This is very true. My very first game on this site was something I considered a very impressive scum win. It was 2 scum and a traitor in a 12 player game. My scum-buddy self-destructed day 1 (but managed to survive until day 4 anyway), the traitor got lynched day 2, and I managed to win in a 5 player endgame with 2 confirmed townies and a "should have been considered confirmed" townie. Then there was the game where Don Johnson and I managed to successfully navigate a 12 player town with 2 cops (1 naive), a deputy, 2 doctors, a tracker and a watcher to win despite having our roleblocker get lynched day 1 and our night 1 kill stopped by a doctor.Yosarian2 wrote:Truth is, the best kind of scum play never gets nominated for anything, because it's so subtle that even after the game is over the town never realizes what happened or why they lost, and the townies usually just come away thinking they played badly.
The kind of scum play that gets nominated for stuff is usually the kind of big, flashy, impressive gambit that's really awe-inspiring and memorable, but scum usually only have to take that kind of risk if they've already screwed up big time.
However, the only game I have been nominated for was our win in Advertising Mafia, and I believe that mostly had to do with our "bus driver" gambit day 1 that got me confirmed as a citizen. In honesty, that was one of my easiest scum games ever, but it was flashy and involved two risky gambits that both paid off ("confirming" me with the bus driver, and then me claiming a fake guilty to get the vig shot needed to win).
Anyway, enough of my ego-stroking... The point I'm going for is that I think Self-Noms are fine. We all have games where we feel like we played spectacularly and deserve recognition for it. Not having anyone else nominate you for a scummy doesn't necessarily mean that you don't deserve it. Not everyone who plays mafia comes to MD or even if they do, they might not be the kind of players who nominate others for a scummy. If your game is deserving, it will be seconded or thirded by others. I don't see this making it any more difficult on the judges, because if the self-nomination isn't worthy, it won't get seconded/thirded and the judges won't end up seeing it anyway.