The Ten Worst Rules of Game Play

It has been a very long time since I’ve done a top ten, or in this case, a bottom ten. Today, I’m doing what I consider to be the ten worst rules of game play. This is different in some ways than twists. But I had this planned for a while now so I might as well finally get it done.

 

#10 Changes in endurance challenges- I’m not entirely sure what I meant by this which is why it made this part of the list, but what I think I mean from it is that the rules are not always consistent from time to time with how they do certain endurance challenges, which can be an issue.

 

#9 Time limits on challenges- What’s up with this? Am I right? Why would certain challenges have a time limit on them? Either it must be completed in a certain time with whoever having the lead winning or the rules change with there potentially being a tie-breaker or something like that. It doesn’t make sense to me so it doesn’t work as well to me.

 

#8 Finale reward challenges- While I do hate these a lot, there are things that are worse than this that make a higher place on the list more deserved. Still, it is hard to like something where they have to slow down the finale which often gives an advantage that isn’t always deserved or should be given that late in the game. And while finale advantages are quite the thing now, something else does top this place on the list which I’ll get to later.

 

#7 Tribe must win challenge to get fire- I’ve hated this since it was first introduced in All-Stars. If it was done in just that season, it wouldn’t be that big of an issue. And while I’m not going to mention the version of this that has appeared since Survivor returned in the post pandemic era, it always seemed to put unfortunate tribes at a disadvantage to be without fire and potentially without an ability to be able to win anything at all. Indeed, when Ravu was at such a disadvantage in Fiji, Jeff just gave them flint when they made fire on their own, claiming that they were the first tribe to do this while forgetting that Pagong had fire on their own in the very first episode of the show.

 

#6 Idol played after votes are read- Maybe I should give this some slack as it hasn’t really been used as much outside of the few times that it was used. But it doesn’t make as much sense as it always gives the person with this power no reason to ever use this idol unless they would have otherwise been voted out of the game or potentially save allies this way at the cost of the idol. It never worked which is why they changed the rules only to bring this back in other variants briefly.

 

#5 New final four format- Does anyone who isn’t Jeff or people with the power to change this actually like this or want it included in future seasons? We’ve wanted it gone since the moment it had first appeared and yet we are stuck with it. The format makes no sense and breaks what Survivor should be that late into the game. I don’t like it or want it.

 

#4 Sit out can’t win reward- Can you imagine getting to the individual part of the game and then for one reason or another, learn that you can’t win the reward because you have to sit out of the challenge? I do like that they are trying to rectify this nowadays by giving this person the opportunity for an advantage in the game if they only pay attention and grab it.

 

#3 Idol introduced in finale- Ugh. I can’t even write about how terrible this is. Do finales really need a gimmick like this or anything else for that matter? (Maybe that should be a future blog post.) But there should not be such a huge thing entering the game this late. It doesn’t make great things. It is only quite annoying and very unfair.

 

#2 Rock tie-breaker- Some people stopped watching Survivor when this was first introduced. A lot of the contestants have made crazy decisions in order to avoid this. Now it wouldn’t be an issue if it were the tied contestants drawing the rocks. But to have it reverberate against the others isn’t fair.

 

#1 Designated puzzle solvers- This may seem an odd thing to be the highest on the list. But this is what ultimately inspired this long delayed list. Why can’t all of the people on a tribe solve a puzzle? Why can’t they switch out the people solving the puzzles at least? Do they just need fall guys for tribal council? I just can’t understand why only one or a few people can solve the puzzle at the end and not everyone. It is just so dumb that this is part of the game.

 

That’s all that I can think of for this blog post. I hope that I have enough time for blogging in addition to the more important things in life while various other things go on and have to be done. I will leave you with this post as I hope to come up with more random posts this month.