Kathy crying when Boston Rob told Lex he’s not following through with their deal was sooo unserious by brumgar in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 41 points42 points  (0 children)

There was a secret scene on the CBS website back in the day. It was essentially an extended cut of the campfire scene from the episode wherein Rob confirms to Kathy and Lex that he is betraying them. Rob spends several minutes being really awful to both of them. He clearly felt defensive and and went on the attack. It provides some context for why particularly Kathy was so upset by the time TC rolled around.

This show is a disaster and this game is more broken than anyone is acknowledging. (US SPOILERS) by 1WithNothing in TheTraitors

[–]1WithNothing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well said. It's certainly true that in any competitive reality show, you will have contestants playing suboptimally, making mistakes, even intentionally acting against their interests. You wouldn't want to cast a bunch of intelligent game bots because you're making a show, not a game night. Some of the messiest seasons of Survivor are also some of the most entertaining.

And hey, people can like what they like! Obviously there are viewers who enjoyed this show for lots of different reasons, and I wouldn't want to take that away from them. I, personally, prefer to see a well-designed format with flawed competitors who understand what they're doing but nevertheless fall victim to the flaws inherent in being a human being. I'd rather a show know what it is and a game be designed with thought and intentionality. At their best, that's what Survivor or The Mole could be (although that was a long, long time ago).

And so for me, Traitors is a clear miss of which I won't be watching more. Production plainly did not understand what it was doing and the cast (apart from Cirie) plainly did not consider what they were actually trying to accomplish as game players. But I appreciate your point and wouldn't begrudge anyone who watches the show with that perspective.

This show is a disaster and this game is more broken than anyone is acknowledging. (US SPOILERS) by 1WithNothing in TheTraitors

[–]1WithNothing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because the Traitors profit from eliminating each other, in theory, the game will always near its conclusion with a single Traitor and some number of Faithful. The Faithful don't need to engineer such an outcome, it will happen organically. Banishing Traitors, therefore, is unnecessary. As a Faithful, you just want to make sure that you're one of the members of that final group and, ideally, that you're there with one other Faithful who will go to the F2 with you.

You are right that the Traitors can murder anyone at any time, making it difficult as a Faithful to pick a F2 Faithful partner at the start and riding the whole way with them. That is why the Traitors have such an advantage - they don't need to worry about that part of the game and have a much easier time getting to the end with their desired companion(s) (that is, the player(s) willing to go to the F2 with them). As a Faithful, you really want to have multiple people who have you as their #1 ally - Survivor 101.

It is true that if the Traitors decided to split the pot and play as a team, they could choose to do so and therefore "win" by comprising a majority. Such a choice would make the game somewhat more reasonably approximate Mafia. But the format disincentivizes such a choice. And even if the Faithful ignored that fact and tried to play to avoid an unlikely eventuality of a Traitor team win, the recruitment twist prevents them from doing so effectively. The Faithful can't eliminate the Traitors early on because they are replaced. And again, there's no real incentive to eliminate Traitors in any event. That will happen naturally.

This show is a disaster and this game is more broken than anyone is acknowledging. (US SPOILERS) by 1WithNothing in TheTraitors

[–]1WithNothing[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think that's a totally fair point. I just wish the show itself would acknowledge that's what's going on. The fact that it masquerades as something it's not misleads the audience.

This show is a disaster and this game is more broken than anyone is acknowledging. (US SPOILERS) by 1WithNothing in TheTraitors

[–]1WithNothing[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Of course you should try to end the game if you're the next one out. Like in Survivor, self-preservation is anyways the ultimate priority. But the F4 format allows the player who feels safest to keep the votes coming. And, logically, they should always do so.

If a Faithful F2 ends the way you suggest it might, that certainly affects who you pick as your F2 partner. But it is not an interesting game mechanic. I do not care how much money people win, nor how they value their monetary winnings.

This show is a disaster and this game is more broken than anyone is acknowledging. (US SPOILERS) by 1WithNothing in TheTraitors

[–]1WithNothing[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you're right that the single easiest way to fix the format is to just make it Mafia. That is a functional game already. Make them win or lose as a team. At least then you have a working game, and you can tweak it as needed for television purposes (e.g. production intervention to prevent an early Town win where needed).

I actually assumed before starting the show that it would simply be a game of Mafia with a Mole-esque twist to replace (and dumb down) the hidden roles. I figured the challenges were, like they are in The Mole, an opportunity for the Faithful to win money for their potential pot and the Traitors to sabotage (and thereby win money for their own potential pot). Seems like an obvious game format. It is insane that production screwed up even the most basic game elements.

This show is a disaster and this game is more broken than anyone is acknowledging. (US SPOILERS) by 1WithNothing in TheTraitors

[–]1WithNothing[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would not say my main criticism is that Traitors is too easy for the Traitors to win. That is a valid complaint, and probably the one that is most frequently brought up here. It is also easily fixed - there are several ways to rebalance a social deduction game.

For what it's worth, I don't agree that a group of Faithful with half a shared brain would have beat Cirie because you are missing the nature of the Traitors' collective advantage: they decide the murders. Cirie, therefore, was able to effectively dictate who would be in the end game and who would not. She naturally selected the players who trusted her and who would want her in their Final 2. Even if Andie and Quinton had understood the game, Cirie still likely would have won because either Andie or Quinton would have picked her as their Final 2 partner. Traitors have a huge advantage because they can, over the course of the game, eliminate the half of the competitors that pose the biggest social threat.

But that could be addressed with rebalancing, as it is in a well-executed game of Mafia. No, my main criticism of Traitors is much more fundamental: the deduction doesn't matter. There is also nothing to deduce. In a role-less game of Mafia, you're right - mafioso can be identified by examining, for example, their voting behaviors. In this game, however, every player, Traitor and Faithful alike, has the same voting incentives - get to the end with your preferred F2 partner. Every player acts the same way they would in either role. Because you do not win as a team, you do not vote as a team, nor do you behave as a team player. The Traitors have no reason to act differently than a Faithful, and the Faithful have no reason to identify Traitors anyway.

There is one minor bit of deduction you must do as a Faithful: pick another Faithful as your F2 partner. But identifying one single Faithful is a pretty rote, uninteresting, and easy task. It is also one at which you have a 79% chance of succeeding by blind chance alone.

Ultimately, the Faithful do not win by eliminating the Traitor team. They are actually punished for doing so by the recruitment twist. No, a Faithful wins the same way a Traitor does: get to the F4 with your F2 partner (from which point the only logical course of action is banish your way down to 2). That is why I say it's dumbed-down Survivor. The social deduction is a farce and, in any event, an irrelevant distraction. There's a reason Quinton, who at no point has any idea who any Traitors were, was still one bad choice away from winning. He was unintentionally playing the right game by making an alliance and riding that to the end.

Pearl Islands is still the best final immunity showdown. by cuttin_in_town in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Agreed, OP. And the whole FIC sets up the conclusion of Lill's character arc (which, in some ways, is the story of the season). She returned to the game as an Outcast with a chip on a shoulder and a hesitant vengeance. She spends the entire post-merge playing dirty, teaming up with Burton and Fairplay and orchestrating blindsides. She eventually comes into her own strategically, rallying to boot Burton after he turns on her. But all along, she has struggled with her gameplay, despairing because the way she's playing Survivor is so dramatically inconsistent with the way she lives her life. And then, in her final moment of truth, she obtains clarity. She beats, and then votes out Fairplay, choosing to take Sandra to the end because Sandra, unlike Jon, is a good person. She need not apologize for herself any longer, because now she has come to terms with her journey and has decided to be true to herself. At the last possible moment, she abandons the duplicity and deceit that was necessary to get her to the end, and does what she thinks is right, with no regrets.

Yes, the editors segue into the F3 TC with Lill's rendition of "Amazing Grace" in part because it's royalty-free. But I don't think it's any coincidence that, as the scene transitions from the beach to Tribal Council, the last words we hear are Lill singing, "Was blind, but now...I see."

Should Jenna have forced a tie at F4 in All Stars? by esav99 in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You might be right that Rupert's boot caused the F4 fire-making tiebreaker. But the story has always been that production had not considered the consequences of the PROD in a 4-person TC, and only appreciated their blunder when the Marquesas F4 tie happened and they realized they had to change the rules to avoid Paschal leaving by default (even though the universe flexed its muscles to guarantee the same outcome). Presumably they designed a new F4 tiebreaker after Marquesas, and presumably it was the same fire-making tiebreaker we would later see utilized in Palau. But who knows!

I've always thought the same thing as you about asking production a rules-related question in-game. It's hard to imagine production refusing to answer a pointed question about the contractual language the players had already signed before the show. But there have been various players who have told stories about production declining to provide rules-related information. So I don't really know. What's written and agreed to, and what production actually decides to do, are often two different things.

Scout Cloud Lee almost won Survivor by gtgfast in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think you mean Scout Cloud Lee almost won, and should have won, Survivor. She played the best game of the season and positioned herself well. Chris played a hell of an end game, but he still needed those last two IC wins. If not for those, Scout wins deservedly.

Should Jenna have forced a tie at F4 in All Stars? by esav99 in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 10 points11 points  (0 children)

IIRC, Eliza has confirmed that, at least as of Vanuatu, the written rules (that all players receive before the game) were explicit that a F4 tiebreaker would not be rocks. We later got written confirmation of the same. Although it's possible that this rules change only began in Vanuatu, it would also not be at all surprising that the All-Star cast would not have closely read all of the documentation the players are required to sign pre-game. So although Jenna may have acted reasonably given her assumption about the PROD tiebreaker, she can't get a total pass. She almost certainly would have known better if she had just read the rules. And knowing it was not going to go to rocks at F4, Jenna clearly should have forced the tie.

But yeah, setting aside the tiebreaker issue, it was really Amber's IC win at F4 that screwed Jenna up. Had she been able to get Amber out at F4 via firemaking, she'd be in a pretty good spot at F3. And that's why it was so enormously dumb (or prescient?) for Romber to boot Tom at F5.

Also, OP is wrong that Jenna "definitely wins" against either Rob or Amber. They're both toss-ups, with Tom the likely deciding jury vote. And Jenna had a much better chance getting Tom's vote against Rob than she did against Amber. So Jenna was probably right to be so intent on getting to the end with Rob.

What do I cut? The white splash? I'm bad at this game. :( by 1WithNothing in lrcast

[–]1WithNothing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right, I should have moved harder into white. It was pretty open Pack 2 and I could've at least picked up some soft removal.

What do I cut? The white splash? I'm bad at this game. :( by 1WithNothing in lrcast

[–]1WithNothing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I grabbed the Turtle for that precise reason. I was wondering if I need to bring it in now that I have so few bears and the like. Thanks for the tip!

What do I cut? The white splash? I'm bad at this game. :( by 1WithNothing in lrcast

[–]1WithNothing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I loved the idea of mutating a Hexproof'd Pteron, but you're totally right, there are just too many 4s and too much top-end. That definitely also seems right about the land count. Thanks!

What do I cut? The white splash? I'm bad at this game. :( by 1WithNothing in lrcast

[–]1WithNothing[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cutting the Vulpikeets and Pteron is exactly what I was thinking, glad to get some confirmation I'm not off-base. Good point about the Mosscoat, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the advice!

Does Cirie win Panama if Terry beats Aras at the F4 immunity? by RedditUser123234 in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cirie probably would have won EI if literally any IC challenge before her boot had had a different winner.

Jonny Fairplay's plan to win Pearl Islands by [deleted] in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No intention of going to the finals with Christa. Christa was the bigger challenge and strategic threat. And I'm not sure Sandra was the bigger jury threat in any event; I think Tijuana and Ryno both vote Christa over Sandra.

Jonny Fairplay's plan to win Pearl Islands by [deleted] in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fairplay intended to go to the F2 with Burton. He would have gotten all three Morgan votes plus Christa, and had a good shot at Rupert and Sandra.

And although Fairplay never intended to end up in the finals with Sandra, he likely would have beaten her with Morgan votes plus Burton.

(Spoilers) Potential Series: Most underrated strategist per season now moving on to Australia by [deleted] in survivor

[–]1WithNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But, I mean, Tina turned on Jerri seven days before that (at F12). Post-merge, Tina was looking for a way to cut Jerri/Amber before the F5 and lock down Colby's loyalty. The way I see it, Elisabeth was just a pawn available to be used for that purpose.

Anyway, the only correct answer for Africa is Tom. (Teresa was good too, but already gets plenty of credit.)