Pirate Master vs. Survivor: differences and similarities

[forum-admin]

Since both Pirate Master and Survivor are on CBS and both created by Mark Burnett there are some obvious similarities.

Teams - Survivor has Tribes and they stay fairly consistent. Pirate Master has a class system of a Captain, 2 Officers and the crew. They compete as 2 teams but they never stay the same every week. This adds a lot of a "chance" element to the game.

Chores - In Survivor they have to build shelter, find and gather food, get firewood, boil drinking water, go fishing, etc. In Pirate Master the Crew are woken up early to sail the huge pirate ship (around the island in the Caribbean Sea I guess), swab the decks, hoist the anchor and flag, clean stuff, silly busy work types of chores and anything the Capitan wants them to do.

Competitions - In Survivor they have 2 main competitions: one for reward and one for immunity. Rewards vary and usually consist of food items in some form. Immunity is for group immunity for the first half of the season then individual immunity for the last half of the season. In Pirate Master, they have one treasure hunt/expedition per episode. They complete as the Black Team (Captains Team) and the Red Team. Whoever finds the gold first wins the gold. After the competition, the team is disbanded. If the Red team wins then they choose a new captain and he chooses 2 new officers.

The Voting Off - Survivor has Tribal Council that consists of the losing team having a secret vote to eliminate one of the losing teams tribe members. The tribe votes by writing names on paper and they are read out loud and the tribe member with the most is voted off the island. When that person is voted out, they have their torch extinguished and they do a little walk of shame away from the tribal council area. On Pirate Master, they have what is called Pirates Court. The Captain marks 3 people from the crew to be marked with a black dot to be cut adrift during Pirate Court. The people who vote are the crew who are not marked with the black dot or the officers and captain. They get 4 cards: 3 with the names of the marked crew and a mutiny card. One by one they walk up to a sword and drop the card on the sword of the person they want out. If all choose mutiny and the 2 officers agree, then the captain is set adrift. Once the pirate's journey is ended they get on a small raft and the Captain cuts the rope and they slowly drift away from the ship.

Saves - In Survivor, they have immunity. Group and Individual. This is always won via competition. As of the last few seasons, they have had some hidden immunity idols and they have come into play as of the most recent season. In Pirate Master, they introduced on the 4th Episode a "Royal Pardon" which is a scroll that the pirates can bid on to win. If they win it and they were voted out then they would be safe and the pirate with the 2nd most votes is cut adrift.

Money - In Survivor there is no money but rewards are valuable and at times necessary for survival. In Pirate Master, every expedition is to find treasure and after they recover the treasure...they count it and divide it up. 50% to the Captain. 25% to split between the 2 officers. 25% to be split up between the rest of the winning crew. This is the pirates code. The Captain has the say in how it really boils down and so far 2 of the 3 Captains have decided to split the treasure equally between the entire winning crew. (There has also been no mutiny cards as of yet!)

Winner - Survivor gets the title of Sole Survivor and a Million Dollar prize. Pirate Master they get the winner of Pirate Master and the treasure worth a Million Dollars.

My opinion is that Pirate Master is different and fresh. It gives a little more of a chance and a money slant to an interesting game. Survivor is the granddaddy of them all but Pirate Master is good and deserves at least people giving it a chance!

Peace,

Forum Admin