How to succeed in social games like The Traitors?

This article is intended for viewers already familiar with The Traitors UK, but does not reveal the identities of the players who left the game.

Three years after the release of the UK version of Traitors, it can sometimes feel as if Faithful hasn’t learned anything from the series. Seemingly obvious traitors continue to fly under the radar, while innocent Faithful are cast out for innocuous reasons. Shouldn’t repeated play of social games—or at least the opportunity to see how others have played them in previous years—begin to prompt a more strategic response?

Well, yes and no – and in this year’s series, some of the Faithful actually used knowledge of the format to their advantage. But in a constantly changing meta and high pressure, progress is slow.

Last year, I spoke to The Traitors UK season one contributor Ivan Brett – author of several gaming books and host of the It’s Just a Game podcast – to get his thoughts on whether knowledge of game design can give you an edge in social gaming scenarios. This year I wanted to check back and see if the Faithful pack might have done something different this season. Can you really get better at social gaming through practice? And how does the new twist in the ending change the game?

“People are becoming more aware of the game, more familiar with its twists and turns, and players are changing with the meta,” Brett says when I talk to him on a video call. “You saw pretty quickly that when shields were given out in episode four, players realized that they could expand their defenses (while keeping it a secret who was holding them) to make it a little harder for traitors to kill them. There is an opportunity to protect more people, and perhaps trap a traitor. This has been done several times and it would be genius if it wasn’t done already, but we want players to play at an optimal level with the resources provided. It just makes it more interesting. when people start coming up with new strategies.”

“No one is going to kill the person they are competing with. In fact, it’s really good to leave this person.”

However, there are times when players aren’t thinking strategically, Brett admits, pointing to recurring discussions in which players are involved in killing someone they “had a disagreement” with. “No traitor who watches the show would try to commit murder and blame it on themselves,” says Brett. It’s too obvious, too easy to track down, and misses the opportunity to kill someone more unexpected – which then also throws Faithful off the scent. “No one is going to kill someone they have competition with,” he continues. “It’s actually a really good idea to keep this person on the show, just like it was in Season 1 when Wilf left Maddie.”

But until players are exposed to these kinds of ideas, people won’t become better at reading social cues, Brett said. “That will never change,” he says. “Social readings are just not perfect, and people won’t get any better at hunting traitors because what you use are just clues in the show.” So how can you play better? This is difficult, Brett says, because social games like The Traitors don’t offer a clear, consistent set of rules about what’s “best.”

“You can play optimally, but the only way to measure how well a game is played is by comparing it to the metagame at the moment,” says Brett, “and that will change every year depending on what was successful last year . You only need to watch the pre-show interviews to see that absolutely everyone was trying to copy themselves from (last year’s winner) Harry, which means that whatever Harry does, they will try and do, except those who are smart enough to say: “no matter what Harry does, I won’t go.” It’s a changing meta. Regardless of what is dominant, the best game is in some way defined by what came before, either sticking to it or changing from it, deviating from it.”

Despite the inaccuracies, familiarity with the format can help you at least understand what things you need to mentally prepare for. In the first episode, I wondered how many of the players who volunteered to leave the train actually believed they were leaving the show, having seen two players leave in the first season only to return later.

“The ability to predict possible turns of events means that people won’t be shocked by it or affected emotionally like we were in the first season.”

“Understanding and even being able to predict what turns of events are going to happen means that people won’t be as shocked or affected by it as emotionally as we were in season one,” admits Brett, “but will instead be able to process it in a calmer environment.” ” more analytical sense and think: “Well, how can I benefit from this situation?” This is happening in this series with some players.”

This year, it’s been interesting to watch players grapple with the reality that Traitors is an inherently selfish game, like many other social games, even if each episode features the cast working together for the common goal of making more money. maximum prize fund. This year’s missions introduce more elements of personal gain – shields to protect against assassinations, and the need to sacrifice money or other players’ ability to gain shields in order to benefit. There was also a clown task in which players struggled with the idea that their fellow participants were lying.

“Dan was the first to say, ‘I’m being selfish, I’m sorry I had to do this, but at the end of the day, it’s not a team game,'” Brett notes. “We all realized it wasn’t a team game (in the first season), but it took some people a while. The fact that Dan first said this back in episode three and is confident enough that he won’t get kicked out. simply out of selfishness, it demonstrates the development of strategy and overall understanding of the game.” At least until a certain point.

“I like it because British reality TV is a long way behind other countries – Australia, New Zealand and especially America – in allowing this kind of atrocity to be glorified,” Brett muses. Traitors, like it or not, advanced the British public’s understanding of what was acceptable as a heroic act. Previously, in Big Brother, all strategic action was seen as villainy. America has 47 episodes of Survivor, a much more strategic version of Big Brother. The formats generally work the same way, but you’re always constantly trying to outdo each other, outwit each other, and thus use tricks and sneaks. And that’s great.”

Speaking of which, the one big twist to this year’s Traitors format comes in the finale, where the producers decided to make some big strategic changes. Now, anyone who leaves in the final episode will not tell other players whether they were a traitor or loyal, so remaining players will no longer be able to take this information into account when deciding whether to continue voting players out or ending the game and taking their chances. The traitor is still present.

The only real drama in the finale is whether there are one or two traitors left?

“The predominant outcome is that you keep kicking players out until you take out the one you consider to be your final traitor,” says Brett. “Going into the final episode, you know there should still be one or two traitors left, unless you did a really bad job. But even if you did well, there will still be one or two, because when the traitors do get down to one they are forced to recruit by ultimatum. So the only real drama in the finale is whether there are one or two traitors left. And so players can continue banishing until they have two people left, which will simply result in a reveal? being only one or both of these players won. And they’ve done this before.”

More than a dozen seasons of the “Traitors” format have been aired around the world. Here in the UK you can watch some US and Australian episodes of Traitors on iPlayer. So while we’re technically only on version three of the show, some of the UK audience has already seen half a dozen different endings. And the number of endgames in this format is limited, no changes.

“If (finales) become a pattern, they become boring, and it’s so important to stick to the landing of each episode that they can’t take that kind of risk – more than any other show,” Brett says. “Nobody remembers the ending of Love Island or even the last week of Big Brother.” It almost always doesn’t matter. “Traitors still always puts a lot of pressure on the players, but you have to continue to make it interesting for the viewers to take home.”

So how will this year’s finals go? Unfortunately, in Brett’s opinion, this change tips the scales even further towards victory for the traitors. “By disabling any check that you’ve gotten rid of them, Faithful will never have a good enough reason to end the game,” he says. “I don’t see how this will benefit the Faithful. Let’s say a group of three or four people make it to the end, trust each other, and decide to win the game. If there’s a Traitor in that group, then that Traitor Or it could lead to the Faithful saying, “Well, now that we don’t know if there’s a Traitor there or not, to improve the numbers, we’ll just keep exiling until there’s no one left.” two”. us.'” He adds that it wouldn’t make for good television either, since it would happen without the players revealing others as traitors.

“I don’t see how this will benefit the Faithful.”

“Some of the best moments are the reveals,” says Brett, “and so this twist came at the expense of removing some of those brilliant unboxings. This is not an unboxing for the audience because we already know the roles of the players.” But it’s more about watching the players’ reactions.” Instead, we’ll likely see different kinds of reveals we haven’t seen before, like the Faithful’s struggle over whether to end the game without knowing they’ve already caught a few. “If we can watch it live, that’s really exciting,” Brett says. “I’m really excited to see it, I just think it’ll probably lead to a lot of Traitor victories until something else changes to balance it out.”

In his opinion, there are still ways to balance the situation, for example, by depriving traitors of the opportunity to recruit people earlier. But this opens the door for players to get rid of all the traitors before the ending begins, leading to a truly strange ending full of paranoia, in which all remaining players are already Faithful. “Again, you can’t eat this too many times,” Brett says. But the future remains unwritten, and next year’s meta will only be determined after this year’s finale airs. Who knows, maybe next year’s harvest will find out everything?