Scummies Ideas, Suggestions and Comments Thread

[Venmar]

In mafia, there's really no "cohesion" among town -- with no information, there's no way for people to reliably "team up".

this statement is such complete and utter bullshit I am not sure why you made it in the first place.

but by all means bring mafia back to the dark ages where town wins by accident. cos that is what that statement is encouraging.

what you are stating is that town are too stupid to find their own teammates and that any effort for self-improvement is futile.

uninformed majority will nearly ALWAYS have a hard time finding each other, that is why they shld be acknowledged when they actually DO.

We are not taking away the Best Town award to strip the possibility of acknowledging the uninformed majority's ability to work together and win, nor are we saying town is too dumb or wins by accident, you are simple interpreting what Reckful has said the wrong way. 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.

[Marquis]

In mafia, there's really no "cohesion" among town -- with no information, there's no way for people to reliably "team up".

this statement is such complete and utter bullshit I am not sure why you made it in the first place.

but by all means bring mafia back to the dark ages where town wins by accident. cos that is what that statement is encouraging.

what you are stating is that town are too stupid to find their own teammates and that any effort for self-improvement is futile.

uninformed majority will nearly ALWAYS have a hard time finding each other, that is why they shld be acknowledged when they actually DO.

I agree with mollie here - the removal devalues townhunting as a legitimate strategy. No, you're never going to have your utopian 100% town cohesion, but it's worth an award that at least bothers to acknowledge the rare but multiple instances each year where town finds and works with each other against scum on a largely accurate scale.

And we've had multiple "perfect wins" this year - no matter how bad scumplay is, you need a majority of town to be somewhat in sync with reads and game direction to achieve that. The game is never about only one player's scumhunting contribution and I take issue with those implications by town's related award changes.

[Firebringer]

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.

Leaders need followers.

You can't get a lynch without a majority, even shit posters are needed sometimes to follow the "leader".

Being a leader is overrated, without followers a leader is nothing but someone with a strong personality as someone once told me.

[zMuffinMan]

you need a majority of town to be somewhat in sync with reads and game direction to achieve that

not really

apart from the fact that the majority (if not all) perfect wins usually come off the back of 1-2 PR results (depending on the size of the game) which requires zero cohesion (not to mention things like slips, bad fake-claims from scum, etc), town doesn't need to be well-coordinated to lynch, say, a lurker that happens to be scum and town doesn't need to have strong players or good teamwork to sheep a vocal player (or group of players) that happen to be right about scum (

especially

when said people sheeping probably sheep every game anyway and don't need to be "in sync" to do what they do...)

i also think there's a difference between a town whose reads are "in sync" because the majority is reading the game, putting forth arguments/reasoning and coming to the same conclusions independently and a town whose reads are "in sync" because key players are putting forth arguments and others are agreeing with them because that's what they do / that's how they play - the former is extremely rare and is the only time i'd say a town (as a whole) performed well, the latter is a case where the sheep aren't really doing anything they wouldn't do in every other game, so it's not like a special case where everyone is playing above and beyond the norm...

[pirate mollie]

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.

then why not punish the lurkers.

I have been wanting this since forever.

sometimes good town play is to FOLLOW. I suppose the same cld be said for scum but for different reasons.

and yes there are several games of that caliber! if you guys need help then ask for it. but don't eliminate categories just cos you can't be bothered.

[Firebringer]

not really

Majority is needed for a Lynch.

[zMuffinMan]

that's very insightful

i would nominate you for professor mafia if that award wasn't taken away

[Firebringer]

that's very insightful

i would nominate you for professor mafia if that award wasn't taken away

Your argument was broken down with 6 words.
I don't think you had a strong one.

[zMuffinMan]

yeah

i guess next time i write something, i should make sure i'm aware of how the game of mafia works before i do so

thanks for the criticism. i can tell you're a pretty smart person and i'll take your words into consideration

[Firebringer]

yeah

i guess next time i write something, i should make sure i'm aware of how the game of mafia works before i do so

thanks for the criticism. i can tell you're a pretty smart person and i'll take your words into consideration

Thanks man. I think you are smart too.

Much love.

[Firebringer]

In honesty though, Mafia is a Team game.

1 player can't win it all, not even 2-3 "strong' players can win it without support from the 'weaker' players.
Not everyone can be amazing at the game, and sometimes its better to follow your town reads than push your suspects.

So I don't think your right.

[zMuffinMan]

you're just reinforcing the point i made (and seemingly one of the main reasons the award was removed)

[Firebringer]

you're just reinforcing the point i made (and seemingly one of the main reasons the award was removed)

Am I high or something?
Cause this isn't true...

[zMuffinMan]

it is, you just don't seem to understand the point

[Psyche]

damn firebringer simmer down

[pirate mollie]

muffina

[pirate mollie]

I for 1 am looking forward to pple giving less of a shit when they are town than they do now.

I can't wait! >.<

[zMuffinMan]

i don't think anyone plays mafia on the off chance they'll draw town and win a best town award

and the sorts of people who are likely to actually have that mentality are unlikely to be the sorts of people who actually contribute very much to a town win anyway

so i sincerely doubt anything at all will change

and the people who are decent at scum hunting will still be decent at scum hunting and hey, there's an award you can nominate them for if you feel they're decent at scum hunting in more than just a single game

also, if "people giving less of a shit" means no more 100+ page D1s then the scummie committee deserves a fucking scummie for the service they're doing

[zoraster]

Keep in mind that scummies are about recognizing exceptional play, not really (or at least directly) about incentivizing it.

Having an award that was given out to 10+ people tended to devalue scummies more than not having a pro-town team award devalues townhunting. Obviously sometimes it's best to follow. Paragon still allows for that, and hopefully the judges recognize it.

The truth is that in any individual game it's not always possible to perform to a standard that'll get you nominated or win a scummy. The opportunities just may not be there, no matter how skilled you are. It's okay that games where you don't make it out of N1 aren't going to get you nominated.

[xRECKONERx]

In mafia, there's really no "cohesion" among town -- with no information, there's no way for people to reliably "team up".

this statement is such complete and utter bullshit I am not sure why you made it in the first place.

but by all means bring mafia back to the dark ages where town wins by accident. cos that is what that statement is encouraging.

what you are stating is that town are too stupid to find their own teammates and that any effort for self-improvement is futile.

uninformed majority will nearly ALWAYS have a hard time finding each other, that is why they shld be acknowledged when they actually DO.

Not at all what I'm saying or stating at all! You love to put words in people's mouths.

I'm saying that it makes more sense to award a "best team" role to the group that is

actually a team

and behaves as such.

In any game where an "uninformed majority" finds each other and locks in and behaves as a team, there are plenty of people in that uninformed majority who obstruct the process or are not a part of the "voting bloc" or whatever you want to call it. So we either have to give the award to people who objectively do not deserve it, or we can just say, "if there was a single person you felt stood out during that game as a great town player, nominate them". The latter is much easier.

[chamber]

So, I don't see these changes fundamentally changing the amount of work judges are willing to put in. I could be wrong, we can find out this year. I think just taking a different approach completely is probably better though, like a peoples choice version instead of the oscars.

[xRECKONERx]

Most of the time, if a town pulls off a win in less-than-the-standard-days, then they probably came together at some point.

And if the suggestion that people are going to give less of a shit as town because they can't win an award for it is true, then I'm

glad

we're gutting the Scummies, because playing for recognition/playing to get awarded is pretty much the worst reason to play the game.

We still award town play. We just award very specific town play that is outstanding and that's usually going to be on the backs of a few, rather than many. We also think CONSISTENCY is important for a town play award -- and that's only something attainable across multiple performances.

[xRECKONERx]

So, I don't see these changes fundamentally changing the amount of work judges are willing to put in. I could be wrong, we can find out this year. I think just taking a different approach completely is probably better though, like a peoples choice version instead of the oscars.

We removed seven categories and moved one to public choice, bringing us to 9 categories total.

Paragon & Rising Star are still intensive categories to judge, but they're probably the most intensive. We'll probably split judging into groups of three like so:

Difficulty	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
Hard	Best Mafia Catcher	Rising Star	Best Flavor Text
Medium	Best Third Party	Excellent Moderation	Cunning Manipulator
Easy	Kodak Moment	Best Mutation	Best Setup

Each group will have one time intensive/text intensive read through, one very simple award, and something in between. Currently, judges are having to look at 8-9 categories and each of those includes multiple body of work performances to pour through hundreds of pages of text. This SEVERELY narrows the scope of the work.

[pirate mollie]

Not at all what I'm saying or stating at all! You love to put words in people's mouths.

I'm saying that it makes more sense to award a "best team" role to the group that is

actually a team

and behaves as such.

In any game where an "uninformed majority" finds each other and locks in and behaves as a team, there are plenty of people in that uninformed majority who obstruct the process or are not a part of the "voting bloc" or whatever you want to call it. So we either have to give the award to people who objectively do not deserve it, or we can just say, "if there was a single person you felt stood out during that game as a great town player, nominate them". The latter is much easier.

I am not putting words in your mouth don't even.

the town game that I was happiest with was 1 where town didn't check out. it didn't get nommed and I think it was the single most game where town were able to find each other and work together as a team in a scum to town 1:3 ratio. I wld be hard pressed to pick any single town player in that game for "oh ty 4 winning this 4 us."

what you guys are doing is focussing on a single individual rather than promoting team effort. if that is your goal then sure.

I think it sucks and is pretty divisive. I mean if you can't be bothered than do away with the scummies altogether.

[xRECKONERx]

You say you'd be hard pressed to point to any single town player: that's fine. Not every game has a standout town performance. But BASICALLY every game has people on the town's side who don't pull their weight and in order for the award to have any value, we'd have to exclude people from receiving it and there's no fair/objective way to do that. 2014: Reckoning 3 Invitational. There wasn't really any cohesion. We all argued around each other and wound up obstructing each other's lynches and were only saved thanks to some night play, but there was very little total cohesion. We all won for it anyway.

"Best Town Performance" winds up being an arbitrary act of looking at if a town mislynched or not, and then how difficult the scumteam was to play against. Then the award gets handed out without regard for who sucked up space and didn't deserve it.

We're focusing on rewarding

good town play

. In any game, someone is going to look more right than others in the town. That's why we're choosing to focus on the consistency aspect of the award, which cannot be done in a single game performance.