New rules for all Survivor games!

SinisterMinisterX

Illuminatus
Staff member
Having had some time to observe the Survivors, and having experimented a bit with the rules, I think I've found a good set of rules for these games. So, effective immediately, all 8 Survivor games have these rules...

(By the way, if it seems like these rules are repeating the obvious, keep in mind that I'm writing them for people who may be new to our games.)

Goal: eliminate all but one of the songs until the best song stands alone as champion.

What you do: Vote for your LEAST favorite songs. You get three votes. (When we get to the very end, you'll get 2 votes with 4 songs left, and 1 vote after that.)

What happens when the round is over: we are eliminating songs until ten remain alive. This top ten then faces the next album. At the very end is the Finals: we carve that top ten down to one champion.

How many songs get eliminated: Up to 3, depending on a few things...
1. The number of voters.
1-3 voters = 1 song out
4-8 voters = 2 songs out
9+ voters = 3 songs out
For the mathematically inclined: It's based on the square root of the number of voters... :)
2. Fewer songs may be eliminated if the "winners" aren't clearly defined (like a 3-way tie for second would mean only the winner gets kicked out). Also, fewer songs will be eliminated if we'd otherwise go below ten songs left.
3. If there are too many songs tied for the win (like 3 songs tied when only 2 can go out), I will choose ONE to die and the next round begins. Exception: If we're in the final round before the next album (which means we're likely voting on good songs), then we'll have a tiebreaker round. If that ends up tied, I break the tie. However, I will stop announcing my tie-breaking picks in advance (it ruins the suspense).
4. In the Finals, only one song is eliminated at a time, and we will use tiebreakers as often as needed to choose that one song.

What songs are included in the game?
a. Studio album songs, of course.
b. Any other studio songs ONLY if that song was released as a single.
c. Other songs will be included by request.  These requested songs will be included in the last round before the finals (they may even get their own round if there are enough).

Sorry about missing songs in the Bruce Survivor ... after the Blaze Survivor, we'll run another Bruce Survivor WITH all the songs we skipped, so Foro and others can stop complaining. :)

What? "Blaze Survivor"? What?

Yes, I've started picking out bands for the next batch of games ... and we'll do Blaze when Bruce is finished. This is Maidenfans after all; we have to get to all the Maiden dudes. And I've also picked the bands to follow Led Zeppelin and Metallica. (Hint: we've talked about both of them as a Band Of The Week.)

But after that, I'm open to requests. Post them here ... but fair warning: I'll only do them if I like the band. This is a bit of work for me - not too much, but it has to keep me interested. :D
 
SMX, I gave this change a night of sleep and I wonder if we could discuss the following issues in the new rules?
It could be that I am reading or interpreting wrong, so I hope you don't mind that we zoom in on them.

If I understand correctly the combination of some of these can have a big impact when there's only 2 or 3 voters. I'd like to ask something about the maximum restrictions and your "final word" in order to select the one(s) to be eliminated. I'm talking about this combination:

SinisterMinisterX said:
How many songs get eliminated: Up to 3, depending on a few things...
1. The number of voters.
1-3 voters = 1 song out
4-8 voters = 2 songs out
9+ voters = 3 songs out
For the mathematically inclined: It's based on the square root of the number of voters... :)

+

3. If there are too many songs tied for the win (like 3 songs tied when only 2 can go out), I will choose ONE to die and the next round begins. Exception: If we're in the final round before the next album (which means we're likely voting on good songs), then we'll have a tiebreaker round. If that ends up tied, I break the tie. However, I will stop announcing my tie-breaking picks in advance (it ruins the suspense).

With only 3 voters, very often (really almost all the time) there are (at least) two songs with the most votes.*
Until yesterday, those two (or more) would be eliminated, in case at least 10 songs would be left.

Now the new rules:
In these situations* it is very probable that from now on you practically decide every round which song will be eliminated. (apart from the final round before the next album, but that's only once per 8-12 rounds) 
Why would we want that? Would you reconsider this for the "small group of voters"-polls?

I hope I explained myself well, thanks for your attention and reconsideration.
 
I understand your concern Foro, but this combination of rules actually works in a way that I think is fair. Let me explain...

There are only 4 possible ties to consider with 2 or 3 voters. The first: a bunch of one-vote songs. Let's say I ran a tiebreaker with those songs, and we all get one vote. Everyone picks one of the songs they originally selected. That leads to a tiebreaker with one-third the number of songs in the first tiebreaker. And now everyone votes for the same song as last time. We have a tie, which I'd break anyway. So why run the two tiebreakers? If it's all one-vote songs, it makes sense for me to take one out and move on.

The second: A 2-way or 3-way tie of 3-vote songs. That means everyone agrees on what songs should go, and no one should be upset with my choosing one of them.

The third: a 2-vote tie with 2 voters. Pretty much the same as above - there is agreement on 2 songs, so my pick shouldn't matter.

The last and hardest: 2-vote ties with 3 voters. Someone is going to be upset here, but only one person. Two of the three voters will agree with my choice. That's majority rule, and it ought to be enough.

Still, you're right: there is potential for me to have more influence on the results. So I'll make this promise: when possible, I will eliminate a song that I didn't vote for. But that's not a rule or guarantee: I reserve the right to occasionally kill songs I vote for too. I'll try to be fair, but I won't reduce "too much influence" down to "too little".
 
Thanks for your reaction.

In my eyes the difference with the old situation is that we all had (direct) influence on which songs could be eliminated, because more than one song could be eliminated per round. In the new situation I find it less cool -in a small group- to learn that every vote which does not correspond with your (final) choice, has not much weight anymore.

Since this is my own problem, I consider quitting the 1-3 voters-group-survivor games and stay around having fun in the “larger ensembles”.  ;)
 
In the case of a 4-way tie, wouldn't it be better to do a tie-breaker round and eliminate the top three from that particular vote? That way no one would have any reason to hold a grudge... As many have said, we don't have a deadline to do all of this, right? :D

BTW - Blaze survivor - very nice!
 
Forostar said:
In the new situation I find it less cool -in a small group- to learn that every vote which does not correspond with your (final) choice, has not much weight anymore.

You seem to be assuming that I'll always be eliminating my choice when these situations come up. As I said above, I don't intend to do that. I'll be eliminating songs that other people voted for to make it fair. This means your votes still have weight and will still affect the game.

Yes, the rules make it possible for me to have an unfair influence, but you should give me a chance to run the games fairly as well.
 
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