The Syndicate

DharmaHelper wrote:I dunno what the strategy is on Survivor, but on Big Brother a valid and potent strategy is to stack the jury with people who like you/liked your play by convincing the people around you to do the actual work of getting those people out of the game.

Generally this has been a popular strategy in Survivor- players look ahead to predict who had loyalties with who. The bitter jury is a real thing, and if you pissed off a jury member, no matter how cunning or respectable your gameplay otherwise, you're probably SOL with getting the votes. You'll find in seasons with weak strategy-minded people, the backstabbers get coal while the sweet, innocent "I didn't do anything in this game besides not pissing off some key people" player will win.

Not to say that that's happening here, because it's not. I actually find it refreshing to have players on the jury that have no preconception of what a winner should be. I think every player left still has a chance to win, if they can make a case for themselves.

Opt told me she was getting nervous a few cycles ago with bringing Golden to the end, and is looking for a time to cut him loose without completing upending her game, should she lose immunity.

Getting pretty squirrely here at the end. I didn't bury another hidden immunity idol- the only one remaining

juliets wrote:Scotty, are you letting them go back to bts?

Yes

juliets wrote:Scotty,

Spoiler: show

is there a cure for the poisoning that Elo is doing or will those people just die from losing whatever the lose (food/water/energy)?

DharmaHelper wrote:

Scotty wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:Wait

Spoiler: show

Quin's power is he can find idols?

Spoiler: show

Yes. And it seems everyone seems to know this fact from BTSC Daaaaaays ago, and yet don't seem to find that threatening

On top of that, because Epi is dead, he can secretly select another option in the day poll.

People also are aware of that, and are seemingly willing to have a blind eye.

Hell, Golden found out Night 6 about the idol thing and shared with his alliance. And still, who do they vote out? speedchuck. I don't get it, man. That power can be gross. It's not like Quin is being too secretive about it either.

I want that.

It's a sweet role, to be sure. In other news,

DharmaHelper wrote:Wait

Spoiler: show

Quin's power is he can find idols?

So last night...

juliets wrote:I never watch Survivor but it happened to be on just now and I watched their tribal council. Holy hell. I may have to continue to watch.

The game right now are all heavy-hitting veterans of the game, so it's a good season to start in, though you might be in the dark with their play styles and reputations.

I'd recommend starting at the first episode though. It's only 3 episode in

juliets wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:

juliets wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:The stage is now set for a big move. I'm hoping my OG Mamana amigos recognize the threat SV S poses, and SVS's spat with LoRab does her in.

I would hate to see that but it is what it is.

I just don't see how anyone could let that spree of posts from SVS slide. LoRab was incredibly paranoid in my interactions with her. Any whiff of anyone going at her and she was on that shit like mad.

SVS is too good a player to keep in the game for too long, and this is just as good an excuse as any to convince people to get her out.

It is what it is. I'm just surprised they don't go after Golden.

The biggest quandary of this game, IMO.

juliets wrote:

Scotty wrote:Y'all ready for this?

Spoiler: show

With DF gone, Elo now feels safe to use her poisoning power. She has poisoned Golden and LoRab with no clear way of them getting better.

Golden and LoRab are talking about SVS being too volatile and seriously considering voting her out next.

Scotty:

Spoiler: show

Do Lorab and Golden have bts? I thought there was no bts today.

Y'all ready for this?

Fastest. Challenge. Ever.

Not at all how I predicted early on how that would go down

In other news, Elo is ready to poison people now that the doctor is gone

juliets wrote:Scotty I don't know whether you want to help the Ponderosa people at all but since I didn't know what kind of questions jurors ask survivors I googled it and found this link. I don't know whats on the podcast but the text tells what some jurors have asked in the past http://robhasawebsite.com/survivor-2014 ... y-answers/

That's great, thanks juliets!

DharmaHelper wrote:

Scotty wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:15 minutes till we find out who came to play and who came to give the game away.

Well...speed tried to form a coalition, but no one was seemingly biting.

Damn shame. But it did flush out Golden's idol.

Let's see if anyone can make anything of that

Considering Quin's still around after he burned an idol getting me out I doubt it.

It means also that someone may refind the idol.

DharmaHelper wrote:15 minutes till we find out who came to play and who came to give the game away.

Well...speed tried to form a coalition, but no one was seemingly biting.

Damn shame. But it did flush out Golden's idol.

Let's see if anyone can make anything of that

Golden wrote:Golden: But no matter what else happens, I won't vote opt

Sounds like he's still strong for a final 2 with opt. Dunno what her plan is.

Quin and SVS are still locked for a final 2 I think though.
Apparently SVS forgot what chat she was in and posted that she was voting speed since he was on the bottom of the alliance. Speed came into chat, and didn't seem upset- he is convinced he's going home tonight, so he urged everyone that would listen to vote Golden out now, since he thinks it will be harder to do so as the game gets closer to endgame.

Sorsha's dad is getting better, so that's good.
Tomorrow's challenge will test willpower. It's a throwback challenge to early Survivor. Can anyone guess what it might be?

BTSC Update:
You'll be happy to learn that there will be no automatic BTSC in tomorrow's phase.

Meanwhile:
LoRab was paranoid in her BTSC about Opt's loyalty after she broke Golden and LoRab's plates first. She's calmed down a little, but is still questioning things.

SVS REALLY wants Elo gone, but isn't thinking of doing so yet. Maybe tomorrow.
She is continuing to slightly suggest the final 5 all-girls alliance, but is being very soft about it.
Golden and LoRab are pushing for a split from the "In" people- half voting DF, half voting speed. Speed is left slightly in the dark, since no one BtSC'd with him. He's looking to do whatever he can now to start an uprising.
DF is over the game and is feeling rather defeated. He hasn't used an action in several phases now.
I convinced him to vote not for himself, but he's looking like a sad sad puppy right now.

Several people, including speed, have expressed concern that having Golden in the final 3 will win him the game. But for some reason, that hasn't deterred LoRab or SVS. They haven't even talked about the real possibility it that it may be getting time for a blindside.

Because there are 2 vote-outs today, an idol is probably getting played...

juliets wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:If you want Jury votes you gotta have scalps on your record. Plural. You gotta get bloody and fast.

I don't necessarily agree with that. That wasn't how it turned out when we played Survivor on Rev.

The beauty of it is that no jury member will have the same qualifications for the ultimate survivor. Hell, Epi flat out said if Elo, Opt or (SVS?) make it to the end he'd vote for one of them to win

DharmaHelper wrote:Upon some self reflection and re-reading old similar games I think my problem is I'm too loyal in these games. So my next iteration will probably involve at the very least a more careful approach.

INH was feeling pretty trusting too- he told me he was about to make a big move, but fell short with that blindside.

Trust no one

DharmaHelper wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:You'd be amazed how much people will let you get away with, if you do it with style and confidence and swagger. My Negan play should have got me out Day 1, tbh.

So if the guys running the show do so from a position of strength, that perception will become in everyone else's mind, a reality. There will be no point in making a move because there will be no move to make.

It's one of my favorite techniques in mafia and in games like this. You don't have to convince anyone of anything, you just have to let them convince themselves. If they perceive that the only available move is the move you want them to make, you win every time.

Confidence kills. It ain't about what you know, or what you can do, or what you have. It's about what people think you know, what people think you can do, what people think you have.

People are much more afraid of the Boogeyman than they are of anything real.

It's a shame you didn't make Jury, man. This is grade A stuff

DharmaHelper wrote:if it were me I'd be thinking about who has commitments to whom. You don't want to be in a final five, final four situation with people who have clear cut ties to people who aren't you. Numbers are everything.

With DF receiving 3 votes, I'd probably be trying to scramble a bit more in thread if I were him. There's only so much to talk about in BTSC, especially if you've already prescribed who you're talking to. I'd think it be fairly obvious to go "uhhh these guys are running the show, we need to make a move".

But then, I'm not playing the game.

DharmaHelper wrote:He told me his role, and I never told a soul. I did warn him that coming clean to people would be the better strategy.

Well Quin flat out told Opt that he has the ability to secretly select another day poll option.

We'll see how that goes for him.

Oh, BTSC update- SVS, golden, Quin and Opt have a final 4 deal.
Opt, golden and LoRab also have a final 3 deal.

someone is on the outs

DharmaHelper wrote:On the one hand, poor decision to get rid of INH and give Atamai holdouts a foothold into the game. On the other, he's a shady S.O.B and the core shot callers probably figured they could cut him and not lose too much momentum.

It's amazing how revealing information to each other has worked out against him.

He never revealed he was making people sick- and he did stop doing so the past few nights- but all of the alliance members sorta figured it out.

juliets wrote:What's going on in btsc today Scotty? Anything good?

Well.
As far as BTSC goes, not a lot of people have been on and scheming. SVS and DF found items in the jungle- SVS shared her find with Sorsha and Opt, which is a 1-use message to the thread.

LoRab has suggested to speed to vote out DF, since he seems redundant with everyone healed. Lorab then told Quin that she, Golden and Opt, who are talking at the water well, to vote for INH since no one seems to trust him. With DF as a backup vote. They are apparently concerned that INH found an idol at Exile Island.

When in reality,
Anyhow, Quin is getting suspicious that fake idols are a thing in the game. He may be on to slight change in syntax when he found the fake idol. But he doesn't know.

That's the gist right now. Have to go.

juliets wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:Ew Epi is in the jury


Now it's Ponder-gross-a

I don't understand - what makes you say this?

I think it's a joke

Also,

juliets wrote:I wonder how carefully people thought through their strategy. They probably thought others wouldn't get the hard words.

Honestly, I feel as though at least a couple people used a boggle solver and submitted words they found from there.

Jokes on them, because most of those odd and long words are all duplicated by people also using a boggle solver.

I haven't counted yet, but the person i think is in the lead is the only person that hasn't gotten "Ponderosa"

DharmaHelper wrote:My strategy would have been to submit all the easy words and shoot for a game winning tough one.

You would have won, no doubt.

juliets wrote:

Scotty wrote:The common dilemma with this challenge is: which words do you submit? Got some long words from multiple people, but they all cancel out. It's gonna be the person that submits all the smaller words worth fewer points that will win this challenge.

Is there more than 1 8 letter word? I found one, and maybe another (its in the dictionary but I've never heard of it).

There are definitely at least 4 that I have counted.

Multiple people have found them so they won't even matter for the point total. I'm tellin ya- it's the person that submits just 3-4 letter words that will win it

The common dilemma with this challenge is: which words do you submit? Got some long words from multiple people, but they all cancel out. It's gonna be the person that submits all the smaller words worth fewer points that will win this challenge.

I'm waiting for the time when the core will have to make a big play.

At this point, Golden's got a good foothold on everyone.

juliets wrote:I didn't see one comment on Epi's death. The jury is going to have a hard time finding behavior to rate, it's all in bts.

Yep, and even then, after looking at that vote spread, it's slightly unorganized in BTSC. There were 5 different people getting votes last night- Quin voted Elo, but his vote was forced to Epi.

Once people that have been engaging in BTSC chats enter Ponderosa, they'll hear more from behind the scenes and how people have been scheming.

DharmaHelper wrote:Also Scotty, this game has given me an idea for a game I might make but might not. So thanks :P

That might be awesome but might not

Can anyone guess the 9-letter Survivor-themed word yet?
Quin did.

juliets wrote:So Scotty, anything exciting going on?

I've never seen such a dead thread.

Not a lot. Only have 2 votes in. The "Core" wants Epi out, but there hasn't been a public push yet.

juliets wrote:Cool Scotty thanks. Also, what else is going down in bts? Are people mad at INH for taking the exile?

There's a certain layer of mistrust with INH. LoRab was sickened in night 3, and thinks it wasn't from the night poll, and she thinks it might have been INH.
But INH is not on the chopping block today.

The main core is looking at separating Epi from the herd. He's even told golden that he doesn't care about winning as much as making sure Opt, Elo or Sorsha(I think it was Sorsha) make it to the end. Golden doesn't like Epi's blatant honesty and finds it threatening.

juliets wrote:

Scotty wrote:Oh, and

Spoiler: show

Quin knows that hidden immunity idol is in one of two places: the ridge and the weeds. So he sent out both DF and Golden to look for them in good faith. Golden found a fake immunity idol that he can hide in a different location tomorrow. DF would have found the idol, but his day poll Option was mysteriously moved to uselessly stoking the fire by Opt, which is her hidden power.

Golden said yesterday his vote was forced - was that true?

Oh, and

So it would appear that Golden and Opt now know who everyone is.
Quin be SVS look to still be a duo, but everyone seems to want to work with Golden.

At some point, they should know they can't afford to take him to the end because he'll probably win. He's put himself in a great position with his multiple alliances. Opt is the only one that is becoming increasingly wary, but she needs him for now to keep her alliance strong.

DharmaHelper wrote:

Scotty wrote:

juliets wrote:Oh thats great - I'm glad we get to see it (the jury thread). I hate that all the talk is taking place in btsc from the thread peeps.

A lot of this game is made up of hidden information and commitments.

If I were as active as I could be, I'd be relaying that here.

The pitfalls of looking into each BTSC is that, because people are pledging to each other similar final 5, 4, 3 deals, I don't know what they're really planning.

It would seem that Epi and Elo are going to be a threat down the line.
There is talk that Golden, Sorsha and Opt are looking to form a final 3, but Golden has also talked to Quin as if to bring him into the Mamana circle. Quin is throwing SVS to the curb in his convo with Golden.
INH forgot to send in his BTSC requests, so who knows what he's doing.

As of right now, because of the reward on Day 4, only Golden is left sick. When no one is sick, how useful will DF be to the tribe, really?

Could be that original Atamai is about to be picked off one by one unless something happens. If notsawyer goes home like people are suggesting, that is..

Golly jf Quin ends up betraying SVS that might just be the cherry on top of the game.

It's all talk, so who really knows what he is going to do.

juliets wrote:Oh thats great - I'm glad we get to see it (the jury thread). I hate that all the talk is taking place in btsc from the thread peeps.

A lot of this game is made up of hidden information and commitments.

If I were as active as I could be, I'd be relaying that here.

The pitfalls of looking into each BTSC is that, because people are pledging to each other similar final 5, 4, 3 deals, I don't know what they're really planning.

It would seem that Epi and Elo are going to be a threat down the line.
There is talk that Golden, Sorsha and Opt are looking to form a final 3, but Golden has also talked to Quin as if to bring him into the Mamana circle. Quin is throwing SVS to the curb in his convo with Golden.
INH forgot to send in his BTSC requests, so who knows what he's doing.

As of right now, because of the reward on Day 4, only Golden is left sick. When no one is sick, how useful will DF be to the tribe, really?

Could be that original Atamai is about to be picked off one by one unless something happens. If notsawyer goes home like people are suggesting, that is..

Reading through some of these BTSC chats I'm amazed that a few people aren't putting two and two together when it comes to role appropriation.

Listen, if you know anything about Survivor, you'll probably want to look at what the players did and why I would include them in the game. There's a lot to mirror. Granted, there's a few elements that make no sense for characters, but I'm still surprised that the threat of...say...the Crazy Hillbilly...is going unchecked.

Most of the talk is in the chats now, dear spectators, and I can assure you that everyone is trying to make backroom deals with each other. Because this is only a glimpse in a 1v1 chat, I don't know what everyone is thinking.

Except DH lol. He PMd me his ultimate strategy as he went along.

Should be an easy vote today. Key word "should".


Also to note: It's the merge, which means from here on out, survivors voted out will become part of the Jury. This will be a separate sub forum called "Ponderosa" to deliberate independently from outside sources. I'll let us observe them from the outside and we can talk about that here, but you won't be allowed to post there.

At this stage, it is up to the Jury to determine who they think deserves to win the game. So there's still participation past being voted out.

DharmaHelper wrote:Also, had our challenge been for immunity I would have been fine. Had we not been swapped I had Mamana eating out of my hand so I would have been fine.

Like many of the best players, my circumstances undid me.

I agree- you and the rest of the original Mamana tribe seemed pretty tight. If Quin had gone home, and how things unfolded in new Mamana, you all had majority and the rest would have been a Pagonging of sorts.

I really wanted you to stay, but you gotta admit- Quin played you well and you all ate right from his hand. I wish y'all had heeded INH's growing concern. Hell, I wish even he had heeded his own concern. But alas

So I made a decision to cut off sharing of fish in the merged tribe strictly for balancing purposes. I felt that roles that already gave away fish were undermined and the sense of urgency in acquiring food is simply not there.

I never had sharing of fish as an option, but SVS asked on Day 1 and in the midst of everything, I acquiesced. Then I had to make it a rule across the board since I gave her that option. But because I want there to be more percussive mafia elements in the game, I feel like it's needed for balance.

In case anyone asks.

This game is hard to balance with all the role powers- I mean shit, I threw away probably 20 other roles in crafting this setup- and as far as I can see, I think this is fair for some people.


What's most interesting to me is the roles that have a helpful function but not so much a maligned ability players will want to keep around. Makes sense. But should they keep them till the end? Might make for an easy case to hand them the win, since they were so helpful.

Lots to think about if I were playing. But I'm not. I'm Morgan Freeman. From Evan Almighty, not Shawshank

juliets wrote:Interesting Scotty did you decide not to give them any clues because they are sharing the clues they have? Also, any idea why LC got booted out? I didn't get to see what conversation that group had leading up to the vote.

It was getting late last night and I'm running on little sleep- it was a rash decision to add that little bit about revealing all the clues last night. Upon sleeping on it, I realized I didn't want to do that after all. I really should just stick to the script.

As for why LC got voted off:

Them's the breaks man, I'm so sorry you were bamboozled like that. I was rooting for the king!

DharmaHelper wrote:SVS Knew he had the idol and let me go on thinking we were mending fences. I see how it is.

She told me via PM to tell you she feels real bad about it.

And yeah, she knew all along..she has had a tight bond with Quin since Day 1.

Marmot wrote:It might be based on the BTSC he earned this past day phase. Everyone was assigned BTSC with someone in their tribe during the day. Epignosis was the odd person out in his tribe, so he was given the option to pick the player he gained BTSC with.

I guess...so...

But he already used that yesterday.

I'm not sure what Epi keep rambling about with his talk of gaining BTSC with the other tribe. He has no such power, but given that he's sent in actions out of turn multiple times, I'm wondering whether or not he truly believes he does..

juliets wrote:I have a feeling everyone is not telling the truth about their powers over in Mamana since Faraday says he lost part of his when Elo joined his tribe. I wonder if the strength people still have strength and the puzzle people still have puzzle powers, etc.

Indeed.

If I were playing this game I would be puzzling out what roles hadn't been discovered/dumped yet and looking for cracks and possibilities. If there is a healer, that would probably mean there's a sickener...etc

juliets wrote:

Scotty wrote:

juliets wrote:

Scotty wrote:Yeah, this might be a surprise tribal result for Atamai.

I have no idea how Mamana is going to shake out.

If someone they vote for has the immunity idol does that mean nobody gets voted off or the person with the next number of votes gets voted off?

As per the show, the person with the next highest number leaves.

And I guess nobody goes if it's unanimous for the person with the idol? Or is there some other mechanic that happens?

In that case, ties are randomized.

Meaning, anyone with 0 votes will go home

Also...this is a spoiler for what's about to most likely go down, but: