Esquire,I agree that it could be hard on the new players entering an established group, but (depending on the group dynamics) it could just as well be beneficial. Say you trade KimP and Tom. MamaKim and Kelly would work very hard to get KimP to align with them to make a 3-3 tie (and Clarence would lose any tiebreaker), while the Males would try to keep them apart. Similarly, Frank and Teresa would lobby forcefully for Tom to join the OFA, again creating a 3-3 tie (with Lindsey and Silas losing tiebreakers on prior votes).
As to the question of fair, I have three opinions:
(1) If everybody suffers equally, then isn't that fair?
(2) It makes more difference if it is legal (ie, agreed to) rather than fair, and
(3) MB does not care about fair. He cares about interesting. If it turns out to be fair, fine. If not, if is interesting while appearing to be (mostly) fair, that will be good enough for MB.
Does anybody have any access to what rules were actually agreed to? Now THAT would be interesting...
)O_II