There are some things about these games that may not be immediately clear to someone just thinking about getting into them for the first time. The purpose of this post is to give new players a bit of baseline and background to help them assimilate into the social game culture a bit more smoothly, have some idea what they're getting themselves into given that it is not necessarily apparent, and ultimately help new players to compete with veterans.
I. Involvement
You will have the most fun in these games if you are willing to commit a lot of time to them. Part of the fun comes from working hard at something and investing yourself in it. People talk to each other a lot. In general, these are called social games for a reason; the primary gameplay consists not in the minigames, but in the socializing. If you do not like socializing, you will not like this. If you do, it may well be the greatest thing you've ever found on the internet.
II. Homework
By no means do you have to do this, but you may feel better prepared if you do a bit of reading before your first game to get a handle on how these things work. From the Survivor wiki page, you can find pages for many of our more recent games (the ones at the bottom of the table – you'll want to start near the bottom) and on each of those pages you can find a link to the board on which it took place. These are what you'll want to read. You can see what types of games you might expect for challenges, and read confessionals to see how experienced players think. Even a quick skim through one or two recent games can be immensely helpful, and anything you learn here aside from the mechanics of the particular game is just as applicable to similar games, such as Big Brother.
III. What to Expect in Your First Game
The beginning of the game can be a very critical time. It's not uncommon for alliances to form very quickly, and certainly you can get a jumpstart on your connections by being online at the very beginning of the game. At the start, it's important to appear active. If your teammates perceive that you are not around, you are very likely to be the first boot. The more you can be around here, the better. Just signing on and making a post to say you're present can do a world of good, because if you are inactive long enough, the players may start to assume you are the first vote, which can be hard to recover from even if you later show up and become more active. Mods often start looking to replace players who haven't showed up within the first 24 hours. Also, the beginning of the game is often accompanied by a flurry of activity, with private messages flying about everywhere. It's important to be as involved in private messaging as possible. In general, it's a good idea to try to put in effort with those who are putting in effort with you -- if someone sends you a long message and you reply with a short one, they are likely to assume you are not interested in them.
IV. Non-anonymous Games
Please be aware that you will need AIM/Skype for these (but also that we don't do them very often).
V. Undying Adoration
We really like having new people. We might even go out of our way to be nice to you! Come play, what's the worst that could happen?