I couldn't figure it out. Thanks for looking though!

I don't quite see why you deleted the question, but this works for me:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?p=$uri&$args;
}

location ~ \.php {      
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;        
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
}

Btw, unless I'm totally mistaken, the question was originally something like, "how do I get rewritten url's in vanilla forum"
edit: ...in nginx