Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

[UberNinja]

Why not? Rising Star implies a new player. Most Improved can apply to someone who's sucked for years and only now is getting better. I think both could have their niche, but Rising Star would get nominated more often because etc. Just because it's a possible Scummie doesn't mean somebody has to get nominated for it, right?

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Rising Star doesn't imply a new player.

[UberNinja]

-shrug-

[xRECKONERx]

So, let's go ahead and get this out there...

For next year, I nominate we change

Smooth Operator

to

Best Moderator

, an all-around body of work award for a moderator. I think the issue with Smooth Operator is that every year it just becomes "who fucked up the least", and I find myself going, "Well the dedication you had to this game was truly innovative, but you missed deadline by 10 minutes this one game day, so you're ineligible," and I just don't think that's a fair way to recognize great moderation. It doesn't just come from the flavor, or the setup design, or being timely with votecounts, or resolving disputes well, or creating a fun environment for the players, it's a big combination of everything and should be recognized as such.

[IceGuy]

Support.

[SleepyKrew]

Support.

[zoraster]

Smooth Operator is actually the nickname for the Excellent Moderation scummy, but the nickname kind of gave the award a life of its own. I like Reck's suggestion, but I still think there's a place for recognizing those moderators that run the bread and butter good games, even if those are fairly difficult to distinguish. What I might suggest doing is splitting Excellent Moderation/Best Moderator Body of Work award and the Smooth Operator awards. My problem with simply eliminating smooth operator is that our scummies already skew heavily toward those that run Large Themes even though those are only a fraction of our total games played, and I'd like some recognition for people who simply run smooth games.

[xRECKONERx]

Perhaps so. Every year I've been a part of judging Smooth Operator, it ends up with people going "this person posted X votecounts, this person posted X-2, so the first person wins" and I don't think that's really fair. Excellent Moderation isn't about posting votecounts on time, but that's usually what it comes down to. When the design team finally gets automated signups & automated votecounts done, Smooth Operator's current role is essentially going to be useless anyway because everything will pretty much be automated.

[UberNinja]

So, let's go ahead and get this out there...

For next year, I nominate we change

Smooth Operator

to

Best Moderator

, an all-around body of work award for a moderator. I think the issue with Smooth Operator is that every year it just becomes "who fucked up the least", and I find myself going, "Well the dedication you had to this game was truly innovative, but you missed deadline by 10 minutes this one game day, so you're ineligible," and I just don't think that's a fair way to recognize great moderation. It doesn't just come from the flavor, or the setup design, or being timely with votecounts, or resolving disputes well, or creating a fun environment for the players, it's a big combination of everything and should be recognized as such.

4th

[UberNinja]

I would also like a more colloquial title to be applied to it, like

Beloved Chairman

or something humorous.

Too many titles are just named something simple like "Best Role" when they should have a great name like "Flying Pumpkin That Shoots Lazer Beams Out Its Ass" imo

[Mr. Flay]

Perhaps so. Every year I've been a part of judging Smooth Operator, it ends up with people going "this person posted X votecounts, this person posted X-2, so the first person wins" and I don't think that's really fair.

That's... a terrible way to judge that award. I'm not yelling at you, but damn. No wonder you don't like it.

Smooth Operator seems (to me) to be for the person who dealt with the unexpected/unplanned stuff well. We have separate awards for Innovative Roles or Enjoyable Setups, but this is the person who rolls with all the weird, mundane, personal crap that happens during games from other sources. They take it in stride, the game never really suffers any longer than it takes them to come visit the thread, and... yeah. Smooth.

Iunno, maybe I'm crazy.

[UberNinja]

So stuff like when I had seven replacements in Mini 1359 and they were all replaced within a few hours? I don't think that necessarily makes the game better for the players, it just doesn't let the game get as bad.

And anyway, I think that criteria wouldn't really make for an interesting award (who let the shit hit the fan the least) or even something like who chose the best option for handling a mod fuck up (not deserving of an award anyway, since he fucked up).

I think an award for a mod who consistently has the best/most fun/most hyped games would be cooler and more sought after. Who gives a shit if they miss a couple vote counts. As long as the modding isn't "barely above average", and everyone has a shit ton of fun, that would be worthy in my book. A few mods come to mind.

[Mr. Flay]

I think an award for a mod who consistently has the best/most fun/most hyped games would be cooler and more sought after. Who gives a shit if they miss a couple vote counts. As long as the modding isn't "barely above average", and everyone has a shit ton of fun, that would be worthy in my book. A few mods come to mind.

We have that, though. There's at least one Most Enjoyable Game award, sometimes two based on size.

[xRECKONERx]

Perhaps so. Every year I've been a part of judging Smooth Operator, it ends up with people going "this person posted X votecounts, this person posted X-2, so the first person wins" and I don't think that's really fair.

That's... a terrible way to judge that award. I'm not yelling at you, but damn. No wonder you don't like it.

Smooth Operator seems (to me) to be for the person who dealt with the unexpected/unplanned stuff well. We have separate awards for Innovative Roles or Enjoyable Setups, but this is the person who rolls with all the weird, mundane, personal crap that happens during games from other sources. They take it in stride, the game never really suffers any longer than it takes them to come visit the thread, and... yeah. Smooth.

Iunno, maybe I'm crazy.

The issue is that when you have a bunch of nominations and it's like, "well yeah I guess they all dealt with bullshit that came up and didn't make errors resolving night actions" then the only thing to set them apart BECOMES "okay so... who did the best with votecounts/timely day & night starts?" because the criteria we've set kind of necessitates that.

[quadz08]

I like the name

Smooth Operator

, but I'm ok with judging it in a different, less arbitrary way.

[UberNinja]

I think an award for a mod who consistently has the best/most fun/most hyped games would be cooler and more sought after. Who gives a shit if they miss a couple vote counts. As long as the modding isn't "barely above average", and everyone has a shit ton of fun, that would be worthy in my book. A few mods come to mind.

We have that, though. There's at least one Most Enjoyable Game award, sometimes two based on size.

Yeah but that doesn't account for outstanding modding though. That's more based on a fun player list and crazy levels of player interaction and excitement than on role mechanics and/or smooth modding and/or etc, etc.

[Mr. Flay]

It's been both, depending on the year. It's a joint mod-player award, by the way I've heard it described (I think by mith, the year I won it for WIH:2).

[UberNinja]

Imho we should separate them.

[Glork]

So Reck and I were talking more about Smooth Operator just now, and I feel that the way Smooth Operator is handled/judged should be revised. It shouldn't be about doing vote counts, timely prods/replacements, etc. Splitting hairs over "this person had X vote conts over Y pages across Z games" isn't really a good way to determine a moderator's accomplishments in and of itself.

For each game in the "body of work" that comprises a Smooth Operator, look at

all

aspects of moderating.
How was design/setup handled?
What about flavor?
How hard did the moderator work to make the game enjoyable?
Did it run/flow smoothly? (This would include VCs, deadlines, prods, replacements, etc.)
How were incidents handled (if applicable)?

Look at how a moderator managed their game from design and setup to signups to execution and even postgame comments, feedback, and discussion.

[TheButtonmen]

That seems punishing for people who don't run themes. Using those critera could a mod who runs opens ever win?

[Faraday]

Too many titles are just named something simple like "Best Role" when they should have a great name like "Flying Pumpkin That Shoots Lazer Beams Out Its Ass" imo

Actually most of the awards do have a nickname, some are more common e.g. paragon and don as opposed to the 'Rube Goldberg' award (do you know what that is offhand? )

[Faraday]

Imho we should separate them.

I think they can even be distinctly separated at the moment. You can keep the name Smooth Operator but basically change what it's for and having it refer to overall Moderating excellence (and keep it as a body of work award too, I think to further keep it different from Most Enjoyable Game) Most enjoyable is certainly fine as is, I think. (Even if sometimes it can be a bit hard to judge)

[zoraster]

it's one of those crazy contraptions where a set of dominos sets off a toaster which burns a magazine which's smoke sets off a smoke detector which scares a bird which jangles its cage which sets a ball rolling down a ramp that flips a switch on an electric kettle, which brews the tea that you're after.

[xRECKONERx]

It's a body of work award.

I also don't think, and this is just personal opinion, that an open moderator who does the same amount of technical work as a theme moderator should ever really win. There's going to be very little difference between a top mod running an open and a top mod running a theme, so the tiebreaker is going to be amount of effort put in, in which case, yes, the theme moderator probably put in more effort overall.

But again, it's body of work. If someone ONLY runs open games, then yes, they didn't do anything for setup design, so it's going to hinder them. I suppose opens can still have flavor though.

[zoraster]

I still would like to recognize those that do not do complicated games with recognition. Having someone who is "best in class" among those, even if their work is not as impressive because it is "easier," I still want them recognized for that. I think it sends a good message. Yes, maybe at some point it becomes a thing of the past when automatic vote counts come in, but we can change it then. Anyway, I'm not holding my breath on those, but I would love to be suprrised.