Let's Study Games - Redemption Mechanics

[Silverclaw]

OKAY I'M HERE.

I'd like to go into Barely Survivor's Returnee twists (particularly the Hole) and what each of them were, what mechanics they introduced, and why they worked so well to me:


The Hole had 6 people in it from start to finish and started with a double-elimination round. This was both to keep numbers at 6, and to force communication. I think this worked about as well as it could have, given we just thrust 6 people into a secret tribe. It was very likely that someone would get in the crossfire, so there was a little bit of playing the people who were on the other side of the vote to be favourable to you. This basically worked as well as I could have wanted it to, everything considered.

But the real shining star here is

Big Brother: Hole

, which was actually our take on how to 'fix' large RIs. There are a few problems we had with a large, steady RI like this, but the important one is that anyone who comes in late is at an inherent disadvantage. Being penalized for literally doing what the game wants you to do is no fun at all and is generally pretty miserable. So how do you fix that? By giving a reason to talk to, interact with, and work with the new players. It doesn't matter

how

this is achieved, but it needs to be achieved. We decided on Big Brother because it was an easily adaptable format that worked with our general theme of controlled, fake chaos. But I'm sure there are more ways to introduce a similar mechanic and maintain the very survivor-like nature of the game if you tried to think enough!

I also really liked being able to insert an outcast tribe into the game as well for a few rounds. It gave people a hint of "what to expect going forward", and then dumping all of them off into a Shipwreck ensured that a few of them would survive into new tribes and also make sure they had a chance to properly meet EVERYONE, so they couldn't be singled out easily for not talking to people.

I don't think it was any specific singular mechanic that made the Hole a particularly amazing RI, but how they all worked together to make RI less of a problematic process by removing as many faults as possible while buffing its strengths.

[Silverclaw]

Silverclaw, can you speak a little bit as to the specifics of what your goals were as far as having redemption mechanics in the first place?

Well really, I wanted a game that would take as long as physically possible, so we had time for others to finish making their games because oops no games in the queue. My main design goal was to have a game that went long without feeling like it was dragging on forever? Redemption helps with that, because Redemptions happen in secret.

[Silverclaw]

I'm prepared to be on the end that'll have to fight for this, but

defiantly no

, and for a few reasons:

1) Redemption Mechanics are a staple Survivor Mechanic from the actual show. Part of the mark of a good player is, in my eyes, being able to be ready for things like this.
2) Anyone who wants to find out will probably find out via looking at what roles the eliminated players have.
3) And even if they don't, you'll see eliminated players returning to the boards so often that you'll probably figure it out soon.

[Silverclaw]

the entire game was extended by a few weeks to accommodate them

No, the game started later because we didn't fill, heh.

[Silverclaw]

I think I'd be happy with, as a solution, an explicit disclaimer made that Advanced/Complex games may have returnees in them without notice. And still specify that Vanilla/Standard games can announce beforehand that they have returnees (obviously making sure that this is done in a way that doesn't turn their games Advanced/Complex), or that Advanced/Complex games can explicitly declare that they don't have returnees if they so desire. I don't think explicitly banning returnees after a certain point is the right solution, since I'm sure there are things that can be thought of that would make it both legitimate and interesting to do a late returnee.

I'd hope Vanilla games shouldn't have returnees at all. While I think it's fair to add more "twists" if you reveal them in "Standard" games, I think Vanilla should be a category that a lazy idiot could play without reading any rules whatsoever and not be surprised by what they find.

FTR, I largely agree with this. More details when I feel up to it.

[Silverclaw]

which they obviously will never be given they were already voted out once for at least some reason and have missed some time to connect with the players

this assumes people who are voted out weren't voted out because they had really strong chances of winning the game. Now we can talk about how seeming like you're going to win the game too early is a huge flaw, etc. but especially if the mechanic is known ahead of time (so you can play theoretically a bit more out in front), it's worth considering.

Given how most redemptions are really early (like first few votes early), most RI's probably aren't considering who's most likely to win.