We're going to do something a bit different this year.
First, fill out the nominations as usual - there are slightly fewer categories to make this a bit easier. Then the top few nominees from each category will be voted on privately. As well as sending in your votes, we also want your stories from the year: game swinging moments, incredible escapes, the red-handed catch, funny claims, or graceful defeat. The winners will then be revealed in a podcast/stream, along with discussion of the year at and telling of your stories.
In order to make this a success, we need maximum community particiption. Every nomination, every vote, every story will count, and help make the celebration of 2017 on MTGS memorable. If anyone is keen to help the podcast either through hosting, or behind the scenes technical help/organising/number crunching should get in touch with me ASAP.
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual)
Best Mafia Performance (Individual)
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual)
Best Town Performance (Group)
Best Mafia Performance (Group)
Worst Town Performance (Group)
Worst Mafia Performance (Group)
Best Town Player
Best Mafia Player
Best Overall Player
Best Newcomer
Most Entertaining Player
Most Improved Player
Mod Awards:
Best Design
Best Flavor
Best Role
Best Read
Game of the Year
I mean, we had seen a similar trend with town wins up until this year. I don't think it's necessarily the setups that are the issue so much as the scum are just outplaying the town.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
On the topic of a high number of mafia wins I'd say we had a large number of games where talented players rolled scum. Overwatch, JPA2, and Mistborn all had very strong scum teams. I think a lot of that is randomness. I also think some it is to do with an influx of new players, such as myself, who took some time to adjust to play here. I was completely useless as a townie trying to read anything for at least my first 3 games. I could get town read by others, but my own reads were largely unreliable. And throwing a moderate to large number of players like that into a new meta, while rolling strong scum teams is going to lead to some town losses.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual): DV, Disinheritance
Played an incredibly pure game, stopped a kill, and overall was instrumental in ensuring town won the game. (Honorable mention here goes to Tomsloger for being right there with him this game)
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Quixotic (Voxxicus), Mistborn
Replaced in, orchestrated a nearly perfect scum v scum dichotomy and played for a win cleanly in an otherwise rough situation. Even though I figured him out in the end, it didn't matter, and there wasn't a moment where I didn't wish that he was town.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV, Overwatch
Counter flavor claimed both Town and scum on day 1 and drew both a vig and jail target on night 1, and still managed to win on Night 2.
Best Town Performance (Group): Disinheritance
Town played incredibly well, worked through some infighting and eventually collectively rolled our eyes in spec chat as Megs slow rolled the town win.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Avalon
They collectively managed to lead town astray at every turn, and pushed all the right angles to snatch up a victory from a very near town comeback.
Worst Town Performance (Group): Dark and Stormy Night
We unfortunately dissolved into infighting and just never got it together enough to pull out the win.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution Mafia
They collapsed upon themselves and after Hunt and Tom both died day one, there wasn't anything really to be done to salvage it.
Best Town Player: Vaimes
Despite there being no really flashy town players this year he showed his continued consistence and resilience that forces an answer from scum teams.
Best Mafia Player: Tomsloger
Master manipulator, skilled at subterfuge, and high level scum play. Even when he's caught he knows how to get it done.
Best Overall Player: Cantripmancer
Every game he played this year was theatrical. His style and play is like watching a symphony, and I enjoy playing alongside him regardless of alignments.
Best Newcomer: TheRealStinkyJoeTerry
He burns hot but shows that he cares and plays either alignment completely genuinely.
Most Entertaining Player: Rodemy
Every darn time I think I've seen it all, Rodemy says "hold my beer" and does something slapstick, ridiculous, and generally eyerolling. Any game with Rodemy will always be a treat.
Most Improved Player: Osieorb
Even though he's also technically a new player this year, he's made leaps and bounds of progress from that fateful Avalon game that brought new meaning to the word "Flail"
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Iso
I could just say "literal role genie" and mic drop, but this game had so much more. The way the horsemen abilities were set to be randomized was well done, and each role in and of itself was clever and creative and definitely made this high power game unique and awesome.
Best Flavor: Silence of the Lambs, Cantripmancer
It's the vote counts that push this over the edge; creepy, erie, and different from the monotony of the norm.
Best Role: Scum Jailer (Overwatch), Brinatoo
It was a flavorful and incredibly unique take on how a jailer role works. It had chats, it had a scumchat posting restriction, and it had possible execution, what's not to love.
Best Read: Overwatch, Brinatoo
It was a wild ride, flavor counter claims, scum being "mechanically clear", a townie fake counter claiming a town doc, and everything else you could hope for.
Game of the Year: Disinheritance, Azreal
A great game with some great plays on both sides. There was a high density of good and solid play from many players, and the design was very good.On the subject of a majority of scum wins, I'd say we shouldn't be aiming for 50/50 win rate, but balanced games, which I think we had. This year had a high percentage of games where the scum teams were very good or the town play was lacking, and that's okay.
Haven't played in a ton of games this year, but I'd give a nod to the town as a group in revolution mafia, which knocked off two scum on day one, and picked off #3 by day 3. Everyone covered well for one another's weaknesses, utilized both roles and behavior effectively and cooperatively, and closed it out nice and quick.
I know Iso despised it, but I *loved* the lockhimup gif that Proph launched in Disinheritance. Proph was one of the games' "spec ops" roles. He had the ability to post in a publicly viewable "spectator" thread that the the public players could see, and he was assigned an alignment (town). As a townie spectator, he not only nailed the scum with extraordinary accuracy, but succeeded notably (such as with the lockhimup gif) in getting key members of the scum pressured and lynched, all without a vote of his own.
He also went out in a fairly amusing fashion. One of the mafia's countermeasures to the information the town gained from having the spec ops guys was an ability called sudden death, which did this:
All spec ops players have gained the ability to vote for one another. Whenever a spec ops players voters for another spec ops player in Sudden Death, votes more than once in the same post, double-posts, or votes more than once each hour, they will be eliminated from the game.
These conditions will take effect immediately after a moderator arrives on scene and announces the initiation of sudden death, but the rules will not be publicly revealed until one half hour after the moderator announcement. Sudden death will continue until only a single spec ops player remains. The last non-voting spec ops player standing will enter the primary game with their current alignment, no abilities, and five empowerment.
Proph, as the most active spectator, was a favorite to wind up entering the main game via this ability. Moments after sudden death began, he was watching the game like a hawk, picking his moment to strike. No one else online and active.
Quote from Azrael »
SUDDEN DEATH HAS BEEN ACTIVATED.
Rules will be posted in exactly one half hour. In the meantime, Sudden Death is currently in effect.
He'd been waiting to get into the main game. Working really hard. Things were looking good. His moment had come. All he had to do, was survive one half hour for the rules to be posted...
Voxxicus has been killed. He was mafia. Megiddo has won sudden death and enters the primary game.
And then there was this ability, probably my favorite role, ever:
1-Quick Draw -
During the day, you may activate Quick Draw, targeting yourself and another player. The moderator will choose a time to begin quick draw, within two hours of opening the Quick Draw PM. The rules of Quick Draw are that the first player to be voted for by the other player after a Quick Draw is declared by the mod and the rules of Quick Draw are publicly posted by the mod, will be daykilled. Only one Quick Draw may be activated per day.
Every time it was activated, I was on the edge of my seat to see who would manage to race to get to the thread first. And it got used a TON, by the scum player who received it, before the town took him down. That reduced the town's mislynch threshold to a bare minimum. They had to lynch correctly four out of seven times to win. But, with solid town play, that's exactly what they did. Tom and DV led the town throughout and consistently identified scum, Proph had a huge impact on the game despite having no vote, and Axelrod's end-game analysis sealed the deal. Was a fantastic game to watch play out. Also a great example of smart townie ability management.
I'm just going to go off of what I saw, for the most part.
Best Town Performance (Individual): DoTArchon, Russian Roulette. He may have shot me, but it was his choices that led the town to victory.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Shadowlancerx, Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Shadow played a fantastic scumgame. Few suspected him, everybody paid the price.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): N/A, for me.
Best Town Performance (Group): Revolution Mafia. Losing Town members relatively 1 for 1 is impressive.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Avalon Mafia. Town was led in circles by their noses.
Worst Town Performance (Group): Maelstrom of Alara (Uggh). D_V just wasn't scum. Period. End of story.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): It would be easy to say Revolution, but I think it's better to say Maelstrom of Alara. While the mafia mostly were succeeding at their goal, it was one of the most disgusting lines of play I've seen, and it didn't feel like a good game of Mafia. There was a decent chance that town was going to take over that game, too.
Best Town Player: Silvercrys3467 - Good analysis, good posts. All around good guy. I don't think I've seen him roll scum yet, and if he can pull off looking the same, he will be fantastic. Everyone who's seen him do so says he can't, though.
Best Mafia Player: Tomsloger. If Tom is in a game, he is probably scum. And nobody will be certain about it. Tom rarely slips, and often is easily able to play off slips as normal play. OTG III was insane, with Tom bringing the game down to the wire, then dropping his gimmick and playing it off as normal.
Best Overall Player: Vaimes - Vaimes made the worst of games worth playing. No matter his alignment, Vaimes pushed himself and everyone else to be a better player. Vaimes for MVP of 2017.
Best Newcomer: Reaverb Tau. He performed fantastically in Dark and Stormy. If I wasn't specifically reconsidering him, I never would have thought that he was scum.
Most Entertaining Player: Shadowlancerx - Whether if I was town against Shadow, town with Shadow, or scum against Shadow, I always had fun playing with him in the game.
Most Improved Player: Killjoy. Killjoy has been always putting his all into improving as a player, and it shows. While there is still room to grow, his analyses have gotten better and his general attitude is positive.
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Horsemen of the Apocalypse - The setup was fantastic, and the roles interplayed nicely.
Best Flavor: Revolution Mafia - I very much enjoyed the humor interspersed throughout this setup.
Best Role: I liked most if not all of the roles in Revolution…
Best Read: Megiddo's Biceps Mafia.
Game of the Year: Revolution Mafia
Honorary Mention:
Best Player used as a Descriptor: Kpaca
I appreciate the nominations for Best Design! I worked long and hard on the roles, flavor, and mechanics, and wanted a game that was simultaneously challenging and fun that pushed the limits of role design.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Best Town Performance (Group)
Maelstrom of Alara, they lynched me day one and got me out of that hellish game.
But really, I think it was Disinheritance, we probably should have lynched Wildfire a lot sooner after his chain shots but other than that the town played really well.
I actually think honorable mention for me here was the Horseman of the Apocalypse town, they killed two mafia day one lynched the third by day 3 and honestly we might have won the game despite one of the mafia basically having SK powers in that game if I hadn't thrown.
Best Mafia Performance (Group)
A lot of mafia wins this year. I'd actually say Overwatch is my nomination here. Cantrip and Shadow managed to get win with them losing their partner on day one.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual)
Shadowlancer in Horseman. Fooled Tom hard and then that fooled me by the end of the game.
Best Town Performance (Individual)
Tom Disinheritance Tom had all of the scum figured out after we talked while I had a soft spot for Cythare.
Worst Town Performance (Group)
I really don't know if its even fair to nominate Maelstorm of Alara here. Overwatch comes to mind as the other one to nominate here. I as the neutral was the only reason for the scum lynch.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group)
Uhhh Horseman. Two scum day one is terrible play as a group period if it wasn't for Shadow then the game would have been a straight wash.
Best Town Player
Azreal, his play overall is insane and when ever I watch him play the ability to find scum as consistently as he does is something to be said for.
Most Entertaining Player
Proph, memes are entertaining as all hell.
Most Improved Player
Shadow continues to improve and impress.
Mod Awards:
Best Design
Disinheritance hands down the best game I've played in years and partially because of the player base but I also think that a really well designed game leads to better games. Who would have thunk that.
Best Read
Russian Roulette that game was hilarious.
Game of the Year
Disinheritance again the love that went into this game really showed and the game played out really well. I think anyone could be really proud of how this game turned out, but damn did this game play out in an amazing way.
That, or you can hang around for another one of Azrael's surprises. Much like this one.
Waiting, always waiting. Never posting, and (almost) never voting. Was the wait worth it? You tell me.
Goodnight, sunshine.
Vote Axelrod Vote Axelrod Vote Axelrod.
Xyre was not actually a living player in the game. For those not in the know, the above is just about a word for word copy of the post that caused to Axel to lose Sin City Mafia, about thirteen years ago. In Sin City, only two players remained on the living player list at the start of the final day, leading to much bafflement, confusion, and hysteria, until a hidden player suddenly appeared and voted...and infamously lost the game for the town. Which Axel still hasn't forgiven me for. Xyre decided to fake being a hidden multi-voter in Disinheritance with Axel as one of the three surviving players left in endgame, because it was just too evil for him to resist after I did a call-back to the classic Sin City scene for the start of day flavor.
Best Town Performance (Individual): askthepizzaguy, low fantasy. Replaced in and was killed the next night. Single most valuable day I've ever seen anyone play. If the doc wasn't already dead I'm convinced he would have won the game.
Honorable Mention: DV, disinheritance
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): regfan, jpa2. Just snowed basically everyone. Especially me. Might be too close to this.
HM shadow in horsemen
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual)
Best Town Performance (Group): disinheritance. The towncore. The moments. The memes. Scum didn't even play bad.
HM to megiddos biceps.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): low fantasy. Managed a win against a strong town. Think we did everything right. All members played well, night actions were near perfect. Better to be lucky AND good
Worst Town Performance (Group): maelstrom I guess
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): revolution. When bussing goes wrong. I don't want to talk about it.
Best Town Player: silver always impressive
Best Mafia Player: shadow nothing but solid games all year
Best Overall Player: shadow great scum play. More than passable town play
Best Newcomer: joeterry
Most Entertaining Player: prophylaxis (lockhimup.gif)
Most Improved Player: dotarchon made the leap
Mod Awards:
Best Design: iso, horsemen
Best Flavor: wheatgrinder, jpa2
Best Role: the phantom lynch mafia ability in megiddos biceps
Best Read: jpa2. The flavor, the player quality, vaimes and Newcomb figuring out I was roleplaying voxx, Reg's mastery. Lot to see.
Game of the Year: disinheritance. Well designed. Well played on both sides. Splashy, exciting, memorable.
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual): AskThePizzaGuy in Low fantasy. Echoing everything tom said. He came in and completely shook the game up.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Reaverb Tau dark and stormy. This was the hardest category on the board in my opinion with some awesome performances throughout the year (Shadow in Overwatch and Silence was excellent, Regfan in JPA2, Voxxicus as Quixotic in Mistborn, and Rhand there as well) but Reaverb carrying me and completely snowing AskThePizzaGuy who otherwise had almost completely solved the game was incredibly impressive. I may be too close to this one, but it was an excellent performance.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV Overwatch (were there other 3rd parties?) even if there were this was an awesome play and his flavor counter claim gambit was awesome.
Best Town Performance (Group): Disinheritance DV and Tom's use of the secret chats in the thread was beyond delightful to read and the town just played an excellent game. Axelrod was a rock. Meg and Proph both had an awesome assist from the spec chat and a bunch of people just put in a ton of effort.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Mistborn (easiest category on the board) The scum team played a lights out game and deserves a ton of credit. Rhand and Voxx as Quixotic were awesome and Mindreaver gave a great grind it out despite being miserable and caught performance. Complete and balanced team effort and really high quality play.
Worst Town Performance (Group): Overwatch When you lynch your roleblocker because his role conflicts with a proven jailor and the RB flips town you should probably lynch the jailor...
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution Two dead on D1 and I replaced in and did basically nothing to try and save it as the last scum. Too little fight by me and too much getting caught before that.
Best Town Player: Vaimes this is a hard category but Vaimes skill at building town blocks and rarely being wrong once he lets someone in is a style I really like. He's rarely mislynched and fights like hell to stay alive.
Best Mafia Player: Shadow
Best Overall Player: Shadow Shadow had a crazy year. Shares the load to carry with Silver in overwatch, carries 4 horsemen, and then carries in Silence of the Lambs. While putting in a couple of respectable showings as town in the meantime (he was very solid in Mistborn).
Best Newcomer: Regfan if he qualifies, otherwise AskThePizzaGuy if he qualifies
Most Entertaining Player: Tomsloger
Most Improved Player: Abstain
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Disinheritance
Best Flavor: Disinheritance
Best Role:
16. SirCrimsonFox
Name: Special Agent Moira Esperanza
Alignment: Mafia
Dossier: An experienced, senior field agent within the Earth Authority Internal Affairs division. Known for extremely quick reflexes, and leadership skills. Senior agent in the effort to investigate and unravel the Inheritance project, whatever it may be.
Cover Identity: Sent by the higher ups within the rebel hierarchy, your credentials identify you as the ranking member of the Inheritance effort. However, your orders are ostensibly to observe, field test, and report back on the results - not to manage the progress of the R&D.
0-Target player gains 1 empowerment, and gains this ability. You lose this ability. You may not self-target.
1- Target a player. If you correctly guess that player's current empowerment score, that player loses half their empowerments, rounded down. This ability is effective prior to the use of any abilities during the night, and if a player falls below the required number of empowerments for a chosen ability, their chosen ability will fizzle. This ability cannot subtract permanent empowerments, but considers permanent empowerments for purposes of calculating a player's empowerment scores.
1-Quick Draw -
During the day, you may activate Quick Draw, targeting yourself and another player. The moderator will choose a time to begin quick draw, within two hours of opening the Quick Draw PM. The rules of Quick Draw are that the first player to be voted for by the other player after a Quick Draw is declared by the mod and the rules of Quick Draw are publicly posted by the mod, will be daykilled. Only one Quick Draw may be activated per day.
1- Sudden Death
During the day, you may PM a moderator to activate Sudden Death v1. All non-voting spectators gain the ability to post and to vote one another. Whenever a non-voting player is voted for in sudden death, votes more than once in the same post, double-posts, or votes more than once each hour, they will be eliminated from the game.
These conditions will take effect immediately after a moderator arrives on scene and announces the initiation of sudden death, but the rules will not be publicly revealed until one half hour after the moderator announcement. Sudden death will continue until only a single non-voting player remains. The last non-voting player standing will enter the primary game with their current alignment, and five empowerment.
-----
Sudden Death
All spec ops players have gained the ability to vote for one another. Whenever a spec ops players voters for another spec ops player in Sudden Death, votes more than once in the same post, double-posts, or votes more than once each hour, they will be eliminated from the game.
These conditions will take effect immediately after a moderator arrives on scene and announces the initiation of sudden death, but the rules will not be publicly revealed until one half hour after the moderator announcement. Sudden death will continue until only a single spec ops player remains. The last non-voting spec ops player standing will enter the primary game with their current alignment, no abilities, and five empowerment.
Best Read: Silence of the Lambs is pretty back and forth and features a decent town comeback. It's also more manageable as a read than disinheritance since you don't have to cross reference with the spec chat thread.
Game of the Year: Disinheritance Hands down the highest quality of play all year. Both sides were excellent and it was thrilling and down to the wire. Plus lockhimup.gif
That, or you can hang around for another one of Azrael's surprises. Much like this one.
Waiting, always waiting. Never posting, and (almost) never voting. Was the wait worth it? You tell me.
Goodnight, sunshine.
Vote Axelrod Vote Axelrod Vote Axelrod.
Xyre was not actually a living player in the game. For those not in the know, the above is just about a word for word copy of the post that caused to Axel to lose Sin City Mafia, about thirteen years ago. In Sin City, only two players remained on the living player list at the start of the final day, leading to much bafflement, confusion, and hysteria, until a hidden player suddenly appeared and voted...and infamously lost the game for the town. Which Axel still hasn't forgiven me for. Xyre decided to fake being a hidden multi-voter in Disinheritance with Axel as one of the three surviving players left in endgame, because it was just too evil for him to resist after I did a call-back to the classic Sin City scene for the start of day flavor.
I have no idea what this is you speak of.
And I didn't play enough last year (just Disinheritance?) to really vote for anyone/game. Maybe I can play more this year. We'll see....
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
Is it proper for me to vote based off of only the games I've played in or should I abstain if I didn't follow enough?
We're just nominating right now I believe, so if someone/somegame hasn't been nominated for a category that you think they/it should be up for, or if it has been and you just want to swap stories/add to the nomination/convince people on the fence about it, feel free to write stuff!
To be perfectly honest, though I've read every game this year, I only actually remember a handful of them.
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance AskThePizzaGuy (Dark/Stormy Night)
Best Mafia Performance: Reaverb Tau (Dark/Stormy Night)
Best 3rd Party Performance: -
Best Town Performance: -
Best Mafia Performance: -
Worst Town Performance: -
Worst Mafia Performance: -
Best Town Player: AskThePizzaGuy (he made good cases in Dark/Stormy Night)
Best Mafia Player: tomsloger (Low Fantasy)
Best Overall Player: shadowlancerx (maf in Low Fantasy and town in Dark/Stormy Night)
Best Newcomer: Kabazame (Low Fantasy impressed me for his experience)
Most Entertaining Player: Prophylaxis (escaped lynch in Silence of the Lambs)
Most Improved Player: Grapefrui21 (big leaps in the quick skimming I did. the scum play in Dark/Stormy Night was impressive too!)
Mod Awards:
Best Design: -
Best Flavor: -
Best Role: -
Best Read: -
Game of the Year: -
some gaps are fine, right?
I only read Dark/Stormy Night and Low Fantasy, with some of Silence of the Lambs. Disinheritence flavor scared me away lol (so much reading).
slightly prefer Low Fantasy over Dark/Stormy Night for overall maf performance. the ending of Dark/Stormy Night was interesting, with how Killjoy played along. Silence of the Lambs had some personal favs and might go in Best Read, but I don't remember reading it properly... maybe Dark/Stormy Night for best read, since it is only 19 pages. from the flavor efforts, I might put Disinheritance in Game of the Year.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I still remember the days I prayed for the things I have now.
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual): AskthePizzaGuy had me crapping my pants as scum in Low Fantasy
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): ShadowlancerX played really well and rolled his dream role in Silence of the Lambs
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): NA
Best Town Performance (Group): Mafia won all the games I played in but Russian roulette and I was scum and town got lucky with their shots, so no vote.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Silence of the Lambs Mistborn was good, but there were a lot of issues with that game, so I went SOL
Worst Town Performance (Group):
Worst Mafia Performance (Group):
Best Town Player: Askthepizzaguy
Best Mafia Player: Shadowlancer
Best Overall Player: Shadowlancer
Best Newcomer: Not sure who qualifies, since I'm new too
Most Entertaining Player:
Most Improved Player: No measuring stick
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Low Fantasy Felt the most balanced
Best Flavor: Silence of the Lambs
Best Role: Bur, Kelsier, Town Desperado from Mistborn
Best Read: Silence of the Lambs
Game of the Year: Silence of the Lambs
SJT Eligible Games (Completed in 2017)
[Normal] Low Fantasy (Ecophagy) Mafia Win
[Micro] Russian Roulette (tomsloger) Town Win
[Mini] Silence of the Lambs (Cantripmancer) Mafia Win
[Normal] Mistborn Mafia (Prophylaxis) Mafia Win
[Mini] Avalon Mafia (Iso) Mafia Win
Best Town Performance (Individual): Askthepizzaguy, Low Fantasy/Dark and Stormy Night. He brings a level of investment and clarity/engagement that is very much not like our subforum. Had two absolutely stellar town games that both went wrong for reasons ultimately outside of his control. Fully invested Pizza is a force to be reckoned with; if he had better teammates/people to bounce reads off of, no doubt that he wins the two games listed.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Regfan really put in a lot of solid work in the JPA2 game, fooling a lot of smart townies to get the victory. Also just love his playstyle IMO, shame that his only game in here had to be a scum one.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV in Overwatch I guess, for being the only qualifier here.
Best Town Performance (Group): Tie between Disinheritance and Revolution for me. Revolution was more of a "scum got butchered" game though while Disinheritance was much more of a game, so I think I'd give it to that one.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): shadow/Cantripmancer in Overwatch pulled out the miracle scum win after being down a teammate Day 1. Spectacular play IMO.
Worst Town Performance (Group): I'll self-nominate Avalon for me disappearing as the most crucial town role in the game, Merlin. Just wasn't a fun game for me at all personally, but I really did not have fun playing that role and I really should have requested replacement sooner.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution Mafia for getting butchered D1/D2. Feel bad for Grape though, he was put in an impossible spot.
Best Town Player: Very impressed with Askthepizzaguy this year. Runner up, probably Vaimes or Grapefruit. Been impressed with Grape's play this year, his win record doesn't reflect how well he plays IMO.
Best Mafia Player: tomsloger. Just a master of creating doubt.
Best Overall Player: tomsloger/shadow for me this year probably? Both have played in a lot of games this year as both alignments and have played great IMO.
Best Newcomer: Grapefruit21. Also was impressed with RE's play in Silence tbh.
Most Entertaining Player: Megiddo I guess? For DEATH OF THE SMITHS
Most Improved Player: JoeTerry/Grapefruit probably.
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Disinheritance, loved the design in that game. Also really liked Low Fantasy.
Best Flavor: Low Fantasy/Silence of the Lambs.
Best Role: I'll join the chorus and say Wildfire's role from Disinheritance.
Best Read: JPA Mafia, had so many great players like Nacho/Regfan/Newcomb/tomsloger/Pozzai.
I know Iso despised it, but I *loved* the lockhimup gif that Proph launched in Disinheritance. Proph was one of the games' "spec ops" roles. He had the ability to post in a publicly viewable "spectator" thread that the the public players could see, and he was assigned an alignment (town). As a townie spectator, he not only nailed the scum with extraordinary accuracy, but succeeded notably (such as with the lockhimup gif) in getting key members of the scum pressured and lynched, all without a vote of his own.
Thanks for mentioning that moment! You have no idea how much I wanted to be in the main game, heh. (Honestly no idea why I didn't /in the game in the first place, probably too many ongoing games).
I just got way too hyped from Vaimes flipping scum.
Best Town Performance (Individual)
DV, Disinheitance - I
DoTArchon, Russian Roulette - I
Tom, Disinheritance - I
Askthepizzaguy, Low Fantasy - IIII
Askthepizzaguy, Dark and Stormy Night - I
Best Mafia Performance (Individual)
Quixotic (Voxxicus), Mistborn - I
Shadowlancerx, Horsemen of the Apocalypse - II
regfan, jpa2 - II
Reaverb Tau - II
Shadowlancerx, Silence of the Lambs - I
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual)
DV, Overwatch - III
Best Town Performance (Group)
Disinheritance - IIIII
Revolution Mafia - I
Best Mafia Performance (Group)
Avalon - II
Overwatch - II
Low Fantasy - I
Mistborn - I
Silence of the Lambs - I
Worst Town Performance (Group)
Dark and Stormy Night - I
Maelstrom of Alara - II
Overwatch - II
Avalon - I
Worst Mafia Performance (Group)
Revolution Mafia - III
Maelstrom of Alara - II
Horseman - I
Best Town Player
Vaimes - II
Silvercrys3467 - II
Azrael - I
Askthepizzaguy - III
Best Mafia Player
Tomsloger - IIII
shadowlancerx - III
Best Overall Player
Cantripmancer - I
Vaimes - I
shadowlancerx - IIII
Best Newcomer
TheRealStinkyJoeTerry - II
Reaverb Tau - I
Regfan - I
Kabazame - I
Grapefruit21 - I
Most Entertaining Player
Rodemy - I
Shadowlancerx - I
Prophylaxis - III
tomsloger - I
Megiddo - I
Most Improved Player
Osieorb - I
Killjoy - I
shadowlancerx - I
DoTArchon - I
Grapefruit21 - II
JoeTerry - I
Mod Awards:
Best Design
Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Iso - III
Disinheritance - III
Low Fantasy - I
Best Flavor
Silence of the Lambs, Cantripmancer - III
Revolution, Bur - I
JPR2, Wheat_Grinder - I
Disinheritance - I
Low Fantasy - I
Best Role
Scum Jailer (Overwatch), Brinatoo - I
Revolution - I
phantom lynch mafia ability in megiddos biceps - I
Kelsier, Town Desperado (Mistborn) - I
Wildfire's Role (Disinheritance) - II
Best Read
Overwatch, Brinatoo - I
Megiddo's Biceps Mafia - I
Russian Roulette - I
jpa2 - II
Silence of the Lambs - II
Game of the Year
Disinheritance, Azrael - IIIII
Revolution Mafia - I
Silence of the Lambs - I
Thanks Prophylaxis for assemling the nominations. Without further ado, you can vote for the winners HERE
As a reminder we will be taking these results in, say, a week and then hosting a podcast/stream where we will reveal the winners, talk about 2017 on MTGS, and regale listeners with memorable moments submitted by you all!
If you are interested in helping with the podcast/stream, please get in touch with me immediately.
Hosted by myself, with Osieorb, Shadowlancer, and Bur as our talking heads, we discuss how 2017 was for MTGS, each award and its nominees in turn, and your memorable moments from the year. The podcast clocks in at a little over an hour, and we'd really appreciate your feedback, and if you think it's something that should be done in future years! Special thanks to Osie for painstakingly editing the sound and rerecording sections that didn't get captured cleanly the first time around.
Collected data for the year showing what games everyone played and winners and losers can be found in this spreadsheet. Thanks to all 70-odd people who played in 2017!
For the impatient, the spoiler below contains the winners of each award and the (approximate) percentage of the votes cast they got. The lower the percentage, the closer it was!
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual): AskThePizzaGuy in Low Fantasy (48%)
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Voxxicus as Quixotic in Mistborn (30%)
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV in Overwatch (100%)
Best Town Performance (Group): Disinheritance (73%)
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Mistborn (42%)
Worst Town Performance (Group): Maelstrom of Alara (41%)
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution (75%)
Best Town Player: AskThePizzaGuy (47%)
Best Mafia Player: Shadowlancer (65%)
Best Newcomer: Grapefruit21 (52%)
Most Entertaining Player: Tomsloger (48%)
Most Improved Player: Shadowlancer (32%)
Best Overall Player: Shadowlancer & Tomsloger (35% each)
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Disinheritance by Azrael (50%)
Best Flavor: Disinheritance by Azrael (28%)
Best Read: Jurassic Park Adventure 2 by Wheat_Grinder (37%)
Game of the Year: Disinheritance by Azrael (89%!)
As a bonus, I managed to catch up with the winner of the Game of the Year, and had a little intervirew with them. You can see it in the spoiler below:
Game of the Year winner Azrael (for Disinheritance) answers some questions in text form. Questions in bold, Azrael's answers are not.
How does an Azrael game come into being? Where do your ideas come from, and what process do you go through to bring them to reality? More specifically, what is the history of Disinheritance? What was challenging about the implementation and balancing of the game?
Every game originates a little bit differently. Sometimes, a game will be a reaction against the mistakes I made in other past games, an attempt to rectify a past error. Sometimes, I'll pick out an element from a past game that I played in or designed that I really enjoyed, and try to take it a new direction. But for most every game I play, I try to keep my focus on what is going to be enjoyable for the players.
When I was first starting out, my idea of what players would enjoy was really ground-breaking, attention-grabbing roles that would surprise and excite the players. Put on a show, and light some fireworks. That's still an element I try to really emphasize, but I definitely got carried away with it for a stretch, to the point that it was just too dense, too packed full of mechanical puzzles and knick-knacks to the point that it became too distracting and too burdensome for the players to manage. And it became too much of the players running through a minefield, getting distracted by the world exploding around them, and not being able to focus on the behavioral issues.
So, Disinheritance was my attempt to react against the over-stuffing of my setups with my ideas, to pick two or three elements to concentrate on, and to still include a number of interesting, original roles, but to keep the focus on the players' interactions with one another. To have the mechanics complement the behavioral aspect of the game, and tie into it, rather than distract from it. And I think that was the right approach to take.
As to individual role ideas, stuff like Wildfire's Quick Draw role, a lot of what I concentrate on is trying to come up new twists and presentations that can turn traditional roles or mechanics into something fresh and exciting. Back in 2005, Sin City era, nobody had ever seen a daykill before, just standard night-kills. Then suddenly, you have this old mechanic that's been made radically new - surprise value, a different presentation and flavor, and with some interesting strategic possibilities opened up to go with it.
So when we came to Disinheritance, we've done daykills before, what else can we come up with that's going to surprise people, be fun, and new, and still honor this focus on concentrating on the players vs. the players, and behavioral analysis? Well, how about we add some possible counter-play. Tie some flavor into it. And make it public, so the scum-team has to think strategically about how best to use this ability. Do they go on a killing spree? Or do they use it more subtly than that?
So in Disinheritance especially, the focus was on A) What's going to be fun for the players B) How can we reinvent traditional mechanics in new and exciting ways C) What fun strategic options and choices can we present to the players. D) How do we help keep the attention on what's going on in the thread, and on behavioral interactions/analysis.
As to the balancing, that's always more difficult when you're coming up with roles where you are not only coming up with implementations of roles that have never been seen before, you've got mechanics no one's ever used, and on top of that, a lot of the power or lack thereof behind many of these roles depends directly upon how they are utilized.
For instance, again, the Wildfire's Quick-Draw role. Vastly different power level and effects depending on how it's used. It could be a one-shot to seal the game, a bomb if he gets pressured early, or, it could be a mass-killing spree like how it was played. But the mass-killing spree option is a a double-edged sword, because you are then accountable for how it's being used, and can be lynched if the town doesn't care for how you use it, and/or you can be pressured to use it on players that were in the POE/lynch pool.
So try to balance those things, you can try a number of tactics. In Disinheritance, I tried to include roles that can counter or nullify anything that gets too out-of-control, such as Manders' pacification role possibly being able to shut-down WF's ability to kill. You can try to create some redundancies, so that power is even spread between team members, not too focused on just a few slots. And third, the empowerment mechanic itself was a way that the players themselves could behaviorally control anything that got out of hand, even if the built-in counter roles got eliminated. So for balance, multiple redundancies and counter-measures, and if possible, mechanical counter-play that isn't tied into any one specific player, are really nice ways to try to stabilize what could otherwise be an utter, terrifying, gigantic cluster.
What were you aiming to achieve with the Spec Ops spectator thread? Do you think it achieved it? What design space do you think exists for future games to incorporate "active" spectators?
With spec ops, I was interested in pushing the importance of behavioral analysis even further, and trying to give the town some additional help with that. As I mentioned, in past Azrael games, the towns have often struggled, and a large part of that has been centered on not being able to focus on behavior. So with Spec Ops, I wanted a group of people who don't have any roles, don't have any mechanics distracting them, don't even have the capacity to vote - their sole responsibility (until the thread implodes) is to do that behavioral analysis. Nothing else. And I regarded that as a further incentive for good play by both teams. It's a power buff for the town, but one that can be countered by the scum by good play and skill, and good solid play by both teams was exactly what I was hoping to encourage.
Second, Azrael games were often something that got filled up quickly by a lot of old faces, and there wasn't always a lot of room for new or inexperienced players to jump in and have a chance to participate. So, without increasing the duration of the game, or increasing the number of players that would have to be read behaviorally for the lynch (which just is too much burden at this point for most people and unfun), I did want to give more than just 16 people a chance to join in and take part, if they wanted to. So, I thought that did achieve those objectives pretty adequately. Could have been implemented a little better perhaps, but there is still a ton of unexplored design space there to be explored. It's challenging, because you have to balance people feeling uninvolved (like the mafia spectators), versus creating too much of a burden on the players and having it be unwieldy, but I wouldn't be surprised if I keep working on refining that space and exploring it in the future. That's nice, virgin territory for further innovation, to figure out how to make that work elegantly and have some creative tie-ins.
Did the game play out as you expected it would? What did the players do that you did or didn't plan for?
You know, I never really have firm expectations for exactly how the players will handle the game. People are just too hard to predict, so I don't attempt it, or try to expect that they will behave any particular way. If you go into your game expecting a role to be played a certain way, you're certain to be surprised. So expect that, and make sure your design is robust enough to withstand that, and don't rely on just one factor or one line of play to solve potential balance issues.
What's next for Azrael game-design-wise?
What's next? I haven't quite decided yet. Broad outlines, I'll probably be looking for more ways to foster counter-play. One idea that I'm mulling over tweaking is a riff off of an old game from Misetings, called pick order mafia, where two captains outside the game drafted players into a setup. So, you could do hilarious things like, as the captain of the mafia team, give the towns' most notoriously over-aggressive player the vigilante. And maybe keep tweaking how to utilize non-player design space. We'll see - who knows, might go in a completely other direction.
Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for other Mafia game designers (esepcially newer ones)?
For new designers, I'd advise that you keep your focus on what's fun for the players, more than anything. What the players will enjoy, what will make it interesting for them (not you). As a host, it should be all about the players' experience in the game, and keeping the focus there. And staying true to the core of the game, on behavioral analysis.
From there, plan for the unexpected, because it's going to happen. Don't make it fragile. Involve reviewers. And don't be afraid to be creative and break the rules and expectations that people have about mafia games. It's easy for people to just look at past setups and follow the mold, but for hosts who want to, there is no real limit on what you can do in designing new and innovative setups. So feel free to experiment, and not to be too tied to what you've seen before.
Also, don't neglect flavor. When well done, it's definitely one of the best ways to immerse players in the game and make it enjoyable.
Thank you everyone for your patience in getting all of this put together, but I hope you will agree it was worth the wait. Let's make 2018 an even better year!
Wow, I am honored. Thanks for the kudos once again, MTGS folks.
Some comments and thoughts-
It is a bit of an irony that a year I consider some of my best town work of all time, I didn't manage to win a single game as town. In most instances we got really close, down to just one left or just one wrong vote, or just one wrong guess on my part. All it takes is one wrong answer sometimes.
It's a testament to the level of skill that I faced from (most of) the mafia teams I was up against. The Low Fantasy team was nothing to sneeze at, they were crushing things all game. The Dark and Stormy team had Reaverb Tau, on maybe the best mafia performance I've seen in 10 years, and that is difficult because I had just gotten off a game on my home site featuring Montmorency, also giving his all-time best game, carrying a team of four when the first three got knocked out in just the first two rounds of play.
In short, over and over again, the towns I was a part of gave their all, and we just got beat by better teams or better individual players.
Dark and Stormy night is the game I'm retiring on, and I'm happy to see the efforts toward town were at least found to be useful or entertaining to some people, even if we didn't bring it home.
What you can say is that it only highlights the even more extraordinary level of play from the scummos we faced off against. If I was the best villager or a representative of the best villages you went up against this year, it just tells you how awesomely you did.
When I won the mafia-aligned player award a couple years back, I think it was because I gave a level of acting townie and giving off fake analysis that people simply had to put in their town-aligned pile. As such, if you ask me, Reaverb Tau did the same thing this year. He was the reason I got beat in my hardest working, and final, attempt at finding scum. And he did it in a way I just couldn't possibly scum-read him for.
Tom, in the Low Fantasy game, is probably the biggest reason why that town lost, in my view. Even though he wasn't really trying to act like a townie, he was a good leader and organizer behind the scenes and tried to get the others to not be too rustled by me.
He is correct, I am just one villager, just someone you can silence with a murder. You can't be intimidated by any one villager. Just play the game and get at least one wolf past the goal line. That's the whole super bowl.
Good captaining by Tom, good individual performance by Reaverb Tau.
Shout out to Shadowlancer for being tough to figure out as either alignment but also managing to spot basically everything that I could not. If only I knew how to work with him better, we'd make a winning team.
Shout out to everyone who put up with me. One of the reasons I'm giving this up is because I can't rest until the game is done, and in any format, whether it be 2 days per day phase or 2 weeks or more, it's too much time. I always have to be doing and saying something, and that drains me and takes away from my real life. And people come to expect that level of effort from me, or else I am suspicious.
So, I can't keep going anymore. The circuits are officially fried. I might not play with any of you kind folks again.
But, I have to say, as the guy behind Askthepizzaguy, so many heartbreaking losses in a row is a rotten taste to retire on. Yet, you folks showing me the effort at least was appreciated... makes a lot of the bad taste go away.
And for that, and the honor of even being nominated, I thank you.
So, I can't keep going anymore. The circuits are officially fried. I might not play with any of you kind folks again.
But, I have to say, as the guy behind Askthepizzaguy, so many heartbreaking losses in a row is a rotten taste to retire on. Yet, you folks showing me the effort at least was appreciated... makes a lot of the bad taste go away.
And for that, and the honor of even being nominated, I thank you.
Maybe we'll see you again in the future when you come back from retirement.
nice results and podcast. Azrael's interview was informative. curious to read Overwatch thoroughly after hearing about DV's performance. Shadow and Tom in a tie for overall best is...a good result for what I think of them (in ZE)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I still remember the days I prayed for the things I have now.
nice results and podcast. Azrael's interview was informative. curious to read Overwatch thoroughly after hearing about DV's performance. Shadow and Tom in a tie for overall best is...a good result for what I think of them (in ZE)
Something I discovered in Overwatch (and mods maybe you can do something about this?) but the third scum, Zomgarcwind, doesn’t exist anymore and thus all his posts are gone. We bussed him to death day one so it’s not a large amount of the game affected but it’s definitely a thing.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
UPDATE: Vote Here
We're going to do something a bit different this year.
First, fill out the nominations as usual - there are slightly fewer categories to make this a bit easier. Then the top few nominees from each category will be voted on privately. As well as sending in your votes, we also want your stories from the year: game swinging moments, incredible escapes, the red-handed catch, funny claims, or graceful defeat. The winners will then be revealed in a podcast/stream, along with discussion of the year at and telling of your stories.
In order to make this a success, we need maximum community particiption. Every nomination, every vote, every story will count, and help make the celebration of 2017 on MTGS memorable. If anyone is keen to help the podcast either through hosting, or behind the scenes technical help/organising/number crunching should get in touch with me ASAP.
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual)
Best Mafia Performance (Individual)
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual)
Best Town Performance (Group)
Best Mafia Performance (Group)
Worst Town Performance (Group)
Worst Mafia Performance (Group)
Best Town Player
Best Mafia Player
Best Overall Player
Best Newcomer
Most Entertaining Player
Most Improved Player
Mod Awards:
Best Design
Best Flavor
Best Role
Best Read
Game of the Year
Eligible Games (Completed in 2017)
[Mini] It was a Dark and Stormy Night Mafia (Silvercrys3467) Mafia Win
[Normal] Low Fantasy (Ecophagy) Mafia Win
[Mini] Off the Grid III (DoTArchon) Mafia Win
[Basic] Maelstrom of Alara #91 (Wheat_Grinder) Abandoned
[Micro] Russian Roulette (tomsloger) Town Win
[Mini] Silence of the Lambs (Cantripmancer) Mafia Win
[Micro] One Week Mafia (Prophylaxis) Mafia Win
[PCQ] Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Iso) Mafia Win
[Micro] Two Takes It (Megiddo) Mafia Win
[Normal] Mistborn Mafia (Prophylaxis) Mafia Win
[Mini] Revolution Mafia (Bur) Town Win
[Micro] Unreliable Shots Mafia (tomsloger) Mafia Win
[Basic] Jurassic Park Adventure 2 Basic Mafia #90 (Wheat_Grinder) Mafia Win
[Specialty] Disinheritance Mafia (Azrael) Town Win
[Mini] Avalon Mafia (Iso) Mafia Win
[Micro] Lights Out 2 Mafia (Gentleman Johnny) Town Win
[Normal] Overwatch Mafia (Brinatoo) Mafia & Hitman Win
[Micro] Megiddo's Biceps Mafia (Megiddo) Town Win
Ongoing Games - Excluded from this year
Zero Escape (Bur)
Haiku Mafia (Osieorb18)
Prison Block (Shadowlancerx)
Last Year's Thread
(will fill this out sometime soon)
Why have there been so many mafia wins this year? How can we balance it out next year so that the ratio remains more 50/50?
There have been only two non-micro town wins this year, and that was Revolution Mafia and Disinheritance. That is frankly pretty surprising to me.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Best Town Performance (Individual): DV, Disinheritance
Played an incredibly pure game, stopped a kill, and overall was instrumental in ensuring town won the game. (Honorable mention here goes to Tomsloger for being right there with him this game)
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Quixotic (Voxxicus), Mistborn
Replaced in, orchestrated a nearly perfect scum v scum dichotomy and played for a win cleanly in an otherwise rough situation. Even though I figured him out in the end, it didn't matter, and there wasn't a moment where I didn't wish that he was town.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV, Overwatch
Counter flavor claimed both Town and scum on day 1 and drew both a vig and jail target on night 1, and still managed to win on Night 2.
Best Town Performance (Group): Disinheritance
Town played incredibly well, worked through some infighting and eventually collectively rolled our eyes in spec chat as Megs slow rolled the town win.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Avalon
They collectively managed to lead town astray at every turn, and pushed all the right angles to snatch up a victory from a very near town comeback.
Worst Town Performance (Group): Dark and Stormy Night
We unfortunately dissolved into infighting and just never got it together enough to pull out the win.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution Mafia
They collapsed upon themselves and after Hunt and Tom both died day one, there wasn't anything really to be done to salvage it.
Best Town Player: Vaimes
Despite there being no really flashy town players this year he showed his continued consistence and resilience that forces an answer from scum teams.
Best Mafia Player: Tomsloger
Master manipulator, skilled at subterfuge, and high level scum play. Even when he's caught he knows how to get it done.
Best Overall Player: Cantripmancer
Every game he played this year was theatrical. His style and play is like watching a symphony, and I enjoy playing alongside him regardless of alignments.
Best Newcomer: TheRealStinkyJoeTerry
He burns hot but shows that he cares and plays either alignment completely genuinely.
Most Entertaining Player: Rodemy
Every darn time I think I've seen it all, Rodemy says "hold my beer" and does something slapstick, ridiculous, and generally eyerolling. Any game with Rodemy will always be a treat.
Most Improved Player: Osieorb
Even though he's also technically a new player this year, he's made leaps and bounds of progress from that fateful Avalon game that brought new meaning to the word "Flail"
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Iso
I could just say "literal role genie" and mic drop, but this game had so much more. The way the horsemen abilities were set to be randomized was well done, and each role in and of itself was clever and creative and definitely made this high power game unique and awesome.
Best Flavor: Silence of the Lambs, Cantripmancer
It's the vote counts that push this over the edge; creepy, erie, and different from the monotony of the norm.
Best Role: Scum Jailer (Overwatch), Brinatoo
It was a flavorful and incredibly unique take on how a jailer role works. It had chats, it had a scumchat posting restriction, and it had possible execution, what's not to love.
Best Read: Overwatch, Brinatoo
It was a wild ride, flavor counter claims, scum being "mechanically clear", a townie fake counter claiming a town doc, and everything else you could hope for.
Game of the Year: Disinheritance, Azreal
A great game with some great plays on both sides. There was a high density of good and solid play from many players, and the design was very good.
On the subject of a majority of scum wins, I'd say we shouldn't be aiming for 50/50 win rate, but balanced games, which I think we had. This year had a high percentage of games where the scum teams were very good or the town play was lacking, and that's okay.
I know Iso despised it, but I *loved* the lockhimup gif that Proph launched in Disinheritance. Proph was one of the games' "spec ops" roles. He had the ability to post in a publicly viewable "spectator" thread that the the public players could see, and he was assigned an alignment (town). As a townie spectator, he not only nailed the scum with extraordinary accuracy, but succeeded notably (such as with the lockhimup gif) in getting key members of the scum pressured and lynched, all without a vote of his own.
He also went out in a fairly amusing fashion. One of the mafia's countermeasures to the information the town gained from having the spec ops guys was an ability called sudden death, which did this:
Proph, as the most active spectator, was a favorite to wind up entering the main game via this ability. Moments after sudden death began, he was watching the game like a hawk, picking his moment to strike. No one else online and active.
He'd been waiting to get into the main game. Working really hard. Things were looking good. His moment had come. All he had to do, was survive one half hour for the rules to be posted...
...but instead, was epicly dream-crushed. (For violating sudden death's double-posting rule before it was revealed.)
From there, Megiddo went on to do this, over the course of three hours:
And then there was this ability, probably my favorite role, ever:
1-Quick Draw -
During the day, you may activate Quick Draw, targeting yourself and another player. The moderator will choose a time to begin quick draw, within two hours of opening the Quick Draw PM. The rules of Quick Draw are that the first player to be voted for by the other player after a Quick Draw is declared by the mod and the rules of Quick Draw are publicly posted by the mod, will be daykilled. Only one Quick Draw may be activated per day.
Every time it was activated, I was on the edge of my seat to see who would manage to race to get to the thread first. And it got used a TON, by the scum player who received it, before the town took him down. That reduced the town's mislynch threshold to a bare minimum. They had to lynch correctly four out of seven times to win. But, with solid town play, that's exactly what they did. Tom and DV led the town throughout and consistently identified scum, Proph had a huge impact on the game despite having no vote, and Axelrod's end-game analysis sealed the deal. Was a fantastic game to watch play out. Also a great example of smart townie ability management.
Best Town Performance (Individual): DoTArchon, Russian Roulette. He may have shot me, but it was his choices that led the town to victory.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Shadowlancerx, Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Shadow played a fantastic scumgame. Few suspected him, everybody paid the price.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): N/A, for me.
Best Town Performance (Group): Revolution Mafia. Losing Town members relatively 1 for 1 is impressive.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Avalon Mafia. Town was led in circles by their noses.
Worst Town Performance (Group): Maelstrom of Alara (Uggh). D_V just wasn't scum. Period. End of story.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): It would be easy to say Revolution, but I think it's better to say Maelstrom of Alara. While the mafia mostly were succeeding at their goal, it was one of the most disgusting lines of play I've seen, and it didn't feel like a good game of Mafia. There was a decent chance that town was going to take over that game, too.
Best Town Player: Silvercrys3467 - Good analysis, good posts. All around good guy. I don't think I've seen him roll scum yet, and if he can pull off looking the same, he will be fantastic. Everyone who's seen him do so says he can't, though.
Best Mafia Player: Tomsloger. If Tom is in a game, he is probably scum. And nobody will be certain about it. Tom rarely slips, and often is easily able to play off slips as normal play. OTG III was insane, with Tom bringing the game down to the wire, then dropping his gimmick and playing it off as normal.
Best Overall Player: Vaimes - Vaimes made the worst of games worth playing. No matter his alignment, Vaimes pushed himself and everyone else to be a better player. Vaimes for MVP of 2017.
Best Newcomer: Reaverb Tau. He performed fantastically in Dark and Stormy. If I wasn't specifically reconsidering him, I never would have thought that he was scum.
Most Entertaining Player: Shadowlancerx - Whether if I was town against Shadow, town with Shadow, or scum against Shadow, I always had fun playing with him in the game.
Most Improved Player: Killjoy. Killjoy has been always putting his all into improving as a player, and it shows. While there is still room to grow, his analyses have gotten better and his general attitude is positive.
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Horsemen of the Apocalypse - The setup was fantastic, and the roles interplayed nicely.
Best Flavor: Revolution Mafia - I very much enjoyed the humor interspersed throughout this setup.
Best Role: I liked most if not all of the roles in Revolution…
Best Read: Megiddo's Biceps Mafia.
Game of the Year: Revolution Mafia
Honorary Mention:
Best Player used as a Descriptor: Kpaca
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Maelstrom of Alara, they lynched me day one and got me out of that hellish game.
But really, I think it was Disinheritance, we probably should have lynched Wildfire a lot sooner after his chain shots but other than that the town played really well.
I actually think honorable mention for me here was the Horseman of the Apocalypse town, they killed two mafia day one lynched the third by day 3 and honestly we might have won the game despite one of the mafia basically having SK powers in that game if I hadn't thrown.
Best Mafia Performance (Group)
A lot of mafia wins this year. I'd actually say Overwatch is my nomination here. Cantrip and Shadow managed to get win with them losing their partner on day one.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual)
Shadowlancer in Horseman. Fooled Tom hard and then that fooled me by the end of the game.
Best Town Performance (Individual)
Tom Disinheritance Tom had all of the scum figured out after we talked while I had a soft spot for Cythare.
Worst Town Performance (Group)
I really don't know if its even fair to nominate Maelstorm of Alara here. Overwatch comes to mind as the other one to nominate here. I as the neutral was the only reason for the scum lynch.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group)
Uhhh Horseman. Two scum day one is terrible play as a group period if it wasn't for Shadow then the game would have been a straight wash.
Best Town Player
Azreal, his play overall is insane and when ever I watch him play the ability to find scum as consistently as he does is something to be said for.
Most Entertaining Player
Proph, memes are entertaining as all hell.
Most Improved Player
Shadow continues to improve and impress.
Mod Awards:
Best Design
Disinheritance hands down the best game I've played in years and partially because of the player base but I also think that a really well designed game leads to better games. Who would have thunk that.
Best Read
Russian Roulette that game was hilarious.
Game of the Year
Disinheritance again the love that went into this game really showed and the game played out really well. I think anyone could be really proud of how this game turned out, but damn did this game play out in an amazing way.
Xyre was not actually a living player in the game. For those not in the know, the above is just about a word for word copy of the post that caused to Axel to lose Sin City Mafia, about thirteen years ago. In Sin City, only two players remained on the living player list at the start of the final day, leading to much bafflement, confusion, and hysteria, until a hidden player suddenly appeared and voted...and infamously lost the game for the town. Which Axel still hasn't forgiven me for. Xyre decided to fake being a hidden multi-voter in Disinheritance with Axel as one of the three surviving players left in endgame, because it was just too evil for him to resist after I did a call-back to the classic Sin City scene for the start of day flavor.
Best Town Performance (Individual): askthepizzaguy, low fantasy. Replaced in and was killed the next night. Single most valuable day I've ever seen anyone play. If the doc wasn't already dead I'm convinced he would have won the game.
Honorable Mention: DV, disinheritance
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): regfan, jpa2. Just snowed basically everyone. Especially me. Might be too close to this.
HM shadow in horsemen
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual)
Best Town Performance (Group): disinheritance. The towncore. The moments. The memes. Scum didn't even play bad.
HM to megiddos biceps.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): low fantasy. Managed a win against a strong town. Think we did everything right. All members played well, night actions were near perfect. Better to be lucky AND good
Worst Town Performance (Group): maelstrom I guess
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): revolution. When bussing goes wrong. I don't want to talk about it.
Best Town Player: silver always impressive
Best Mafia Player: shadow nothing but solid games all year
Best Overall Player: shadow great scum play. More than passable town play
Best Newcomer: joeterry
Most Entertaining Player: prophylaxis (lockhimup.gif)
Most Improved Player: dotarchon made the leap
Mod Awards:
Best Design: iso, horsemen
Best Flavor: wheatgrinder, jpa2
Best Role: the phantom lynch mafia ability in megiddos biceps
Best Read: jpa2. The flavor, the player quality, vaimes and Newcomb figuring out I was roleplaying voxx, Reg's mastery. Lot to see.
Game of the Year: disinheritance. Well designed. Well played on both sides. Splashy, exciting, memorable.
Best Town Performance (Individual): AskThePizzaGuy in Low fantasy. Echoing everything tom said. He came in and completely shook the game up.
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Reaverb Tau dark and stormy. This was the hardest category on the board in my opinion with some awesome performances throughout the year (Shadow in Overwatch and Silence was excellent, Regfan in JPA2, Voxxicus as Quixotic in Mistborn, and Rhand there as well) but Reaverb carrying me and completely snowing AskThePizzaGuy who otherwise had almost completely solved the game was incredibly impressive. I may be too close to this one, but it was an excellent performance.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV Overwatch (were there other 3rd parties?) even if there were this was an awesome play and his flavor counter claim gambit was awesome.
Best Town Performance (Group): Disinheritance DV and Tom's use of the secret chats in the thread was beyond delightful to read and the town just played an excellent game. Axelrod was a rock. Meg and Proph both had an awesome assist from the spec chat and a bunch of people just put in a ton of effort.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Mistborn (easiest category on the board) The scum team played a lights out game and deserves a ton of credit. Rhand and Voxx as Quixotic were awesome and Mindreaver gave a great grind it out despite being miserable and caught performance. Complete and balanced team effort and really high quality play.
Worst Town Performance (Group): Overwatch When you lynch your roleblocker because his role conflicts with a proven jailor and the RB flips town you should probably lynch the jailor...
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution Two dead on D1 and I replaced in and did basically nothing to try and save it as the last scum. Too little fight by me and too much getting caught before that.
Best Town Player: Vaimes this is a hard category but Vaimes skill at building town blocks and rarely being wrong once he lets someone in is a style I really like. He's rarely mislynched and fights like hell to stay alive.
Best Mafia Player: Shadow
Best Overall Player: Shadow Shadow had a crazy year. Shares the load to carry with Silver in overwatch, carries 4 horsemen, and then carries in Silence of the Lambs. While putting in a couple of respectable showings as town in the meantime (he was very solid in Mistborn).
Best Newcomer: Regfan if he qualifies, otherwise AskThePizzaGuy if he qualifies
Most Entertaining Player: Tomsloger
Most Improved Player: Abstain
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Disinheritance
Best Flavor: Disinheritance
Best Role:
Name: Special Agent Moira Esperanza
Alignment: Mafia
Dossier: An experienced, senior field agent within the Earth Authority Internal Affairs division. Known for extremely quick reflexes, and leadership skills. Senior agent in the effort to investigate and unravel the Inheritance project, whatever it may be.
Cover Identity: Sent by the higher ups within the rebel hierarchy, your credentials identify you as the ranking member of the Inheritance effort. However, your orders are ostensibly to observe, field test, and report back on the results - not to manage the progress of the R&D.
0-Target player gains 1 empowerment, and gains this ability. You lose this ability. You may not self-target.
1- Target a player. If you correctly guess that player's current empowerment score, that player loses half their empowerments, rounded down. This ability is effective prior to the use of any abilities during the night, and if a player falls below the required number of empowerments for a chosen ability, their chosen ability will fizzle. This ability cannot subtract permanent empowerments, but considers permanent empowerments for purposes of calculating a player's empowerment scores.
1-Quick Draw -
During the day, you may activate Quick Draw, targeting yourself and another player. The moderator will choose a time to begin quick draw, within two hours of opening the Quick Draw PM. The rules of Quick Draw are that the first player to be voted for by the other player after a Quick Draw is declared by the mod and the rules of Quick Draw are publicly posted by the mod, will be daykilled. Only one Quick Draw may be activated per day.
1- Sudden Death
During the day, you may PM a moderator to activate Sudden Death v1. All non-voting spectators gain the ability to post and to vote one another. Whenever a non-voting player is voted for in sudden death, votes more than once in the same post, double-posts, or votes more than once each hour, they will be eliminated from the game.
These conditions will take effect immediately after a moderator arrives on scene and announces the initiation of sudden death, but the rules will not be publicly revealed until one half hour after the moderator announcement. Sudden death will continue until only a single non-voting player remains. The last non-voting player standing will enter the primary game with their current alignment, and five empowerment.
-----
Sudden Death
All spec ops players have gained the ability to vote for one another. Whenever a spec ops players voters for another spec ops player in Sudden Death, votes more than once in the same post, double-posts, or votes more than once each hour, they will be eliminated from the game.
These conditions will take effect immediately after a moderator arrives on scene and announces the initiation of sudden death, but the rules will not be publicly revealed until one half hour after the moderator announcement. Sudden death will continue until only a single spec ops player remains. The last non-voting spec ops player standing will enter the primary game with their current alignment, no abilities, and five empowerment.
Game of the Year: Disinheritance Hands down the highest quality of play all year. Both sides were excellent and it was thrilling and down to the wire. Plus lockhimup.gif
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
And I didn't play enough last year (just Disinheritance?) to really vote for anyone/game. Maybe I can play more this year. We'll see....
To be perfectly honest, though I've read every game this year, I only actually remember a handful of them.
Best Town Performance AskThePizzaGuy (Dark/Stormy Night)
Best Mafia Performance: Reaverb Tau (Dark/Stormy Night)
Best 3rd Party Performance: -
Best Town Performance: -
Best Mafia Performance: -
Worst Town Performance: -
Worst Mafia Performance: -
Best Town Player: AskThePizzaGuy (he made good cases in Dark/Stormy Night)
Best Mafia Player: tomsloger (Low Fantasy)
Best Overall Player: shadowlancerx (maf in Low Fantasy and town in Dark/Stormy Night)
Best Newcomer: Kabazame (Low Fantasy impressed me for his experience)
Most Entertaining Player: Prophylaxis (escaped lynch in Silence of the Lambs)
Most Improved Player: Grapefrui21 (big leaps in the quick skimming I did. the scum play in Dark/Stormy Night was impressive too!)
Mod Awards:
Best Design: -
Best Flavor: -
Best Role: -
Best Read: -
Game of the Year: -
some gaps are fine, right?
I only read Dark/Stormy Night and Low Fantasy, with some of Silence of the Lambs. Disinheritence flavor scared me away lol (so much reading).
slightly prefer Low Fantasy over Dark/Stormy Night for overall maf performance. the ending of Dark/Stormy Night was interesting, with how Killjoy played along. Silence of the Lambs had some personal favs and might go in Best Read, but I don't remember reading it properly... maybe Dark/Stormy Night for best read, since it is only 19 pages. from the flavor efforts, I might put Disinheritance in Game of the Year.
Be grateful, always."
Player Awards:
Best Town Performance (Individual): AskthePizzaGuy had me crapping my pants as scum in Low Fantasy
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): ShadowlancerX played really well and rolled his dream role in Silence of the Lambs
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): NA
Best Town Performance (Group): Mafia won all the games I played in but Russian roulette and I was scum and town got lucky with their shots, so no vote.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Silence of the Lambs Mistborn was good, but there were a lot of issues with that game, so I went SOL
Worst Town Performance (Group):
Worst Mafia Performance (Group):
Best Town Player: Askthepizzaguy
Best Mafia Player: Shadowlancer
Best Overall Player: Shadowlancer
Best Newcomer: Not sure who qualifies, since I'm new too
Most Entertaining Player:
Most Improved Player: No measuring stick
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Low Fantasy Felt the most balanced
Best Flavor: Silence of the Lambs
Best Role: Bur, Kelsier, Town Desperado from Mistborn
Best Read: Silence of the Lambs
Game of the Year: Silence of the Lambs
SJT Eligible Games (Completed in 2017)
[Normal] Low Fantasy (Ecophagy) Mafia Win
[Micro] Russian Roulette (tomsloger) Town Win
[Mini] Silence of the Lambs (Cantripmancer) Mafia Win
[Normal] Mistborn Mafia (Prophylaxis) Mafia Win
[Mini] Avalon Mafia (Iso) Mafia Win
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Regfan really put in a lot of solid work in the JPA2 game, fooling a lot of smart townies to get the victory. Also just love his playstyle IMO, shame that his only game in here had to be a scum one.
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV in Overwatch I guess, for being the only qualifier here.
Best Town Performance (Group): Tie between Disinheritance and Revolution for me. Revolution was more of a "scum got butchered" game though while Disinheritance was much more of a game, so I think I'd give it to that one.
Best Mafia Performance (Group): shadow/Cantripmancer in Overwatch pulled out the miracle scum win after being down a teammate Day 1. Spectacular play IMO.
Worst Town Performance (Group): I'll self-nominate Avalon for me disappearing as the most crucial town role in the game, Merlin. Just wasn't a fun game for me at all personally, but I really did not have fun playing that role and I really should have requested replacement sooner.
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution Mafia for getting butchered D1/D2. Feel bad for Grape though, he was put in an impossible spot.
Best Town Player: Very impressed with Askthepizzaguy this year. Runner up, probably Vaimes or Grapefruit. Been impressed with Grape's play this year, his win record doesn't reflect how well he plays IMO.
Best Mafia Player: tomsloger. Just a master of creating doubt.
Best Overall Player: tomsloger/shadow for me this year probably? Both have played in a lot of games this year as both alignments and have played great IMO.
Best Newcomer: Grapefruit21. Also was impressed with RE's play in Silence tbh.
Most Entertaining Player: Megiddo I guess? For DEATH OF THE SMITHS
Most Improved Player: JoeTerry/Grapefruit probably.
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Disinheritance, loved the design in that game. Also really liked Low Fantasy.
Best Flavor: Low Fantasy/Silence of the Lambs.
Best Role: I'll join the chorus and say Wildfire's role from Disinheritance.
Best Read: JPA Mafia, had so many great players like Nacho/Regfan/Newcomb/tomsloger/Pozzai.
Game of the Year: Disinhertance.
I just got way too hyped from Vaimes flipping scum.
DV, Disinheitance - I
DoTArchon, Russian Roulette - I
Tom, Disinheritance - I
Askthepizzaguy, Low Fantasy - IIII
Askthepizzaguy, Dark and Stormy Night - I
Best Mafia Performance (Individual)
Quixotic (Voxxicus), Mistborn - I
Shadowlancerx, Horsemen of the Apocalypse - II
regfan, jpa2 - II
Reaverb Tau - II
Shadowlancerx, Silence of the Lambs - I
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual)
DV, Overwatch - III
Best Town Performance (Group)
Disinheritance - IIIII
Revolution Mafia - I
Best Mafia Performance (Group)
Avalon - II
Overwatch - II
Low Fantasy - I
Mistborn - I
Silence of the Lambs - I
Worst Town Performance (Group)
Dark and Stormy Night - I
Maelstrom of Alara - II
Overwatch - II
Avalon - I
Worst Mafia Performance (Group)
Revolution Mafia - III
Maelstrom of Alara - II
Horseman - I
Best Town Player
Vaimes - II
Silvercrys3467 - II
Azrael - I
Askthepizzaguy - III
Best Mafia Player
Tomsloger - IIII
shadowlancerx - III
Best Overall Player
Cantripmancer - I
Vaimes - I
shadowlancerx - IIII
Best Newcomer
TheRealStinkyJoeTerry - II
Reaverb Tau - I
Regfan - I
Kabazame - I
Grapefruit21 - I
Most Entertaining Player
Rodemy - I
Shadowlancerx - I
Prophylaxis - III
tomsloger - I
Megiddo - I
Most Improved Player
Osieorb - I
Killjoy - I
shadowlancerx - I
DoTArchon - I
Grapefruit21 - II
JoeTerry - I
Mod Awards:
Best Design
Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Iso - III
Disinheritance - III
Low Fantasy - I
Best Flavor
Silence of the Lambs, Cantripmancer - III
Revolution, Bur - I
JPR2, Wheat_Grinder - I
Disinheritance - I
Low Fantasy - I
Best Role
Scum Jailer (Overwatch), Brinatoo - I
Revolution - I
phantom lynch mafia ability in megiddos biceps - I
Kelsier, Town Desperado (Mistborn) - I
Wildfire's Role (Disinheritance) - II
Best Read
Overwatch, Brinatoo - I
Megiddo's Biceps Mafia - I
Russian Roulette - I
jpa2 - II
Silence of the Lambs - II
Game of the Year
Disinheritance, Azrael - IIIII
Revolution Mafia - I
Silence of the Lambs - I
If I missed anything let me know.
As a reminder we will be taking these results in, say, a week and then hosting a podcast/stream where we will reveal the winners, talk about 2017 on MTGS, and regale listeners with memorable moments submitted by you all!
If you are interested in helping with the podcast/stream, please get in touch with me immediately.
Fixed links!
Also voting closes in about 8 hours if anyone hasn't voted yet!
Hosted by myself, with Osieorb, Shadowlancer, and Bur as our talking heads, we discuss how 2017 was for MTGS, each award and its nominees in turn, and your memorable moments from the year. The podcast clocks in at a little over an hour, and we'd really appreciate your feedback, and if you think it's something that should be done in future years! Special thanks to Osie for painstakingly editing the sound and rerecording sections that didn't get captured cleanly the first time around.
Collected data for the year showing what games everyone played and winners and losers can be found in this spreadsheet. Thanks to all 70-odd people who played in 2017!
For the impatient, the spoiler below contains the winners of each award and the (approximate) percentage of the votes cast they got. The lower the percentage, the closer it was!
Best Town Performance (Individual): AskThePizzaGuy in Low Fantasy (48%)
Best Mafia Performance (Individual): Voxxicus as Quixotic in Mistborn (30%)
Best 3rd Party Performance (Individual): DV in Overwatch (100%)
Best Town Performance (Group): Disinheritance (73%)
Best Mafia Performance (Group): Mistborn (42%)
Worst Town Performance (Group): Maelstrom of Alara (41%)
Worst Mafia Performance (Group): Revolution (75%)
Best Town Player: AskThePizzaGuy (47%)
Best Mafia Player: Shadowlancer (65%)
Best Newcomer: Grapefruit21 (52%)
Most Entertaining Player: Tomsloger (48%)
Most Improved Player: Shadowlancer (32%)
Best Overall Player: Shadowlancer & Tomsloger (35% each)
Mod Awards:
Best Design: Disinheritance by Azrael (50%)
Best Flavor: Disinheritance by Azrael (28%)
Best Read: Jurassic Park Adventure 2 by Wheat_Grinder (37%)
Game of the Year: Disinheritance by Azrael (89%!)
As a bonus, I managed to catch up with the winner of the Game of the Year, and had a little intervirew with them. You can see it in the spoiler below:
Game of the Year winner Azrael (for Disinheritance) answers some questions in text form. Questions in bold, Azrael's answers are not.
How does an Azrael game come into being? Where do your ideas come from, and what process do you go through to bring them to reality? More specifically, what is the history of Disinheritance? What was challenging about the implementation and balancing of the game?
Every game originates a little bit differently. Sometimes, a game will be a reaction against the mistakes I made in other past games, an attempt to rectify a past error. Sometimes, I'll pick out an element from a past game that I played in or designed that I really enjoyed, and try to take it a new direction. But for most every game I play, I try to keep my focus on what is going to be enjoyable for the players.
When I was first starting out, my idea of what players would enjoy was really ground-breaking, attention-grabbing roles that would surprise and excite the players. Put on a show, and light some fireworks. That's still an element I try to really emphasize, but I definitely got carried away with it for a stretch, to the point that it was just too dense, too packed full of mechanical puzzles and knick-knacks to the point that it became too distracting and too burdensome for the players to manage. And it became too much of the players running through a minefield, getting distracted by the world exploding around them, and not being able to focus on the behavioral issues.
So, Disinheritance was my attempt to react against the over-stuffing of my setups with my ideas, to pick two or three elements to concentrate on, and to still include a number of interesting, original roles, but to keep the focus on the players' interactions with one another. To have the mechanics complement the behavioral aspect of the game, and tie into it, rather than distract from it. And I think that was the right approach to take.
As to individual role ideas, stuff like Wildfire's Quick Draw role, a lot of what I concentrate on is trying to come up new twists and presentations that can turn traditional roles or mechanics into something fresh and exciting. Back in 2005, Sin City era, nobody had ever seen a daykill before, just standard night-kills. Then suddenly, you have this old mechanic that's been made radically new - surprise value, a different presentation and flavor, and with some interesting strategic possibilities opened up to go with it.
So when we came to Disinheritance, we've done daykills before, what else can we come up with that's going to surprise people, be fun, and new, and still honor this focus on concentrating on the players vs. the players, and behavioral analysis? Well, how about we add some possible counter-play. Tie some flavor into it. And make it public, so the scum-team has to think strategically about how best to use this ability. Do they go on a killing spree? Or do they use it more subtly than that?
So in Disinheritance especially, the focus was on A) What's going to be fun for the players B) How can we reinvent traditional mechanics in new and exciting ways C) What fun strategic options and choices can we present to the players. D) How do we help keep the attention on what's going on in the thread, and on behavioral interactions/analysis.
As to the balancing, that's always more difficult when you're coming up with roles where you are not only coming up with implementations of roles that have never been seen before, you've got mechanics no one's ever used, and on top of that, a lot of the power or lack thereof behind many of these roles depends directly upon how they are utilized.
For instance, again, the Wildfire's Quick-Draw role. Vastly different power level and effects depending on how it's used. It could be a one-shot to seal the game, a bomb if he gets pressured early, or, it could be a mass-killing spree like how it was played. But the mass-killing spree option is a a double-edged sword, because you are then accountable for how it's being used, and can be lynched if the town doesn't care for how you use it, and/or you can be pressured to use it on players that were in the POE/lynch pool.
So try to balance those things, you can try a number of tactics. In Disinheritance, I tried to include roles that can counter or nullify anything that gets too out-of-control, such as Manders' pacification role possibly being able to shut-down WF's ability to kill. You can try to create some redundancies, so that power is even spread between team members, not too focused on just a few slots. And third, the empowerment mechanic itself was a way that the players themselves could behaviorally control anything that got out of hand, even if the built-in counter roles got eliminated. So for balance, multiple redundancies and counter-measures, and if possible, mechanical counter-play that isn't tied into any one specific player, are really nice ways to try to stabilize what could otherwise be an utter, terrifying, gigantic cluster.
What were you aiming to achieve with the Spec Ops spectator thread? Do you think it achieved it? What design space do you think exists for future games to incorporate "active" spectators?
With spec ops, I was interested in pushing the importance of behavioral analysis even further, and trying to give the town some additional help with that. As I mentioned, in past Azrael games, the towns have often struggled, and a large part of that has been centered on not being able to focus on behavior. So with Spec Ops, I wanted a group of people who don't have any roles, don't have any mechanics distracting them, don't even have the capacity to vote - their sole responsibility (until the thread implodes) is to do that behavioral analysis. Nothing else. And I regarded that as a further incentive for good play by both teams. It's a power buff for the town, but one that can be countered by the scum by good play and skill, and good solid play by both teams was exactly what I was hoping to encourage.
Second, Azrael games were often something that got filled up quickly by a lot of old faces, and there wasn't always a lot of room for new or inexperienced players to jump in and have a chance to participate. So, without increasing the duration of the game, or increasing the number of players that would have to be read behaviorally for the lynch (which just is too much burden at this point for most people and unfun), I did want to give more than just 16 people a chance to join in and take part, if they wanted to. So, I thought that did achieve those objectives pretty adequately. Could have been implemented a little better perhaps, but there is still a ton of unexplored design space there to be explored. It's challenging, because you have to balance people feeling uninvolved (like the mafia spectators), versus creating too much of a burden on the players and having it be unwieldy, but I wouldn't be surprised if I keep working on refining that space and exploring it in the future. That's nice, virgin territory for further innovation, to figure out how to make that work elegantly and have some creative tie-ins.
Did the game play out as you expected it would? What did the players do that you did or didn't plan for?
You know, I never really have firm expectations for exactly how the players will handle the game. People are just too hard to predict, so I don't attempt it, or try to expect that they will behave any particular way. If you go into your game expecting a role to be played a certain way, you're certain to be surprised. So expect that, and make sure your design is robust enough to withstand that, and don't rely on just one factor or one line of play to solve potential balance issues.
What's next for Azrael game-design-wise?
What's next? I haven't quite decided yet. Broad outlines, I'll probably be looking for more ways to foster counter-play. One idea that I'm mulling over tweaking is a riff off of an old game from Misetings, called pick order mafia, where two captains outside the game drafted players into a setup. So, you could do hilarious things like, as the captain of the mafia team, give the towns' most notoriously over-aggressive player the vigilante. And maybe keep tweaking how to utilize non-player design space. We'll see - who knows, might go in a completely other direction.
Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for other Mafia game designers (esepcially newer ones)?
For new designers, I'd advise that you keep your focus on what's fun for the players, more than anything. What the players will enjoy, what will make it interesting for them (not you). As a host, it should be all about the players' experience in the game, and keeping the focus there. And staying true to the core of the game, on behavioral analysis.
From there, plan for the unexpected, because it's going to happen. Don't make it fragile. Involve reviewers. And don't be afraid to be creative and break the rules and expectations that people have about mafia games. It's easy for people to just look at past setups and follow the mold, but for hosts who want to, there is no real limit on what you can do in designing new and innovative setups. So feel free to experiment, and not to be too tied to what you've seen before.
Also, don't neglect flavor. When well done, it's definitely one of the best ways to immerse players in the game and make it enjoyable.
Thank you everyone for your patience in getting all of this put together, but I hope you will agree it was worth the wait. Let's make 2018 an even better year!
Grats to all the winners, etc.
Also really enjoyed the Q&A with Azrael. Was very insightful as someone interested in starting to design games of my own.
Some comments and thoughts-
It is a bit of an irony that a year I consider some of my best town work of all time, I didn't manage to win a single game as town. In most instances we got really close, down to just one left or just one wrong vote, or just one wrong guess on my part. All it takes is one wrong answer sometimes.
It's a testament to the level of skill that I faced from (most of) the mafia teams I was up against. The Low Fantasy team was nothing to sneeze at, they were crushing things all game. The Dark and Stormy team had Reaverb Tau, on maybe the best mafia performance I've seen in 10 years, and that is difficult because I had just gotten off a game on my home site featuring Montmorency, also giving his all-time best game, carrying a team of four when the first three got knocked out in just the first two rounds of play.
In short, over and over again, the towns I was a part of gave their all, and we just got beat by better teams or better individual players.
Dark and Stormy night is the game I'm retiring on, and I'm happy to see the efforts toward town were at least found to be useful or entertaining to some people, even if we didn't bring it home.
What you can say is that it only highlights the even more extraordinary level of play from the scummos we faced off against. If I was the best villager or a representative of the best villages you went up against this year, it just tells you how awesomely you did.
When I won the mafia-aligned player award a couple years back, I think it was because I gave a level of acting townie and giving off fake analysis that people simply had to put in their town-aligned pile. As such, if you ask me, Reaverb Tau did the same thing this year. He was the reason I got beat in my hardest working, and final, attempt at finding scum. And he did it in a way I just couldn't possibly scum-read him for.
Tom, in the Low Fantasy game, is probably the biggest reason why that town lost, in my view. Even though he wasn't really trying to act like a townie, he was a good leader and organizer behind the scenes and tried to get the others to not be too rustled by me.
He is correct, I am just one villager, just someone you can silence with a murder. You can't be intimidated by any one villager. Just play the game and get at least one wolf past the goal line. That's the whole super bowl.
Good captaining by Tom, good individual performance by Reaverb Tau.
Shout out to Shadowlancer for being tough to figure out as either alignment but also managing to spot basically everything that I could not. If only I knew how to work with him better, we'd make a winning team.
Shout out to everyone who put up with me. One of the reasons I'm giving this up is because I can't rest until the game is done, and in any format, whether it be 2 days per day phase or 2 weeks or more, it's too much time. I always have to be doing and saying something, and that drains me and takes away from my real life. And people come to expect that level of effort from me, or else I am suspicious.
So, I can't keep going anymore. The circuits are officially fried. I might not play with any of you kind folks again.
But, I have to say, as the guy behind Askthepizzaguy, so many heartbreaking losses in a row is a rotten taste to retire on. Yet, you folks showing me the effort at least was appreciated... makes a lot of the bad taste go away.
And for that, and the honor of even being nominated, I thank you.
Maybe we'll see you again in the future when you come back from retirement.
Nice playing with you, Pizza.
Be grateful, always."
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
2017 MP3
2017 Loud MP3
2017 Super-Loud MP3
2017 Flac