed: 5, 7, 7

Florence wins with 30 to Guadalajara's 19.

Points stand at 6 Florence, 4 Guadalajara

Commercial time!

zoraster · Post Post #65 (isolation #55) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:06 am

Monty's Mountaineering: When you want a good deal on mountaineering supplies, just ask, "Monty the mountaineering man, what do I need?" and your own personal Monty will help you!

zoraster · Post Post #66 (isolation #56) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:07 am

Welcome back. Time for the 4 pointer!

Seesaw E

Florence placed: 25, 25, 25, 40
Guadalajara placed: 25, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40

Guadalajara wins with 225 to Florence's 115.

Points are 6 Florence, 8 Guadalajara. It all comes down to Seesaw F!

zoraster · Post Post #67 (isolation #57) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:08 am

Pre-jury Salt: When you need a brine with the saltiest material on earth, check out Pre-Jury Salt! NaCl never tasted so fresh. Pre-Jury Salt, by Ponderosa.

zoraster · Post Post #68 (isolation #58) » Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:09 am

Seesaw F

Florence placed: 12, 12, 12, 15, 15, 15, 15, 20, 20
Guadalajara placed: 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10

Florence wins 136 to Guadalajara's 71.

Florence wins with 11 points to Guadalajara's 8!

Deadline: September 26 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #69 (isolation #59) » Sat Sep 26, 2020 11:13 am

DeasVail was voted out by Guadalajara

zoraster · Post Post #70 (isolation #60) » Sat Sep 26, 2020 11:14 am

MERGE!

zoraster · Post Post #71 (isolation #61) » Sat Sep 26, 2020 11:16 am

Challenge #12, Incremental Game

Challenge Number:

12

Challenge Name:

Incremental Game

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others:

You may not discuss it until both parties have STARTED (you may talk about it if both parties are either done or have begun. Remember that lying about starting or finishing a challenge is cheating).

Link to Form:

https://forms.gle/hdtqsvDXuNBwVFCM9

Winner Determined by:

Highest score (metric announced on the form)

What needs to be submitted to win:

A screenshot of your final score before one hour elapses.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

60 minutes EXACTLY

Description:

Players have one hour to get as high a score on an incremental game. What that means will be described on the submission form. You MUST submit your screenshot before 60 minutes elapses from when you first submitted the start form. If you do not, even by a second, you will be disqualified. So uh… err on the side of caution.

Part of this challenge is figuring out the game itself, so little instruction will be provided.

The highest score that is submitted within 60 minutes will receive immunity!

Deadline: September 27th @ 18:00

I'll warn you all that many challenges post merge require a bit more time on your part. Not all, but many! Good luck.

zoraster · Post Post #72 (isolation #62) » Sat Sep 26, 2020 11:20 am

Clarification: Players can coordinate on their start times.

zoraster · Post Post #73 (isolation #63) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 11:00 am

Immunity Challenge #12: Incremental Game Results

Results to your very first immunity challenge!

Spoiler: ?

zoraster · Post Post #74 (isolation #64) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 11:01 am

Spoiler: Next up

zoraster · Post Post #75 (isolation #65) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 11:02 am

Spoiler: We Over 300k Now, Y'all!

zoraster · Post Post #76 (isolation #66) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 11:03 am

Spoiler: So who wins???

zoraster · Post Post #77 (isolation #67) » Sun Sep 27, 2020 11:04 am

Spoiler: Who wins the IMMUNITY, Jerk?

Spoiler: Quick Reminder

Deadline: September 29th @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #78 (isolation #68) » Tue Sep 29, 2020 11:05 am

Mist7576 was voted out.

zoraster · Post Post #79 (isolation #69) » Tue Sep 29, 2020 11:05 am

Challenge #13,Get to Know Production

Challenge Number:

13

Challenge Name:

Get to Know Production

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may not discuss any element of this challenge until you establish with all members in your discussion that you are all finished. A reminder that lying about this is cheating.

Link to Form:

https://forms.gle/jHPwpjUVfpqwFGBU6

Winner Determined by:

Fastest Time for a correct submission

What needs to be submitted to win:

There are three questions about a puzzle which must be correctly answered.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

90 minutes

Description:

This is a logic puzzle. You can practice logic puzzles here: https://logic.puzzlebaron.com/init.php This puzzle is difficult. If no one answers all 3 questions correctly, a player that answers 2 questions correctly in the fastest time will win. If no one answers at least two questions correctly, NO ONE gets immunity.

Deadline: September 30 @ 23:00 EDT

Don't do the puzzle just yet, there are a couple of clues that appear to be wrong.

zoraster · Post Post #80 (isolation #70) » Wed Sep 30, 2020 3:24 am

Due to our mistake, the deadline for Challenge #13 is now 23:00 EDT.

Voting Deadline for TC#13 will be 20:00 EDT on Thursday, 10/1. The deadline for Challenge #14 will also be 20:00 EDT on Friday, 10/2.

Deadlines thereafter will be 18:00 EDT again.

zoraster · Post Post #82 (isolation #71) » Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:03 pm

DK has been voted out and is our first juror.

zoraster · Post Post #83 (isolation #72) » Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:04 pm

Challenge #14, Dice Roll Endurance

Challenge Number:

14

Challenge Name:

Dice Roll Endurance

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others:

Discussion of this challenge and your results is NOT allowed.

Link to Form:

You will be provided a private channel in the discord server.

Winner Determined by:

The highest roll

What needs to be submitted to win:

Before the deadline, please point us to the message that you want to use as your submission by linking to it in your decision booth, copying and pasting the submission (including time) etc. so that we can find it easily. You may change your submission.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

The deadline

Description:

Each player remaining will receive a private channel. In that channel, they can make a post where they roll 100 20 sided dice. Every 10 minutes or more, the player may make another 100d20 dice roll. The highest total rolled in any individual valid message wins! The channel will be in “slow mode” and only allow posts every 10 minutes. Discussion of your results throughout the challenge is not allowed.

To submit a roll, you must point the mods to what time you made your highest roll in your decision booth. Don’t make me sort through all of your posts. I may miss a high roll, and I will not correct my mistake if you did not make an effort to highlight the roll. You may submit multiple times, only the most recent submission will be accepted.

To roll a dice, format it as so in your dice rolling discord channel

Code: Select all

!100d20

You may begin rolling on my mark in the announcement channel.

Please note, i need to give you permissions in discord. Do not post until I give the go ahead in the announcement channel!

Deadline: October 2, 2020 @ 20:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #85 (isolation #73) » Fri Oct 02, 2020 1:22 pm

Spoiler: Full Results

Deadline: October 3 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #86 (isolation #74) » Sat Oct 03, 2020 11:10 am

D3f3nd3r was voted out and is our second juror

zoraster · Post Post #87 (isolation #75) » Sat Oct 03, 2020 11:11 am

Challenge #15, Darken The Maze

Challenge Number:

15

Challenge Name:

Nurimaze

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may not discuss this challenge with any other players.

Link to Form:

This is the link to the form.

Winner Determined by:

Fastest time to submit.

What needs to be submitted to win:

A screenshot with the completed puzzle.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

60 minutes.

Description:

For this challenge, you’ll get a grid divided into regions. Your goal is to darken/highlight some regions, keeping the following things in mind: all cells start out white. Cells with letters, circles, or triangles should remain white. White cells will form a path from the cell with the letter “S” to the cell with the letter “G”. The path will be connected horizontally and vertically, but there can be other white cells outside the path. White cells must not form a loop. All white cells must be connected horizontally or vertically to other white cells. And no 2x2 area within the grid can be the same colour. The person who sends a link to a screenshot of the correctly completed puzzle the fastest will win immunity!

Deadline: October 4th @ 20:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #90 (isolation #76) » Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:09 pm

Pine was voted out and is our 3rd Jury Member

zoraster · Post Post #91 (isolation #77) » Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:14 pm

Challenge #16, Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament

Challenge Number:

16

Challenge Name:

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may discuss this as much as you’d like with other members of the tribe to try to get inside their head! “Yo Monty. I’m gonna throw three straight Scissors at you!”

Link to Form:

This is the form.

Winner Determined by:

The highest number of WINS in each round.

What needs to be submitted to win:

You must submit the form, which includes a throw against each player.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

None

Description:

You will select five “throws” against every other player in the game. However, only the first three will be used unless there is a tie.

Each player will be sorted into a single-elimination tournament, each player playing one other player. I will generate the tournament bracket shortly, but you will pick your throws against every other player. Using the form, you will “throw” three times against this opponent.

A player will advance if they have more wins against their opponent in the first three throws. If players tie, you will throw the fourth time. If you still tie, you will throw the fifth time.. If it is still tied, the tie-breaker question will be used. If it is still tied, a coin will be flipped. All of this will be resolved at once at the deadline.

The tie-breaker question: How many times total was paper thrown on people’s forms? (Closest wins)

For those of you not aware, Rock, Paper, Scissors is simple. Each contestant picks to “throw” either a Rock, Paper or Scissors. Rock beats Scissors. Scissors beats Paper. Paper beats Rock. In the event both contestants “throw” the same item, there is a tie.

Deadline: October 6 @ 18:00 EDT

Bracket:

Quarterfinal 1: Highest Random Number vs. Lowest Random Number
Quarterfinal 2: Second Highest Random Number vs. Second Lowest Random Number

Quarterfinal 3: Third Highest Random Number vs. Third Lowest Random Number
Quarterfinal 4: The two middle random numbers.

Semi 1: QF1 Winner vs. QF2 Winner
Semi 2: QF3 Winner vs. QF4 Winner

Final: Semi 1 Winner vs. Semi 2 Winner

Random numbers coming your way!

zoraster · Post Post #92 (isolation #78) » Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:16 pm

Aristophanes:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (83) = 83

Awoo:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (81) = 81

Espe:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (14) = 14

Haschel:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (81) = 81

Malkon05:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (22) = 22

SleepyKrew

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (10) = 10

Summer:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (15) = 15

tris:

Original Roll String: 1d100

1 100-Sided Dice: (100) = 100

zoraster · Post Post #93 (isolation #79) » Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:18 pm

QF 1: Sleepy vs. Haschel
QF 2: Ari vs. Summer
QF 3: Espe vs. Malkon
QF 4: tris vs. Awoo

zoraster · Post Post #96 (isolation #80) » Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:44 am

Challenge #17: Jigsaw!

Spoiler: Who Wins, Who Dies, Who Solves Their Puzzle?

Deadline: October 9th @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #97 (isolation #81) » Fri Oct 09, 2020 11:07 am

Espeonage was voted out and is the fifth juror

zoraster · Post Post #98 (isolation #82) » Fri Oct 09, 2020 11:15 am

Challenge #18, OLAAT Redux

Challenge Number:

18

Challenge Name:

One Line at a Time Redux

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may not discuss this with anyone else.

Link to Form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... Q/viewform (submitting the first page will start your 5 minute timer!)

Winner Determined by:

Whoever has the most correct posts.

What needs to be submitted to win:

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

37 minutes

Description:

Each individual will get a Private Topic (PT) before they submit the start form They will submit a form, which will give them a list of 30 words. They will have 5 minutes in which to start the challenge as determined by the form submission time and the Private Topic first post time.

These timers may be slightly different, so don’t cut it too close!.

The form will give them a numbered list with each number containing a word or words.

Each minute a player must post a complete organic sentence that makes sense using the next word or words on the list. The sentences must be at least 5 words long.

The sentences must be made up of completely unique words

-- in other words, the sentence must not include words used from any prior post -- including the mandatory words (use your 5 minutes to read ahead)! But these are NOT just the words on the numbered list but ALL words in all your sentences. The sentences do not have to connect to each other.

The posts must be made every minute or less. This is determined by taking the previous post (so if it says 10:12:28 then the next post must be made by 10:13:28, but if you submit at 10:13:09 then the next will need to be made by 10:14:09).

A player that either posts too late, posts without using the correct word or words, posts too short of a sentence, or uses a word that was in a previous sentence is eliminated from the challenge. The last player left receives immunity IF and only IF they post 1 more valid sentence than the next best player. If there is no player that meets this criteria, ALL players will be eligible to be voted for and no one will have immunity.

You may use a dictionary. All words, other than proper nouns, must be found in a common English dictionary. Plurals of words will count as different words than singulars.

If you reach the end of the list, you have

120 seconds

from the prior post to compose an organic sentence that uses as many of the words on the list as possible. This sentence may reuse words as many times as necessary. If two or more players reach the end of their lists, the player that uses the most words within 120 seconds of their final word sentence will receive immunity. If there is a tie, the player that spent the least amount of time from their first sentence until their 30th sentence will win immunity.

Organic Sentences

Organic sentences are ones that aren’t “gamey” such as “The words on this list are X, Y, Z.” Use the word in a way that shows that you know the word and you’re using it as that word rather than as a word that could be ANY word. If there is any question, Zoraster will ask an unbiased third party to judge whether a sentence is “organic” or “gamey.”

This sounds kind of complicated so I'm happy to answer questions in your confessionals!

Deadline: October 10 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #99 (isolation #83) » Sat Oct 10, 2020 11:22 am

Challenge #18: OLAAT REDUX RESULTS

You all did FANTASTIC at this challenge. No one completed the list without an error, but many of you would have gotten close but for a single error.

Spoiler: Results

Deadline: October 11th @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #100 (isolation #84) » Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:07 am

Haschel was voted out and is our 6th juror.

zoraster · Post Post #101 (isolation #85) » Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:07 am

Challenge #19, Number Grid

Challenge Number:

19

Challenge Name:

Number Grid

Contact First for Questions:

Monty

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

You may not discuss this challenge with any other players.

Link to Form:

This is a link to the form.

Winner Determined by:

The fastest to submit a screenshot of their completed puzzle will win.

What needs to be submitted to win:

A screenshot of the completed puzzle.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

Ninety minutes is the maximum time.

Description:

This is a simple and fun challenge that I am sure you will enjoy wholeheartedly. You will receive a grid with numbers around the exterior. Every cell in the grid also has a number. In order to succeed, you must just highlight/cross out/blacken out cells so that the only cells NOT crossed out add up to the numbers in the respective rows or columns. If a row or column is blank, it can have as many/few numbers crossed out as suits the puzzle. The fastest person to correctly solve the puzzle wins immunity. If no one correctly solves the puzzle within ninety minutes, no one will win immunity.

Deadline: October 12 @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #103 (isolation #86) » Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:05 am

SleepyKrew was voted out and is our seventh juror.

zoraster · Post Post #104 (isolation #87) » Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:07 am

Challenge #20, Final Challenge Quiz!

Challenge Number:

20

Challenge Name:

Final Challenge Quiz

Contact First for Questions:

Zoraster

Rules for Discussing with Others on Tribe:

Do not discuss this with other people.

Link to Form:

This is the form.

Winner Determined by:

The person who answers the most correctly wins. The tie-breaker will be whoever answered the questions in the fastest time.

What needs to be submitted to win:

The answer submission form.

Time limit or Max Time if Applicable:

None

Description:

Take a 20 question quiz about the game! Get the questions right, and do it as quickly as you can. The winner gets to go to Final Tribal Council!

Fair warning, these are tough questions. There are a mix of multiple choice questions and freeform response questions.

It all comes down to this. You get one attempt at this challenge. Best of luck.

Deadline: October 14th @ 18:00 EDT

zoraster · Post Post #106 (isolation #88) » Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:20 am

Malkon was voted out and is our eighth and final member of the jury.

Congratulations to our Final 3! Summer, Aristophanes and tris will battle it out!

Schedule:

Friday, October 16th @ 18:00 Deadline for Torchwalks. Jury Ponderosa LOCKS.
Saturday, October 17th @

Noon

Deadline for Opening Statements (you might consider writing this while you do your torchwalks). Opening statements will be posted when I get home from the vet. At this point, Jurors will have 3 posts to ask questions, etc.
Monday, October 19th @ 18:00 Deadline for Jury Votes
Monday, October 19th @

21:30

Sia's Favorite, Musical Performance, Live Reading of the Votes!

zoraster · Post Post #107 (isolation #89) » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:27 am

FINAL TRIBAL COUNCIL

Opening Statements

zoraster · Post Post #108 (isolation #90) » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:28 am

Su(preme Overlord) ummer's Opening Statement

My main goal coming into this game was proving to myself I could still play a dominant game. I came in with a lot of nerves because I do have a huge reputation as a player, and I thought that might be used as an excuse to take me out early. I haven’t been on the site in a long time, and so I didn't have many connections to make up for that either. That said, I think I accomplished my goal.
This game for me was about building extremely strong relationships. I focused on making strong bonds during the first half of the game. I knew if I made strong enough connections I could have a ton of power in the merge because people would be willing to help me when I inevitably became a threat.

I made sure at every phase of this game I was able to get myself into a strong position by the end. Just surviving wasn’t enough, I wanted to be able to have control on every single tribe I was on. I swapped by myself, and I knew I had to put my head down and work on infiltrating the majority so that I had control - and by the end of that tribe I had strong allies in Pine, Malkon, Tris and Espe willing to go to bat for me. I used my connections to advance my own agenda: I knew there were certain people who I needed out, and I pushed my alliances into taking them out at the earliest opportunity. For example with Vash and Ani I knew they would become a liability for me at the merge, and so the moment I was able to I took them out without hesitation.

A big part of my game is picking good allies- but also ensuring I am their best and only option. I was at the core of most alliances and relationships I had in the game. I like having control, and I always make sure it would be very difficult for my people to flip on me. I had my core, but I also made sure I had good game relationships with the entire merge. This was so I could plant seeds for what path I wanted the merge to go. For example I loved Pine, but I knew he would be a threat to my personal game, and so I constantly made sure from Florence onwards that I was planting seeds to raise his threat level and make him vulnerable.

I tried to make it so my closest allies were the ones in the game and they didn’t have too many options to take me out. I wanted my people to rely on me, and they did. I took out people who were threats to their loyalty: I knew, for example, Awoo was very close to Aristophanes and had a good bond with him. This is the one of the reasons I knew Awoo had to go fairly early on. I knew Awoo was the centre of attention, and a huge star that would be voted out before me. He played hard, and I made sure I positioned myself behind him. It was a delicate act taking out Awoo and keeping Ari’s loyalty, but I did it and he was entirely loyal to me from that point onward. There are many examples of me deciding to take someone out to benefit my position and keeping my closest people loyal: Ani, Mist, etc all fit this pattern.
I was able to obtain a few advantages. I do think it shows how strong of a game I played with both my idol and nullifier. I used them at the last possible moment as backup. The rounds I was worried about an idol being played I had planned split votes- DK, Pine or a blindside in Awoo. Can never be too careful! (also 4-3-2s are sexy)

While I was very publicly close to Espe I had just as strong relationships with others. All game people were going after Espe then finally to take a shot at me, and I knew at some point he was going to pay the tax for my control in the game. He was a shield for me. People kept trying to vote him out! I think there is a ton of value in having an Obvious Alliance if they are the one who will leave before you, while having a sophisticated set of side-alliances. This is just one example of the strength of focusing on good positioning.

I won 5 individual immunities this game. I proved myself to be a huge challenge threat. Even after I was called out for “winning if I make the end” I thought my ONLY path to the end would have been winning out. At final 5 I proved that I didn’t even need them to win and when I was considered the biggest threat left in the game I received only one vote. I received one vote throughout the entire game and that was at the final 5. (thanks skrew for ruining it

) I think that speaks to my social game. I was able to convince Tris that it was best to take me to finals. I combined physical game in my challenge and advantage wins, social game in nurturing these powerful alliances and strategy by taking out anyone who was a threat to my position in the game.

I had a large role in setting up the merge environments, the blindsides. I positioned myself to be at the center. Not everything this game went according to plan, but I was able to adapt and when under pressure I succeeded in making the necessary moves that it took for me to get here. When my back was against the wall, I thrived. For the entirety of the game I had to position myself knowing I was viewed as a threat, I don’t think I took my foot off of the gas for the entire game. I was almost always in the driver's seat, and moments where I couldn’t be I put in so much effort to be able to be aware and informed on the situation of the gamestate.

When I wanted to protect someone, I put my all in to make the vote go the way I wanted. I made the moves I felt necessary to get my own game ahead, I did have a lot of people trusting me and I betrayed that trust a lot of the time but it was always with my own game in mind I made these moves. I was always thinking multiple rounds ahead, and thinking “if I vote out this person, where do these people’s loyalties go to, where will that leave me, what moves could I make after”. This line of thinking was the key to my game. My strategic game is based on what social bonds I have available at the time and how I'm able to use them to get my strategic ends. I am proud to be a strategist, but its because of my strong social game that I'm able to pull off my plans.

This game meant more to me than I think any here realizes for me as a player. I lost a lot of confidence previously in these games for a lot of reasons. A lot of the times I play too hard and obviously I get caught for being a threat but I also mismanage relationships where people end up thinking I am a villain and root against me. I can say here I am honestly very proud of what I accomplished. I came in as a winner with a huge reputation behind me, and I was absolutely terrified I wouldn’t have a shot of being here today to speak to the jury. And I did that by playing hard, giving this my all and trying to have control. I didn’t hide or play scared - I played at 100% every single round and I am still here to tell the story.

________________________________________________________________________
I have had an extremely busy last few days with school so I didn’t get to go into significant detail of certain moves so I do hope people ask me questions about specific rounds! I would love to go more in depth about my game. I am very excited for y’all’s questions and am open to whatever anyone wants clarification on.

Not to be a demanding finalist but pretty please if you have big or important questions for me- ask me early on. I have an insanely busy next few days and I want to make sure I am able to answer all questions and manage my time well <3 thank you friends.

zoraster · Post Post #109 (isolation #91) » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:28 am

Aristophanes' Opening Statement

Introductory Statements

Hello, Greetings, Welcome everyone!

I am so excited to be here, you have no idea! I know some of you are familiar, but for those who are unaware, this is only my third ever LSG on MafiaScum and other than a surprise first round swap in one game this is my first time getting to a Swap, nevermind a Merge! To have made it to the Final 3 was inconceivable for me when this game began, but here we are.
Now, is typical Aristophanes style I have to take this moment to first and foremost thank each and every one of you for playing in this game! It has been fantastic getting to know you all, and I wish it could have been longer. But that's not the nature of the game, and I could not have gotten here without the likes of all of you! So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being here, for having made the time to play in this game, for sticking around after you were voted out, and for just being awesome people, every one of you.

I suppose I should just jump into it. Why would you ever want to give me, Aristophanes, your vote? Why wouldn't you give it to Tris, the ultimate floater? Why wouldn't you give it to Jess, the challenge Beast? Why me?
Well, I may not be the challenge beast. I may have been called a Goat publicly. I may not have floated by. But I had the most impressive social game of Survivor KYE, and that is why I am here. That is why I deserve your votes.

It's time for me to go into a long and probably convoluted tirade about

me

and I am no more comfortable with this than you are, so strap in and enjoy the ride.

Alexandria

Let's start with Alexandria, since, well, it all started with Alexandria.

In the first few days of that tribe, I made some important alliances. I joined forces with T-Bone, CM1, Awoo, and Summer.
If you look at every play I made this game, it was in order to further the goals of this group of individuals.
Now, at the start of the game my social sway was not yet developed, and I lost T-Bone in the first vote of the game. But I never turned on him, nor did I give up on him. I offered every possible solution to save him, but did not yet have the sway to do anything about it. But interestingly, I did have the sway already to be informed of it, and the trust of those close to me that I would not tell him. And I stayed true to both my ally, T-Bone, as well as my living allies who decided to vote him out, which was not an easy spot to be in off the hop, but one which I managed to walk with precision. Keep an ear open for this in particular, as the tightrope I walked this game is a thread which runs throughout the entirety of my play, and I believe is one of the most impressive features of my gameplay.
Anyway, the rest of us took that tribe by storm! And we had to. We went to every single TC there was to attend. But we survived, we persisted, we became stronger.
There was a challenge where the Tribe threw in order to get kdowns eliminated. I knew of the plan, and I by no means went as quickly as I could on that challenge (not that it would have mattered with my challenge record). But I also did not throw the challenge as I simply could not bring myself to throw away an opportunity at safety in order to eliminate someone who probably wasn't even a threat.

El Paso

We then go to the first Swap.

Summer to Delhi while the rest of us remained together on El Paso. I cannot speak to her experience there, but I do know that El Paso was no cakewalk despite our numbers.
We got the first couple TCs off, which was an amazing break from the chaos that was Alexandria. But when it came to the next vote we were at, CM1 decided to threaten DK in order to scare him into using his Idol. I was fairly certain I had a good relationship with DK at that point and that it was not required, but it was done regardless. Because of this Idol catastrophe, Awoo lost his Class B and CM1 went home. It was a devastating blow!
But we were not done yet. The final TC on that tribe was a battle to stay. I was down an ally but shifted that momentum, with the help of Awoo and Aronis, to get rid what should have been the easiest target of the game, but considering tribe dynamics was not so easy. I was told directly that I was assumed to be the vote when Cheery Dog left us, but that the crowds were not in favour of that. It took a lot of work to win that favour there. That was the tribe that would have ended me, where I was most vulnerable. But I held on. I made many bonds that helped me throughout the game when on El Paso. So many of us made it to the end, and it was a very impressive tribe.
One of the most important moves I took on that tribe was my relationship with DK. He was such an interesting person there, as he seemed to know so much yet be afraid of everything. Being on him good side was integral to staying in the game for me there.[/quote]

Florence

Florence was by far the best tribal experience I had in this game. I adored everyone there, and getting to play in such a positive tribe was amazing!

Florence was where I learned how important it can be to lie through your teeth and be ready for the fallout, and this is how I played the game from that point on. Making a move, ensuring the right thing happened for

me

and for

my alliances

, and being able to take the results of that vote in stride, shifting the anger and sadness into dependence upon me. That is what I did from this point on, and that is where I can make a real argument for myself. Now I know this is likely to be a raw spot for me to argue when we come to that point, and for that I apologize. But I was in this game to play, to get to the end, and to win. This method was extremely successful, else I would not be here.

The Vash vote was set to be on someone who was not an ally, and it was used as a foundation for things to come. Awoo and I were the deciding factors there as we could have swung a vote onto either Malkon or Vash. I chose to keep Malkon and he chose to be a loyal ally to the end. It was not intentional that I slowly whittled away his allies until dependence was necessitated, but it is what happened. My first personal management project was SilverClaw, who was the next elimination, but still. I played really hard to regain his confidence after he was left out of the vote, and learned a lot of important info in doing so. I learned of a Communication device that was in play *and* a Class B Idol Detector! I know that the information about both were plays to argue they should be kept as a reliable informant and an anti-pagonger. It was an amazing plea that I wanted to take, but it would not have worked in my end goal and thus, SilverClaw had to go.
Aronis was one of the easier of votes for me, but only because they were the person left in our alliance that I trusted least. I made that choice, I made it happen. I got him out of Awoo's protection and had thrown the right shade at the right times to plant the seeds, and he was eliminated as a threat to my alliance with Awoo. With his purpose served, he was cut.

Each of these votes happened without the victim being wise to it, and while most shied away from talking to them in the time leading up to the votes, I was not afraid to get every last bit of info out of them I could before they were sent away.

Merge Tribe

Merge was a blessing for me! It was finally a chance to take the bonds that I had made, the strategies I had learned, and the innate social abilities I possess to the real playing field. In Merge, it is cut throat and you can have a fantastic majority and all of the power and still be cut down, as we learned. I was very careful to play a smart, strategic, alliance based game of manipulation in order to get here. As I say, this is what most of you have experienced when you encountered me, and I dare say, is one of the main reasons I am here and you are there. But consider that it was honest Ari that did all of this, consider how much playing it took to orchestrate all of this, and consider why that makes my gameplay worthy of your votes here. Because it's not about personal grudges. It's about gameplay. And mine was simply the best of those who remain.

I'm going to split this into portions for you as it is both an easier read and helps with the structuring of thoughts and ideas.

#FlorenceStrong

This was an ideal that many from Florence came into the Merge with and it was one we had worked hard to create. It was so important that we worked together for the initial stages of the Merge. We came in being the weakest tribe, and those from Alexandria came in the weakest subtribe within the weakest tribe. We used our strength to our advantage and it undoubtedly went unnoticed. Pine was quick to sidle up to us for safety but I cannot say I ever fully trusted his intentions there. However I chose not to look a gift tree in the sap and took the advantages of the numbers. Florence contained all of my original alliance which remained and I had to do everything in my power to keep is on the top without looking too strong.

Mist's Elimination

Now, this elimination owes its credit to so many people in so many ways, but here's the gist of how I saw events progress.
We had a solid 6 people and brought in as many as we needed to avoid an idol catastrophe. By that I mean that Espe was the Alt vote, so we had to ensure the numbers went properly in order to to ensure we did not lose an ally if Mist played their Idol. There was a very good chance of it happening there and I had seen first hand how improper prep in the face of an Idol could be devastating. So we hatched a plan to get the votes allocated properly. Espe of course, as the one at risk if this failed, spearheaded a lot of it, but I did my fair share, once again in reassuring DK and gaining his trust. I really did want to work with him despite the uncertainties that presented themselves on that front.
I was integral, in my opinion, to making the votes happen how they did. I took the reins among Florence and assigned some votes to people (which I know got Espe riled up, but I was making strong suggestions in order to

keep you here

! Your push back against it left a bad taste in my mouth that lasted far too long and was a part of why I voted you when that fateful day came. But I digress). We were 5 people who orchestrated 9 votes in our favour including an anti-Idol maneuver.

The organizing of this was key and the social role I played in assuring this happened was huge! We chose a few people we could trust and were honest with them in choosing what info had to be shared, and being able to trust Skrew and Haschel, being honest with them and trusting them, was a huge risk with a high reward. When confronted by D3f in order to be convinced on a vote for Espe this round, I played ball so hard. D3f, I'm sorry about that. I know you had no clue what hit you, and I did my best to reassure you that you were fine for the next rounds where you hung on by a thread. This is the first of many in the

Duped > Reassured > Eliminated

cycle of play that really defines my gameplay here.

I should mention that Awoo was given credit among my allies for convincing D3f that the vote was going to be in favour of Mist despite the way the votes went. While Awoo played spectacularly in the social aspect of this game and does deserve praise here, I laid the groundwork work that interaction having already convinced D3f that my vote was with him. Awoo merely had to come in and support that "fact". I was not bitter that they got the credit, it made the target shift off of my back and downplayed my involvement in things. However in this setting, in the seats we are now in, I feel it is time to own that and make the point that it was

my

social interactions that convinced D3f and Mist that we had their backs first and foremost. Even after the vote, when D3f approached me, I downplayed my knowledge of what happened. I told him I did not know where the DK votes had come from. I played coy in order to placate him until we could eliminate him at a later date. That was all intentional.

DK's Elimination

I am not really sure what to say here. It looked a little touch and go for a bit on the vote, and the Idol possibility was real, but it ended up a unanimous vote. My biggest regret was being busy at work meaning I didn't get a chance to say a final farewell to you. I'm sure it would have been nice for you personally, even if it had changed nothing game-wise. You were someone I really enjoyed, and I had a White Claw in your honour after that elimination was announced.

D3f3nd3r's Elimination

Well, this was another one that was bittersweet, and I think the only vote where it was clear my bullshit was properly seen through. I do not believe that was a failure on my part, however. You were tipped off by everyone in the tribe apparently so I had little I could do there. But I think it speaks to my play in this game that you were willing to go out giving me advice. You were not the only one to do so, and I appreciated all of it. Even if I did not take it to the game, I took it to heart.

Pine's Elimination

Pine, this was one of my crowning achievements in this game. It was a moment where I outshone those I am up against here. It was an integral moment in the game and it was a huge flex of my abilities. Pine, you were a threat from the start. You came into the Florence alliance looking set to work with us, all the while instilling seeds of doubt into people's heads. You did that in every alliance and every interaction I was a part of with you, and man is it impressive!

Awoo and I decided that you needed to go this round. It was a huge undertaking, as it meant excluding an ally, Malkon, potentially straining that alliance. It meant finding a way to turn the tides and the votes against you, the best social competition I had in this game at the time. It meant the creation of an alliance tailored to filling you with false hope. It meant the penultimate splitting of votes.

When Haschel suggested an alliance with Myself, Awoo, Skrew, himself, and an unknown 5th spot, I had to seize the moment. I played it coy and cool, but even before this was suggested we had out sights set on you. It was the perfect time to strike! So I had to play Haschel into trusting that I wanted you in the alliance. It meant having a sub-alliance within the alliance with Awoo and Skrew which formed the basis of the Pine vote along with most of Florence. I had to keep Malkon in the dark and convince him I was with him. It meant making sure all those involved would keep it out of the ears of those who would try to stop it. I made the play to put Pine into that alliance without any input from Awoo. I made the social cogs work in this vote. This was an Aristophanes maneuver and I am proud of it! This play meant orchestrating every vote in the game and it was hugely dependent upon my social prowess and deviousness here. This was

my move

. And I think I played it perfectly.

Awoo's Elimination

This was a tragic moment in the game for me. D3f had put the spotlight onto Awoo and there was only a matter of time until it burned him. I had considered Espeonage a threat prior to this based on knowledge thatthey were butting heads with Awoo, but there was no action taken as they were still a great member of the tribe to keep around. I will admit that I found out about this vote before deadline. I tried to think of every single possibility that would have kept Awoo here, but the table was set and I could only sit there. It was much like T-Bone's early departure from the game and was a moment where I sat back and stuck with my ally, no matter the cost, because allies are integral to this game and without them, why are we even playing? I wish I could have told you. I wish I could have saved you. I'm sorry.

This was the moment, however, when the game became solely mine to play. I was no longer "Awoo's Goat". I was no longer the puppeteer hiding behind a shield. I now had to make my own way without that protection. I had already been a driving force behind the game's events, but now I was also a bigger target.

Espeonage's Elimination

Okay, now this is where it comes to be kind of funny. It was during this round that Haschel approached Tris and I with a truce. Skrew had been feeling me out to see if I would turn on Jess and Haschel was obviously working closely with him, as they had been all game. The aptly named

Goat Brigade

set out to define ourselves and our games and make it to an F3 where we had a mutually even chance of success. It was fantastic on Paper, and is actually the longest side-alliance I was a part of. It lasted an entire round and a half before it had to be disbanded by my hand. We stuck together under the guise of taking out Jess, and the best we could do was a support pillar. It was Malkon or Espe, and I pushed it onto Espe for 2 reasons. The first being their part in the Awoo vote. The second being my alliance with Malkon. I had worked with him every round until the Pine/Awoo split, and this was a chance to regain that ally I had lost. With the support of the new alliance, we took out one of the bigger threats to my survival. Espeonage could have easily replaced me at Summer's side at any point, and I could not let that happen. We were Original Tribe allies, Summer, Awoo, and I. I intended to keep both of them until the end, but being able to sit here with at least one is amazing. But back to what I did this round: I stayed with an alliance I knew was doomed to fail in order to further my goals and hold influence over the votes.

Once again, my regret here was not checking in prior to deadline with Summer. I hurt a friend by making this play, but I could not risk an idol play. I knew I could not say anything for my game was at stake if I did, but patching that relationship was one of the most important things I did this game. Patching that with Malkon was a close second, and actually played into this vote as well.

In this TC, I was approached by Malkon with the idea that Summer had gotten too powerful and that one of Tris or Espe had to be the vote in order to keep her at bay. I had already allied with the remaining tribe at the time and I already knew who it had to be, so after a lot of talking and coaxing, I convinced Malkon to drop Tris and focus on Espe, having him go as far as to suggest the vote to Skrew and Haschel himself as a new idea and win them over. It was such an important piece of social manipulation within this game and I'm sorry I had to do it on a friend. But making Malkon think he had made this move all himself rekindled bonds between us and reinvigorated the game. I knew what was coming next and had to set up the best alliances in order to pull it off.

It was around this point in the game that I realized that I was going to FTC, by the way. Everyone thought I was a Goat, including the other Goats. Everyone thought I was an easy player to beat, one who would just roll over and let them waltz to victory. Everyone figured I was the floater with no game. But everything I did before this point was done to get my allies to FTC, and everything from this point on was done to get me there with them. I said in my Confessional my predictions for how the game would play out from here, and I was almost entirely spot on, because I made it happen.

Haschel Cedricson's Elimination

Haschel's elimination was another bit of genius I crafted. I'm sure you've noticed a recent theme of taking advantage of every situation that presented itself and if memory serves, it was Haschel himself that told me never to turn down an offer of alliance. This was the second time Haschel had offered me one and the third time he had worked heavily with me, all since merge. This, however, completed one of the most convoluted of the patented

Duped > Reassured > Eliminated

cycle of play. I convinced the Goat Brigade that we were voting my man Malkon out, but I could not let that happen. I mobilized the rest of the tribe and turned the tables hard on Haschel. I had never intended on going to the end with him and I had never intended on working against Jess after that one vote. I would not capitulate on a Malkon vote and I knew that if the Goat Brigade had followed through and made final 3, Haschel would have walked away with the victory way too easily. This was the tipping point for majority and this was the vote that targeted one of my closest allies in the game. It was doomed to fail as soon as I decided it was. But the Goats never heard a whiff of it and my interactions were flawless in convincing them of it.

SleepyKrew's Elimination

Man oh man on man! I said earlier that Pine's Elimination was the Penultimate in vote-splitting. This was the Ultimate vote split and was my crowning achievement. Skrew was another player who would have taken the Jury by storm, and it looked like there was nothing I could do about it. Malkon, Tris, and Skrew were all set on a Jess vote and I was hitting walls everywhere. Then, all at once, Tris and Malkon changed their minds. I was about ready to give up on my ally who I had worked so hard to keep in the game. It was the one time where she was vulnerable, the one time she could be taken out, and I could not let that happen. In talking to Malkon, I realized my misstep. I hadn't considered Tris as a viable option because I was focused on the 1v1 between 2 threats. I suggested it and he agreed. Tris had shown some doubt earlier in the day as to where they were voting, and landed on an agreement to work with me and save summer, but wanted to vote Malkon, not Skrew. So Summer and I had a choice to make, Malkon or Tris. We discussed it long and hard and agreed Malkon had to go. We would have such a hard time beating him in an FTC, but Tris could be taken on. So the votes were locked, I knew where every vote was, and I was set for a bitter betrayal of a friend and ally. Then a thought sparked, and I realized we could eliminate the real threat which remained! I told Summer and she agreed, begrudgingly, to vote Skrew, scared that we were being played but excited nonetheless. I literally danced around when I thought of this! Skrew would have been the toughest person of those 5 to be here against, and with my social prowess I had just saved not one but 2 allies and set every vote where it needed to be to make the most crazy move I could ever have thought of! No it was not intentional, well, until it was. But had I not been situated as I was in the game, I never could have crafted that vote.

Malkon's Elimination

I don't know what to say here. My intentions were to be sitting here with Summer and Malkon. I saved Malkon from being eliminated in the Skrew vote. I saved him from being eliminated in the Haschel vote. Heck, I saved him from being the main name on the table in the Espe vote even. Not telling him about the Pine vote may have saved his social game. Getting Malkon here was a goal.

Winning against Malkon and Summer would have been impossible though. Either one I can take on, but both would have ended my FTC chances.

Malkon, I wanted to be here with you. I could have tied the vote and I'm sure you would have beat Tris in the Firemaking challenge points. But I could not, from a gameplay standpoint, be here next to you. I had picked Summer on D1 to be here with me, and I made that happen. I ensured that you got as far as you did because I wanted to keep the dream alive. You were an amazing ally. But in the end I chose to give myself the best chances at victory that I could muster, and this was the result.

Closing Remarks

Well, just like the long trek through the game, you've made it through my post. I apologize for its length, but this was by far the best way to split up my thoughts and display my influence on this game.

In every vote that occurred throughout the game on every tribe I was a part of, I knew where virtually every vote was being placed through my social abilities and my networking skills. I used this knowledge to craft vote counts, to adapt my playstyle each round, and to put on the proper face in every conversation in order to convince people to do what I needed them to do. I played such a good social game that I was underrated and used that to my distinct advantage while taking out those who got too big. I was the player who made the biggest moves in this game, hands down. And I am here to tell you all that it is why I am the ultimate Survivor.

Not once did I rely on challenge prowess or idols or any other mechanism in order to get here.
This was all on me.

I could not be here without the alliances I made, without the people I betrayed, or the social game I played.

If you respect a game that was molded by the players, designed from within in order to reach an end goal that came to fruition almost perfectly, then there is no doubt that I deserve your vote.

Thank you for your time, both in reading this and in-game.
You all made this possible.

zoraster · Post Post #110 (isolation #92) » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:29 am

tris' opening statement

Disclaimer: I know that there are some places where I might be wrong about what happened. Feel free to correct me if so.

here's my pitch: i was never in danger in any danger as far as i know except for possibly at F5 which i will talk about later. i did this by maintaining lots of potential bonds, but i did not go too far with that. otherwise i could have been exposed as being false, and people would not have wanted to work with me. a key element here is my sincerity. i generally was being genuine when i initially tried to be friends with someone. it wouldn't be until later that i might choose to abandon them. I also believe that i generally came off as non-threatening. i played in such an open way sometimes that i think some may have under-estimated me.

here are some important moments and themes:

my break with haschel

at the beginning of the merge, i made it clear to haschel that we were, in the short term at least, not aligned, BUT also i did not close the door on resuming a relationship in the future. it was not the time yet to repair that. i had learned by that point, that it is important not to be too spread out with your commitments, so i kept haschel at a distance.

the mist vote

this is one of the most important moments in my game. had i stuck with mist, i would have been on the outside. going into the merge i had two opposed relationships: mist and co. and the Summer Tris Espe Malkon(STEM) alliance. this one of many examples where i had choice of which relationships i wanted to prioritize. i decided that even though i really enjoyed being with mist, STEM was a more solid way forward. first, i figured that they were close to the other florencers, ari and awoo. second, i was to closely linked to mist, and severing that link would prove my commitment to STEM. third, espe was someone who drew the spotlight to himself, and i wanted to avoid the spotlight.

reconciliation with haschel

after the pine vote, both me and haschel saw an opportunity. i immediately reached out to him on the basis of both of us having been out of the loop on that vote (i was not entirely, but i will touch on that in a later section). as it turns out, he also wanted to wanted to reach out to me. i considered this to be a golden opportunity because he would be greatly reliant on me going forward, and this leads to the next section

the awoo vote

so, at the beginning of the merge, i tried cozying up to awoo and ari because as i said before, i figured that they were close to the STEM people because they were the core that remained of florence. also, i learned that they were close to skrew who was someone i was trying to be friends with. and besides that, awoo was a great person to talk to. but, at this point, it came down to them vs haschel. it was too early to break with STEM, and i valued my friendship with skrew highly. i decided that haschel was better to keep around. i feared that awoo was too connected. while haschel was more reliably close with me at this point based on the conversations we had had. awoo had previously tried to offer a closer alliance with me, but i declined to take that step at that time because i did not want to make too many commitments. even so, i believe that i benefited from the fact that many people saw me as someone they could potentially get on their side (i guess you all should tell me if that's true lol), so i wasn't a target.

summer and me

so, what about my relationship with summer? we connected early on in dehli. it was complicated by the the division between mist and espe, but after i voted for espe in the second vote there, i decided to admit that i had done so to her. and i thought we established a relationship where we would be very honest with each other. summer is therefor a fourth reason that i chose to go with STEM. but then! but then, i learned from haschel and ari, that summer had not been honest with me. she had not told me that the DK votes at F12 ultimately where merely meant as a vote split rather than an attempt to divert the vote from mist. this next part is disputed by her, but i can learn what is true now. she apparently was part of organizing the vote on pine. (i will say that she did “predict” what the votes were after i suspected that espe was actually voting for pine, but what we decided was to pretend that we had not known.) most importantly, she was generally acting like she wasn't as in the know and connected to others and influencing events as she really was. so, i felt betrayed, and this brings us to

the goat brigade

this is where keeping haschel around paid off. the reason haschel and ari told me what they knew about summer was that haschel was trying to bring together a secret alliance of him, me, and ari. he believed that everyone else left in the game would beat the three of us. having learned what i had learned about summer, i agreed with this assesment (mostly more on that in a sec). summer could just say that she had been the one really driving events, and that i got here because of her. i was aware that haschel might beat me because he was the one who came up with this idea, but i could argue that he had to do that as his only option, while i had the luxury to choose to join him. summer was however immune this round, so we targeted espe as a proxy. however, this fell apart the next round when ari abandoned ship.

why i chose this

what i had felt was my best chance at winning was now gone. i felt a bit helpless and adrift. i flip flopped a bunch on what my best option was. ultimately, i settled on this configuration. i will admit that part of it was because the feelings of closeness with summer were still there. but, i also came up with an angle i could take against summer here which is that had summer not been immune at F7, she would have been the likely vote. by contrast, i had been safe all game. even when the “goat brigade” collapsed, i was not seen as a threat that needed to be taken down like summer, malkon, or skrew.

concerning skrew

i loved you skrew! but, this is not the torchwalk so, anyway. me and skrew were close because we gelled really well in our off-topic conversations. however, we kept seeming to be not quite aligned during votes even when we were voting for the same person. even so, i believe that we both saw each other as a close connection. so, this was another valuable connection that wanted to keep me around. i did actually consider ditching haschel in favor of skrew, but i realized that skrew had played way to good of a game and was the biggest threat left. up to that point, he was always on the right side of the vote, and was never anywhere near danger.

F5

i might learn that things happened here that i was not aware of, but the story from ari and summer is that the switch from malkon to skrew was a last minute change. however, i do see the possibility that they were originally considering whether to vote for me with malkon, and decided not to when summer was satisfied that i was not voting for her. if that is the case, i may have been gone if i had not chosen to go with summer. however, in that case, i would have made it clearer to malkon that i am on his side and that i saw skrew as a big threat. so, i believe that i truly had options in this F5. but, this is hard to comment on not knowing what the truth is. but, my belief is that summer needed ari to break with haschel, and then further needed me to chose to keep her. which puts me in a stronger position against her than i would have had if i had simply followed her to the end the whole time.

so, basically i made lots of friends who didn't want to target me, and i broke free from summer putting her in a vulnerable position only returning to her because i chose to. because i felt it was my best shot at this.

zoraster · Post Post #111 (isolation #93) » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:31 am

FTC Info:

1. Jurors get three POSTS. Use them how you'd like. You may have multiple questions, etc. Do not exceed three posts
2. FTC Members get as many posts as they want.
3. There are no official closing statements, so if you want to, make them whenever.
4. Jury, cast your votes by 10/19 @ 18:00 EDT in your Discord's decision booth
5. Show up if you can for a live reading of the votes and extra goodies on 10/19 @ 21:30 EDT

Good luck to the participants, and thank you for playing this game!

This thread is now unlocked. FTC starts NOW

zoraster · Post Post #170 (isolation #94) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:26 am

Thank you for participating, everyone! Please join us at 21:30 EDT for festivities and the live reading of the vote.

zoraster · Post Post #171 (isolation #95) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:10 pm

The Finale is in 20 minutes. If you'd like to join us in the voice chat for it, you can do so here: https://discord.gg/vbNUvr

Please be respectful of the participants!

zoraster · Post Post #172 (isolation #96) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:11 pm

This thread is now unlocked!

zoraster · Post Post #183 (isolation #97) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:39 pm

SIA’S FAVORITE

5. Malkon/SleepyKrew 1.2
4. Haschel 1.8
3. Aristophanes 2.0
2. SummerInWonderland 2.4
1. Awoo - 3.7

AWOO IS SIA’S FAVORITE PLAYER!!!!!!

zoraster · Post Post #184 (isolation #98) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:41 pm

zoraster · Post Post #185 (isolation #99) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:42 pm

I am so sad that I had to do that.

zoraster · Post Post #186 (isolation #100) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:49 pm

The people that were saying you'd win if you made it to the end are now the people that get to decide the winner. You shouldn't have been able to get here, but you made it. Your challenge wins are impressive, but the fact that you made it here without being immune at F5 is incredible. Congratulations on playing a fantastic game. Or maybe you just rode the coattails of Espe and Ari.

Vote: SummerInWonderland

zoraster · Post Post #187 (isolation #101) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:49 pm

Traditionally I award my jury vote to the player who best exemplifies two of the Social/Strategic/Structural triangle, and this time is no different. One play completely dominated all three of these. Jess, you identified the best possible F3 and took the right moves at the right times to make it happen. The only times you were nominally vulnerable you had so many friends that you weren't actually in danger. In fact, you got people to make self-destructive moves in your favor because they liked you so much. And finally, your immunity run and the fact that you almost certainly managed to get the most firemaking points shows a near-perfect structural game. I am proud to vote for SummerInWonderland.

zoraster · Post Post #188 (isolation #102) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:49 pm

Dear Jess,

You are a queen and you know exactly why. Here's a vote that is 4 years overdue.

Take this crown and wear it proud. Nothing else needs to be said here <3

VOTE: Summer

zoraster · Post Post #189 (isolation #103) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:50 pm

Summer: “Incredible game from start to finish. Hopefully this helps you join hippy on the list of unanimous MS Survivor winners, because you sure deserve it.”

zoraster · Post Post #190 (isolation #104) » Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:51 pm

The winner of Survivor: Know Your Enemies: SummerinWonderland

zoraster · Post Post #193 (isolation #105) » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:16 am

I like to do in depth post-mortems of my games because frankly I forget many of the details of my thoughts on what worked and didn’t, so having something to read back on and can pull from things that worked and avoid things that didn’t.

I’ll talk about challenges individually but first some thoughts around game design:

So the basic premise of this game was to give lots of little advantages to people who did well early on in challenges but make sure they didn’t heavily affect the game in a way that detracted from gameplay. I think it largely did. I’ll talk about the idols in a moment, but just focusing on the non-idol advantages, they worked pretty well. People figured out it was happening quickly, which I knew would happen. The reason for this is that in the tribe section of the game too often those who do really well don’t get quite enough in my opinion. It paints them as a target especially after the merge while often not being important enough to win challenges on their own. I also thought giving a “hook” for things for people to talk about and think about early game wasn’t a bad thing.
I’d make a few changes to advantages. For example, although it increases the power dramatically, combining the avoidance advantage with the walkie talkie advantage would have been better. Or at the very least make it more likely that the person who gets the walkie talkie advantage would get the avoidance advantage too.
Idols! The Class B and Class A idol thing was interesting. I don’t think I’d do it that way again. The difference allowed us to award idols with this risk/reward system. You go for more, you get a better idol. I think that part worked okay! I think an idol that can’t be detected is fine. But if differentiating between two types of idols I might figure out a different way to make it more powerful. For example, a Class A idol can be played conditionally or something. But I actually didn't love the nullifying nature of the Class A idol. CM1 going out on it was fun, but DK not having any idea that his play would do that made it feel a little bit random and unfortunate. It saved Ani and helped DK because of that for what was actually an incorrect idol play. So I think I'd probably go back to the drawing board on that front.
In general, I fully intend to allow conditional idol play in future games. It’d be limited in the way it could work, but essentially “If X plays his idol on himself, then I play my idol on Y” or whatever. I think that would both allow the game not to drag out, still keep the game from needing truly live TCs (which are interesting but don’t really work well for our site), but still allows idols to be played in a more interesting way.
I liked idols being awarded in known ways. There are pros and cons of both methods, but I think it’s likely something I’d continue with.
More of this game was known than practically any other game. That’ll likely be the case for any game I run. I prefer to have information known ahead of time. That doesn’t mean there’s not room for mystery (which advantages are used, for example), but I like players to know the universe of possibilities that might occur. I think that’s friendlier for newbies; I think it allows for more advanced planning; and I think it avoids some bad mod tendencies that often occur when mods are there to amuse themselves rather than their players and their spectators.
Firemaking Challenge: So I think the pro of this was that it accomplished what I wanted in that it involved players in the game on a regular basis, added some meme material, etc. I’m not sure I’d do it again. First and foremost, it was horrible from a mod standpoint to count. Second, I think as we got closer to the end I realized how boring the actual f4 tiebreaker would be. This is a place where it would be SO tense and the challenge so important and everyone would hang on the results to see who was in the finale. But with the firemaking challenge although it was theoretically unknown, there wasn’t much you could do at that point.
I think maybe the most important design element of this game was fully embracing Discord. It was a lot of work to make it operate, and I didn't always get permissions right, but I think doing it this way really payed off for a non-anonymous game. I hope you agree.
ProductionBot is kind of an afterthought because it was most helpful pre and early merge, but it was SO helpful to listen in on people's conversations with each other. It really added understanding to things that Ariel and
I could convey to the spectators.
Speaking of Ariel: just awesome.
Non-anon is always a double edged sword. I think once a year or two years is about right for non-anonymous survivor games on this site because of the problems inherent in them, but I think there's a lot of value in hosting them occasionally as it lets people connect on a more real level and that's actually quite helpful for building community.
That said, my next game will likely be an anonymous game of some sort.

Challenges Generally:

D3f made this comment before and I wholeheartedly agree with it: pre-merge the strongest challenges tend to be ones that have tribes working together. I wish we had done more of that. I really don’t like when it feels that a challenge shuts down communication between players. The difficulty with this is if you’re going to avoid live challenges (i.e. those that have to have people on at the same time), you’re somewhat limited in what you can do. And I also think there’s some necessity to somewhat match what you do in the pre-merge with what you do in the post-merge. If you plan to have puzzles in the post-merge, you should have them in the pre-merge. I think there’s some room for a group doing a puzzle together, but generally puzzles have to be solitary events. That said, I agree with D3f. The most fun I had watching people do challenges was when they were planning and overplanning.The other thing to avoid though is if you increase those types of challenges is that you run into potentially too many quarterbacking situations where one or two people really control what everyone else does and it’s not really a team event at all.
The role of “crapshoot” challenges: Love them or hate them, they have a role to play in game design. The only true crapshoot we had was rock, paper scissors. Thumbtacks and Seesaws were both gameable and we got a lot of great conversation about how to win those. Dice Roll Endurance was a crapshoot in the sense that you could theoretically win on your first roll but could influence how likely it was you were going to win by having better endurance than others. Teamwork Timing was more of a crapshoot than I would have hoped just from how good players were at it. So it leaves only RPS as something where you have very limited agency. I wish RPS could have been done in two stages or something so that people had at least some gameability for it, but think it worked pretty well in its spot.

Challenges Specifically:

Google Trivia: I liked this challenge as one to start off with. It required teams to work together to assign topics, it wasn’t hard, it didn’t take long, etc. It was the amuse bouche of challenges.

Sliding Puzzle: A classic for a reason. The interesting part to this was the 4x4/5x5 idol stuff and I think that worked as intended.

Find the Word: A word search. I think maybe swapping Seesaws with this would have been better. Get tribes working together, we had already had a couple of puzzle type events, etc. But the challenge itself is solid.

Tribal Thumbtacks: It was fun watching people work together to try and find an optimal spread for their thumbtacks. I think this challenge could have used an element that increased the possibility of one player going rogue in a selfish move because the tendency just to have one person assign everyone else their numbers was strong.

Youtube Search: A classic for a reason.

Maze: I think this worked well and again the major point of interest was the multiple mazes/idol nature of it. I think though that I’d probably make the second and third mazes substantially easier than the first to increase the odds people went for multiple.

Cheaters Prosper: This is probably the challenge I messed up most on. I had a clear idea of what I wanted it to be in my head: people using all those tools we suspect others of using to win things like sodoku but also if you were fast at doing these it was faster than cheating. But instead players got understandably creative in how they wanted to cheat. So if I was going to do this challenge again, I would be much clearer about exactly what I meant by cheating. Also the cryptogram was too hard.

Teamwork Timing: This challenge wasn’t quite what I hoped it’d be because players were just too good. If I were to do this challenge again, I’d do something to make it harder. More times you have to hit and multiple of them, perhaps times that only pop up after you’ve done other times, etc. as it stood it was incredibly close.

Shaping the Future: A monty puzzle and I think perhaps the most successful one. It sort of registers at the right amount of hard that good puzzle solvers did it quicker than those that weren’t but that those who weren’t were still able to solve the puzzle.

One Line at a Time: Probably my favorite idea going into the game and it was my favorite coming out. I don’t think as a designer you want many subjective challenges in a game. In fact, one is probably the right number. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. Anyway, I’d still change things a bit if I did it again. Not so much because it didn’t work this time but because I think anyone who saw the challenge again would work out the optimal strategy even absent the ability to communicate: everyone posts once and then the two best writers alternate writing a story together. So I’d probably insert something that required more participation from more people. There was some talk about allowing coordination beforehand, but I think not allowing it is better.

Kanye: It was a flash game idol hunt. I wouldn’t do Kanye again (the joke is played out now) but it worked in its place.

Arcane Incrementalist: Again, I wouldn’t use this specific game again, but the “hour to get the highest score you can on an incremental game that you haven’t seen” was I think a pretty good challenge. Yes, the game itself wasn’t terribly complex or interesting.

Logic Puzzle: Too hard. I picked a middle difficulty logic puzzle from the book of puzzles my wife does at lunch, but I now realize that just because it’s middle difficulty for someone who does a ton of these doesn’t mean it’s remotely easy for someone who doesn’t do them at all. Still, I think a much easier logic puzzle could be perfectly fine.

Dice Roll Endurance: I think this was a simple game to play. I think if I did it again in the future though I’d probably add an element that rewarded the endurance slightly more. Something like “Your highest roll + the number of rolls you made during this game” would probably work.

Nurimaze: Another Monty puzzle. Seemed fine to me. The difficulty for puzzles is making sure they aren’t ones that people have built solvers for. It’s very important to me to not do puzzles that can be cheated (except when that’s the intent!). I think this one worked really well. All but one solved it but there was a wide disparity in how fast.

RPS: I’ve already sort of discussed it, but I think this was probably TOO crapshooty. I like to include a few crapshoots, but I like them to have an element of skill or outhinking. I think if I was doing RPS again it’d need to be one where you did it in rounds. But that probably makes the game last too long so I probably wouldn’t do it again.

Jigsaw Puzzle: I hate jigsaw puzzles. I think jigsaw puzzles are great as an individual challenge.

OLAAT Redux: Perhaps I shouldn’t have pushed the name again as it was totally different, but this was a pretty good challenge I think. The downside is that technical trouble can really bite you in the ass on this one. Perhaps upping it to 90 seconds would have been better. The other thing that makes me hesitate to use it again is that it’s a pain to “grade.” I have to first make sure that all entries are on time, then make sure that they use the right word, then i have to make sure (and this takes the longest) that no word is reused. So if everyone does their entry toward the end (as many did here) it means I’m giving results quite a bit later than I’d like.

Number Grid: WAY too hard. A challenge that no one finishes is just not one I want in a game I run. Yes, the puzzle challenge threats had been largely removed, but even Vash didn’t finish this as a spectator. My bad.

Game Quiz: I love the game quiz as the FIC. It requires some skills (looking up things), knowledge of the game, good guesswork, etc. I kind of wish we had turned a few of the more guessy ones into multiple choice, but otherwise I thought this worked well.

And that’s it for now at least. Maybe I’ll edit in some more later as I have a few more thoughts. I’m exhausted from doing this, but thank you all for playing and watching the game. It was a lot of fun to watch, and Jess is a very deserving winner.

zoraster · Post Post #198 (isolation #106) » Wed Oct 21, 2020 3:21 am

the first was broken. the second wasn't really the way i wanted the challenge to go when i designed it but i'd argue it wasn't broken.

zoraster · Post Post #205 (isolation #107) » Wed Oct 21, 2020 6:01 am

In post 199, Awoo wrote:Okay, but can we agree that OLAAT should have people actually SITTING OUT from the tribe with more members? They totally had a huge advantage on us in numbers, and not just because we had multiple people busy with IRL events.

No. I definitely disagree with this. The tribe with fewer members was at an advantage. The only advantage that you get with more people is that you're more likely to have people who write well/are active, but if the response to uneven numbers is to sit out people that doesn't solve that issue because you'd just sit out the people who just submitted a sentence or two in the first place.

OLAAT is a challenge primarily because you're trying to tell a story with other people without knowing what they're thinking. The more people involved, the harder that is.

zoraster · Post Post #214 (isolation #108) » Wed Oct 21, 2020 3:38 pm

I mean, I think ideally everyone participates in challenges. Sitting out is sometimes necessary to make a challenge work (see seesaws), but it's a small weakness of the challenge.

Anyway, I'll also happily give advantages to teams with fewer people. As a mod, I don't REALLY want to see one tribe dominate and the other get immunity the whole way so making it slightly harder is a positive force. In real survivor there are some interesting things that happen from that, but because we do these games to be played rather than primarily to be watched, having someone who barely plays the game for X amount of time isn't ideal.