Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

[fferyllt]

That wasn't my goal.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to misrepresent you. My memories and impressions of that month are no doubt out of whack.

The feedback is that I think the group scummies are beneficial to the site and have helped shape the way the game is played here.

I'll leave it at that. Sorry I didn't keep it to that to begin with.

[Venmar]

The Scummy Steering Group reserves the right to exercises total dictatorial power and control the lives of its subordinates. That is all.

[singersigner]

I dunno, I mean, this is a really cool thing that I think people volunteer [a lot of] their time doing and try to keep everyone happy with the results that plenty of people will inevitably be upset with in some way or another. Changes happen; if they don't work, they don't work and it may or may not go back to the old standard. I think the SSC has done a lot for the site in the name of entertainment/often petty acknowledgement so whatever works, works.

Thanks for all your hard work, guys. <3

[Nachomamma8]

But by its nature, working as a group is written into scum roles, whereas it's NOT possible to achieve that in every town -- the entire idea of mafia is "a team of informed individuals" versus "a majority of uninformed individuals". Town teams are a collection of individuals, and yes, sometimes they can come together / work together and truly make a cohesive performance, but playing well as town is not something that should be viewed in isolation. I stated elsewhere in this thread that consistency is one of the most important factors in town play, so awarding a single game performance is something we want to avoid, and it's something we would have to do if we gave out a town team award.

So the point where it isn't possible to work together in every town is something I'd like to highlight - I think this point alone is why that cohesion should be celebrated when it does come together against all odds. I agree that consistency is one of the most important factors in a Paragon award, but I fail to see where it's an important quality in a Best Town award. Why can't we award a town for a single game performance? We're awarding Don Corelone for a single game performance even though one of the most important qualities of a good scum player is also consistency; you're not a good scum player if you only win one game because people can't read you. You're a good scum player if you constantly stay ahead of the curve and are able to make people townread you for different reasons after you've already fooled them one way or another.

This isn't winning "best picture", and it doesn't really translate. The Best Picture award is given to the producers of the film, not the entire cast and crew, and the producers are directly responsible for the film's quality. Someone claiming, "I worked on a Best Picture nominee!" is more similar to someone saying, "I played in a game that had a Best Town nominee!" which is acceptable, as both are functionally meaningless. We're also not really concerned with the people in the game knowing who "deserves" it and who doesn't -- the Scummies are a sitewide recognition of achievement.

You are absolutely correct that my metaphor was terrible; I don't really know about the production of movies and the award and what that entails, just made the comparison because scummies oscars etc. The intention behind the comparison was that in order for a movie (a town performance) to be great, it usually requires a lot of great acting, casting, directing, composing, etc., but not all elements have to be perfect (sometimes movies succeed, and are great, despite of clunky elements).

I don't think that it's for the health of the Scummies not to recognize times where a majority of a town truly comes together and collaborates and coalesces in a way that is strange and unusual and not even supposed to happen just because a couple of townies ran contrary to that hive-mind or didn't contribute in a significant way.

See: argument about consistency. If players come together, great, fantastic -- that's one example of exhibiting one characteristic of good town play. If they carry that across multiple games, they deserve the nomination. If multiple people on those "teams" carry it across multiple games, they all deserve to get nominated individually. We cut dead awards to stop giving out participation trophies, and best town team is ACTUALLY LITERALLY giving out participation awards.

If players come together and demonstrate qualities of townplay that compliment one another, than that's more than just one example of good town play. It means that several players are demonstrating a bunch of good qualities of town play at once and they are pushing towards a common goal instead of clashing together. Saying that recognizing it isn't important because it lacks consistency doesn't make sense to me when you are recognizing good scum play that isn't consistent.

I absolutely agree with you that cutting out dead awards is a much-needed move, and I truly believe the work you've done with that is great. I just don't think that Best Town Group was ever a dead award.

[Nachomamma8]

and now that i'm reading the thread,

All mafia awards are subjective as hell...I don't understand reason for taking them out for being "Subjective" lol.

You guys are hilarious.

you should nominate us for funniest poster

oh wait

this was great

[Nachomamma8]

We are simply saying and acknowledging that in a lot of games "cohesion" is usually achieved by the leadership of a few key members of town (or deceitful scum) rather than the entire cooperation of the entire town. That is the main reason we are scrapping the award; it was given to a whole team where only ~50% of said team deserved the reward for their efforts, and, honestly, the townies responsible for the win might very well be eligible for nomination for the Best Mafia Catcher award anyways.

I encourage you to make a case for as to why the 4 lurkers or one sentence shit posters in your game deserve to relish in the same amount of recognition for the achievements and leadership of a handful to half a dozen solid townspeople. I know cases and examples can be made for games where full cohesion is more or less achieved across the majority of the towns but is there really going to be enough games every year of that caliber to warrant keeping the award around? Probably not.

There are games where the town dominates the scum because there is one (maybe two) players that have great reads and are charismatic and speak well and get along well with others and people follow those reads. These are games that are currently recognized: these players are Paragons. There are also games where half a dozen townies are active, contributing, actually talking out reads and processing events: these games are Best Town games. I think that these games are very rare, yes. I think that some players who are in that town don't deserve that, yes. I don't think that preventing an undeserving award is a fair exchange for a truly amazing performance not getting recognized in the way it should.

The main counterargument to this seems to be that the town players who deserve it should just be nominated for Paragon, which I think is missing the point. I don't think that these Best Town performances, even if the people involved aren't Paragon material because they aren't as strong elsewhere, are "flukes" and thus unworthy of recognition; just because people aren't on all the time don't mean that they lack experiences and games that aren't great, which, again, is a fact that is recognized in the Don Corelone award so why not here?

[chamber]

I dunno, I mean, this is a really cool thing that I think people volunteer [a lot of] their time doing and try to keep everyone happy with the results that plenty of people will inevitably be upset with in some way or another. Changes happen; if they don't work, they don't work and it may or may not go back to the old standard. I think the SSC has done a lot for the site in the name of entertainment/often petty acknowledgement so whatever works, works.

Thanks for all your hard work, guys. <3

I think that Judging is a pretty terrible job, and that doing any work for this site tends to be mostly thankless, so although I don't particularly agree with their choices here, I was mostly on your side. At least they recognized that something needed to be done and made a change, and I'm still willing to see how that plays out.

On the other hand, I think them teaming up to bully nacho and fferlyt is pretty terrible.

[Nachomamma8]

And if I read and thought before I posted, I would have posted this and none of anything else because these seem to be the points that matter (but correct me if I'm wrong!):

We're awarding very specific people for very specific accomplishments, and that will by and large affect their value/weight/opinion in games moving forward, just like an actor winning an Oscar will usually lead to higher billing in movies in the future.

This reads like your goal for the Scummies is, ultimately, to give people reputation. You want Scummies to be something that is more respected, sought after more. I agree that cutting the Best Town award does that. I want the Scummies to recognize truly great games and great players, and I want them to showcase them. I want people who have never played mafia on our site to read the Scummies and see what we are capable of as a site. I think that taking away "Best Town Award" hurts that. I don't think that it's been hurting as an award; I think the Best Town awards given to games over the past several years have been town performances that truly deserved it.

I think the bigger thing that was hurting the Scummies reputation-wise was the participation awards, where the players or games recognized were not exceptional or worthy in showcase in any way; a great example of that was the Best IC awards. Thor and I got the award because... we were the only people that IC'd. Were we great, amazing, exceptional? No. We were there. I don't think Best Town suffered as an award like that, which is why it's a mistake cutting it out.

We also think CONSISTENCY is important for a town play award -- and that's only something attainable across multiple performances.

I don't at all view this as a strong point. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like consistency was made the most important of any town-related award, and I don't understand why, hence sort of flailing to figure it out.

You are correct that people are right sometimes and wrong sometimes but these awards aren't being given out to townies because "they were right that one time"; these awards are being given out to towns because of more factors than just "7/10 townies had good reads". Sometimes people are

really really

on and sometimes they aren't; that doesn't mean that the game they had when they were on wasn't great and worthy of celebration. I guess the biggest concern is that without consistency the award could be given to a town performance that was one-dimensional, but I don't understand why that same standard isn't applied to scum games because I don't think consistency is any less important for scum than town. Sometimes, people townread you for stupid reasons. Sometimes, you win a game because you just became brave enough to post as scum. Sometimes, the people who believe you are the people with the most sway in the game. I would argue that you have more control over more factors as scum thus consistency would be more important for town, not less, but again, generally rambling because I don't understand this particular point.

[Nachomamma8]

I think the point, mollie, is that you keep making arguments in favor of teamwork being considered for scummies. Reck is saying it is considered. But what you're REALLY after is you want TEAMS to be considered for scummies.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's meaningless that I hear "scum team" quite a bit, but I rarely hear "Town Team" but rather just "Town."

"Scum Team" comes up with 36736 matches. "Mafia Team" 3500. "Town Team" only 766.

But people are also playing in hydrae far more often than they were before, which I think is because people are trying to explore their personal connections to other players more; people are trying to gain greater understanding of each other and play as a team in a way that isn't usually possible in town roles.

[Nachomamma8]

I dunno, I mean, this is a really cool thing that I think people volunteer [a lot of] their time doing and try to keep everyone happy with the results that plenty of people will inevitably be upset with in some way or another. Changes happen; if they don't work, they don't work and it may or may not go back to the old standard. I think the SSC has done a lot for the site in the name of entertainment/often petty acknowledgement so whatever works, works.

Thanks for all your hard work, guys. <3

Part of figuring out why they work or don't work is talking it out, which is my intention now.
I am not meaning to demean the effort that's been put into them recently; the entire reason I am currently posting in this thread (I very rarely post in threads that aren't mafia threads) is because there's an energy behind the Scummies that's been lacking in recent years and I'm excited by that. I agree with the majority of the changes, but I don't believe they're perfect and I'm doing my best to explain why. I don't mean to be harsh or mean or negative (although my first couple of my posts in this thread were dickish and I'm sorry for that because I think they set a future tone), I just want to offer another perspective.

[zoraster]

I think the point, mollie, is that you keep making arguments in favor of teamwork being considered for scummies. Reck is saying it is considered. But what you're REALLY after is you want TEAMS to be considered for scummies.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's meaningless that I hear "scum team" quite a bit, but I rarely hear "Town Team" but rather just "Town."

"Scum Team" comes up with 36736 matches. "Mafia Team" 3500. "Town Team" only 766.

But people are also playing in hydrae far more often than they were before, which I think is because people are trying to explore their personal connections to other players more; people are trying to gain greater understanding of each other and play as a team in a way that isn't usually possible in town roles.

I mean, this may be the case. But it seems to only reinforce what I'm saying, which is that viewing town as a "team" is misleading. People may want to achieve some level of team mentality, leading to hydras and the like, but that's because it's lacking in the fundamental way that mafia works.

[Nachomamma8]

oh and scum win newbie games all the time after daytalk because TEAMWORK MAKES DREAMWORK and daytalk inspired more TEAMWORK

scummies need to celebrate dream work guys
they need to

[zoraster]

could you tone down the sarcasm if you're trying to make a lucid point?

[Nachomamma8]

could you tone down the sarcasm if you're trying to make a lucid point?

That wasn't meant to be sarcasm re: your point, that was just a standalone joke.

[zoraster]

Well I'm just having trouble understanding what your point is in reference to the scummies.

[Nachomamma8]

I mean, this may be the case. But it seems to only reinforce what I'm saying, which is that viewing town as a "team" is misleading. People may want to achieve some level of team mentality, leading to hydras and the like, but that's because it's lacking in the fundamental way that mafia works.

I think that the reason "mafia" and "team" are more closely correlated is because mafia get a PM that says: "you are mafia. you are on a team. here are your teammates." whereas town says "you are town. kill bad guys.", but I don't think that doesn't mean that teamwork doesn't exist in town games and isn't an integral or recognizable part of them. A lot of playing town is figuring out who to trust because they seem A) like they are presenting good points in a game with very little hard evidence and B) because they seem town. When a core of town players both trust each other (townread each other enough to not murder each other) AND think that they are competent which means they are factoring other players reads into their own instead of convincing them, towns that deserve Best Town are created, and I don't think that it's misleading to call those players a Team.

[Nachomamma8]

Well I'm just having trouble understanding what your point is in reference to the scummies.

The only serious point in that very not serious post was that there is some strange voodoo magic power in teamwork, which is not a point that I find particularly important, and not one that I'm serious about presenting because no matter how I try to phrase it I sound like a character on Sesame Street. I made that post because I tried many times to phrase the point "Teamwork is Important!" and couldn't take myself seriously any of those times, and so didn't.

[xRECKONERx]

On the other hand, I think them teaming up to bully nacho and fferlyt is pretty terrible.

What are you talking about

[singersigner]

I just kinda wanna know who won 2015 Scummies because I actually have a vested interest this year.

[xRECKONERx]

I think that the reason "mafia" and "team" are more closely correlated is because mafia get a PM that says: "you are mafia. you are on a team. here are your teammates." whereas town says "you are town. kill bad guys.", but I don't think that doesn't mean that teamwork doesn't exist in town games and isn't an integral or recognizable part of them.

This is the entire point if the changes in a nutshell, thank you. We aren't going to not recognize town play. We aren't going to make this the ego show. We are going to look at teamwork as a prerequisite of good town play. Mafia is designed to played as a team versus individuals and the awards are designed as such.

[Nachomamma8]

[xRECKONERx]

Nacho, do you feel ganged up on and bullied?

[Nachomamma8]

No.

[xRECKONERx]

Okay, just making sure.

I'm on my out the door to see a film right now, but what it boils down to is this, I believe: the people who dislike the removal of "Best Town Team" seem to think that the removal of that award means that townies working together will somehow be devalued or ignored. That is not the case, and if it winds up being the case, we can reassess. Our assertion is that the game of mafia is designed to be a TEAM versus a GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS -- and the distinguishing terminology there is very important. Mafia has actual avenues to work together, plot, scheme, etc. because it's built into the design of the game. Townies can sometimes come together -- but it's just one aspect of what makes a great town performance. We aren't interested in giving awards to people who do not deserve it, and if there

were

a reasonable way to boil down a town list into who deserves the award and who doesn't, we would be happy to do it... but in my limited time thinking on the matter, I can't come up with a single way to achieve that goal without a lot of drama, fighting, hurt feelings, and endless bickering, and I'm not at all interested in fostering that environment.

[chamber]

Nacho, do you feel ganged up on and bullied?

You absolutely were and don't pretend for a second that you don't know it. I don't think you were being particularly abusive or abrasive relative to how bad you can be when you really mean it, but you were berating people over expressing their opinion. I know nacho and fferlyt can take it, it doesn't mean they should have to.