The Scummie for Memorable Event [Winners Announced!]

[mastina]

Hello, everyone! I am so glad that I have been given the honor of this award. This is the first Scummie that I have ever won, in spite of my long history of being on the site.

However, I cannot simply accept this award without first honoring others, for they most definitively are worthy of mention.

First, I would like to thank camn for hosting this most wonderful game. The mechanics she implemented for that game were absolutely brilliant. This was something that revolutionized the game of mafia, and there's a damn good reason she was nominated for Scummies thanks to what she did.

This game helped to inspire other games to follow it, including an ongoing sequel game (which because it is ongoing I can obviously not talk about beyond mentioning that, yes, it does indeed exist). Beyond the official sequel game are several games inspired by it, up to and including my own game, 'The Mod Is Mafia'.

Of course, that game happened to not go over so well and was a pale imitation of the original source, butstill. It's the thought which counts. The POINT being. camn was an inspiration to everyone in that game and she is rather lovely as a force on mafiascum, and it would be remiss of me to not give her a well-justified shoutout.

She is an awesome person, and an awesome player. She also delivered some killer flavor, and the game she made was cool in every way. It wasn't just the mechanic. It was also the brilliantly-executed setup she ended up designing, and she also knew exactly the right players to invite to the game.

This was how to mod a game and do it right; she was active and gave us everything we could have needed. So I am rather honored to have received an award from her game and think she deserves far more credit than she has received, for bringing the right atmosphere to the game. She encouraged us as a moderator in a way only she could manage, and that created a thing of absolute beauty for all to see.

Next, I would like to thank Nachomamma8 for his part in this. As a co-holder of the award, I need not say that he deserves it, but to reiterate: the whole town jam session would never have been possible if not for his contribution to the game. He was the one who suggested it in the first place.

I know for a fact he had no way of knowing just how memorable and impactful that event would be...but the simple fact is, he was the start of it all. He was actively involved in the event, start to finish, and encouraged others to join in. Nacho and I have been friends for a long time.

He and I span way back to the very birth of my mastin2 days; he was in my first game upon returning to the site waaaaaaaaaaay back in fall of 2010, and he and I worked so well together that he offered me to hydra soon after. He was the one who first caused my townplay to leap bounds beyond what it had been back in the days of me being an undeniable Village Idiot, and yet he also was a strong force in tremendously upping my scumgame.

And, yes. He and I were side-by-side when first introduced to Pine, but more on that later, below. What I'm getting at here, is. He's been with me for a long time, and I've seen him throughout it, growing and watching him also evolve his own style, and let me tell you. As his long-time friend. He shined in this game brighter than ever before, as he was perfectly embodying the absolute best of him that he could ever be.

He worked with me, he coordinated with me, he synergized with me, as we hashed reads out. It was quite literally a throwback to our days as a hydra, except instead of us doing it in a hydra PT (or rather, QT, because back when we hydraed we used a QT across our games), we were doing it inside of the game thread as two different slots.

He absolutely deserves the award, and I am proud to share it along-side with him, as his long-term hydra partner and friend. This game might as well have been an honorary Calcifer game. (That being, our hydra together.)

Speaking of hydras, though...I should mention! It was a direct result of this game that birthed the three-headed hydra, The Wood Cutters, made up of Nacho, Ginngie, and I. I'll talk about that more below, but this gives me a perfect segue into my next mention, a shoutout of particular importance.

Specifically, I am talking about my good, close friend Ginngie. This game, camn's revenge, was actually my introduction to her. Before camn's revenge, I had never seen her before, and yet after camn's revenge a special bond formed which has remained throughout the year.

God, it's already been a whole year, hasn't it? Since we met and clashed. Heh. Let me tell you. You'd never know it by the results, but us three who co-hold this award? Well we didn't start off immediately townreading one another, to say the least.

In fact, I was convinced both Nacho and Ginngie were in fact scum. I felt ADAMANTLY that Pine wouldn't let such star players be town, knowing them. And, incidentally, I was half-right; Pine did in fact attempt to recruit Ginngie but hilariously enough through a mistake nabbed an entirely different player altogether.

Still, I digress. What I'm saying here is. I started the game thinking Nacho was scum. I also thought Ginngie was scum early-on. But then, something happened. Something MAGICAL. Where Ginngie just...evolved. She shifted her style, and instantly I could just tell that she was town that game.

Ginngie shone rather brightly that game, and was more awesome than people give her credit for nowadays. Nacho and I working together well? That can be expected; Nacho and I are long-term friends with a long history of having worked together over dozens of games. But Ginngie, in a single game, established herself as our equal. She worked right there along-side us, as an equal contributor driving the state of the game forward every step of the way.

She played smartly and intelligently and you'd never have known this was her first game with me given how well we just clicked. In a single game, she went from being someone I didn't know to probably being the closest friend I have on mafiascum altogether. Since then, we have gone on to do battle in dozens of games together, against one another and aside one another. I've even gotten fairly good at soulreading her, and she's fairly decent at returning the favor (albeit not perfectly).

This game was what inspired what is probably one of the best hydras to play in years, The Wood Cutters, with the awesome history behind it. Now, we haven't used it that often, but every time we HAVE managed to play a game together, we've managed to fair respectively well at the very least, if not better. In one game in particular, we more than lived up to the promise of camn's revenge by driving the core of the town win.

Beyond that, we've also played in games together as separate players, although we haven't always managed to land on the same page. (Still bummed about Nacho not being town! We had two of the three power-trio be town that game! Alas. It is what it is.)

We just...work really, really well together as a team; when we are together, we can't fail.

But while we are the three who have the award, I cannot go without mentioning others.

For a start, I owe a big thanks to Pine. It is because of Pine that the game of camn's revenge was possible in the first place. Aside from Pine being a magnificent bastard, he was also my first frenemy on the site, a bit of an archrival of sorts who I did battle with endless numbers of time.

I was all too pleased to face up against him once more, in a game where I was fairly confident I'd hold the ability to actually outdo him, and in that regard I succeeded as spectacularly as I could, with great help from both Nacho and especially Ginngie. (Mad props to Ginngie for going along with my masonizer gambit, which at the time was not a known thing. Nacho, I knew would go along with it, but I was actually taking a big risk in trusting Ginngie to go along with it, but I am SO glad I did because it was absolutely worth it.)

Still. It should be mentioned--yes he did actually WIN that game, so yes Pine owes quite a lot of respect. (I did everything I could to fuck him over, even beyond the grave costing him scum, but, once out of the game I couldn't really do any more damage to him than I already did, so. I had little impact on the endgame, unfortunately.)

Pine is an immensely talented scum player, and it was a pleasure doing battle against him. I enjoyed matching my wits against him and trying my best to outplay him, outmaneuver him, and essentially blindside him--the town jam session was that in a nutshell. He had absolutely no input on it the entire time.

The whole town came together to band in a unified voice, more or less altogether narrowing things in correctly on those that it needed to narrow in on, and he was powerless to do anything in no small part thanks to simply not being online during those faithful hours--though, had he been, he likely couldn't have stopped the synergy growing.

The whole game revolved around this battle with him, and I think he did his part. He was a skilled opponent, who did eventually win, but we gave him a solid run for his money, challenging him at every turn. Without his input, the game just wouldn't have worked. What's there to get revenge against if not against Pine, after all? So I am quite glad to have taken part in the game against my old rival, and would like to tip my hat in recognition of his part.

But beyond the central characters.
Beyond camn, the mod.
Beyond Pine, the scumfuck.
Beyond the winners of the award.

This was really a moment shared among the entirety of the town.

Massive props can particularly be given to Aristophanes, for instance, for when he showed up. Dude is readable like a book once you know what to look for, and he gave us EXACTLY what we were looking for. His input came at a later time, but when he gave it, it was solid, and it was undeniable evidence of his townness. He just radiated town.

And beyond that, he was just a beam of sunshine, pleasant to work with and have around and to lighten the mood while still keeping things relatively on point. This is the townplay I always am happy to see come from him when he lands town, and that game is the epitome of it. He displayed it most strongly during the town jam session, too, so he deserves a shoutout as well.

He might have eventually thanks to paranoia been the game-ending venge-shot (unfortunately), but that wasn't really his fault. He did everything he could, at all the right times, hitting all the right notes. He let us know, EXACTLY when we needed to know, that he was town.

Like. It literally was a live-time even which I cannot forget. He showed up as Ginngie, Nacho, and I were jamming out--at the time, he was in our POE scum pool, in part because he hadn't done anything. We NEEDED him to do something...and right then and there. He delivered it. He gave us what we needed, and THEN some.

Next, I cannot go without mentioning Prism--Prism wasn't one of the core three members of the town jam, but was still *a* member of the town jam, present and accounted for to give active feedback during that golden window of magical game solving. It should also be mentioned that Prism had the counterpart to my role.

A key part of that game people often overlook is that one of the main factors in the town strategem was my one-shot masonizer fakeclaim. My ACTUAL role, one-shot twilight-neighborizer (odd-night), was something I knew I could use to my advantage with that claim, because by claiming it I'd cause scum to waste a roleblock on me (they did), while also managing to falsely-conftown a player (I did).

Yet this wouldn't have been possible if Prism had spilled the beans about being the even-night counterpart to my real role, as given my fakeclaim, it would have become apparent what my real role was had Prism claimed--furthermore, it would also have been a potentially ugly townVtown situation had that claim arisen where we'd have divided wagons.

Yet thankfully, Prism was smart enough to NOT claim. Prism did in fact have justifiable doubts about my claim and was rather vocal about them...yet Prism was, quite intelligently, silent about the nature of those doubts, not letting on even the slightest that the doubts were role-related.

This also had the side-effect of essentially conftowning Prism later in the game, after I had died, because Prism not only had Fate to vouch for the nature of the role, but ALSO could point to all the numerous points of skepticism about my fakeclaim of masonizer, which were done in such an authentic way that the town could tell Prism was truly town who was heavily doubtful of me thanks to knowing their own role.

Big shoutout is also necessary for the members of the Monokuma hydra. I believe at the time of the town jam, it was Nahdia posting? Well, regardless of who it was posting (it honestly doesn't matter that much), the fact is the hydra DID post during the time period of the town jam, contributing their own voice to the myriad of opinions to help narrow in on exactly who the scum were.

What was really critical, mostly, was them being able to establish that they were town. Before that, they were kinda sorta seen as town but not to the same levels of locktown that Nacho, Ginngie, and I had achieved. (Nacho, Ginngie, and I were locktown to most of the game before the beginning of the town jam session. It's just that any possible world we were scum in altogether vanished within said jam, more than any other player.)

With their presence during the time they most needed to be present, they were able to help us see they were town beyond any shadow of a doubt. Of course, the feeling was unfortunately not QUITE mutual, but they still worked with us, albeit a bit...roughly. Still! It wouldn't have been nearly as much of a success without their contribution, so I feel like they are owed some proper recognition.

They did, after all. Go out of their way to be there. Nacho, Ginngie, and I by some stroke of luck just so HAPPENED to all be available at the same time, but while we did go a little bit out of the way to stay for as long as we did, we were mostly already there anyway. Not so much for Monokuma who more or less had to make time where none was before, and it was in part because of that made time that they were able to succeed in giving the town what we needed to have.

Even drealmerz7 did his part. dreal is not someone I'd place in the same higher echelon as I do the likes of Monokuma and Aristophanes for having driven the town win there, but he DID do his part. He was present and he gave some good, valuable feedback, including giving us more to work off of in terms of determining his alignment.

In particular, he was among the scum pool before showing up, and yet near the end he was far closer to being outside of it than he was before.

I should also give some mad props to a couple of players. SirCakez was neither town nor a key member of the jam session, yet he tried to be a part of it when basically no scum did, until Aeronaut at the very end. (And incidentally he was the last scum alive for good reason.) Aeronaut did his best to try and salvage his slot near the end of the day, and it ALMOST worked.

But I don't think I can just limit it to there. I think we also need to give nods to the other members of the town, even if they weren't around during that key time where the magic happened. First, yes, I do owe quite the apology to BTD6_maker. Your lynch was regrettable, and it is one of the main mistakes we made that game.

You did do decently while you were around, too! So you can't be too terribly faulted. (Though I am a bit disappointed we didn't get more from you.)

Fate was amazing the entire game. He did quite well at managing to resonate with the town and show off his townness. He wasn't around at the time of the town jam, but he was a critical member of the town core outside of the town jam, driving the game forward in mostly the right direction.

His fakeclaim was another one of the key aspects which gave the town a major edge in the game, as the damage he dealt with his fakeclaim was quite clever. It was regrettable that it ultimately was a contributing factor in the town loss, yes, but the idea behind what he did was absolutely brilliant and was something that was just the right thing to do; nobody could have really played the role he got any better than what he did.

He was just fun to have, and fun to work with. Dude has a reputation, often quite justified be it good or bad or both, but it was an asset this game rather than a hindrance. We were able to identify him as town and that's what we needed; what can you really ask for beyond that?

Of course, Vaxkiller was also in this game, and I apologize that we couldn't quite give you the justice you deserved. You did do a fairly decent job that game! Especially given that, at the time, relatively speaking, you were a much "younger" player, one whom we had far less experience with than what we have now.

All-in-all, this was a town made up of some amazing players who knew how to handle things quite well. So with all of that having been said and my shoutouts having been given, I think I'll give my own thoughts on the event, more or less.

This event was an event for the ages. I know that it is something that to really have enjoyed you just had to be there at the time, or at the very least be there to witness the aftermath to get the full appreciation out of it...but in spite of that. In spite of me knowing that others viewing it in hindsight don't have that same experience.

I just well and truly think that it's amazing. You can look at it and just know. Just recognize. How special it was. I made a post nearing the end of the town jam session. Where I said. "Nacho, Gin. I love you. Just thought I'd let you know", more or less. And that remains true; I do love them quite a bit (platonically that is), in that. It was a bonding experience, of friendship transcending friendship.

I am truly thankful that this moment was selected to be forever immortalized. Yes, the banner only lasts a year. But by having been recognized for this event, it will last a lifetime. Plus, the exposure of that single year will mean it will forever leave a mark, and I am quite happy--even proud--to have done my part, and can truly say that this is a worthy moment to be remembered for.

This is not something I have regrets about; this is something I am genuinely glad played out the way it did, as it could not have gone better and I feel there is no better way to be remembered than what was accomplished that game.

In summary, this was just.
A special moment.

One which I think will forever leave its mark.

Because, again. The town jam session is something which spread into other games. It wasn't just a one-off thing. It birthed an entire legacy, an entire playstyle more or less revolving around that sort of interaction. Sure, those other games aren't as memorable or as spectacular, but the fact remains that they continue to propagate what originated from this game, from camn's revenge, and that is the remarkable thing.

camn's revenge might no longer be unique for having a town jam...but it was the first game to HAVE the town jam.

So,
tl;dr version: This is something I am eternally grateful for having been a part of, and it is truly an honor to give something of this sort to the site.

I would like to note though that there is always the challenge present. We did that last year, but this year, we need to do something better. We need to do something more remarkable. More spectacular. I suppose that's a bit of an open challenge to mafiascum, "Do better than this", which I suppose will be my legacy, where I am succeeded by someone who gave something that people will never forget even years later.

And I would like to take this time to congratulate you all on oh fuck I just realized I'm nearing mafiascum's character li

[mastina]

I'll write a speech once I know whether to write a serious speech or a joke speech. (It makes a...shall we say...HUGE difference...in what will go in there.)

[mastina]

By the way.

You can blame this on Alisae and RadiantCowbells who told me to go with the joke.
Also, you can blame zoraster for enabling me since I asked him if I had permission to do this and he said, "Sure, go ahead".

(Soyeah, I did post the joke speech.)

[mastina]

(Also I did warn you it was a 'HUGE' difference.
My serious speech woulda been like a screenwidth, max. Like, prolly five paragraphs or so, tops. But I have some bad influences. )

[mastina]

Also,

160 pages in a mini? Is that normal nowadays?

Actually, no. One of the REASONS camn's revenge was so special was the pagesplosion which resulted specifically because of the town jam.

[mastina]

<3

[mastina]

Beautiful. <3