Survivor: Myyawn
Feb. 17th, 2005 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So against my better judgement I checked out the Survivor. They were hyping it as having big changes.
(I'll cut for spoilers if anyone cares)
It's the same old game. Oh, sure, they've been advertising "No Help At All", but they still let them win stuff to help them in the rewards, gave them shoes, and hell, they've advertised 'no help' before.
Yeah, there was a tiny bit of difference with how they started the game, but by the end of the episode, it's pretty well the standard Survivor formula, except with no starting food.
Now, if _I_ was going to do something to make the game new:
Leaving out the impractical 'even if they're dying, no help' or 'fight to the death' scenarios:
1) Individual and group immunity. If your group doesn't win immunity, within the tribe there's a second contest for an individual immunity. This prevents the early weeks from completely being a 'let's vote out the unpopular members' exercise.
2) Raids. At any time (except for dedicated competition times and during Tribal Council), a team can attempt to raid the camp of another tribe. The immunity idol _can_ be stolen if it's found, as can food, supplies, you can damage the enemy camp, whatever. You can also kidnap members of the tribe - to prevent major injuries do flag football-style formalized rules - all contestants have to wear two flags at all times while in camp (during competitions and tribal council this doesn't count). If they lose the flags in any way, they're considered 'unconscious' until either they get the flags returned to them, or the next morning (when one of the behind the scenes production people will give them new flags). If you're unconscious, you can't talk and have to stand in the same place unless escorted by two people with a flags (simulating them carrying you). You're not allowed to hit or make contact with people except to remove those flags. Maybe some rule about a lone person being surrounded by three or more people from another tribe can count as knocking unconscious... but they then have to lead you to their own camp before it's officially a capture.
During a raid you can both capture others and potentially be captured, if you're unconscious and brought back to an enemy camp. You can also be rescued, or traded. If you're captured by the other tribe, you can't participate in competitions, and, in the event of a tribal council of the tribe that captured you, you can be voted out instead of one of their members. (The first immunity competition will take place the day after the last tribal council, giving two full days to attempt to steal the idol or take hostages if you want).
3) Instead of rewards, there are all sorts of useful stuff stashed all over the island, both personal and group rewards, encouraging exploration... you can encounter other tribes during exploration too, and either fight, talk, or whatnot as is your inclination. Some of these rewards require challenges of their own - climbing something, or searching through piles of keys to find the one that fits a lock, and in some of them it's possible to 'die' if you make a bad mistake, and you're out of the game - but if you have personal immunity and you die, you just lose the immunity.
Now, of course, some different gimmicks would be required when the tribes merge and it becomes a individual competition, but just as a start, to me, that would make me a hell of a lot more interested.
(I'll cut for spoilers if anyone cares)
It's the same old game. Oh, sure, they've been advertising "No Help At All", but they still let them win stuff to help them in the rewards, gave them shoes, and hell, they've advertised 'no help' before.
Yeah, there was a tiny bit of difference with how they started the game, but by the end of the episode, it's pretty well the standard Survivor formula, except with no starting food.
Now, if _I_ was going to do something to make the game new:
Leaving out the impractical 'even if they're dying, no help' or 'fight to the death' scenarios:
1) Individual and group immunity. If your group doesn't win immunity, within the tribe there's a second contest for an individual immunity. This prevents the early weeks from completely being a 'let's vote out the unpopular members' exercise.
2) Raids. At any time (except for dedicated competition times and during Tribal Council), a team can attempt to raid the camp of another tribe. The immunity idol _can_ be stolen if it's found, as can food, supplies, you can damage the enemy camp, whatever. You can also kidnap members of the tribe - to prevent major injuries do flag football-style formalized rules - all contestants have to wear two flags at all times while in camp (during competitions and tribal council this doesn't count). If they lose the flags in any way, they're considered 'unconscious' until either they get the flags returned to them, or the next morning (when one of the behind the scenes production people will give them new flags). If you're unconscious, you can't talk and have to stand in the same place unless escorted by two people with a flags (simulating them carrying you). You're not allowed to hit or make contact with people except to remove those flags. Maybe some rule about a lone person being surrounded by three or more people from another tribe can count as knocking unconscious... but they then have to lead you to their own camp before it's officially a capture.
During a raid you can both capture others and potentially be captured, if you're unconscious and brought back to an enemy camp. You can also be rescued, or traded. If you're captured by the other tribe, you can't participate in competitions, and, in the event of a tribal council of the tribe that captured you, you can be voted out instead of one of their members. (The first immunity competition will take place the day after the last tribal council, giving two full days to attempt to steal the idol or take hostages if you want).
3) Instead of rewards, there are all sorts of useful stuff stashed all over the island, both personal and group rewards, encouraging exploration... you can encounter other tribes during exploration too, and either fight, talk, or whatnot as is your inclination. Some of these rewards require challenges of their own - climbing something, or searching through piles of keys to find the one that fits a lock, and in some of them it's possible to 'die' if you make a bad mistake, and you're out of the game - but if you have personal immunity and you die, you just lose the immunity.
Now, of course, some different gimmicks would be required when the tribes merge and it becomes a individual competition, but just as a start, to me, that would make me a hell of a lot more interested.
