Let's Study Games - Redemption Mechanics

[VashtaNeurotic]

The School of Friendship from Survivor: Equestria was done in service to the game's overall thesis of "Friendship Is Magic". Here returning to the game meant encouraging people to vote you back in, which led to ultimately a stronger landing for Pinkie Pie. The goal in the game design wasn't "How can we return a player to the game?" but "How can we have a mechanic where friendship is important?"

I thought we did it for maximum Trixie impact?

Ftr, I do have actual thoughts I'll post about later, probably tomorrow.

[Cheery Dog]

So going through the 7 games that had returnees that I either played in and/or spectated. I probably can't go into much detail on the ones I spectated, actually I'm going to take out RtC and PvWvC because I actually can't remember the returnee twist for either of them. (I think I flaked from RtC and choose to only log into PvWvC at like F5)

Doctor Who
The was in which someone could return here was the games big twist. Can possibly be reused if we have another time travel themed game. Unable to be touched without that.

Arkham City
Being a sequel to Arkham Asylum, returnees were expected here. This was also the first time the game within the game featured with Death Row. It was a unique experience going in there, and not knowing how damaging it actually was to people arriving later, it was a good twist at the time.

Civilization
What what I remember, this was a direct copy (without the other strange twists that arkham had) of the previous returnee twist. I think it basically highlighted the problems of the format, even though it was the middle crowd that managed to come out of it.

Killing School Semester
This one was basically pointless? They just replaced a challenge elimination player, with people getting eliminated via challenges is another story all together. Timing of it being premerge is fine though. Might have changed stuff when early votes were on small tribes.

Equestria
Came back into the game via votes from players in game. I believe this is the best solution of how to have someone return if you're going to have a big group of people to vie for it. The choice of who came back mattered, even if it did still end up being unfair to the less well-versed played.

Barely Survivor
I think Silverclaw summed this one up fairly nicely above. Doing the in game as big brother meant there was a chance of the late comers surviving, and I think there were multiple other holes that happened? I didn't pay all that much attention myself, but all in premerge was fairly decent.

Survivor Of The Fittest
Fitness challenges were good. (I count them as returnees). The EoE was not. Mostly because it was all happening late game. With how hard it is to navigate through merge in the first place, it is not fun to suddenly have another game to play.
Being with other jurors there didn't make it any easier, and I don't know if others actually strategised there all that much, but I knew I was dead on arrivial if I couldn't win every challenge regardless, and I know I tried to get conversations going again, but the scrambling required to attempt to survive a merge vote and then to be faced with more votes? Not good. Betrayals are heavy in merge, and there is nobody you can meet up with that you haven't previously met upon returning.
Had there not be the vote eliminations here, I could have enjoyed it a bit more, but those just felt like they ruined the atmosphere of the game.

I have also experienced returnee twists in live discord games. Those have all been fine, I don't know if it was just me returning in those weekend games Monty ran through challenges, but they felt like they were valid.

To actually answer the question of their purpose, I believe it is to be thematic. Nobody is going to actually complain that there isn't one that exists, but if such a twist fits your theme go for it.
Just please don't shuffle around the orders of eliminations using it! I majorly still dislike winning immunity at what I believe to be F10 and end up finishing 10th. (SotF)
My other direct experience with Arkham I went out at 19th and ended up 19th, so I don't have a direct complaint for that in general.

Just remember to keep your returnees coming back in pre-merge if you're going to have them.

As for being a mod, said game hasn't actually happened (and no idea if it will ever happen), but I know I originally planned for returnees when I started designing Zoombinis, to make up for a bad twist I was going to put in at the start of the game.
I then scrapped the bad twist, and there was no longer a reason to have returnees.

[CaptainMeme]

Killing School Semester also had a returnee in Kirumi, I think? But it didn't have much impact iirc and was very early on.

edit: I missed the second page

[CaptainMeme]

Okay so, my own experience of these from both sides:

I've never been *on* Redemption in an online Survivor game, so I can't speak from that perspective. I was on Redemption at Survivormeet 3, but ultimately that was just a chance to chill with all the other redemption people and find out how incredibly awesome of a person PEG is.

_{I'll find that tangram piece someday I swear}

I've (co)run three games with redemption mechanics, two onsite (RtC and BS) and one offsite (webdipvivor). Silver's said basically everything I'd have to say about the BS setup. RtC and webdipvivor both had the same twist where every player began the game with an idol, so it felt important to give players a second chance. I think those, and the 6-player elimination in BS, are circumstances where redemption is reasonable because there's a high chance that people there a) have been eliminated by a twist of some description and so sort of 'deserve' a second chance and b) are actually people who will play, not just inactives.

The returnee twist worked okay-ish in webdipvivor, with the player being voted back in in the same way Equestria's was and with the returnee having a decent impact on the game, but not surviving very long. It was terrible in RtC and looking back, I think the game would have been better off without it, mainly because it caused long delays and resulted in an immediate revolving door. The BS returnees ended up being a considerable force in the game, but at the same time I don't think that a lot of the key returnees/near returnees (especially Rey, Michael) would have been eliminated had the 6-elimination twist not been a thing in the first place, so I suspect they would have had a fairly high impact on the game anyway.

Honestly, even with the best implementation and best result (BS) it probably wasn't worth the hassle. A whole bunch of people dropped out instead of playing, leaving the returnees really just waiting around with nothing to do for a big chunk of time, and making the situation pretty irritating for us as mods to handle. Looking back taking out the 6-elim and redemption as a whole would have been okay by me.


On the player side of things... Returnees have killed me a couple times. In Rick and Morty Big Brother, literally the only thing the returnee did was come back, eliminate me, get voted out again, and get their closest ally voted out too. In PvCvW Mipha was responsible for my death, although that was damn good play on their part and was a move that got them to the end; it also wasn't really a direct consequence of the returnee situation given they came back considerably earlier than that happened.

The one that sticks in my mind the most is obviously the most recent one, with EoE. Honestly looking back we all should have realised there was obviously an EoE far earlier than we did, but god... discovering EoE when we did was absolutely soul-crushing, I think Bella can back me up on this one. Survivor is often about handling twists and turns, but a completely unpredictable twist - since we didn't know who would be back - that late into the game, when we'd fought so hard to get that far, was just devastating. I know from reading specforum and confs afterward that Snowy Owl was actually correct that they were never going to win, but from the perspective of someone who couldn't see what was going on over there, there was also a huge feeling of 'we've been spending all this time making enemies and having to worry about jury management, while whoever is about to come back has gotten to sit back and talk to people as they vent their frustrations and be there for them'. I guess that's less a thing here than in actual survivor but knowing that they were dumped back into the game at a point where they just had to win two challenges to get to FTC, when they were confirmed to be good at challenges by the fact they were back, felt really unfair too.

Obviously none of that manifested itself. I beat Owl to immunity, and everyone kind of mutually agreed that the four of us had been okay with us being the F4 before, so we'd stick to that F4. It resulted in something extremely anticlimatic, probably extremely disappointing for Owl + specs, and overall ended up being a bit of a waste of time - but I'm happier it went that way than anyone else being eliminated because it just felt so incredibly unfair that someone else could have been taken out by a twist that late.

I probably have stronger feelings on that one than most, but I think if a returnee twist happens, it really needs to be earlier than that. Like much, much earlier.

[CaptainMeme]

Oh, should say Trixie/Pinkie Pie had a huge impact in Equestria, not just in Pinkie Pie returning but in the ripples the vote itself sent through the game. Fluttershy ended up being taken out as a direct result of that.

I really liked that Redemption. I imagine Flutter liked it less. Someone'll usually be screwed by these twists, but I'm more okay with it when it happens in the premerge than right at the end of the game

[Malkon05]

LOL the Flim/Flam Pinkie Pie drama was hilarious.

[Haschel Cedricson]

It seems to me that the general consensus is that if you are a moderator designing a game, you should only have a redemption mechanic if there is a very good, carefully-considered reason for it and not just because you think it will be fun.

That being said, if you DO add such a mechanic the consensus seems to be to limit it to pre-merge boots only and have the returnee come back during the merge.

Should the players know that Redemption is a possibility at the start of the game? Is it unfair if they do not, or is the possibility of Redemption something that should be in the back of the players' minds no matter what?

[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.

[Cephrir]

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.

I would tend to lean towards informing people of the possibility just as a designer, although i wouldn't want to enforce that on other mods. I do want to put in some disagreement with this post anyway though!

1) I dont know if I'd call redemption mechanics a staple on the show, as most seasons do not have it. In addition, the version I feel is the most successful, redemption island, does inform the players not just that there is redemption but also who may come back to allow them to plan for it.

2 and 3 bother me because new players will not know to look for those things. So I feel like this option informs veterans only, which seems like the worst of both worlds.

[PrivateI]

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.

To respond to your first point, only two Survivor seasons have not disclosed the redemption twist to their players upfront. One, Pearl Islands, was appropriately criticized for basically only that reason. And EoE has its own series of flaws.

To respond to the second and third, I wholly disagree. Eliminated player roles on "Redemption Island" aren't consistently labeled that way, and most mods do try to conceal it from players in some way. If your implication is that experienced MS players might know there's a returnee, that's maybe reasonable. But is the goal with these twists to give experienced players even more of an advantage? If you're saying it should be obvious to everyone, why not just tell everyone?

Oh Ceph said what I was saying.

[CaptainMeme]

I've seen a fair bit of Survivor so knew Redemption was a thing to potentially look out for there. I should say though, when PBH returned in Rick & Morty Big Brother I was very disappointed at the time (because I'd just made a big move to take him out, and hadn't considered returnees to be likely in a 12-person game) and was told that I should have taken the possibility into account because 'battlebacks are a normal twist in Big Brother'. Obviously I wasn't aware of this!

Be careful saying 'X is a staple mechanic of Survivor so everyone will know it' or suchlike. Not everyone who plays online watches the actual show.

[zoraster]

I know I'm on team "reveal everything to players" but I don't think redemption stuff is any more important to reveal than a whole host of other things that maybe could be revealed. If it's a game that's marked as complex or advanced and you're making a point that twists, etc. happen... well, that's just the nature of the beast. That said, obviously my personal tendency would be to tell players that it'd be a possibility, but that's because that's my tendency for all types of twists. But if I ever decided to do something different and do a high twist game, I'd want to have the space to do that -- and I think I could given our rubric warns people that weird things can happen.

And EoE has its own series of flaws.

Wait, Expect the Expected didn't have a redemption mechanic? EDIT: Oh wait I see what you mean Edge of Extinction.nevermind.

[zoraster]

Using this as a separate post because I discuss whether it should be revealed above, the question is whether it's a good mechanic. And I think it depends is probably the answer, but a good redemption mechanic for OUR purposes is one that resolves quickly. A major problem I've noticed in games is that people not put into a sense of risk for a long time (whether because they're immune or because they're already out and can't be voted out at the moment) tend to disengage with the game. So if you ARE going to do a Battle Back or whatever, doing it quickly seems like it'd be essential.

[xofelf]

I have quite a few thoughts on returnees as I've experienced several as well as run a couple more, that being said, I don't exactly have the brain to articulate a lot of this well today. Actually... barring whatever happened in the earlier non-anons, I think I've seen all the returnees we've had, interesting. But yeah once I've had a bit, I'll be back with some thoughts. Cuz I don't think returnees are inherently good or bad, however it is the way in which they happen that can be good or bad, and then sometimes the system for a returnee can be really good but the players or mods involved in that game made the twist not be good. Also I think there is a bit of a slight different between something like Redemption Island/EoE and like an item that lets somebody choose somebody else to come back. Those have different impacts and read in different ways, not quite apples and oranges but like oranges and grapefruits.

[D3f3nd3r]

Game	Game Time	Returnee Entry Time	Returnee Mechanic	Announced publicly?
Destiny Islands	Fall 2011	11/14; Unclear (I'll keep looking into this later)	The winner of a challenge between the eliminated players returned to the game; Unclear	No
Seafoam Islands	Winter 2012	Unclear	A group of eliminated players competed in a challenge against the living ones; if they won, they were allowed to vote one of their own back into the game.	No
Mass Effect	Spring 2013	Start of Merge	A special opt-in challenge occurred where the winner could choose any eliminated player to bring back (and the last-place player was eliminated).	No
Arkham Asylum	Fall 2011	Final 12 (two rounds into a fake Merge)	Living players voted for an eliminated player to bring back; the top two vote-getters returned to the game.	No
Greece	Fall 2013	F11 (one round into Merge) and F5	Standard Redemption Island.	Yes
Hogwarts	Summer 2014	Start of Merge	See Mass Effect, but the player choosing a returnee was the winner of a publicly announced item in an auction challenge.	No
Doctor Who	Fall 2014	Any time until the F4 Immunity challenge	Any player could return to a previous round of the game to alter their vote; by changing their vote to change the result of the TC, the eliminated player would return to the game.	Yes
Arkham City	Summer 2015	Final 10 (Pre-merge)	Rounds of Tribal Councils occurred among the eliminated players; the two remaining players returned to the game.	No
Civilization	Summer 2017	Start of Merge	See Arkham City. Additionally, the last non-returnee became a Juror.	No
Reverse the Curse	Summer 2018	Start of Merge	Standard Redemption Island.	Yes
Killing School Semester	Fall 2018	Final 19	The winner of a single challenge returned to the game.	No
Equestria	Spring 2019	Final 17	The six eliminated players competed in a challenge; the remaining players voted in one returnee from the top three.	Yes
Power vs. Courage vs. Wisdom	Spring 2020	Start of Merge and F8	Redemption Island; players that did not win the re-entry challenge at Merge were still eligible to return at F8. Two winners at Merge, one at F8.	No
Barely Survivor	Winter 2021	Final 12 (Hole); Final 8 (Flat)	Hole: Series of standard Survivor and Big Brother rounds (where the last eliminated player was HoH); six player remaining at F12 returned. Flat: Series of Immunity challenges where the winner got the sole vote to eliminate; the last round had one player eliminated by a living challenge winner and then they could drag another player.	No
Survivor of the Fittest	Spring 2021	Final 4	Edge of Extinction with occasional challenges and TCs; the winner of a final challenge returned to the game. Began with the player eliminated at F13.	No

Please let me know if there's anything incorrect here or if you remember how the Destiny/Seafoam Islands games' returnees worked!

[xofelf]

I know Seafoam! I lived through Seafoam, I was one of the returnees. I don't fully remember how Kabutops came back, but I remember some of how it all worked. There was a challenge where the previously voted out players played against the living players for the right to return. If we won the challenge, we were allowed to vote somebody back into the game. And that's how I came back. I think Kabutops came back because that was also a game where there was a double modkill, and it made sense to just replace. Also the round we had this challenge there was an exile who got to talk to us dead during that round. and it was the first merge challenge. The fun part is that I was voted out first, and got to come back at merge where nobody knew me whatsoever. I made 4th partly because I escaped the ravages of the Legendary Box since I hadn't done anything badly towards anyone and anybody I was siding with it wasn't really a terrible play on my part.

[Haschel Cedricson]

I would add fitness challenges from SotF.

[D3f3nd3r]

I would add fitness challenges from SotF.

Not having paid enough attention to the game to know for sure, would that also necessitate me adding this twist from TRTWIUAA to the list as a returnee function? Because from my cursory understanding of how the twist worked, it appears to have been the same as that one (albeit reframed).

[xofelf]

Oh yeah, so the returnee for Seafoam was not previously announced. It was a surprise. There were hints about maybe it wasn't the end one on one after you were voted out, but barely even that.

[D3f3nd3r]

Various thoughts...

• Despite having some precautions built into it (ie. that the player replacing in needed to put in a bit of effort to get back in), the returnee in Mass Effect flaked after two rounds and ended up being modkilled for inactivity. I feel like this has inspired the more recent need to actually put a conscious effort into maintaining activity all game to replace back in.
  
• Red, Purple, Green had the potential for an Edge of Extinction returnee to come into the game - this would've been determined by having all eliminated players post every eight hours until a return challenge at the start of Merge, the winner of which would've returned to the game.
  
• I remember Greece having a lot of issues with inactivity among eliminated players (and I know this has happened in other games as well) that sort of killed the Redemption Island experience; I would like for games with returnees to do a good job ensuring that their returnee structures are relatively unimpacted by a few eliminated players flaking. Since you really can't blame them for doing so...that's why some people raise the flag on the Edge of Extinction IRL.
  
• The problem with "there's a chance for returnees, you need to expect the unexpected" is something that's easy to think about in practice, but in actuality it takes the process of Jury management and makes you start doing it immediately at the start of the game as opposed to when the Jury actually starts. This can be really, really exhausting to have to pull off, especially early in the game when you have more people to talk to. In any game where I know that there is the chance for a returnee, I effectively feel the need to make an effort to Jury manage from the get-go to avoid having a returnee come back into the game with a vendetta against me, like what happened in Civilization.
  
• A lot of us panned the original Edge season's twist of returning a player as late as it did, because they ended up going on to win the game. I definitely agree that players shouldn't have *that* easy of a trip to F5, but I'm not entirely sure whether or not SotF's twist of having the Edge start later in the game is sufficient in solving that. Maybe?
  
• And I'll piggyback on Zor's idea. As a moderator that likes giving the players as much information as possible as to the general structure of the game (ie. things like F2 vs. F3, overarching game twists, full player-by-player challenge results for individually-performed tribal challenges), I'd like to think that a returnee opportunity (especially one later in the game) is sufficiently big to announce with some notice.

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.

[Shrek]

to be fair there were 8 returnees (technically) outlined in barely survivor and those meant that the entire game was extended by a few weeks to accommodate them so i would cite that as a good example— BUT you have to be comfortable with the concomitant complex label associated with such a thing. returnees equalled a solid third of the game and only a fourth of them had a big impact.

so yes it was good, but the rules of the entire game had to be bent to accommodate it. aside from that its very hard to make returnees work and i would rather not see it again even if it meant no second chances for people

also hey i was the returnee with a vendetta yay. i think survivor civ was what forced people to start using the classification system in the first place?

[Ariel]

I'm definitely in favor of returnee mechanics being disclosed during signups. There is a significant enough portion of the player base that wouldn't realistically ever vote for a returnee, so I think it is best for all involved that they be able to self-select out of games with returnees. Despite the fact that returnee mechanics are common on the TV show, in practice, plenty of MS survivor players feel that that's "not Survivor" and that's what makes it unfun for everyone.

[Silverclaw]

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

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

[zoraster]

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.

[Shrek]

what i mean is that it took a lot longer than it would have otherwise. idk i was like straight zooted half the time there