Scummies Nominations Thread 2020

[Alisae]

Yep post of the year works

[Hectic]

Mad Scientist
23/12/2020	Hectic	Kanna	Trust Fall - a setup created for the Open Setup May Challenge. Such a seemingly inconspicuous submission puts a beautiful yet simple spin on the game of mafia; it doesn't bombard you with complicated mechanics or role abilities/interactions, no, it just has you hunt for one player that you can really trust. Trust Fall changes the game of mafia such that you don't win by finding scum, rather you need to find one town that you can trust enough to Trust Fall out of the game with. It subtlety yet significantly changes the dynamics of mafia; gone is the fear of being mislaunched and occurrence of any toxic 1v1s with players gunning to kill each other. It encourages wholesome and fun townhunting play, and allows players to try and leave the game whenever they'd like to. It's unusual in any game to have a UTR mafioso flip first , but this is one that gives you that opportunity. Allowing players to examine a UTR scum player's interactions as they go out early is a very rare and fascinating opportunity. It also means that if you're suspected as mafia, you're not going out day 1 like in a regular game; instead you have the entire game to change everyone's minds! The setup has been run successfully 3 times now by 3 separate moderators: First / Second / Third I've had the pleasure in playing in every one of them, and it's been incredibly fun each time, and as both alignments. Kanna's also been sneakily going around designing numerous other setups that are seeing play. A variation of her Smuggler Port setup saw play in FakeGod's game. Meanwhile, her Bloodline Mafia setup was picked up and run in Errantparabola's game. She also modded her very own Student Council mafia, brimming with fun flavour and a great mechanic. Whenever Kanna creates a setup, moderators all around seem to be drawn to the unique and genius mechanics at play... a true mad scientist.

[Hectic]

Rising Star
23/12/2020	Hectic	Noraa	In just 4 months, Noraa has left a monumental mark on the site. Her WIM is monstrous and matched by no other; a "tsunami of persistence" is very fitting when it comes to describing Noraa's general attitude about mafia. She simply never throws in the towel as either alignment, and keeps fighting to the very last breath. The passion and desire that exudes out of her every post is unparalleled on the site, and I think that's really what makes up a key part of what a Rising Star should be. She's also insanely good at playing scum! My first encounter with Noraa was when she was newbscum in a newbie game. The game was being PoE and meched down and Noraa was looking like the best launch - but I constantly had doubts about how much FIGHT this newbie had in them... it was really unusual and nothing like I'd seen before. They just would not give up, and it made me extremely paranoid; surely a new scum player wouldn't have this kind of drive or passion, right? Nope, that's just Noraa. The next firsthand experience I'd like to use is Death Curse. A game where Noraa was universally townread with her 4 scum partners imploding early, and she proceeding to hard carry them solo for 8 mislaunches in a row. They finally caught her right at the end, but she should consider this a massive personal win. She also wins... a lot: In MafiaSunny, she carried her scumteam to a solo last-Noraa-standing win. In Korean Pop Music, she fearlessly drove the mislaunches and acheived a flawless scum victory. In Never Trust Trees, she achieved another flawless scum victory, being widely townread throughout. At this rate, Noraa will only continue to improve and grow as a player, and her enthusiasm and passion for mafia doesn't seem to be going anywhere. She's a fun and delightfully fluffy player to have around - also bringing wholesomeness and joy to the social side of mafia. A real Rising Star in many aspects.

[Alisae]

btw here's the new paragon banner



Thank Datisi cuz they are a blessed individual.
This is the new banner we'll hand out to our Paragon during the 2020 ceremony

[Ythan]

Nice thanks Dasiti.

[skitter30]

No dc noms this year thus far?

Pedit thanks dats

[Isis]

Noraa nommed Hectic for dc

[skitter30]

Yep post of the year works

Ahhhh i missed that, thanks

[Gloria Cleary]

No dc noms this year thus far?

Pedit thanks dats

Noraa nommed Hectic for dc

Pooky also voted Noraa for Kodak moment for dayvigging Bell.

[Isis]

Paragon
12/23/2020	Isis	Dunnstral	Over the course of 2020 I had a creeping realization that I probably cared what's inside Dunnstral's posts most of the time, because they were probably protown. Dunnstral doesn't really commandeer threads, but is generally able to be a net positive in most of his games. In Wolf Dance (Gentleman5) he had a strong voting record and participated with the town's strong general consensus sort for the game. He used the game's pairing phase proactively and deflected plenty of suspicion from a town-aligned dance partner. In Mini Normal 2153 he had a generally good showing, participating in pushing scum to E1 but toying with the idea of hammering seriously enough that he was N1ed (or doing whatever else it was that got him N1ed). In Team Mafia 2020: White Flag, I remembered him consistently putting out analytical posts that made pushing him largely a nonstarter, until he had to be nightkilled. I didn't remember until working on this writeup that his D1 iso was a flurry of voting every member of the scumteam. The D1 of that game featured dueling wagons on scum D1, but potshotting the third scum not as popular. He was also a skeptic of the major day1 townwagon that characterized that game. Lastly in Mask of Monsters he generally played ok then just kinda sorta broke the secret alt setup by graphing everyone's time zones and identifying the scumteam. To the extent that a wide variety of town WIM and get-it-done should be celebrated, this was something that had a dramatic effect on the game.

[Alisae]

Just in case someone hasn't

Modfather
12/23/20	Alisae	FakeGod	I mean, he's just been the gold standard for moderators for years and he gets nominated every year for good reason. He also mods a lot every year consistently and all of the games are always really well ran. Also his setups are goated. Also he started modding hidden alt games and he's kind of unique for mostly doing that this year. He's modded way more games then I'm providing and I'm sure someone else can do this nom more justice. Game 1 Game 2 Game 3

[Alisae]

Paragon
12/23/2020	Isis	Dunnstral	Over the course of 2020 I had a creeping realization that I probably cared what's inside Dunnstral's posts most of the time, because they were probably protown. Dunnstral doesn't really commandeer threads, but is generally able to be a net positive in most of his games. In Wolf Dance (Gentleman5) he had a strong voting record and participated with the town's strong general consensus sort for the game. He used the game's pairing phase proactively and deflected plenty of suspicion from a town-aligned dance partner. In Mini Normal 2153 he had a generally good showing, participating in pushing scum to E1 but toying with the idea of hammering seriously enough that he was N1ed (or doing whatever else it was that got him N1ed). In Team Mafia 2020: White Flag, I remembered him consistently putting out analytical posts that made pushing him largely a nonstarter, until he had to be nightkilled. I didn't remember until working on this writeup that his D1 iso was a flurry of voting every member of the scumteam. The D1 of that game featured dueling wagons on scum D1, but potshotting the third scum not as popular. He was also a skeptic of the major day1 townwagon that characterized that game. Lastly in Mask of Monsters he generally played ok then just kinda sorta broke the secret alt setup by graphing everyone's time zones and identifying the scumteam. To the extent that a wide variety of town WIM and get-it-done should be celebrated, this was something that had a dramatic effect on the game.

but yeah I'll support this.
Dunn is kinda Eeyore tbh.

[Isis]

GoodFellas
12/23/2020	Isis	Farkran and Chara	Undertale S Open	This was the third iteration of the Undertale themed series of opens. Like every other iteration, I deem it a bit too townsided, a flaw I can forgive myself for as it arises from the difficulties inherent in delivering on the conceit of the setup. The balance of the setup did not particularly matter this time around. Farkran and Chara played in a bizarrely effective manner, with Chara accommodatingly agreeing that the game's consensus townread should receive the game's healing mechanic, and Farkran petulantly opposing that UTR, and opposing Chara, and arguing for pages and pages. Farkran was not eliminated for several phases, for refuge in audacity, but when he flipped and his redflip was shown to the town, the game was over, the idea that Chara and Farkran were aligned with eachother seemed just about unthinkable. The game was heavily flavored, and by some miracle of luck they both had characters that were siblings in the game. I remember having to write sibling scenes into the flavor over and over again because of how the slots kept bussing so much. I know 3+ member scumteams tend to dominate this category, but it was one of the most memorable games I've ever been involved in and seems incredibly deserving of the award to me. It looked natural, but didn't come that naturally to them which makes it all the more impressive. I only didn't nominate it earlier because I could have sworn the game was in 2019. 2020 has been a long year, as we all know.

[mastina]

Paragon of Mafia Hunters
12/23/2020	mastina	Titus	While Titus may have had one or two off-games this year, overall, Titus has stood out as a remarkably, and overall, consistently strong town player who has been critical in several town victories over the course of this year. Her town absolutely crushed Alisae's scumteam in Titus v Alisae. She was crucial in the town victory in Anime UPick Shuffle. While she unfortunately was countered in doing so by the scumteam having literally every power to shut down every aspect of her plan two times over (game was badly scumsided), she developed what should've been a very good plan (absent those OP scum roles) in Seiyuu UPick. Her replacement was one of the factors in the town winning Mini 2159. She was part of the stomp that was Xenoblade 2 Mafia. And she was one of THE driving forces of the town win in MBOS 10, with her logic and mechanical prowess being a crucial factor in the town's coordination between factions and contributing to the win. While she does have some games where she performs less than stellarly, overall, her towngame this year has been remarkably strong, where she's been fairly strongly town, mechanically fairly strong, with reasonable solves and importantly, usually works well with other members of the town in a great many of her games. Her competency this year has, overall, been higher than I've seen from her in any previous year, even if she does have the occasional derp-game and if some players present a weakness in her performance.

[mastina]

Game of the Year
12/23/2020	mastina	schadd_	Mystery Box of Silver 10	This game is genuinely the game that is the highlight of the year for me in all of the games I've played. The game's mechanics were interesting, the playerlist was fantastic, and the game was spectacular. It was genuinely an incredibly fun game that was interesting from start to finish. The game's unique take on the third party role was also brilliant (see below nomination), and overall the game was highly enjoyable. The players were amazing and the synergy was impressive.

Mad Scientist
12/23/2020	mastina	schadd_	Mystery Box of Silver 10	While there were slight, in practice, execution issues with the concept which keep me from nominating the game for 'best setup' and the mechanics of the game were not perfectly balanced, the third party role schadd_ invented was highly unique and interesting. The concept of the Henry P. Jurgenssen Society was, more or less, that of a third party that was actually players in the game (contrasting the 3p that were removed from MBOS5), which would have goals to achieve to get points towards victory. This theoretically-neutral party was highly innovative and inspirational, albeit incentivized to townside in practice.

[mastina]

Also, since I was technically not town (even if I was acting like I was town the entire game), this is technically not a self-nomination and is deserved:

Moment of Brilliance
12/23/2020	mastina	Menalque, NorwegianboyEE, Morning Mage(Morning Tweet + Battle Mage hydra), Almost50, suberbowl9	Mystery Box of Silver 10	While I could just in general say the entire town as a whole was stellar, I felt the need to nominate the players who were the strongest contributors overall. The entire town as a whole, overall, did amazingly well. They coordinated well, townread each other correctly, managed to correctly deduce that the third parties were non-malevolent and that they were genuinely working with the town, and able to coordinate with mechanics and reads a destruction of the scumteam, by and large correctly townreading one another and having a really accurate POE pool.

[Nero Cain]

ummmm....

[Flavor Leaf]

Modfather
12/24/20	Flavor Leaf	The Baker	The Baker showed up only a year and a half ago, and essentially has been modding Large Theme games nonstop once they were given the ability to do so. This year, he modded 3 Large Themes, 2 with 21p, and 1 with 16p. His games all consist of strong flavored Role PM's, strong consistency with creating vote counts, and a bunch of small details within the flavor to help the game feel more lively. He brings the FUN into "Large Over The Top Game Probably Cult and Bastard, but still FUNctions." He has post game awards he does every game, "The Golden Baguette Winner". While his games aren't for everyone, they fill a popular niche that not a lot of mods create, including finding multiple different ways to add a Cult faction. These games are the definition of Theme Park, and you know what to expect from a Baker Level Bastard game: A wild time with strong technical modding. He is one of the only newer mods to play their hand in the Large Theme queue. There are some who might think that only 3 games is not enough for consideration, but when his games last 4 months each, I think it's surprising enough to get 3. Musician Mafia: Guitarist Edition Redneck Mafia Twice Baked Wrestling: Brawl At The Bakery

[Flavor Leaf]

I'll have a few more, but that's one of the ones I really wanted to get out there.

[Kanna]

Modfather
25/12/20	Kanna	Hectic	In the past year, the Silent Star games have become one of the most popular series on the site, with almost every iteration being filled within hours of entering signups. Every game has had its own unique twist and flavour, and, having seen all of them, I can attest to all of them being memorable. It never surprises me to see old players returning for more, or new players inning and overfilling the game, just to get a chance at seeing what the series is like. Silent Star 1: Lunacy is one of my personal favourite games this year, and it involved all townies being given “werewolf” roles and thinking they were scum. The first day was… strange, but by the time the ball dropped on the second day, it allowed for a unique experience where town was able to bond together—not to solve who was (actually) scum, but the setup. Hectic was even cheeky enough to include the key to the mystery in the title. Silent Star 2: Menagerie set itself apart from the beginning with a post restriction where players were only allowed to post in animal-talk. The first day was nothing short of nonsense. When the post restriction was lifted however, everyone was held accountable for their actions, and it turned out scumhunting while being post restricted was also completely viable. The inclusion of a single mafia member who chooses their partner was also a fresh idea. Silent Star 3: Royalty involved a totally bizarre 6:13 distribution, combining conspiracy, dancing, and of course, mafia, into a game. It focused on mafia, despite having strength in numbers, being accountable for their actions. Poor Hopkirk. The best part of Hectic’s setups is the moment near the end when you realise “OH, so that’s what everything was building up to,” and you had the pieces to solve the game all along. The insight into that is what I think makes Hectic such a good game designer. Not only that, but he understands what makes mafia fun, and that is always the focus with the funky mechanics he incorporates. Hectic has also modded a few open games (Death Curse and Kill Switch, most notably) which feature brilliantly fun flavour.

Rising Star
25/12/20	Kanna	Noraa	Noraabear only joined the site in the middle of this year, but has already become a name most people are familiar with. Whether it be through mafia games, discussion boards, or the speakeasy, no place is truly safe from the sunshine that is Nornor. When discussing Tsunami-Noraa, it seems unfitting not to mention Death Curse, where she showed brilliant tenacity in going from a widely scumread player into a widely townread one, secured 8 miselims, and became the last bear standing for her faction. Her postcount? A ridiculous 1500, which just goes to show how hard she worked to get there. She does not play games! As mentioned by other nominators, she also has several perfect scumgames, which shows her strength in playing the scum alignment. She also shows good townplay in Micro 983 where she was the first person to call out previously townread scum and managed to get herself locktowned for it. Unfortunately, I have not had many chances to play with Noraa, but tales of her WIM and good scumplay always reach me, and that just shows she is the most deserving of this title.

Moment of Brilliance
25/12/20	Kanna	Infinity 324	Micro 983 | The Council: Student Council Edition! | The End!	Infinity 324 was really the town hero in this game. On day one, he managed to get himself and two other townies onto the council. On night one, he managed to pin the scumteam and was just playing the WIFOM game to catch them out. On day 2, he unfortunately found out his night actions missed, but stuck by his solve and never once gave into paranoia, which eventually led to a scum concede. Pretty much a perfect game! (Not to mention, this was such a badass moment.)

[Datisi]

Moment of Brilliance
25/12/2020	Datisi	Iconeum	Smuggler's Port	i am not good enough of a writer to do this nom justice. so i'd like to just silently link to FakeGod's post game commentary.

Moment of Brilliance
25/12/2020	Datisi	Billy Pilgrim, bob3141, Iconeum, DkKoba, Andresvmb, hellbooks	Mini Normal 2157: Succulents	when thinking about writing this nom, i thought that maybe 6 people is too many to nominate, but i don't think i can leave any one of them out of this one. in this game, the only town power were three masons, one of which, billy pilgrim, was a tracker. all throughout his time in the game, billy had a scumread on one scum member, while also tracking the scumteam's deepwolf to the kill on night one. (then on day two one of the masons somehow managed to fuck up and not yeet the literal guiltied scum but let's not talk about that.) bob3141 replaced in on day one into a widely scumread slot that scum thought was gonna be a very easy push. unfortunately, due to a smart pt cop fakeclaim from scum which made everyone treat them as town, bob wasn't able to fully salvage his slot, and after a lot of pushing, he ended up getting yeeted on day two. but not before leaving behind a 4-person PoE, which contained all three scum. iconeum, dkkoba, andresvmb, and hellbooks were the townies to enter 7p lylo. with the scum still riding the fakeclaim, and most of the townies still fighting with each other. seeing this from the dead thread, i thought the game was practically over. however, the town managed to dig themselves out of dirt, ignoring the guilty claim from the "pt cop", creating three different 1v1s via votes, yeeting scum two days in a row, and then making the final scum concede on night five.

Goodfellas
25/12/2020	Datisi	Alduskkel & PookyTheMagicalBear	Micro 952 - The Coalition: ItGBSMoD	on day one, there were moments where it seemed like neither scum will make it into the coalition. however, pooky managed to sneak his way in. then on day one and day two, pooky was under constant pressure. both days he was on E-1 shortly before deadline, and both days he managed to get his competing (townie) wagon executed. then on day three, in final five, the town finally managed to pull itself together to get the on-coalition scum executed. of course, it was all in vain, because alduskkel had been distancing from pooky for the whole game so well that by final three, everyone thought aldus was locktown, and day four was only two posts long.

Kodak Moment
25/12/2020	Datisi	bob3141 & Alonzo	Mini Normal 2169: Random Facts	*downs a shot of vodka* so, this game. there was a fake cop guilty (from town on town) that resulted in a speed-yeet on the "guiltied" townie. there was a 3-shot vig that used her first two bullets to shoot town power roles. there were townies lying in massclaim, which resulted in scum!bob3141 being treated as conftown after fakelcaiming town follower. by the time final five rolled around, scum had performed a successful (by that i mean towncred-gaining) bus, bob was still locktowned by all three townies, and nobody had the correct solve. surely, surely this town was beyond saving... right...? alonzo was scanned by a (basically) scum vanilla cop on night one, so scum knew he was not a vt. they tried shooting him on night two, he survived, and later on they pieced together that he was bulletproof. the only odd thing was that, even in lylo, he was still claiming to be a vt... bob fakeclaims a guilty follower result on alonzo. both other townies buy it, and it takes about three hours for a second vote to appear on alonzo. of course, the other scum immediately hammers it, thinking that the game is over. alonzo flips 1-shot bulletproof vengeful. deepwolf!bob immediately eats the venge. the vig uses her last bullet to shoot the last scum, who had just scumclaimed with the quickhammer. town wins.

[Gypyx]

damn, that's the second time mini 2169 was nominated lol

and for the same moment too

[Datisi]

#justiceforbob

[Gypyx]

#more1-shotbulletproofvengefuls

[Infinity 324]

Y’all forgot to mention the best part of it all