Series 4 Team 7 & Gameplay
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I think Canadanne has hit it on the head.
I'd add that, even if you remove the nature of choice, there isn't necessarily a removal of fair play.
To me, a removal of fair play means that, through no fault of the team, the loss is impossible or highly unlikely to be avoidable. That situation doesn't directly arise as a result of a team's choice being removed.
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I agree that the illusion of choice per se doesn’t make it unfair. However, the inability of a team to directly influence their path through the choices they make, along with the fact that the difficulty level can rise earlier for some teams, doesn’t seem very sportsmanlike (as a concept).
To me, taking a team’s personality into consideration is unfair in terms of gameplay. That said, I agree it makes much better television to favour the interesting teams and Knightmare was obviously a fantastic show so this was probably the right way to run things.
What am I trying to say?
I suppose what I’m saying is that as a kid I thought of Knightmare as a sort of live action Fighting Fantasy adventure – teams would be successful if they chose the correct items and followed the correct path.
I now realise this isn’t the way to think about the show – rather, it’s a role playing adventure in which the producers can alter the script at any time as they see fit. Some of you will no doubt think I’m stating the obvious here!
Better television, but purely as a game, unfair?
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I suppose what I’m saying is that as a kid I thought of Knightmare as a sort of live action Fighting Fantasy adventure – teams would be successful if they chose the correct items and followed the correct path.
The difference being, of course, that with a gamebook you can go back and see all the bits you missed. When you set up the TV show that way, so much ends up simply going to waste - frustrating for the production team and viewers alike.
I now realise this isn’t the way to think about the show – rather, it’s a role playing adventure in which the producers can alter the script at any time as they see fit.
Isn't that how Dungeons & Dragons works? (I've never played so I'm not sure, but I was under the impression the Dungeon Master could change the rules as he went along.)
If you wanted a truly level playing field, then every team should be given exactly the same adventure - but how boring would that have been?
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I know it had to be entertaining but for me no matter how interesting the team was in terms of personality, if they made a mistake then they should be punished. Teams who were dithering and ending up making the wrong choice were rightly punished. For me it had to be fair whether a team was boring or not. If a team had a great personality but ending up making wrong decisions yet still ended up winning, would have been a farce.
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Canadanne wrote:
Isn't that how Dungeons & Dragons works? (I've never played so I'm not sure, but I was under the impression the Dungeon Master could change the rules as he went along.)
If you wanted a truly level playing field, then every team should be given exactly the same adventure - but how boring would that have been?
I completely agree, I just never really thought about Knightmare in these terms.
I always thought about teams being 'contestants' whereas 'players' might be a more accurate term.
I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between (though in which case fairness remains a nebulous concept).
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I know it had to be entertaining but for me no matter how interesting the team was in terms of personality, if they made a mistake then they should be punished. Teams who were dithering and ending up making the wrong choice were rightly punished. For me it had to be fair whether a team was boring or not. If a team had a great personality but ending up making wrong decisions yet still ended up winning, would have been a farce.
I can only think of one Knightmare team that were killed through no apparent fault of their own (Jamie in Series 2), which I do consider to be unfair - not sure why that happened. I also think there were some harsh deaths, where the correct action was not at all obvious. But mostly they were killed off because they had made a mistake or several, not just because they were dull to watch.
Tim was probably more forgiving of teams that made for better TV, but they still weren't allowed to get away with massive blatant errors, and in my opinion most of the winning teams deserved their victories.
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I know it had to be entertaining but for me no matter how interesting the team was in terms of personality, if they made a mistake then they should be punished. Teams who were dithering and ending up making the wrong choice were rightly punished. For me it had to be fair whether a team was boring or not. If a team had a great personality but ending up making wrong decisions yet still ended up winning, would have been a farce.
I can only think of one Knightmare team that were killed through no apparent fault of their own (Jamie in Series 2), which I do consider to be unfair - not sure why that happened. I also think there were some harsh deaths, where the correct action was not at all obvious. But mostly they were killed off because they had made a mistake or several, not just because they were dull to watch.
Tim was probably more forgiving of teams that made for better TV, but they still weren't allowed to get away with massive blatant errors, and in my opinion most of the winning teams deserved their victories.
Yeah i agree that most of the winning teams deserved their victories! Jamie's death was very harsh as he had virtually no time to pick up the pieces of the medal spell.
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Tim was probably more forgiving of teams that made for better TV, but they still weren't allowed to get away with massive blatant errors.
Matt from Series 6 springs instantly to mind for me. Though some would disagree I found him incredibly entertaining and I think in the beginning Tim may have been a bit lenient - I feel he spent far too long on the Level 1 causeway, particularly towards the end (may explain why the timer came in). However, I think he was punished for that on the Level 2 causeway, as watching the video I'm sure others got away with being closer to the edge than he was.
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Matt from Series 6 springs instantly to mind for me. Though some would disagree I found him incredibly entertaining and I think in the beginning Tim may have been a bit lenient - I feel he spent far too long on the Level 1 causeway, particularly towards the end (may explain why the timer came in). However, I think he was punished for that on the Level 2 causeway, as watching the video I'm sure others got away with being closer to the edge than he was.
Yeah, I agree. I really liked Matt and was gutted by his ridiculously harsh death, but I too think it was a belated punishment for their screw-up on the Level 1 causeway. (They weren't just slow, they actually got away with carelessly wandering onto the wrong block. Tim probably decided it was too early to kill off the first team of the season, but they'd be punished for even the slightest mistake later on.)
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Earlier in ths thread I refer to a couple of things Hugo said in the anniversary documentary around the illusion of choice and killing boring teams. Having just watched the doc again I can't find any quotes along these ones.
Am I thinking of another interview? Has the doc been re-edited? Or am I just going mad and making things up?!
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Earlier in ths thread I refer to a couple of things Hugo said in the anniversary documentary around the illusion of choice and killing boring teams. Having just watched the doc again I can't find any quotes along these ones.
Am I thinking of another interview? Has the doc been re-edited? Or am I just going mad and making things up?!
It wasn't the documentary, I think it was this interview you were thinking of!
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I hadn't realised the previous team to us was also sent into the Block and Tackle on the diagonal as well as us. Giles was told to take 'four large steps' into the room by the floor manager. Due to his enthusiasm, perhaps, he started off quite far into the room on the left-hand side during the first take, the ground fell away under him and, ironically (vis-a-vis the famour 'Sidestep Left' incident), I said 'Err, Giles, take a sidestep right'. Possibly we tried to get quickly to the far left exit due to the proximity, I can't remember for sure.
Possibly the diagonal was appropriate for us encountering it in Level 3: I can't think why it would have been a 'punishment' for anything we'd done wrong earlier in our quest. I'm glad Mystara found it only takes ten seconds to reorient the dungeoneer, but I think this greatly depends (not least on the dungeoneer and how many advisors are speaking at once) - I always thought re-orienting a dungeoneer from a diagonal was problematic, because they always wonder about exactly how far to turn. My memory is hazy in this respect, but I thought we spent a lot of time practising maneouvres in preparation for this sort of thing.
Rather than sidestepping, we could have headed diagonally towards the right exit, and corrected at the end.
I'm glad it's not just me who has wondered about the whole issue of fairness on Knightmare. I didn't realise quite how much making-it-up went on; perhaps such decisions would have been more objective had they been collegiate or delegated. It seems our 'Tiny' spell had no potential purpose at all. We may as well have not rescued Merlin. Possibly it would have been better for the producer to have warned Pickle to stick to the script, if it really was that heavily scripted (which I find dubious, I must say) - which doubtless he did, but to deliberately 'kill them off in the next room' seems over-the-top.
There's a similar issue on the Corridor of Blades: in the winning quest of series 4, Pickle told the dungeoneer simply to move to one wall or another. In our quest, he told Giles specifically to duck. This made for good drama but is also directly why he nearly got sliced: he was trying to manoeuvre across and duck at the same time.
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I figured you could've done that too Brett. But in a situation like that one, sometimes haste overtakes everything else. The fact you managed to get Giles out of there so quickly, combined with his quick responses and reflexes, goes to show that you well and truly took that danger by the butt and kicked it into the stratosphere.
Which is why (and a lot of people would agree with me) that it was an entertaining and well pulled off manoeuvre. And will always go down as one of the most memorable moments in Knightmare history. You're team deserved to win. After the winless season three, seeing two teams the following year would've been great. Where Dickon and his crew were more of a serious bunch, your gang was rather "fun loving" (if that's the right words) I got more entertained watching your team than the others in that series.
And quite honestly, it doesn't matter if you did lose the quest for the Chalice. You're all winners in my humble opinion
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Thanks for your kind, complimentary remarks, Fidjit (Happy Easter, btw).
I know what you mean about Dickon's team. They were certainly very cautious. I think they had an easier run, no doubt, with no Block and Tackle, the Corridor of Blades as I mentioned was I think easier because Pickle didn't say 'duck' and give them the idea of needing to move up and down as well as left and ride. Someone posted that their victory as flawless but in fact there were times when they didn't know answers and needed prompting.
I don't think it's sour grapes to say that - and I was amazed that they got away with pledging to serve Malice as they did, which was completely contrary to the Adventurer's Code they would have read.
It made me wonder what spells of our own we could have 'cast' ... e.g. EMBOLDEN in the face of Mogdred (how can you disprove its effectiveness?!), or TRUTH when we really know the answer ... I think the production team would have found it entertaining but the producer would have told us he wasn't happy and wanted us not to keep doing it (or worse). But, as a bit of speculative mirth, I wonder what other 'spells' a team could cook up that don't rely on the production team's collusion ?!
It does rather seem that Team 1 was unlucky to be the first team, Team 6 was lucky because the production team was desperate for a win in the series, and we were unlucky to be the last team. 'Hurry team, for this phase of the dungeon is drawing to a close' as if to put the responsibility onto the team is a bit rich if you know there is no chance of them completing it anyway!
Although we may reflect on the fairness of episodes now, I daresay most of us weren't concerned to go over it all in such a detailed way at the time, and the producer's remarks often evince he was at least generally trying to be fair.
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And a happy easter to you too sir
And indeedly so. I did feel they got handed it on a silver platter with not having the Block and Tackle obsticle. And compared to your experiences in the Corridor of Blades the technique Giles utilised halfway through is most likely the better way of surviving it.
Personally I have said before elsewhere that I reckon they should allow the last team from the previous one to return and have another attempt at completing the dungeon again. Only problems I see with that is, they'd have to do it all over again, and secondly you'd probably have fallen for what I've known it to be called "First Team Fever." I don't think I need to explain that terminology, I'm sure it's easy to figure what I meant
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