Let's Study Games - Final Tribal Council

[Skelda]

I think being at the end and losing is a less pleasant experience for players than being voted out. It is for me anyway. Maybe some people disagree. So for me wanting to maximize player enjoyment, I would limit the number of people who have to lose FTC.

I prefer F2s because I think they're more dramatic, and they feel more pure to me. They also can be more unpredictable, and they give players with slim chances of winning much better odds. I hate being in a game and feeling like there is no path to victory for me, and it kind of breaks the game if players are stuck going forward and making choices despite feeling like they cannot win, but F2s give people who otherwise have no chance a light at the end of the tunnel, and they make it even more imperative that the other players boot those who are perceived as goats. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with an F3, but for a while it seemed like F3 was the default on site and that was a shame.

Something else that PD revealed to me was that an F2 can make the F4 vote much more interesting and strategic. 4 is a really interesting number of people to be voting, but in F3s, the F4 vote is basically always voting out the biggest threat. When players know that there will be one more round before FTC, it makes the F4 vote much more strategic because players have to balance ensuring their own place in the end with giving themselves the best chance once they make it.

An F2 doesn't put more emphasis on the FIC. It moves which challenge really matters from F4 to F3 and in fact reduces the chance that someone is able to challenge beast their way to the end since there are more challenges for them to make it through.

So overall, yeah I'm pro-F2, but I do see benefits to the F3, and I'm not 100% opposed to it. I do think players should be explicitly told though, at least by F4 if nothing else, but really probably earlier. When they're told to me is negotiable.

[Skelda]

pretty sure anyone who is in such a position at final 3 but ISN'T at final 2, the reason they are in that position is probably the third person in that F3, and i'm having trouble seeing a case where it just doesn't matter who that person is, just...bring the other person at F4 to the end instead.

I've reread this like five times, and I don't understand it. Are you saying that there has never been an instance where two people are in an F4 with two other people, both of whom will beat them in the end no matter what they do?

I would argue that it's frequently the case in games that two people both can only sit next to one another if they want to win. Maybe you can say oh maybe there's a 1% chance that someone else could mess up, but realistically no, FTC can do a lot but it isn't going to work miracles most of the time. In KYE, Ari and tris lost to Summer, but they also would have lost to Malkon, for example. An F2 gives someone in that situation a goal to work towards. An F3 fills them with hopelessness and despair and a sense of futility, if they are self-aware, and wastes their time playing a game they can't win if they aren't.

[Skelda]

Do F2s emphasize challenge performance more? They make it harder to go on a challenge run to the end. They could potentially make one challenge matter slightly more since it gives a sole vote, but the FIC is always going to matter a lot. That isn't that different whether it's an F2 or F3 right?

[Skelda]

Structural is 100% dead fish.

[Skelda]

What are the benefits of giving each Juror a thread at FTC vs giving each finalist a thread vs having all of FTC in one thread? Assuming that we don't want to divide Social/Strategic/Structural (or along any other lines), which do we find most useful?

As a finalist, I like having my own thread I think, but as a Juror, I also like having my own thread. But I could see how having separate threads for each Juror could make it harder for some people to follow what is happening.

[Skelda]

RPG's approach to the F2/F3 situation was actually super creative and great. I really liked the way the firemaking challenge worked where we all knew it was coming and exactly what it was, and also the way we knew that it was probably an F3, but it could be an F2 under specific circumstances. Iirc for Lillian it was confirmed to be an F3 because she had an extra vote and therefore knew it couldn't be an F2 due to the number of points left, but for everyone else, right up until the F5 when Lillian's vote was played, it being an F2 was possible. This added an interesting element to Lillian's game where she could decide who (if anyone) to share that knowledge with and also potentially not to play her advantage in order to keep the information to herself.

I wouldn't be opposed to there being reward items which tell someone if it's an F2 or F3 if it isn't going to be announced the whole game. It could be a cool advantage.

[Skelda]

What are the benefits of giving each Juror a thread at FTC vs giving each finalist a thread vs having all of FTC in one thread? Assuming that we don't want to divide Social/Strategic/Structural (or along any other lines), which do we find most useful?

As a finalist, I like having my own thread I think, but as a Juror, I also like having my own thread. But I could see how having separate threads for each Juror could make it harder for some people to follow what is happening.

I like having all the FTC in one thread if I'm honest. I like that players can respond to each other in a more organic way, and I think it makes it MUCH more likely that at least part of people's responses to other jurors gets read.

It worked well in KYE, but I think an important part of that is that jurors were limited on the number of posts they can make. Early games on this website had a one-thread anything-goes atmosphere and it was kind of unwieldy.

I do think the WORST format is the one where each player gets their own thread. Inevitably players will start addressing points the other finalists raised and now we have one conversation split between two or three threads.

But it's so funnnnnn as Juror to have your own thread

[Skelda]

Oh that's always worked well from what I've seen. But I guess there being crosstalk is a valid criticism.

[Skelda]

Definitely as a finalist that's easiest since all questions you need to answer are in one place.

[Skelda]

I honestly really dislike there being just one thread since everything being together can be chaotic and hard to follow, so kind of surprised with the support it seems to be getting

[Skelda]

my solution is that we shouldn't post any threads at all. jurors get free rein to do whatever. i will take no questions

how bad could it be. let the jurors figure out what they want from their ftc and let them do it

I don't hate it tbh

[Skelda]

We should give them free reign to create whatever threads they want, but provide them with a single structural thread to get things started, yanno, just to really get them thinking about how each finalist utilized the structure of the game

[Skelda]

I would like to see a live FTC happen at some stage.

Everything was live in my off site survivor games, so it made sense for live there. It was done with all jurors readying their question in advance, and mods posting it if the jurors were unavailable. Jurors that were there were allowed one follow up question.
I think it took like 4 hours though, which is a big time commitment for the finalists themselves.

Honestly FTC is super stressful as a finalist though, so it might be better for them to get it over with in 4 hours rather than 4 days. It can feel painful how long our FTCs last.