has this been done or suggested before? basically, the idea is to play the game as a nutcase, thus raising your capital as someone to bring along to the final tribal council.
how would you play the part and what would your final speech to the jury be to convince them to vote for you? i would vote for someone who could fool everybody else 24/7 for 39 days, if he or she could convince me they were sane and likeable.
Phillip the Federal Agent tried it, but was unable to do the necessary 180 to prove sanity.
but the former federal agent wasn’t pretending to be a nutcase, he also made no apologies at the final tribal council iirc. here’s my plan:
[ol]
[li]step one: switch on the crazy earlier on and target the vulnerable players, making sure most of the misery dished out were against a smaller group, like the angry black man vs the pretty ones this season. this ensures that you survive long enough until they start kicking people off as juries, and the people you’ve pissed off so far have all been voted out. [/li][li]step two: redirect your crazy outwards. like claiming the almighty dragon in the sky has chosen you to be his embodiment, infusing you with his essence and causing you to speak with a lisp. do stuff that are more amusing than abrasive. say getting the others to join you in chant, start convulsing or something, and bless them in the name of the almighty dragon. [/li][li]step three: lose the lisp and calmly detail your strategy to the jury members. [/li][li]step four: profit!!![/li][/ol]
I think Philip convinced himself that was his strategy, but really he was just nucking futs and could never turn it off.
The problem with this strategy is maintaining the crazy persona for 39 days 24/7. Then with one 3 minute speech you’re supposed to convince everyone that was NOT the real you? That’s an incredibly tough challenge. I think if I were on a jury where someone tried this, I’d be more likely to think they had a moment of clarity.
Also, even if they believed that you successfully used this strategy to reach the final 3, would they respect the strategy enough to vote you the sole survivor? The game is “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast” and you basically used one con to trick everyone to drag you all the way to the final… I don’t think enough players would respect that strategy to vote you the winner over someone who played the game as their true selves.
The closest I can think of is Fabio from Nicaragua, although his strategy was less about acting insane, and more about acting so stupid, goofy, and checked-out that nobody perceived him as a threat until it was too late.
One of the major problems with this strategy is that you aren’t together for 14 1-hour blocks, you’re together for 39 days… and if you spend that whole time acting like a nut, chances are the jury will be so sick of putting up with you that even if you pull a great speech at the final jury, they’re likely to be so annoyed that they still have a high chance of voting for someone else.
It’s also a hard strategy to defend- if I get to the final three with someone who successfully passes as a nutbar and then turns into an eloquent orator, my appeal to the jury is simple: “Not to be critical of <crazy player>, but if you’re such a great strategist, why didn’t you just play the game normally? I spent the last month getting here on the basis of the friends and alliances I made, why couldn’t you?”
I wonder how much the final jury really has an effect on votes. The jurors say otherwise, but it feels like most of them go in knowing exactly who they are voting for. Or they’re fishing for one specific answer/apology to change their vote.
The strategy won’t work for the simple reason that no one, other than Boston Rob, has actually won the game using a strategy from start to finish. Most winners just go with the flow from day to day. Rob even knew to compliment the jury in their own game play and explain that was why they needed to be eliminated. So playing the crazy nut job makes it hard to compliment the jury members on their game play and appeal to their own self-importance- they don’t want to be told they were outplayed or outsmarted, they want to be told they were a huge threat and needed to be booted!
so it cannot be done then? anyway, is Boston Rob the only one? i remember Yul played a straight game and brought his original alliance all the way to the end, so that makes at least two.
Yul had the grossly overpowered hidden immunity idol though. Once he revealed it, it was essentially impossible to vote him or anyone in his alliance out, so they had a free ride to the Final TC.