Twists

Just to pull these out of the other thread...

Other thing to add is that assassin thingie Helen was talking about doing here. (Or death-by-flour-sock as my Scouts would know it). It certainly requires some thinking about to implement it correctly, but it is the perfect compliment to the partners twist. One artificial friendship balanced out by one artificial enemy. Nothing too high stakes - not a full on idol. But a clue to the person who's target gets taken out each round, plus all the clues that that person was officially in possession of would be a nice starting point to tweak from. And of course, you inherit their target as your new one. Maybe having all the targets on the opposite tribe to start, so having your partner try help you out/send the idol away could work well? Plus as soon as you hit your first target, your next target becomes someone from your own tribe .. plus by then you have a taste for an idol clue..

Assassin

And Brenda, I'm LITERALLY fanning myself at your paragraph about the assassin/partner fuse.

It might be wise to start everyone off with Clue #1 since clues will move slowly.

Also, since partners can talk, I'm assuming each tribe should have different clues and password? Is this the way it has been treated before?

To summarize what you wrote about the clue-building and mathmatify the situation: if you successfully eliminate your bounty, you receive Clue #1 through Clue #(MAX(# clue you received before, # clue your bounty received before) + 1). So, if you had Clue #2 and your bounty had Clue #3 (each for their own tribe, doesn't matter if they're the same), then you would receive everything up to Clue #4 for your tribe's idol. Similarly, if you had Clue #3 and your bounty had Clue #2, you would still receive everything up to Clue #4 for your tribe's idol. This is complexity is probably something we can hide from them, just giving them the clues and leaving them to figure out the method (and how that might effect their perception of the now-eliminated-bounty's partner, if you can tell now that they had more clues than you expected them to).

Rambling

I was thinking the other day about S26, and how---I've attempted to avoid most spoilers, and this isn't anything boot-related, but---they're doing two tribes each half-returnee and half-newbie. Imagine if you mixed that with a partners twist where each returnee was paired with a newbie on the opposite tribe. Say you're a returnee... you'd have loyalty to your tribe; you'd have loyalty to the returnees on the other tribe (being returnees together); you'd have loyalty to the newbies on the other tribe since one of them is your partner and the rest of them are the partners of the people you should be closest with (being both returnees and also on your tribe). A swap and then merge would make things absolute chaos.

WITH that being said, thinking more about it, putting returnees and newbies together on the same tribe at the get-go is bound to have horrible implications for the newbies, so it's not really a good idea, but it was still a nifty situation to think about. Plus, newbies vs returnees is a formula that seems to work pretty well here, so if it's not broke, don't fix it.

Anyways, I started mulling over Helen's thing about half and half tribes of noobs and vets, and I like the extra layer it would add to proceedings but! I think the only way it would work would to be to a) have 8 or 10 man tribes, and b) have only two players from any given Season. like, two Costa Ricans, two Grecians, two Malaysians, two whatever S14 was, and start them on opposite tribes. This would not be a problem if it was just Vets vs Noobs from the off, but the advantage of not having the noobs just steamrolled in the challenges could be worth the extra casting effort.

The obvious way around this would be to ensure the noobs tribe isn't complete fresh meat, have at least half of em as not-first-timers (i.e. played outside Stranded) - but that takes away from the Season in it's own way. The less obvious way is to ensure the first few challenges (up to the first shuffle or mutiny or w/e) are not old reliables. Suggestion of one random / luck-based one, two from the turn-based/logic/social arena, and just one speed based one (but simple straightforward speed - not skill at speed - think like a counting chase rather than an image slice).

Which in turn got me thinking of two other things from Malaysia
-would you select the pairs speed based style - i.e. based on a brief Q&A session again?
-and if so, could this be how the assassin targets are selected too?? Your top-ranked becomes your partner, your bottom ranked becomes your target, for the vets your bottom ranked becoems your target, and you are lumped with whatever noob selects you?
-also, a potential mutiny option rather than a shuffle again?

I don't think we want to end up just recreating Malaysia again either.

The more I think about it, the more confusing the IF/THEN condition for clue giving numbers is.

And re: your mutiny idea. Have you guys thought about repeating the one-mutiny-available-every-round from Greece? With a partner to advise you on the opposite tribe and your assassin target also on the other tribe, we might see more people take advantage it. The only worry is that tribes get insanely lopsided, which could be resolved by only giving members from the outgoing immunity-winning tribe the option to mutiny before the challenge.

Imagine you get 1 clue for taking out your assassin target, and to add more incentive to mixing things up: you get 1 clue for mutinying, as well. If this gets taken advantage of enough, it could eliminate the need for a swap, at all. If it doesn't get used much, you can plugin a swap, or just make a double TC at F14 leaving us with a 7-episode pre-merge followed by merge at 12.

Also, to inquire: does the last pair of surviving partners get Guatemala HIIs or post-Fiji HIIs? It seems insane to have up to four fully-powered idols in play at once, but if it's worked before...

In Malaysia we got "Immunity Talismans". They had to be played publicly at the beginning of TC. There they could be used up until F5 TC, while any idols were only good till F6 (two tribal, then a merge tribe one once these were out of the game).

Actually it's all coming back, I will tell you the war story.

At F6 there is Chet & I (partnered), Darrah & Benry (partnered), Fabio & Purple Kelly. The two partnerships have survived this long because we agreed to not target each other (kinda unspoken that something has to give once the F5 passes, so Fabio is the "target", but those talismans are damn tempting. And I have an idol. So use the idol, take out one of Darrah/Benry. Chet and I get the talismans and are both immune at F5.

All of Chet, Purps, Fabio & I are supposed to boot Benry.

Purps I understand the risk was too much having three people immune the next TC and her not being one of them (even if Chet or I would have gifted her challenge immunity had we won it) so she flips and votes Fabio. Chet.

Ahh Chet, I still don't understand his logic. I think he was just too close to Benry.

I play the idol on myself, those four vote Fabio, two full partnerships make F5 so the talismans never even get handed out. At which point Purps turns & boots me ;__;

Re: The Clues

I would have x amount of clues. Let's say as many as there is rounds till merge (8 clues, merge at F10?)

The clues don't get progressively easier, instead they build towards the password, so having single clue #3 is not as good as having clue #1 and clue #7. But having #1 & #7 is just as good as having #2 & #3. Yet having three clues is better again - they are all of equal value.

Ehh, for an example, lets say the clue is a number between 1 and a million. Clue one might say the number doesn't have a 0 in it. Clue 8 might say it is lower than 900,000. The odds don't work there, but you get the drift, the clues are jigsaw pieces that build to the answer, but not necessarily progressively. Maybe even literally a jigsaw? An image cut eight ways that you'd need at least half of to figure out the final set? (I am envisioning a word cut in eighths, but each clue having duds on all sides so you don't know what is even part of the pw unless you have something to line it up with - of course lots of dud line-ups mixed in)

So rather than thinking of them as #1 through #8, lets call them; the Round #1 clue, the round #2 clue, etc.

K? Now.

Each round we give out that round's clue, and that round's clue only. Meaning if you only ever have one target killed, you only ever 'officially' have one clue (they can of course share clues/send fakes w/e). But, when your target gets offed, you inherit his target, and also all the clues he 'officially' had too. Just an aside on inheriting targets - you wouldn't ever know for sure who already knows your new target, who did they tell before they were out etc. Do you share your own target with people to try push that boot or nay.

All this meaning the bigger of a 'chain' of kills you can create, the more clues you get. Each clue only gets given out once, but stays in circulation. If you get a clue at the beginning of a chain you know for certain that you are the only one with that clue. No clue goes to waste since it can be pulled from the cold dead hands of a booted opponent. If you choose to keep it to yourself it stays that way till you're out. But also, encouraging some sharing of as a way to avoid the target?

k, I'm rambling now, but you get the gist of how I'm seeing this play out.

In Malaysia we got "Immunity Talismans". They had to be played publicly at the beginning of TC. There they could be used up until F5 TC, while any idols were only good till F6 (two tribal, then a merge tribe one once these were out of the game).

Actually it's all coming back, I will tell you the war story.

At F6 there is Chet & I (partnered), Darrah & Benry (partnered), Fabio & Purple Kelly. The two partnerships have survived this long because we agreed to not target each other (kinda unspoken that something has to give once the F5 passes, so Fabio is the "target", but those talismans are damn tempting. And I have an idol. So use the idol, take out one of Darrah/Benry. Chet and I get the talismans and are both immune at F5.

All of Chet, Purps, Fabio & I are supposed to boot Benry.

Purps I understand the risk was too much having three people immune the next TC and her not being one of them (even if Chet or I would have gifted her challenge immunity had we won it) so she flips and votes Fabio. Chet.

Ahh Chet, I still don't understand his logic. I think he was just too close to Benry.

I play the idol on myself, those four vote Fabio, two full partnerships make F5 so the talismans never even get handed out. At which point Purps turns & boots me ;__;

This is a....kind and rose-colored interpretation of what occurred.

I heard you two argue enough about Malaysia in Greece.... please...

That's my story and I'm sticking to it :P