Survivor Card Game

debrief

After some of my whiny prodding, we played the survivor card game on my first family vacation with the in-laws, and I was the first one voted out.

The others expected me to be some strategic mastermind because I am a huge fan of the show and because it was my game—a birthday gift from my wife—so I think I was marked as a target from the very beginning. I take that as a compliment.

However, I am not a naturally strategic mastermind who is willing to survive at all costs; I am neurotic and shy and don’t like to make enemies. I play it safe and am fearful of making moves for fear of making enemies. I don’t want my in-laws to dislike me yet. We have a long time left ahead of us.

The survivor card game is not a trading card game; it is less about the cards or drawing the right cards and knowing the right order to play them. Nor is it dexterity dependent. It is a game of policial chess where the pieces are the other players. The cards are only there to disguise it as a party game where everyone’s aim is to just have “fun.”

My aim was to teach the game’s extremely simple mechanics to my non-gamer-in-laws and expose them to the joys of scheming. For that reason, I was a good sport and being didn’t mind being voted out first; if I had to be the scapegoat for the others to learn the game and enjoy the game with the hope that they would enjoy it enough to desire to play it again, I would gladly sacrifice myself for the good of this great game. But only once. Next time will be war.

The players were Alanna, Branden, Brenna, T, Mary, Nora and me. It was one more player than the game permitted, so Mary and T agreed to be on a team.

Alanna was the first in the garage for this night of family fun, dragging her husband Branden in with her. She said that she really wanted to play, although she warned me that she doesn’t like games like this, and always takes them personally and prefers board games. I nodded in agreement with Alanna because I also like complicated board games, but most people don’t have patience for thousands of rules.

Branden was there on behalf of his wife and so that I wouldn’t be the only male player.

While everyone else was mixing their respective drinks or cracking their respective beers, I got to explain to Mary with relish how Survivor is played on TV, to give her context for the game we were about to play. I told her about the tribes, tribal councils, the merge, the jury, and the final tribal council. She remembered the phenomenon from the year 2000 as an 8-year-old, watching Richard Hatch walking naked around camp, and his friend Rudy Boesch (RIP), the 72-year-old grizzled Navy veteran doing pushups on the beach. She was surprised the show was still on and surprised that 56 million people saw Richard Hatch naked.

Like all games that I beg people to play with me, I began by reading the rules aloud and bridge shuffling the deck of cards. I would pause reading the rules to let them sink in for the players, and reread rules slowly that I didn’t understand. But the rules were very simple: each turn, players must steal a card, play a card (optional), and then draw a card. Cards are drawn until the tribal council card is drawn. The player who draws the tribal council card runs the tribal council, where players are voted for elimination. Each player has two characters in their tribe, and the two players who receive the most votes lose a character card. There was a reference sheet available that explained what all the cards do, if the players need more explanation.

The game began slowly, and side conversations abounded as players figured out the rules. More than a few times I needed to remind players of the turn order (steal, play (optional), draw). (They are NOT gamers.) For the first few turns, we all drew cards, stole cards and passed the turn. No one strategized or whispered. No one played any cards. We still treated the game like a regular party game where the goal is to have fun. Kind of like how the cast of season 1 misunderstood the game as a social experiment exclusively.

I tried to figure out threat levels based on my in laws personalities and status within the family. I also tried to make enemies with Mary and T because they are dominating personalities. I already had an unspoken alliance with my wife Nora, and I felt like if I made a move and crossed the table to T and Mary to whisper a strategic target, I would be targeted myself for demonstrating to others how to strategize. Also, I like Al and Branden and Brenna and didn’t know who I wanted to eliminate.

Mary and T didn’t dump out my canteen or set fire to my hat or dig through my personals bag for an immunity idol, and so I found it difficult to manufacture animosity. I was afraid to play the game.

By the time we got to the first tribal council, no one knew what to expect. Myself included. We drummed onto the table and closed our eyes as we passed around the voting box. We were all laughing nervously until the votes were read. The team of T and Mary received enough votes to lose one of their character cards. They were shaken and disappointed and hurt. What did they do and say to receive so many votes? We were barely playing. We were talking, having fun in the garage. They took it very personally. Was this still just a game, or a way to express how we really felt about Mary/T?

Nora voted for herself inexplicably. It was not meant as 4D chess move, although that is what it became. She admitted to me after the game ended that she needed to use the bathroom and tried to vote herself out so she could go. Bad reason. We would have waited for her! Whatever the case, she was deemed an unserious player and ignored for the rest of the game.

But then she made me proud by joyfully explaining to her sisters about Q from season 50, whose strategy was asking Mike White to vote him out of the game. Mike White obliged and Q was sent home.

Alanna wears her emotions on her sleeve, which means she is an easy read. Everyone agreed with Alanna that she would most likely be the first one voted out. I mistook her for an easy target. But being an easy read doesn’t make her an easy target. She was an easy target, so she was kept around; she could be eliminated anytime.

The room did not become deadly serious until the second tribal council, when Branden and I strategized with whispers while the girls looked on and strategized with their eyes. I did not play my immunity idol card because I thought I was safe, that we were all voting for Brenna. I regret not reaching across the table to talk to Brenna. On her next turn, Brenna stole my hidden immunity idol with her campfire raid card. So much for “not needing to play the right cards in the right order.” My back was against the wall, but I still didn’t try to make a truce with Mary, T and Brenna. Silly, since they were the ones who voted for me at the last tribal council.

I was eliminated during the next tribal council, receiving 2 votes behind Brenna, who received 4 votes. I voted for Brenna, I don’t know who voted for me. Nora didn’t read the room correctly and played her immunity idol but received no votes.

Just like when I get eliminated early from Texas Hold ‘Em for playing safely before losing big pots on bluffs where I put all of my hope in a river that will give me a flush, I sat on the sideline and became Jeff Probst.

After an apocalyptic tribal council eliminated Branden and Mary/T, three players remained: the sisters Nora, Alanna, and Brenna.

The deck needed to be reshuffled with the tribal council cards stacked into it, but the gameplay sped along quickly despite this. Like a game of Texas hold ‘em with two remaining players, cards are played swiftly; five hands played per minute. Yet, I still needed to explain to Nora the turn order. (Steal, play (optional), draw.)

As the matriarch, T’s strategy was to guilt-trip her opponents. How could her son-in-law vote for her? How could her own daughter do it? To be fair, my votes were never really meant for T, but for Mary; T only received them because they were on the same team. The guilt trip did not work on me, but it worked remarkably well on Alanna, who took the soft joke as the personal attack she had already predicted it would become. She said she did not want to be guilted, and T and Mary fired back that they had already been eliminated while Alanna still had both of her character cards.

Something was happening inside Alanna’s head. The veins in her neck appeared, and her pale face flushed to match her hair. She felt victimized, even though Mary correctly pointed out that she still had two character cards and was therefore in the strongest position. Alanna’s fury was unleashed, and everyone retreated to their respective corners. Even the typically pushy Nora fell silent in the face of Alanna’s questionable rage. Branden seemed nonplussed and continued drinking his beer. It was my first time playing Jeff Probst, and I was not yet comfortable enough in the role to ask Alanna why she was lashing out at her mother and sister-in-law.

At the next tribal council, Brenna was eliminated. Nora and Brenna both voted for Alanna, who was now down to her final character card. Alanna exploded in anger. Alanna went to scratch her back and made Brenna flinch. Brenna, the subtly savage sister, the one who could say things in real life, outside the game, that no one dare say, flinched, like she was about to be smacked by ordinarily sweet Alanna.

That’s the moment I knew that Alanna had won my vote at final tribal council. When Brenna asked the final two about their strategies, Alanna refused to answer all questions. She wanted to go to bed and have the game be over forever. She was the boss, the queen. She didn’t need to defend her strategy because she made Brenna flinch. Nora made Mary laugh tears asking for a mercy kill, and then incredibly surviving into final tribal council. That was a different kind of win.

On the count of three, everyone had to point to the person they think was the sole survivor, and we all chose Alanna. Alanna didn’t care. She stood up and stormed away from the table and up to bed. Nora was mad that I didn’t choose her, but I was more afraid of Alanna than I was of Nora.

I didn’t dare bring the game up again, but in the morning Alanna apologized to me for getting so mad last night. I was the new guy. Alanna didn’t want to talk about it, and it would have been awkward had it not been family.

On her birthday a few days later, Brenna suggested that we play survivor again. I don’t think it had anything to do with me getting voted out first. Maybe she had fun, and wanted to test a different strategy. I told her that we should form an alliance before the game starts. Nora sat nearby and said nothing. Brenna didn’t respond or nod her head, so I asked her again. Nora sat there and said nothing. Brenna then said that she agreed silently, but didn’t want to make it obvious, in front of Nora. She was learning the game.