Survivor: Expect the Unexpected - {BEGUN}

[Brian Skies]

After the fake merge, though, for some reason or another, there was really nobody that was willing or trying to work with Nicole, Keith, Sindy, or Elissa.

While some of us never got anything going with them, I don't think this is fair to say for some of us since some of us were open to it. I mainly went to The Bomb Squad to see if I could salvage the situation and prevent a Pagonging, STD seemed to be open to using whatever connections he had but liked RC and myself the more than them, and I think Blackberry and Aronis were actually the closest to making something happen with Elissa (and in Blackberry's case, considered saving Keith). Nicole was dead in the water, but I don't think the others were completely out of it and I probably should have just done something random even if it went against what I was trying to do at the time.

After reading through Zach's confessional, I think he would have given any of us a run for our money and I wouldn't have minded him winning depending on his FTC performance. I always knew he was dangerous and a threat and I probably should have been more wary of him than I was later in the game.

[Brian Skies]

Perhaps games with more complex mechanics are actually more newbie-friendly. A fairly standard game like NAH has 5/6 newbies leave right at the beginning, but here, the real strategy started sooner, and so we have a bunch of good social players getting knocked off right from the start.

I think the beginning of the game was set up perfectly as far as making the game interesting and more difficult for more experienced players. The constant tribe swaps practically demanded shifts in power and the players couldn't just rely on being with the same players for most of the game. The ever shrinking tribes also made people consider eliminating their threats to increase their odds of surviving after the eviction ceremony.

While I liked the fake merge, I think it allowed too many of us to socialize and band together and form a pagonging, and I think that's what hurt the game the most. There weren't any real opportunities to break up a major alliance after that point aside from the Double PoV. But RC, Jessie, and I were so tight and we had so much information as far as the game was concerned, we knew we could just ignore it since it expired right before we would end up with fewer pawns or targets than we needed for our plan to follow through. I think the best way to prevent major alliances is to create as much uncertainty as possible. I think multiple one or two round twists would have provided more opportunities for players on the outside of a major alliance to break things up, and one of the things I did mention was a Double Elimination in my confessional (I don't know if there are any other worthwhile twists from the Big Brother universe). I can understand that the unexpected med evacs watered down the setup a bit, but having some more twists to keep a major alliance on their toes would probably have kept things more interesting and kept the players from getting complacent. I also think there should have been at least one or two points in the game where the HoH should have been won through a challenge. I know this rewards challenge performance, but we were seriously just playing hot potato with the HoH and that was a huge problem for some of the others.

It was still a fun game and I enjoyed the playerlist a lot. Thanks for modding the game Crazy and Monty.

[Brian Skies]

I don't want to have twists that screw with the dignity of the game. I want players to be eliminated because of other players, not because of any twists.

This is a fair point and it's hard to design a well balanced twist that isn't overpowered or just there to mess with the players. I think a player should win because they played the best game, not because they got lucky with whatever twist they were able to take advantage of as the game went along.

I think the fake merge was fine, especially since you were planning on bringing us into a two tribe phase. But I think the tribes should have been randomized rather than letting the players have any control. Most of the players from the majority alliance just ran towards one tribe and RC shoved everyone else over to The Bomb Squad. She should have been punished for this, especially since she was the figurehead for the pagonging, but since RC was HoH, there were very few opportunities to do so and, with the exception of having to nominate Jordan as an elimination herself, she came out of that phase pretty much unscathed.

As far as the Double PoV was concerned, there was never a point where it's use would actually affect the power alliance. Jessie, RC, and I were well aware that if it were ever used, we can just swap in whichever of the pawns wasn't vetoed and whichever one of our targets was still remaining in the game, and it's why, for the most part, we weren't making a big deal about it's existence. Mostly, it was up to the other players to decide that the majority alliance shouldn't be a thing and make the big moves themselves, but either most of them weren't aware of it, or tried to take action when it was already too late.

[Brian Skies]

If you're not nominated, you know you're safe that round and don't need to talk to anyone if you don't want to.

Whoops. I read this wrong.

I may have abused this.