Finished Big Brother 10: Scramble & Conquer

[Ephemera]

While you did keep Aria and Sen off of everyone else in Hibana, I think that there's a lot of merit to be had in keeping the alliance of comp beasts from targeting people they knew were threats as the alliance was going down. I consistently downplayed your clout, saying you only wanted the floater purge. I said Vi was completely willing to work with me (technically not a lie) and I think she could be convinced not to go for us (meaning Quaking's side) if I asked her to (this was the lie). I kept Flour on the outskirts, deliberately feeding the perception that he was beneath notice, and not worth evicting.

While you did have strong connections to Almonds, at that point in the game it was pretty clear where he stood, and I don't think you could have convinced him to turn on Quaking and Shaymin at all. The task of keeping their target away from us fell squarely on my shoulders.

And finally: oh my god I realized something yay.
I can do the thing you've been doing to me!
Our games are inherently intertwined: neither of us gets our moves accomplished without the work of the other.
For most of this finale, NP's been showing how he's worked to get my moves done.
...I honestly forgot that I can say the same lmao

For the Shaymin eviction, I think I had just as strong a hand in that as NP.
A bit of a bold claim, but let's go through how that happened.
For the weeks before Shaymin was evicted, I was ensuring that we didn't exactly consolidate as an alliance.
I said I didn't trust Almonds, especially after he picked Aria/Sen for veto as his first Chieftain picks.
I asked about Shaymin, whether his being silent in our group meant something was up.
In short: I kept the alliance together, but also not close enough to hard defend anyone.
As such, when Shaymin went up, I had a hand in the fact that there was pretty much no campaigning to save him, save Almonds, and even when he was gone, no one took offense due to the seeds I had planted already.

For keeping NP's cover: my mere existence as a player ostensibly on Quaking's side ensured that whenever NP made a call that was against Aria and Sen's plans, he could shift the pressure to me. For all the votes, the fact that I was on the other side helped obfuscate the actual placement of votes greatly. For calls, NP could just say that I wouldn't work with him if the target was someone else. NP definitely made sure Aria and Sen didn't target me, but the fact that I was indeed on the other side of the house kept the pressure off of him, and on me.

This especially worked well for Mirdo, Quaking, Shaymin, and Aria votes: I maintained NP's cover, and hid his agenda, simply by being an unpredictable vote. Anything they could possibly catch on to would just be put onto me, furthering the house divide we worked to cultivate.

I think the fact that I've made it this far with all the pressure and yet only was ever nominated for show, and essentially fulfilled the same role as NP in the end, shows my skill throughout this game.

(still working on Vi case, will probably post when actually awake)

 

[NinjaPenguin]

While you did keep Aria and Sen off of everyone else in Hibana, I think that there's a lot of merit to be had in keeping the alliance of comp beasts from targeting people they knew were threats as the alliance was going down. I consistently downplayed your clout, saying you only wanted the floater purge. I said Vi was completely willing to work with me (technically not a lie) and I think she could be convinced not to go for us (meaning Quaking's side) if I asked her to (this was the lie). I kept Flour on the outskirts, deliberately feeding the perception that he was beneath notice, and not worth evicting.

While you did have strong connections to Almonds, at that point in the game it was pretty clear where he stood, and I don't think you could have convinced him to turn on Quaking and Shaymin at all. The task of keeping their target away from us fell squarely on my shoulders.

And finally: oh my god I realized something yay.
I can do the thing you've been doing to me!
Our games are inherently intertwined: neither of us gets our moves accomplished without the work of the other.
For most of this finale, NP's been showing how he's worked to get my moves done.
...I honestly forgot that I can say the same lmao

For the Shaymin eviction, I think I had just as strong a hand in that as NP.
A bit of a bold claim, but let's go through how that happened.
For the weeks before Shaymin was evicted, I was ensuring that we didn't exactly consolidate as an alliance.
I said I didn't trust Almonds, especially after he picked Aria/Sen for veto as his first Chieftain picks.
I asked about Shaymin, whether his being silent in our group meant something was up.
In short: I kept the alliance together, but also not close enough to hard defend anyone.
As such, when Shaymin went up, I had a hand in the fact that there was pretty much no campaigning to save him, save Almonds, and even when he was gone, no one took offense due to the seeds I had planted already.

For keeping NP's cover: my mere existence as a player ostensibly on Quaking's side ensured that whenever NP made a call that was against Aria and Sen's plans, he could shift the pressure to me. For all the votes, the fact that I was on the other side helped obfuscate the actual placement of votes greatly. For calls, NP could just say that I wouldn't work with him if the target was someone else. NP definitely made sure Aria and Sen didn't target me, but the fact that I was indeed on the other side of the house kept the pressure off of him, and on me.

This especially worked well for Mirdo, Quaking, Shaymin, and Aria votes: I maintained NP's cover, and hid his agenda, simply by being an unpredictable vote. Anything they could possibly catch on to would just be put onto me, furthering the house divide we worked to cultivate.

I think the fact that I've made it this far with all the pressure and yet only was ever nominated for show, and essentially fulfilled the same role as NP in the end, shows my skill throughout this game.

(still working on Vi case, will probably post when actually awake)

This will prob be my last comment on this topic because I feel like we're retracing the same points over and over here with barely any progress lol
I feel like there's a bit of a disconnect here between what I'm arguing and what it feels like you're saying I'm arguing. The Almonds thing isn't me saying I could've turned him against Quaking/Shaymin, it's me saying you can't take full credit for keeping the Quaking/Shaymin/Almonds side from targeting Hibana when I was the person working the closest with Almonds of anyone there. I'm also not saying you didn't do a valuable role in being a mole with Quaking/Shaymin, I'm saying your task was comparable to what I was doing with Aria/Sen.
I don't think you remotely had as strong a hand in the Shaymin eviction as I did and saying that is completely wrong lol. I was the one who won HOH, I was the one who made the plans for the week in terms of noms/cheiftain picks/etc., I was the one who gathered votes to evict him and convinced Aria/Sen he was the best target, and probably most impressive of all, I was the sole person who convinced Almonds to use to veto, allowing me to have my backdoor on his closest ally. Plus, half the power play was me getting no blood on my hands in the process, and the burden for that was on me to pass that off, not you.
You for sure had a major role in getting that side to not consolidate, but even if they did, I don't really think it would have mattered much? Quaking and Almonds didn't campaign as hard as they could because they felt they had the votes easily after the Week 2 mirdo eviction, and that was driven just as much on my part as yours because I'd constantly been driving in for a week that Shaymin was a pawn that could easily be saved in the vote. And even if they campaigned, I don't think it would have changed anything.
You definitely had cover for me with Aria/Sen but I was giving just as much cover to you with Quaking/Almonds. For example, they knew I was the one who swapped to voting Quaking on Week 4 Part 2 and I was forced to justify it to them in advance, along with Quaking and Almonds knowing I voted Aria Week 2 and me having to pass that off as a sympathy vote, preventing you from needing to swap on either week. My votes provided cover for you just as much as yours did for me. Additionally, I claimed you were one of the 5 in the TLS vote as cover to make you look better to Aria/Sen for the rest of the game, taking the far majority of the burden passing that off.
We had similar roles and worked together a ton in the game, but they definitely weren't the same lol. (And it's still weird imo to say you were nominated for show when your nomination put you in very real and very legitimate danger by being one different comp result away from being evicted, in a way that was never the case with me.)

 

[Lorde]

This is a reminder that there are 24 hours left of the finale! @Mora and @EurekaTingz still have questions they can ask if they wish to.

 

[NinjaPenguin]

Since there's only a day left in the finale and seeing as no questions have come in during the last 24 hours, I figured it might help you make your decision if I'd make a post highlighting some of the strongest aspects of my game. Here's some of the aspects where I think my game shined:
My social game was incredibly strong. There were a ton of players in this game who were quite close strategically to me: Ephe, Flour, Violet, Sen, Almonds, Aria, Mirdo, and even Mora after he came back (this is over half of the players in this game, and every single member of the jury besides one!). Not only that, I also had notable social ties with both Quaking and Lily. I built trust with all of these players and made sure they wouldn't see me as an enemy, but that was only one dimension of it. I made sure to get to understand each of you more both as humans and a players, taking the time to understand your approaches to Big Brother as a game, the information you had and perspectives you were coming from, what you thought about different styles of gameplay, and your desires as players. I tried my best to understand what I would do if I was in your place and make sure I would be someone you'd see as a valuable asset going forward in the game. Know Your Jury as a comp is definitely random in some ways, but I don't think it was a coincidence that I got a perfect score and was able to win after only four questions. I didn't just go with the answers created to look "logical" because there was a chance I might write them if answering the question myself, I sought to look at them through your perspectives. I was able to recognize Mora's wit in the "Celever's eviction" comment, knew the type of gameplay Lily respected, and understood how Almonds perceived his social game and if he'd made enemies. I was always doing my best to see the game in other people's eyes, building social connections and getting to a point where I felt confident you wanted me around. And as you'll see later here, my social game didn't just keep me safe, it served as a springboard to enhance the rest of my game.
My unique social approaches and persuasion were founded on this social game. I used my understanding of your viewpoints on the game and desires as a player to make convincing arguments that on many occasions convinced players to make different moves. I knew that after BB8, mirdo's goal as a player was not to listen to strategic commands but to make up his own mind and make his decisions as a center of power. That's why instead of going with a straightforward approach to convincing him to evict Scattered Week 1, I acted as though I was an ally who was playing into his game and giving him information instead of forcing my opinion, scripting a conversation with Flour and sending mirdo the logs that I knew would make him want to evict scattered, an action which managed to convince him to flip the votes to evict scattered and bring his allies along with it. I knew that Almonds's goal going into this game was to improve his social game, so I made arguments to appeal to the ability of a certain move to enhance his social game. This was how I convinced him to pick Aria/Sen as chieftain to bolster connections Week 3, to use the veto on Lily to create a new bond on Week 3, even at the strategic risk of a Shaymin eviction, and after Almonds resisted an earlier appeal to strategy from Ephe, created the social angle of nominating Lily/Vi straight up in Week 6 to preserve social relationships and "play both sides," which allowed us to set up an Aria backdoor. And I could make good appeals to strategy too: I was able to convince Sen to nominate the two other people outside Hibana in the Triple Eviction and got Ephe to change their mind and want to take me to the end by using the existence of the Scrambler's Insignia to play up Flour's threat level. I was able to make strong, personalized appeals to each player, helping me push my strategic plans.
My ability to notice and take advantage of opportunities was built on this persuasion and social game awareness. I sought out opportunities to get out my personal targets while gaining trust and building up my social game whenever I could. I was the one who came up with the plan of not just evicting mirdo with the Week 2 vote, but having Flour and I vote Aria in order to form and alliance and build huge amounts of trust with Aria/Sen which would be their strongest connection the entire game. I used my HOH reign to accomplish a ton of things at once, evicting someone with no connection to me, preserving balance in the house, and helping work towards the floater purge, all while getting absolutely no blood on my hands and gaining trust with Almonds/Quaking in the process, rather than losing it. I then turned around and used the ensuing 5-3 vote from this eviction to create a reason to shield Ephe from Aria/Sen in the future. I got Ephe to use their Insignia Week 6, allowing me to escape the week with no blood on my hands and stay close to Sen, along with drawing Ephe closer to me by limiting their ability to make a move on their own. When getting Sen to be okay voting to save Vi in the Triple Eviction, I also created a reason to make sure that I was never nominated as a pawn during Week 7. I found routes that could further my game at tons of opportunities, securing myself a better spot in the game.
My strategic game was quite strong and thought out. I was always making plans weeks in advance, trying to understand what every single player would do as HOH and thinking through how I could respond in order to help advance Hibana and myself. I asked myself what other people would do if I was in their place, helping adjust the situation and create motives so that nobody would ever have any interest nominating me. Even if something was to go wrong and a roadblock occurred, I always had a Plan B developed, making me able to adjust to tons of possible situations. I wasn't forced to stick to one particular route, I was adaptable and had different paths that I could take depending on what happened around me, as evidenced for example by the disparate paths I would have taken depending on F6 veto results, all of them designed to set up an endgame that helped me. No matter how a week turned out, I made sure that I would be in a position where it would be bad for everyone's game for them to go after me. And all of this isn't even taking into account that I was integral to the decisions which helped Hibana become one of the most successful alliances in PBBB history, always being there to help coordinate the group strategy and make sure the #HibanaHype would keep going for the entire game. I helped create powerful and optimal group plans while at the same time making sure that my game was strong, making sure the people I was the least close to were evicted earlier and having almost all of closest allies in this game make the jury stage. By making strong and detailed plans for every outcome, I could make sure my game was clean, strong, and able to adapt to the circumstances.
My endgame was transformed from one of the weakest parts of my game to one of the strongest. In past games, I struggled at the endgame, getting cut by allies due to my perceived threat level. But this time, I was able to change that, creating bonds even within Hibana that would be able to make sure I could get to the end. I built relationships with all of Violet, Flour, and Ephe outside of just that group, where I was able to communicate strategically with them and make sure they were supporting me in the game. Even when it seemed like I could have regained some of my old vulnerabilities, with Ephe wanting to take Flour to the end because he perceived him as the weakest jury threat going into F4, I was able to persuade them to completely change their mind and shift them to wanting to take me to the end, a move that was super strong for my game. I maintained my connections and relationships with my fellow players to the end and I was able to have my best endgame ever in Big Brother, making myself likely to be taken to the end by everyone else in Hibana even if I hadn't won the competitions to absolutely 100% ensure that I was safe. Endgame went from a liability of mine to a strength.
My complete safety throughout this game was a culmination of all of these efforts. I can't emphasize how incredibly difficult it is and how much of a piece of evidence it is for the strength of my game to never be nominated a single time the entire game. In PBBB history, there have only been three other players who made it to the finale without being nominated, and all of them had three people in the finale rather than two, meaning that I am the first player in Pokebeach Big Brother history to make it to the Final 2 without once being nominated. Not only was I not nominated, I was never once at serious danger of eviction. I wasn't one different competition winner away from being evicted in the way that Ephe was, with them being evicted if Lily saved herself Week 6 or Sen saved himself Week 7. I wasn't one nominee winning a veto away from being a replacement nominee or one small step from getting a vote on a Survivor week. I was completely safe for the entirety of the game, and that is no mean feat. I didn't get by with simple floating. Every single one of you knew that I was playing, I was playing hard, and I was playing to win and yet I wasn't being targeted for eviction. And if that isn't clear evidence of the sheer strength of a game of Big Brother, I don't know what is.

I played hard, I played strong, and I believe I played a game worthy of your votes to win this game.

I'd like to once again thank each and every one of you on the jury for playing this game with me and for your consideration. Making your decision on the jury is never easy, and I'll respect your decision either way it ends up.

 

[Ephemera]

You guys gave me a game to remember, that's for damn sure. Sadly this finale could have been a little more vicious if only you let me play. Since I had a question in mind before my eviction and you unfortunately both answered it in your initial write-ups, I'd like to throw you guys an interesting one. I am me, after all.

My question, or request, is a little similar to Lily's. How would you write a case for me to win? I can be transparent here and say I'll simply vote for whoever's I like the most.

Honestly? I think anyone in the F4 deserved a win.
Flour for his strong socials and under-the-radar game – and for being the (relative) hero among the villains in Hibana, Vi for simply being such a force of nature in the house that once Quaking was gone the whole game revolved around her, I could go on and on.

Byleth voice:
Allow me to demonstrate!

Spoiler: pretty darn long case whoops

Vi: where do I even start with you?
I knew coming into this game that you were a player I wanted on my side – you know this, given that I messaged you technically when I shouldn't have (hey, half-asleep me didn't notice that we couldn't DM yet!) asking for an alliance.
Going into this game, I could tell that you were going to make this game one to remember.
And you did.

Hibana was the combination of a lot of our ideas: NP wanted a power alliance, I wanted something secret, Flour was the constant ally, but you were the force that actually drew people in.
You came up with the name Hibana, you put genuine effort into solidifying us, and I believe that you were the most vital person to making Hibana function like the well-oiled machine that we were. Without you, we don't have the same sense of camaraderie that we had in the Hibana server, and we would probably have turned on each other – you were the person who kept us together.

But let's move on from Hibana's formation, for now.

Of the finalists here, NP played the more social, long-term game, with his side being the one he needed to pacify all the way to F5. I played the quick, bold, strategic game on my side: keeping them okay with me and the rest of Hibana but also somehow allowing them to be decimated. Either way, we each picked a side to work with.

The way I see it, you took the best of both paths.
You played the middle with a two-tiered game, and that's where we can begin for real.

When the game started, you quickly built up early-game social connections with pretty much everyone you'd singled out to be a major player in the house early-game. Building early conversations with Quaking, Mirdo, Mora, Shaymin, and us of course (also Vom RIP), you made connections everywhere in the house, and managed to get every single one of these connections to be real – everyone trusted you at the very start of the game, even knowing your general reputation. Everyone entered the house this season thinking you'd be the comp threat, but not exactly the social one, and that was their downfall, since the first part of your game involved winning absolutely no competitions.

Your first stage, if I can put it in video game terms I guess, was one of incredible social clout.

Next: not only did you make connections, you also used them and got others to work for your advantages.

Your move in informing Quaking of Mirdo's plan to backdoor him was probably the single most influential move in the season, shaping the house into the two sides we needed to get far, and making the boundaries clear – but you had no such boundaries. Even after Mirdo was gone, you had ties on either side of the house, and no one caught on to that.

After week 1 was over, Mirdo and Shaymin were both taken out before people even started seriously considering gunning for you.

When Quaking and Almonds started realizing that you were indeed a major threat in this game, it was too late for them to do anything about it. Your social game meant that anyone they approached would trust you over them, thus guaranteeing your safety.

You moved under the radar in the first half with ease, making connections with whoever the heck you wanted, regardless of lines in the sand – when you're the one who draws them, you can change them as you see fit. You came into this season with one of the best early-game socials we've seen in a long while.

But inevitably some eyes started turning towards you. Mora re-entered, Quaking was evicted, and we started the jury phase.
This is where stage 2 began.

Pre-jury was all about your incredible under-the-radar social game – with even more props given that you did it with your reputation.
You kept that up in jury, but now you also had the freedom to also bring in comp skill, evicting Mora with a well-earned HOH the week he hoped to get you out, and making no enemies in the process – and actually gaining some credibility with Almonds, enough to get him to perceive you as just another player to be evicted, rather than the dangerous force that you actually were.

You then proceeded to play the jury phase with the absolute confidence of someone who knows she's got the house around her finger, and you did.
I already said this, but the whole dang game at this point revolved around you: if you weren't winning a HOH, you were winning a POV, or you were flexing your still-amazing socials being unanimously saved in the triple. People either targeted you or worked the hardest they could to save you at all costs, and you knew that.

Violet, you made it incredibly far by evolving your game: from someone largely considered a comp beast, you proceeded to throw every single competition after week 1 until survivor week, relying instead on an unassailable social game. You then proceeded to bust out the comp skills when needed, getting your biggest enemy Mora out the first possible week, and then used the rest of you socials to make yourself a position where you pretty much win any F2 you're in, with only Flour having a chance against you.

You took a lot of risks this game – but that literally didn't matter, since you had the skill and the connections to mitigate that.
Outside of Hibana, you had enough connection to both sides that if you told them you were willing to work with them – and you did, on multiple occasions – they would 100% trust you.
Within Hibana? Pretty much everyone was willing to do anything for you.

You played pretty much the game I only wish I could play, heck, the game everyone wishes they could play: showcasing incredible social skills while also keeping comp skills waiting in the wings while also making sure that people didn't target you for that comp skill until it was too late?
God, I can only dream of that.

Your pretty much unassailable game made you the scariest player in this house, and for good reason.
You had socials and comp strength in spades, and I would have loved to see you in finale.

(i also have a request of you but i'll ask it after the season ends)

Hope you liked it, Vi!
...wow, I'm better at writing cases for other people than I am for myself, huh? Weird.

One last post for myself, then I'll have made my points in this finale. If Flour and Mora ask questions maybe I'll be able to see them in time? Who knows.

 

[Lorde]

Conclusion:​

Finalists, jury. It's time to reveal the winner of the season. 9 weeks of psychological warfare has all come to this. As is tradition, I'll start by evaluating our finalists:

Ephemera, the Astute Agent: Walking into this season as a former winner, Ephemera was handed opportunities and ins to absolutely everything. Early in the game, they found themselves grouped into Hibana with Flour, NP, and Violet, the dominant alliance of the season, and also found themselves in the Winners Circle: an alliance composed of the 3 former winners in the house. Ephemera managed to play both sides of the house for a while, despite being truly loyal to Hibana, and kept their positioning with the "outsiders" rock solid, throwing minority votes to appear loyal to players like Quaking and Almonds. However, over time, they decided to drop all their eggs in Hibana's basket, which resulted in a new turn in Ephe's game. With this shift, they allowed their connections to the other side that gave them options to be severed, and left a lot of pissed off evictees and jurors in the dust as a result of their gameplay. This change in behavior also resulted in bending to a lot of groupthink mentality, being talked into using the Conqueror's Insignia for a trivial vote split to benefit Hibana rather than solely themselves, and being convinced Flour was the biggest threat to win by NP a couple weeks later. Ephemera's game certainly started out strong, but will their limp to the finish block them from winning a 2nd time?

NP, the Master Manipulator: NP walked into this house as a known threat, frequently dubbed one of the "best to never win". Right from the start, he helped to found the menacing alliance: Hibana, with Violet, and they pulled in Flour and Ephemera. With this alliance, NP dominated the game, using its networking to control every single aspect of the game down to each tiny little detail. Outside of this, he made incredible bonds with almost everyone in this house, and was essentially aligned with everyone who was relevant to what was going on. This massive amount of social sway resulted in unbelievable amounts of coverage, and he never saw the block this season as a result. In addition, he demonstrated solid strategic control as well: he controlled Hibana's decision-making, he managed to sway Aria and Sen at every opportunity he needed to (such as the Nick vote and the triple eviction HOH), he got Almonds to accidentally backdoor one of his closest allies, he lulled Violet and Ephemera into believing Flour was the biggest threat to win when Hibana was all that remained. At every single turn, every event in this game was micromanaged and run by one clever little penguin, and no one ever did anything about it. NP's game was that of a sociopolitical mastermind, but those bonds left some bitter jurors in their wake, with some jurors expressing hesitance to vote for him to win due to being cut by him without warning. Will his masterful gameplay secure him the win he's spent 6 seasons fighting for, or will his numerous betrayals and deep cuts that left some jurors personally hurt cause the win to slip from his fingers yet again?

---

Alright houseguests, jury, it is time. One of you has just won this game. You've both come a long way for this. What awaits for you, though? The glory of victory, or the agony of defeat? Only one way to find out. The winner of Big Brother is...

Spoiler: Votes

Congratulations @NinjaPenguin, you are the winner of Big Brother 10: Scramble & Conquer! After 6 seasons, you have finally clinched the win after controlling almost every eviction this season! For the record, the vote was 7-0. Here are the full votes:

America: NP
Mora: NP
Lily: NP
Almonds: NP
Senkun: NP
Flour: NP
Violet: NP

Thank you everyone for playing! This was a cast composed of almost entirely veteran players, and it was great seeing many of you step back into the ring after so long! In the coming days, Cel or I will be posting a conclusion here in the thread, which will contain our thoughts on the game. In the server, Cel will also be posting full rankings of all 15 houseguests who played this season! Stick around for those, but for now, I hope everyone enjoyed the game!

- Lorde

 

[Celever]

Post-Game​

Hey all. As PokéBeach Big Brother continues to ameliorate and evolve with each season from a hosting perspective, post-games have become a standard. I think this is great so here's mine.

Before anything else, though, a shoutout has to go to my co-host @Lord o da rings. She wasn't supposed to be a co-host this season, instead being a back-up host for times when I was unavailable and someone to develop game design ideas with. As it turned out, I was unavailable for large stretches of time due to an endless slew of irl calamity and she stepped up to the hosting job with complete understanding and did an excellent job. This season wouldn't have been the same without you, and I'm extremely thankful for that since I'm not intending on hosting another season for the foreseeable future due to the uncertainty of my life situation moving forward. This was my retirement present to the community before heading to university where I don't know how my activity levels will be, and though I'm extremely disappointed for this reason that I couldn't be a more present host for the entire season, I'm still extremely satisfied with its conclusion.

General Thoughts:

Firstly, as is customary in a season that ran as smoothly as this, thank you to every houseguest for no modkills or really inactivity or any nature. I do believe that the faster pace of this season contributed to this, as short deadlines provide less opportunity for motivation to dwindle. However, this was also an amazing cast of dedicated players and so even if deadlines had been a week long I'm sure you'd have all seen it through to the end. Thank you all

Another thing to note in the grand scheme of PokéBeach Big Brother is how Diary Rooms (DRs) were used. Still a relatively fresh addition to our ORG, use of them was much better than in any prior. 13/15 houseguests elected to have their DRs open to the audience, which made watching from the audience really fun and allowed for new mechanics like episode titles. This made for a much more entertaining game from an audience perspective than those prior, and is an excellent repercussion of our increasing integration with Discord over the forums. This gives me great hope for the future, and while I personally hope we get to a point as a community where we have open DRs by default while personal ranting is done by the player in their host DM, I know this is still a big cultural shift that not everyone is thrilled at the prospect of. Nevertheless, thank you all for making this entertaining and using your DRs well. It felt like a real show with confessionals and there were some great one-liners from many of you!

Speaking of episode titles, I personally believe these should be a mainstay in our franchise. The audience had a lot of fun with them, and it requires essentially no hosting effort and it's even easy to add to the wiki for Lorde. It's just a small flavour thing, but it encourages the audience to read DRs and adds some humour to the season, helping everyone remember that it's just a game. I'd be very happy if episode titles stay as a part of BB10's legacy.

Gameplay:

Now, gameplay. Many of you already know that I was a little disappointed with the gameplay this season, and this was frankly reciprocated by many players this season. Ephemera didn't even want to be in the final 2 as they felt they had little case to make to the jury, and those on the outs and evicted pre-jury (Quaking, Mora, Nick, mirdo, Shaymin) expressed extreme dissatisfaction with a house that was a brick wall of consensus votes. Everyone felt that they were "in" with NP and that he would take them to the end, with very few realising that winning and getting to the end are not the same thing and that NP beat all of them handily. NP's iron grip was nonsense, but a symptom of his excellent social game that deluded almost every houseguest individually that keeping NP was a good idea, so while it's fine as NP's winner arc, seeing him steamroll the competition while only having to use fairly basic strategy to do so made this season a slog from a gameplay perspective.

This season wasn't representative of the houesguests within it with regards to gameplay for the most part, owing to NP's iron grip that suffocated the potential for big moves. Blindsiding one of Hibana was impossible because they always had the votes, and so the people on the bottom didn't have the opportunity to play and those who were even periphery to Hibana were digging their own graves. NP's playstyle is exactly this: his gameplay, while outstanding in its own right, would have been overshadowed in a more chaotic season (unless he'd stepped up to the plate which is possible). Therefore, he pretty much has to stop other players playing at their best in order to win, and that's exactly what he did. I know many houseguests are disappointed with the reception of their games this season, but with the exception of NP and Sen (inherently) nobody played at their best and that's due to gamestate rather than anything that specific individuals did. A counter-NP alliance forming would have shaken the game up and let people show their chops, but NP never allowed it, and that's to both his credit and everyone else's detriment.

The gameplay section being this short is sad but there really isn't much else to speak of. However, I would like to give a specific shoutout to @Senkun. He was the only newcomer in this cast and showed up many decorated veterans. With the information he would have ever had available to him he played excellently and frankly with few mistakes, and in a season of newcomers I could have seen him winning easily. He really only fell foul of pre-existing connections this season, but I'm extremely excited for his return -- perhaps in a majority newbie cast -- as I think he could have an incredible showing there. He was one of the most entertaining hosueguests this season as the beacon of hope against Hibana's iron grip that lasted far into late game, being the final non-Hibana member evicted. While this was narratively NP's season from start to finish, Sen would have been second place and an audience favourite. @quakingpunch73 also deserves a shoutout for a legendary return after a long hiatus, and @Mora for his incredible game awareness despite being left out by everyone. These 3 played the season excellently while not being inside Hibana, and proved amazing underdogs for the audience to root for. Of course, @NinjaPenguin @Ephemera @VioletValkyrie and @EurekaTingz deserve a shoutout as the members of Hibana, the unequivocally most dominating alliance in PBB history and, in the nicest way possible, hopefully also future.

Twists:

This game's design philosophy involved shaking up the format of weeks more so than giving individual players power. I'm personally still satisfied with the twists in BB10, but some did not see their full potential.

The Week 1 Hit The Road was incredible chaotic in the best way. The intention of the auto-eviction for the lowest scorer was to push people into first gear from the start, having to grind the comp to fight for their lives in the game which furthermore forces social interaction through sharing strategy in Luftrauser, a difficult flash comp. Furthermore, Ready Aim Fire! established some battle lines before houseguests even had the opportunity to talk with each other. I feel it achieved this, especially with Flour ending up on the automatic block forcing Hibana to founded earlier than perhaps intended by NP. Of course, a Week 1 Hit The Road should not be a standard. However, when hosts feel like it, I think this a great twist to use for the aforementioned reasons, particularly in games with twist-heavy pre-juries.

Chieftain has had extremely mixed reviews, but I stand by it as a fine twist and others have said it's a fun concept for a one-week twist. The idea behind it was... to avoid a consensus house. Splitting power between HoH and Chieftain, while sometimes giving a certain alliance full power, also in some weeks forces the HoH to clue an outside player in on a blindside plan. It also allows for more players to immunity run from early on, which is minority favouring in a classic set up where comp beasts are targeted early by a much larger group of more socially savvy players. Of course, none of this happened this season because Almonds won every week and was firmly in NP's pocket. A shame, frankly, but sometimes things don't go as planned. I still think this is a cool, small way to shake up the format of weeks in more vanilla games where hosts don't want to go all-out with something like...

Survivor Week this season was a bit of a flop but once again was great in concept. I really enjoy the concept of tribes as it makes players on top vulnerable depending on how the tribes work out, which lends itself well to the "scramble" part of Scramble & Conquer. Unfortunately, it resulted in one tribe throwing to remove a non-factor. This was, however, still good strategy as it was done by the Hibana majority on the Savvy Scramblers in order to protect Violet on the Cool Conquerors, who indeed had a high chance of leaving had their tribe lost the challenge. The merge part of Survivor Week was a lot of fun, being used to take out a huge threat, though his days were numbered regardless. I do believe that giving out more than one immunity during a merged Survivor Week should always occur in the future of PBB, something I believe this season was the first to do. In a standard week of Big Brother there are at least 2 ways to immunity run, so I believe this should also apply to weeks that change up format. Survivor Week was a returning twist already, and I think it should still return from time to time.

Colosseum, personally, is how I prefer comebacks. I find it a little dissatisfying for comebacks to be based only upon one comp as it only tests one skill -- usually grinding -- and so I think a series of duels is more fun, personally. In particular, when houseguests know that the comebacks are happening and so can send weaker comp threats to assist an evict ally if given the opportunity opens up some extra room for strategy. In a season where comebacks are based on comp performance, I personally think this format is great. However, I also think some extra innovation with regards to comebacks is needed, as well as perhaps a break for a couple of seasons. They feel a little stale by now.

The triple eviction was essentially a tool to speed up the game and wasn't in the original draft. The season got to the point where there were a few players who definitely wouldn't make it to the end, and so it was prudent to just let Hibana take them out. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this week format in any other situation as it can lead to some pretty unfair evictions. In this season it was fine, though.

Advantages:

My design philosophy around advantages is that they should have to be used correctly in order to be good. This led to this season having few advantages, as I couldn't think of many that fit the bill. However, I stand by this philosophy as too much power for doing something basic like winning a comp throws off power balance IMO.

The Conqueror's Insignia, a vote steal, is already common in ORGs and I'm sure we'll see it return again. It's a good twist for someone to shake the game up with if they want to, but that didn't happen this season.

The Scrambler's Insignia, however, is a new advantage that I think is potentially really, really cool. It's extremely situational, but in a divided house is either a means for the user to save themselves on a block, tie the vote up and plead to the HoH for safety or, as HoH, to take a player out that the HoH themself nominated but would be one vote short of actually being evicted. It has the potential to turn the tides of the game, just like a vote steal, but is more situational in a way that is more specific to the holder. I actually would love for this advantage to return and it's one of my new ideas that I'm really happy about introducing to PBB.

Juror Removal was originally supposed to be handed out via an audience vote at F5, given to the player ranked third in their estimations. This would have provided the advantage wielder with an interesting conundrum, given that the juror they remove is replaced with an audience vote, meaning they have to then work to take out the two players above them while taking one of the two beneath them to the finale in order to secure the vote. This didn't happen (I think Lorde forgot or thought the season was too boring to bother with the vote), but if it returns I'd like to see hosts use this method of distribution as I think it really gives the advantage its worth. In general it's a reasonably powerful advantage, potentially earning its wielder an extra jury vote that can mean a lot in tightly matched games, but requires the user to have good game awareness of jury intentions and audience perception of jury cred of others. I'm a big fan of this, but it should of course only return from time to time.

Competitions:

I'm only going to speak on the competitions that were mine, and I'll leave it to Lorde to speak on the ones she hosted should she want to. However, overall I'm happy with most of the comps this season. Ready Aim Fire!, Parroting based on other houseguests rather than normal questions, Luftrauser, 99 Bricks, Bloxorz and Ballistic Bisucit were the main standouts to me as awesome comps, all of which good candidates to return in the future besides Bloxorz thanks to its semi-live status that opens up a lot of room for creativity that I think other hosts should build upon rather than re-using old semi-live comps. Pipi is also better than Winterbells, don't @ me. It was a lot of fun watching Almonds in his DR aiming to find the end of Pipi only to realise it... looped back to the beginning. Honestly a highlight of the season.

Strategy Showdown sucked, oops. I think it's great in concept but when a BB game becomes tribal afterwards, it can encourage throwing and Strategy Showdown was not designed with this possibility in mind. I stand by a tribal phase of Survivor Week being great (actually even better than a merged phase), but in the future comps must be designed with the possibility of throwing in mind while still allowing for a skilled battle when both tribes want to win.

I'd like to use this opportunity to put my unused comps that weren't used due to my absence, alongside the notes I put in my hosting dock for what they were meant to be used for. Future hosts, have a look through! I didn't find enough comps for the rest of the season, but every comp I recorded I think works extremely well for BB and you're all welcome to steal them!

http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/atomic - Atomic, survival game
http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/keypad_kaos - Fun precision game that uses the Number Pad, but have to check that houseguests have access to a number pad before use!
http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/hexxagon - Tiebreak perhaps? Strategy game, scores would be how many red tiles there are at the end after playing against the computer.
http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/pond_skater - Kind of an infuriating game but tests precision and reaction speed, fun to throw out in a climactic week if you want houseguests to suffer
http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/multiball_madness - Atari Breakout with many balls at once and the gameover comes when the bouncer hits bricks falling from the top of the screen
http://survivalgames.me/color-strike-down - Avoider clone but changing colours to fit the enemies targeting you, pretty damn hard. Final score is points, not out of 10
https://armorgames.com/play/7444/bomboozle-2 - Puzzle game block breaker; 3 minute mode, highest score wins

Closing Thoughts:

Overall, I'm still happy with this season. Do I think it's one of PBB's weakest? Sure, but that's a testament to how wildly entertaining our seasons usually are and how most of the time we don't let alliance stomps happen. This season still has many great things going for it, and I'm very pleased with the game design aspect and the work I put into it. I think it was a great all stars season, and now it's time to look forward to BB11, an at least primarily newbie season!