User blog:RA2/Series 2 Rankdown Discussion

Before we start Series 2 Rankdown, I'd like to open up the floor to feedback & comments, and suggestions on the proposed format. Since I'll be at Motorama this weekend, the game will not start until Monday at the earliest Till then, I'm open to feedback. Signups, when opened, will be on a first-come-first-serve basis, with priority going to people who did not participate in Series 1 Rankdown.

Here's a recap of how it works.

Rules
In each round, the leader will nominate a pool of robots (2 x # of players not counting him/herself), and then the rest of the players will, in order, choose one to cut. They will write a brief summary on why they're cutting that robot, and they will finish by choosing one robot to save (no need to explain your save decision). The cut robot is ranked at whatever is the lowest vacant position - so the first robot cut ends up in last place, then the next in second-to-last place...etc. The saved robot is safe from elimination, and cannot be nominated next round. After each player has had a turn, the last player nominates a new pool of robots, and the next round begins. This will continue until a pre-determined number of rounds has elapsed. Then, all participants rank the remaining robots (with explanations), and send me their ballots. The averages determine final ranking, up to and including number one. Here's a bullet-list of the game flow, in order. The example has 5 players, our game may have more or fewer.


 * Player 1: Nominates 8 robots that he/she believes should be cut. Does not make a cut or save this round
 * Player 2: Cuts one of the 8 robots, explains why, saves another one of the 8 robots.
 * Player 3: 6 choices remain. Cuts one of the 6 robots, explains why, saves another one of the 6 robots.
 * Player 4: 4 choices remain. Cuts one of the 4 robots, explains why, saves another one of the 4 robots.
 * Player 5: 2 choices remain. Cuts one of the robots, explains why, saves the other.  Nominates 8 new robots, cannot nominate one of the 4 bots saved this round.
 * Round ends. Everybody shifts down one position, and Player 5 becomes Player 1.

We'll carry on like this until there aren't enough robots left to make a pool (some players may be the leader more than once). After the final round of cuts, the aforementioned balloting occurs, where players rank all surviving robots.

I'll be pretty open about the criteria you use to make your cuts, just a few rule & guidelines:
 * Try to insulate it to the series in question - we're strictly ranking the Series 2 incarnations of robots
 * No discussing how it was received by the fandom - you can call a robot overrated or underrated, complain about fanboys, etc, as long as that is not your only reason for cutting
 * No troll-moves. Everyone's entitled to their opinions, but if I see a move that's clearly intended to get a rise out of people or an individual, you will be booted.  Slots are very limited, do not take one unless you plan on taking this seriously.
 * No gaming the system. Do not nominate good robots with the intent of getting them immunity via a save.  Again, everyone's entitled to their opinions of what robots are good, but the list you make should be comprised entirely of robots that you'd like to see at the bottom - don't try to tell me you sincerely think something like a champion should be cut in Round 1.
 * You must have watched & be familiar with all episodes of the series in question, even the obscure ones - it won't do to have a bad robot slip under the radar because people forget to nominate it. The series is on YouTube if you need to refresh your memory, and I will post a spreadsheet in Google Docs, listing all robots in the game, and their status in the rankdown.
 * Please be punctual and check in often. The game only works if each person takes their turn in good order.
 * Most importantly, have fun, and don't take it personally if a robot you like gets cut sooner than you want it to.

Robots to Include
My tentative list will be all the robots in Series 2, plus the Reserve Rumble. Pain and Parthian Shot will take joint-last for not making it into the arena. That's a total of 75, which will come out to 7 players (count me), 9 rounds.

Boring Maths aka how I came up with those numbers
The number of players & rounds is determined by this formula, where z equals the total number of robots, x equals the number of players, and y equals the number of additional rounds beyond the first complete cycle.

x² + 2x + yx - y - 3 ≤ z AND y ≤ 0

With the aid of a graphing calculator, we determine the highest possible integer value of x, then take the corresponding y value and round it down to the nearest integer. When z=36, this works out to x=5, y=1, or 5 players and 6 rounds.