The Scummies, 2011... Live! (ish)

[zoraster]

So if anyone remembers, I did a little pool to see who could predict results best. I'll do the calculations soon.

[zoraster]

and they're posted here: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=21701

for what it's worth, I finished with 3 points.

[zoraster]

Anyone who actually judged Best Mechanic willing to PM me? I'm looking for closure, so you know this will be fun.

[zoraster]

Magua won that category I thought? Not that marketplace mafia wasn't cool. But Team Mafia deserved to win; there is no doubt in my mind. I'm still upset that it did not, but I don't think hashing it out in public is really the right call. I have no desire to take anything away from another talented mod, which is what it could comes across as in this thread -- thus the request for a PM conversation.

As for psychic mafia winning, it was the town that won that, not the actual game. And given that the town steam rolled a fairly well thought of group of guys, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they won there.

[zoraster]

but then my name will be known! Ahhhh! Or... wait. I think I revealed it when I was drunk and MS was out.

[zoraster]

Magua won that category I thought? Not that marketplace mafia wasn't cool. But Team Mafia deserved to win; there is no doubt in my mind. I'm still upset that it did not, but I don't think hashing it out in public is really the right call. I have no desire to take anything away from another talented mod, which is what it could comes across as in this thread -- thus the request for a PM conversation.

As for psychic mafia winning, it was the town that won that, not the actual game. And given that the town steam rolled a fairly well thought of group of guys, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they won there.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I was outnumbered.

Thanks, Amrun. But I'm not so much looking to blame individual people -- Judging isn't easy -- as I am to chat to try and gain understanding at the reasoning. I've been nominated before. This is the only time I've been upset by not winning.

[zoraster]

Others argued that it wasn't really a new "mechanic," just kind of like an out-of-game hydra. They said it didn't inherently change the way the game was played, in the thread, and I just ... well, totally disagreed.

That would be a fundamental misunderstanding of Team Mafia, and an appallingly narrow vision of what a mechanic is, but thank you.

[zoraster]

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to say that Magua was a deserving winner, but shouldn't have won. To "deserve" it is a matter of being worthy of an award in abstract. And I think marketplace mafia meets that standard. It may not have been innovative in its overarching theme -- Trader Mafia and others certainly used somewhat similar mechanics -- but it may have been done it the best. And I think we risk incentivizing the wrong behavior if we overvalue NEW NEW NEW at the entire expense of something that is evolutionary and well executed.

And so when you say something is "deserving" of an award in the abstract, you can still say that in the particular competition between different games, it should not have won.

It's a way of saying, in other words, that we don't need to drag down one game in order to elevate another. I certainly don't begrudge Magua winning an award even if I think our game should have won it instead.

In any event, no sense crying over spilled milk. The judges have a tough job.

[zoraster]

omg

arguing about fake internet awards

ON THE INTERNET

such a big deal

who really cares

1. Aren't you the one who was arguing about what your title was?

2. Pulling out the "it's the internet! stop taking it so seriously!" thing in an internet community rings really hollow, and damages the community itself. We take mafia and our community seriously. I see nothing wrong with that.

3. You have 13,000 posts here.

4. It makes it feel particularly aggressive when you yourself HAVE one of those awards.

[zoraster]

Wow. Surprisingly clever.

[zoraster]

Also, as it turns out, it was the half-way scummy judges who made the decision that concerns my games. So it wasn't Team Mafia vs. Marketplace Mafia. It was Team Mafia vs. Cyclic Mafia (and my In the Court of the Gods for that matter) and then Cyclic Mafia vs. Marketplace Mafia because the halfway judges picked Cyclic.

The end of year Judges probably got it right then. It was the mid-way judges who made a mistake.

--
And to answer your question, Vi. I don't think that's a good way to go unless we really want to change the scummies into something very, very different.

[zoraster]

So I sent my reply via PM to LLD as I don't want this to become some sort of public back and forth, and I have nothing against LLD in particular. But I am curious as I've heard the hydra thing a few times, and I think that's pretty far off the mark. But I may not be in the best place to analyze that as its creator, and this view is held pretty tightly by the judges I've spoken to. So I admit I may be wrong in the way I look at it.

So to those who did play last time, did you feel that Team Mafia was just like playing four hydras in four games or did you feel that you were playing your own game with your team there to help augment your own play through strategy, reads, etc. and that your teammates were playing their own games where you could help augment their play through strategy, reads, etc.?

If the former, do you think that's something that should or can be addressed?

[zoraster]

I agree with you, obviously. But to be fair, the scoring system in the first version was much simpler. Each game pretty much had four options: major mafia win, minor mafia win, minor town win, major town win. As a result, there was a lot of tying. We did that on purpose, but in the end we decided to go a different direction with it this year to avoid ties where the judges have to make a determination.

[zoraster]

well, i assume you account for it to some degree, but it's not the same. A game I design and moderate backed up and reviewed by hitogoroshi will be different from a game hitogoroshi designs and moderates that I back up and review and that's different from a game that we co-mod. Does that make sense? the person who is responsible and actually does the action makes the largest impact on what goes on. Certainly it gets changed by those behind that person providing advice, etc. but that's a fundamentally different thing than if it's two people posting from the same account.

[zoraster]

The intent of the mechanic was to put people in situations where they were put together with friends, had pressure put on them individually to perform so they didn't let their team down, helped other teammates with their games, and compete in a different way. It was also to try to provide something that tied the community together with a major event. Consider that that was the game that mith played in last year. It was meant to be a focal point that had people strive to do things with other people in an increasingly acrimonious place. And that's why it was ultimately successful. It was ambitious in a completely different way than Strategy Mafia* was. But it still was intended to be something more than just a casual throw down of some hydras.


*I'll admit when I first started drafting Strategy Mafia I hoped it'd get some scummy love, but it was a flawed mechanic. Not tragically so -- people still had fun and it still worked after a fashion. But it was too flawed to really be a true success. There were a few easy things that could be done to fix that if a second iteration ever came around, but as it stood, it was an incredibly ambitious game that only half-worked... though you did get one of the coolest roles I've ever created, LLD. I kind of wish I had been nominated for that role.

PS. I totally should have been nominated for funniest poster for Storm of Swords. Just saying: I was hilarious.

[zoraster]

hahaha well of the things that were wrong, the fact you had the odds seriously stacked against you was the least of my concern

[zoraster]

I think valuing "new" over all else is a mistake, even when it comes to best mechanic. I'd pick Magua's marketplace mafia over Cyclic 1 because though it may not have been the first time the concept has been tried it did it the best. It had the benefit of the games that came before it to iron out many of the problems, but that doesn't change the fact that it did it the best of any of the attempts.

As for Team Mafia being a great competition, well... that's what it was designed to be. That was the mechanic's goal. To the extent a mechanic has both an ambitious goal and succeeds are reaching it, it seems to be pretty successful.

And I grow a little weary of people who seem to think that thinking of the idea and figuring out a way to execute it was somehow child's play. Like "oh, well anybody could have had that idea."

[zoraster]

It's not like anyone has come in here and cried "I WAS ROBBED ITS A POPULARITY CONTEST" blah blah blah.

crud. now I feel like I can't use my conspiracy theory I was saving up! thanks a lot.

[zoraster]

what? Is magua not popular? I'm a huge Magua fan.

[zoraster]

You need a little gif that takes your name and then slowly rotates the u into an n or vice versa.

[zoraster]

are we really having discussion about awards that already went out and can't change? really?

Yep. And this is why the judges don't usually discuss what happened during judging.

Also, it seems the/a problem here is that Team Mafia was facing more innovative Mechanics, when its real strength was how Enjoyable it was. Did it get nominated for the other category? I'm posting from my phone and can't easily check.

to be fair, that's why i went via PM at first.

anyway, as nothing like it had been done before, I wouldn't call it less innovative than the others. Innovation and complexity are

not

the same thing, and I think we do a disservice when we pretend they are. But regardless, it was not nominated for any other category (town of psychic was nominated and reck won his body of work award in no small part because of his performance there, but team mafia as a whole was not). I think smooth operator and enjoyable game are both categories it could have been nominated for, and some argument for best setup could be made (though I think that would be a big stretch of the term "setup").

But I think mechanic still fits it best because the

idea

of it and the execution of that idea are the things that really deserved recognition, not just how the game was run smoothly and players had fun (plus, 52+ players receiving a single scummy is probably not ideal).

---

And I think it's not a bad thing to analyze the scummies. These are community awards. How we understand them as a community makes a difference.

[zoraster]

Is now a bad time to mention I'm a bit sad that my replacement as

Best New Player

is no longer on MS?

i'm not sure what you mean by your replacement as best new player.

[zoraster]

i know that still being active isn't technically a requirement of the scummies, but it is interesting that he was chosen. i don't know much about him or his play though.

[zoraster]

cool. just a little unfortunate. maybe someone should PM him to see if he wants to play on their team for team mafia.