Scummies Nominations 2023!

[DragonEater70]

Kodak Moment
2023/12/09	DragonEater70	Ircher, Doctor Drew	DEFCON 6.0	In this game, everyone thought Doctor Drew was obvtown after he successfully nuked T3, the mafia's deepwolf. Everyone, except Ircher. Ircher, who was consensus scum, decided to nuke Doctor Drew despite being told repeatedly that Drew was town, and asked to cancel the nuke. Ircher, despite getting scumread for it, adamantly continued with nuking Drew - who then turned out to be mafia! Oh yeah, and Ircher who was 3p did it because he needed to get rid of some towny people who would never be shot!

[Gamma Emerald]

anti-nominate DEFCON. I don't think that game deserves any awards.

Nominate Topaz.

Explain?

[DragonEater70]

So, I have a couple nominations and things I wanna do.

1.

Nth $elene/Alisae for Game of the Year

[DragonEater70]

paragon
2023/20/11	Alisae	Klick	I mean this is basically the teacher vouching for the student. consistently very strong town player. Has a very solid understanding of the game (which is more than most players). Here is 1 notable example other people can write more and add more than I'm willing to. game - wins game page 1 by forcing a tvt. this tvt eventually leads into very quick game win.

2. Since this is a bit barebones, I would like to Nth the nomination and add a bit of my own text:

Klick Paragon nom

I find Klick to be deserving of the Paragon award, and also extremely fun to play with as town. What's cool about Klick's play and makes him a great town player is not necessarily super high read accuracy (though his reads accuracy is pretty good), but rather, two other, much more important factors:
1. His flexibility of reads - Klick isn't married to his reads, and isn't even slightly attached to them (which is a unique quality in Mafia players). He is able to push someone without locking them scum, and then start townreading them when they respond well. He basically doesn't care about being wrong as long as he can end up being right in the end, which makes him pretty good at finding town.
2. He plays a great support/kingmaker game, meaning Klick will not act as the townleader who decides on wagons, BUT he will consistently and accurately pick town players to make into town leaders and, in his slightly changed words, support their narrative. And the effect of this is creating extremely stable, bulletproof town blocks where town players are empowered to make pro town plays.
Overall, his town play is really solid.

Did I romanticize Klick's townplay? Maybe a little, but that's kinda expected in a Paragon of Mafia Hunters nom.

A good example of both these points is his play in Don't Fall In The Volcano!

[DragonEater70]

3.

Paperback Writer
2023/12/24	DragonEater70	Aureal	Don't Fall In The Volcano!	This is definitely, one hundred percent, the best and most enjoyable flavor I've had in a Mafia game ever. I literally called Aureal a queen in my first post for making this game. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to be a volcano gladiator???

I lowkey want to nominate this for Game of the Year because of the excellent modding and amazing playerlist, as well as it's being one of my favorite setups (all of which are criteria for Game of the Year), but I'd feel kinda guilty if I nommed a NewD3 for GOTY so I won't do this UNLESS someone else tells me it's socially acceptable to nominate NewD3 for GOTY.

[Ircher]

It's absolutely acceptable to nominate a NewD3 setup for game of the year. Setup is only one of many considerations for the award so having a standard setup is not disqualifying.

[DragonEater70]

Okay lemmie do it

[DragonEater70]

Game of the Year
2023/12/24	DragonEater70	Aureal	Don't Fall In The Volcano!	This nom is slightly tongue-in-cheek (in the cheeky/flippant sense, not in the sarcastic sense), but bear with me. Why does this game deserve the Game of the Year award? 1. Setup: this game was NewD3 which is indisputably the best setup on MafiaScum.net /half-serious 2. Mods: great mods which I felt put in effort to make the game run well and who I enjoyed as mods. 3. Flavor: This game's flavor is definitely, one hundred percent, the best and most enjoyable flavor I've had in a Mafia game ever. I literally called Aureal a queen in my first post for making this game. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to be a volcano gladiator??? The commentary by the show's hosts was very well written and funny as well. 4. Playerlist and gameplay: this game definitely had a hype playerlist with 2 Paragon nominees and a Don Corleone nominee, as well as some other cool people (including 2 site newbies and a long time returning player). It definitely did not disappoint - action started early in Day 1 and continued throughout nonstop. The cohesion of the town was remarkable, with most town players being able to find each other and shrink the PoE, resulting in a smooth elimination of scum on Day 1. The game ended up being a mechanical win, but I want to stress that the way I see it, by the end of Day 1 a town victory was simply impossible to prevent even if the game had magically become mountainous, due to how confident town was in their reads of one another.

[Alianna]

Don Corleone
2023/11/22	Dannflor	Black	I think historically that people have been averse to giving body of work awards to people during their first year on site, but I think Black has more than proven she can tangle with the best as scum in an incredibly short time - in no short thanks to an abundance of scum rolls! Seriously, Black rolled scum and subsequently won all of Newbie 2111, Newbie 2113, Newbie 2116, and Open 885. In addition, I don't think the fact that most of these wins were in newbie games means a whole lot, since as most of us know, recent newbie games have been 80% experienced players anyway. I think the consistency and volume of scum play at work here is worthy of Don Corleone consideration.

Nth.

[Alianna]

I want to nth all the Rising Star noms and suggested noms, but that'd probably defeat the purpose.

[Flavor Leaf]

I'll have to get the links for some of these games soon, but trying to get at least a base out for what I got. I have a few more.

Rising Star
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Hu Tao	Hu Tao Tuesdays join date is in December, and frankly, you can’t tell they’ve only been on site for a year. They are consistently followed and lead as town, and are hyper paranoid scum read by many as well. In Random Nurse’ Normal, the scum team with Hu Tao were double guilted Night 1, and on Day 2, they were able to deny a Mass Claim from starting, hard bus their other partner, which I called out as a hard bus only to turn it back the next day when their fake claim Cop came out and they guilted the player who hadn’t had the time to announce their guilty on Hu Tao, thus causing a fast day and eliminating the actual cop. While they went down thereafter, they were able to tie enough associatives together, and the team of Davesaz, KittyTacky, and Hu Tao were able to pull the victory. On the town side, they have also been consistently playing with different play styles, and consistently is able to have strong gut reads on where scum is along with getting multiple players to town read them. In games like Mafia Have A Cop and Large Normal 245, they had correct scum reads that nobody else was actively pushing. I’m missing so many more town games here, and might have to go and link some more over the coming days, but the level of play Hu Tao presents is not the general play level of someone who has only been on this site for a year.

Modfather
12/31/23/cell]	Flavor Leaf	Alisae	Alisae for Pokemon + mafia have a Cop. The quality of the 2 games are enough, and frankly, I think these were a couple of the best games of the year. The sheer magnitude and scale of the Large Theme of Pokemon Battles II was enough, and then the overall story of how Pokemon Battles II played out would have been enough for me to nom this, but Mafia Have A Cop also lived up to that. I’m underselling this. I don’t even need to say more, though, you all already know.

Kodak Moment
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Doctor Drew, Alisae, Klick	BTXVI:Boons Ahoy	The unfortunate scenario of ScumDrew action delayed by Klick, ending into Drew accidentally protecting their own kill on Alisae. Ridiculously unfortunate situation, ridiculously exciting to watch on an observer level.

Goodfellas
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	The Stage (T3), Pisskop, Theta Alpine, Skygazer	BooneyToonz XVII: The Winston Chronicles	One look at the scum PT shows it all. These 4 were in sync with each other, and controlled day play every single day phase of this game, and ended with a perfect scum game. Anytime one of them were in trouble, the others took action to either take some of the heat or find another push. /cell]

Goodfellas
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Hu Tao, Davesaz, KittyTacky	Mini Normal 2310	Mostly nominating for Hu Tao's play. Hu Tao and Kitty both got guilted Night 1, but denied Mass Claim and fast limmed and bussed Kitty Day 2, then Hu Tao fake claimed a guilty on Day 3 on the person they knew had a guilty on them by the way they were posting. The ties in association with Hu Tao allowed Hu Tao to sneak the victory and helped get me faded in ELO.

Goodfellas
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Alisae, Doctor Drew, Firebringer, GrandpaMo	Demon Slayer	The Tracker Gambit by Alisae onto Doctor Drew helped the scum team coast through, and the way they all played together truly felt like vultures circling their prey with fun and sunshine.

Rising Star
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	T3	Really nominating this one for Winston Chronicles. They pulled a heist, and hard controlled day team, and imo, they lead the scum team to a victory. I hadn’t seen much of T3 since then, but the level of day play control was strong here, and you can see their thought process from their individual notes. In addition to this, they had a good behind the scenes year modding games and joining the NRG.

[Flavor Leaf]

[/row]

Game of the Year
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Alisae	Pokemon Battles 2
A level up system with new moves and abilities were made for this game. over 20 players, with an incredible in game-narrative that played out. Truly one of the best modded games I've played. A battling wild pokemon mechanic every night, a big boss battle to fight, and evolutions with stats and hitpoints. I am not a mech heavy person, but this was such a fun game with an amazing group of players, and would play a Pokemon Battles III in a heart beat.

Moment of Brilliance
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Roden, Doctor Drew, Gamma Emerald, Flavor Leaf	Mini Theme 2318: Cook’s Kitchen Sink
I'm in this, but whatever, someone had to do it. This game was a very fun game, and we ended up quickhammering a Vanilla Townie on Page 7. The following days ended up being a large back and forth of trust and distrust mainly between the 4 of us, and through the arguing and possible doubt, the 4 of us were able to never actually end up killing each other off in someway and went Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4 with back to back to back scum lims and winning the game. This truly felt a group effort, and while there were some infighting, we were always able to get to the place we needed to get to for what I believe is one of the strongest group town performances of the entire year. There were a few others that did well in this game, but when I think back on this game, the town core of the 4 held strongest.

[Flavor Leaf]

i did something wrong, but i got them posted, and im tired out, and ill do what i can to fix stuff in the new year

[DragonEater70]

Mega nth Hu Tao for rising star (especially I want to remark that she has INCREDIBLE reads as town even though they often go under the radar)

Nth goodfellas for the Demon Slayer game as well.

[Alianna]

Goodfellas
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	The Stage (T3), Pisskop, Theta Alpine, Skygazer	BooneyToonz XVII: The Winston Chronicles	One look at the scum PT shows it all. These 4 were in sync with each other, and controlled day play every single day phase of this game, and ended with a perfect scum game. Anytime one of them were in trouble, the others took action to either take some of the heat or find another push.

Goodfellas
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Hu Tao, Davesaz, KittyTacky	Mini Normal 2310	Mostly nominating for Hu Tao's play. Hu Tao and Kitty both got guilted Night 1, but denied Mass Claim and fast limmed and bussed Kitty Day 2, then Hu Tao fake claimed a guilty on Day 3 on the person they knew had a guilty on them by the way they were posting. The ties in association with Hu Tao allowed Hu Tao to sneak the victory and helped get me faded in ELO.

Nth both of these.

[DragonEater70]

You know, I'll also Nth these

[Alianna]

The Modfather
2023/11/20	DragonEater70	Alianna	Let's start with some stats! Did you know that in 2023, Alianna modded or co-modded 6 Newbie games? That's a THIRD of all Newbie games that were run this year. She also modded 5 Open games in 2023. She ALSO modded and backup/co-modded quite a few Normal games (more on this later). Alianna constantly has at least one game running at every point in time, and she often has two (or more, if you consider games she's backup modding). This is a great contribution to the site in terms of moderation. Putting the stats aside for a second, Alianna's moderation is of very high quality. Her games run smoothly, she's dedicated to doing her mod duties even when real life gets in the way, and there's a VC every pagetop (okay, maybe not EVERY pagetop). Notably, she managed to run a Newbie game with ten replacements (a huge number considering a Newbie game only has 9 players), and run it smoothly. Oh, and did I mention how her dedication to modding goes beyond her own games? Every time I asked her to be a backup mod, she said yes with no hesitation. I think that's pretty cool.

Modfather
12/31/23	Flavor Leaf	Alisae	Alisae for Pokemon + mafia have a Cop. The quality of the 2 games are enough, and frankly, I think these were a couple of the best games of the year. The sheer magnitude and scale of the Large Theme of Pokemon Battles II was enough, and then the overall story of how Pokemon Battles II played out would have been enough for me to nom this, but Mafia Have A Cop also lived up to that. I’m underselling this. I don’t even need to say more, though, you all already know.

May the best Ali win.

[DragonEater70]

[Ircher]

Happy New Year! Don't forget to get your nominations in before the nomination period closes.

As of today, there is a little over a week ((expired on 2024-01-08 23:59:59))

left before nominations for 2023 will no longer be accepted.

We are also still in need of 2-3 more volunteers to help out with judging the Scummies, so if you are interested, please contact me.

[Aureal]

3.

Paperback Writer
2023/12/24	DragonEater70	Aureal	Don't Fall In The Volcano!	This is definitely, one hundred percent, the best and most enjoyable flavor I've had in a Mafia game ever. I literally called Aureal a queen in my first post for making this game. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to be a volcano gladiator???

I lowkey want to nominate this for Game of the Year because of the excellent modding and amazing playerlist, as well as it's being one of my favorite setups (all of which are criteria for Game of the Year), but I'd feel kinda guilty if I nommed a NewD3 for GOTY so I won't do this UNLESS someone else tells me it's socially acceptable to nominate NewD3 for GOTY.

Well, uh, thanks?

I've been thinking I should nom this, now I definitely need to.

Paperback Writer
2024/01/01	Aureal	fferyllt	Star Trek uPick	In this uPick game, fferyllt came in with a vision. She fleshed out the character roles with reasonably suited powers to their characters, drawing a surprising amount of depth from even more obscure characters. For instance, the character I chose, Tasha Yar, came with powers flavored around actual lines of dialogue she had spoken, despite being a largely overlooked character who was only in the cast for one season (and while one line of dialogue is actually quite well-known the other certainly is not; even I had to do some digging for scripts to confirm that it was indeed her dialogue). I was not the only one who appreciated the character detail in roles: LLD thanked fferyllt (in the Discord spectator channel) for her effort in writing her Dax character the way LLD had envisioned in a plural-friendly way. Furthermore, not only did fferyllt write these rich, detailed role PMs, she fleshed out the game itself using the Trek character Q as the basis for an actual storyline which she elaborated upon at the start and end of every day. She made writing good character-specific scenes look easy and gave such life to the setting that I was inspired to write my own ending bit for my character.

[Aureal]

Don Corleone
2023/11/22	Dannflor	Black	I think historically that people have been averse to giving body of work awards to people during their first year on site, but I think Black has more than proven she can tangle with the best as scum in an incredibly short time - in no short thanks to an abundance of scum rolls! Seriously, Black rolled scum and subsequently won all of Newbie 2111, Newbie 2113, Newbie 2116, and Open 885. In addition, I don't think the fact that most of these wins were in newbie games means a whole lot, since as most of us know, recent newbie games have been 80% experienced players anyway. I think the consistency and volume of scum play at work here is worthy of Don Corleone consideration.

Nth this and also add mention that Black has now won her 6th straight Mafia game in Open 892, where despite a townie correctly using her partner's associatives to identify her as the last Mafia, Black played it cool and by the time someone declared intent on her, she had made him freak out enough that he unvoted and Black went on to secure three more miseliminations on her own afterwards for the win.

Also Nth Alianna for Modfather. Having played in a game she modded for my first game back here after a 16-year hiatus, she set my expectations for moderating very high and has consistently lived up to it in every game I've seen. Never in a game Alianna is moderating do you have to scrounge around for a vote count only to realize it's horribly dated. Never do you have to stare unhappily at the slot that hasn't posted in days and ask for a prod there. Never do you sit in a seemingly eternal twilight waiting for a flip. It's clear she cares greatly about her moderating responsibilities and strives to give the players the best experience she can.

[DragonEater70]

Wow Aureal explained my reasons for nomming Alianna much better than I did

Probably should be added to the nom

[Dannflor]

Moment of Brilliance
2024/01/04	Dannflor	Ydrasse and RCEnigma	Toriel's Patience	This was a bit of a grueling game, as mountainous games can often be. With town choosing the "spare" route, but being unsuccessful in eliminating scum earlier in the game. The game came down to two consecutive days where all the town needed to find each other. Ydrasse and RCEnigma had previously been scum reading each other, but managed to successfully find each other as town over a series of three pages. This successful connection between two townies, managing to see through the noise the scum team was attempting to generate, was all that was needed to win the game. In fact, this 3 page back and forth between Ydrasse and RCEnigma was exactly what won the game for town in the end. In Ydrasse's words, this was a "rare town blitz."

Modfather
2024/01/04	Dannflor	Skygazer	Skygazer is a prolific moderator whilst also lending a lot of her time to being a backup or co-mod to other users on the site. Skygazer posts frequent VCs, keeps games running smoothly, has great flavor, and generally does all the things one would expect from a great moderator and a great game. However, on top of the standard stuff, I want to highlight just the wide variety of kinds of games Skygazer runs for the community. Everything from Open games, Mini Themes, Micro Themes, Normal Games, and Newbie Games. Skygazer has run a truly staggering number of games this year, many of them with personally designed setups. I always feel comfortable joining a game moderated by Skygazer because I know it's going to a smooth experience with a personal touch of style.

[DragonEater70]

Nth Skygazer! I actually thought about nomming him too.

[fferyllt]

3.

Paperback Writer
2023/12/24	DragonEater70	Aureal	Don't Fall In The Volcano!	This is definitely, one hundred percent, the best and most enjoyable flavor I've had in a Mafia game ever. I literally called Aureal a queen in my first post for making this game. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to be a volcano gladiator???

I lowkey want to nominate this for Game of the Year because of the excellent modding and amazing playerlist, as well as it's being one of my favorite setups (all of which are criteria for Game of the Year), but I'd feel kinda guilty if I nommed a NewD3 for GOTY so I won't do this UNLESS someone else tells me it's socially acceptable to nominate NewD3 for GOTY.

Well, uh, thanks?

I've been thinking I should nom this, now I definitely need to.

Paperback Writer
2024/01/01	Aureal	fferyllt	Star Trek uPick	In this uPick game, fferyllt came in with a vision. She fleshed out the character roles with reasonably suited powers to their characters, drawing a surprising amount of depth from even more obscure characters. For instance, the character I chose, Tasha Yar, came with powers flavored around actual lines of dialogue she had spoken, despite being a largely overlooked character who was only in the cast for one season (and while one line of dialogue is actually quite well-known the other certainly is not; even I had to do some digging for scripts to confirm that it was indeed her dialogue). I was not the only one who appreciated the character detail in roles: LLD thanked fferyllt (in the Discord spectator channel) for her effort in writing her Dax character the way LLD had envisioned in a plural-friendly way. Furthermore, not only did fferyllt write these rich, detailed role PMs, she fleshed out the game itself using the Trek character Q as the basis for an actual storyline which she elaborated upon at the start and end of every day. She made writing good character-specific scenes look easy and gave such life to the setting that I was inspired to write my own ending bit for my character.

Thank you so much! I AM a Star Trek nerd, and do like the story arcs of relatively minor characters! It's fertile ground for many potential game design ideas.