A Most Dire Siege: Dota 2 Mafia

[Meta]

A rustling of leaves broke her reverie. She had been staring nervously at the family of wildkin snoozing in a small clearing of the dark and twisted trees. The abominable vegetation made her uneasy, but hungry, conscious wildkin would make her dead.

She looked for the source of the disturbance and saw a green-armored hand gesturing beckoningly. She moved closer and the form of their squad’s spellcaster materialized, his cloak of vibrant greenery looking quite of out place in the stark landscape, even in the pre-dawn light.

The heroes will be making their push soon. Best be ready.

Why the rush?

The Radiant had pushed the Dire back into their barren stronghold. Their resource lines cut, surely we could starve the surviving Dire out.

The mage grimaced. Leviathan is making their own approach to the Ancient.

She understood. A slow victory was as good as a defeat if we can't end things here before Leviathan mopped up The Alliance.

What I don’t understand is why we’re pushing so irregularly. The Dire heroes are far more comfortable in their terrain to begin with, why give them the added advantage of time to prepare?

She pointed at a dark shape rising high above the hill a few hundred meters away.

Siege weapons might be able to destroy the towers from a safe distance, but those of us without a ranged option will get annihilated by that structure trying to defend such machines from the Dire heroes.

The puzzle comes together for the young arcanist.

The heroes intend to learn the lay of the land during the day, preparing to bring down the towers safely. They know the Dire cannot ignore this and their heroes will attempt to infiltrate our ranks. We hunker down at night while they play cat and mouse, and hopefully we’ll catch sight of them and out them during the day.

Awfully self-sacrificing of them to not just use us as meat shields and rush at the Dire’s towers.

Well they are called the Radiant.

Quite.

Spoiler: Rules:

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Days will be 48 hours long, nights are 24 hours. I’ll do my best to deviate from this as little as possible.

Please vote in red, strike it out if you’re unvoting or revoting.

Try and keep post-editing to a minimum. I’m not terribly familiar with the forum’s controls, but I’ll try and keep things neat and orderly.

I’ll poke people should they fall inactive, and replace if possible. Auto-lynching is the last resort.

When you die, please keep further communication in the thread to a “goodbye and goodluck” level of input.

Any lynch ties are resolved by lynching the first to reach that number.

Feel free to PM to your heart’s content but CC me.

I’ve got a couple of different ideas on small additions to the game, but I’d like to hear what you all would prefer. If perspective players could weigh in on any number of them, that’d be appreciated.

Spoiler: Rules/Additions pending your feedback:

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A town graveyard quick topic?

I suspect I have more roles than needed for the number of players we’ll have. Would you like if the power roles could ‘draft’ their heroes from the choices available?

Alpha-Pick becomes slightly more complicated if the above is included and a new level of “who would X pick for Y” is now fair game. Yay or nay on Alpha Pick?

There’s going to be some meta knowledge at work for people who know a little about Dota 2. One way I thought to even the playing field was with narration that had some flavor clues when different scenarios occurred. Would you prefer this or not?

If no majority is reached on any of the aspects I’m more unsure will be universally enjoyable, I’ll play it safe and exclude rather than include.

Spoiler: Roles:

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Radiant Creeps are our town villagers. They form the backbone of the Radiant forces and were crucial in defeating (perhaps all of) the Dire Creeps.

Radiant Heroes are the town power roles. Their skill and valor has pushed the Dire forces back into their stronghold, but all will be for naught if they’re unable to end the siege quickly.

Dire Heroes are the wolves power roles. They’ve lost the pitched battle fought along the swift river separating Radiant and Dire territory, but safely behind their fortifications they plot to even the odds.

Dire Creeps: The Radiant have eliminated the bulk of Dire’s forces, but if any Dire Creeps have survived they will be vanilla wolves.

This game will see the power roles on both sides gain new abilities as the game progresses. Once half or more of the starting players have been eliminated, the Radiant and Dire heroes will have access to a new ability. They do not lose access to their first ability, but if both are night actions, they may only use one per phase.

There are several custom abilities, but most will be familiar to the seasoned mafia player. In order to smooth how some of these interact I’ll be using this ‘order of operations’ to determine which night actions happen in which order.

Passive->Fast->RoleBlock->Bane->Normal->Slow

This may also be familiar to some players, whether seen in text or just experienced. If you have any questions feel free to PM me. Each role will have the ‘speed’ of its abilities listed in the role PM, except for The Dire team’s night kill which functions at Normal speed.

I think I've covered most of it, but let me know if something is unclear or you feel something be added to the OP. I should be able to run the game with any number of players, and the more the merrier.

Player list:
Ramsus
Rain Dragon
Elenna
Legato Endless
ImperatorV
Luizeu
Murska
Silent_Interim
Deathslayer7
Cuthalion
Thematthew
Duck999
Pelican
Internet Flea
cardrian
Chessgeek
DragonBaneDM

Subs:
Fleeing Coward

[Ramsus]

I have no opinion on a town graveyard QT aside from the fact that the earlier people who die might be reasonable choices for auto-lynch replacements. But they also might not depending on what the roles are.

I'll pretty much always be voting for Alphas that pick their wolf team until I actually get the role for once.

I think the draft idea sounds neat. No idea what the combination of things will do since I don't know exactly how you plan to go about it.

Also I'm in.

[Rain Dragon]

I'd like to join!

[Elenna]

In!

[Legato Endless]

Tentative in, health permitting.

Yes to alpha for Rasmus.

Drafting sounds like a lot of customization, but if your balance is solid...

Meta knowledge really shouldn't be a reliable source of info. Hinting in the narration would help ,but assigning covers or divorcing identities from alignment or what have you is generally a better idea to keep fans from having an edge.

Dead Town QT is always a good idea if allowable.

[ImperatorV]

I'm not really familiar with some of the terms your using... But I have wanted to try a game on this subforum for a while, and I play dota, so this seems obvious. I'm in.

[Ramsus]

Meta knowledge really shouldn't be a reliable source of info. Hinting in the narration would help ,but assigning covers or divorcing identities from alignment or what have you is generally a better idea to keep fans from having an edge.

I'll second this, but don't worry too much about it if it'd be a ton of extra work.

[Luizeu]

I want to play as well

[Murska]

I'll join. Alpha pick is fun, dead town QT should be opt-in - ask dead players whether they want a link. Drafting sounds like it might be interesting.

[Silent_Interim]

I'll be in. I have no opinion on alpha pick, although I've never played without it. I'll be honest, I don't 100% understand the drafting mechanic. Graveyard QTs can be nice. There should, ideally, be no real bonus for the meta knowledge.

[Legato Endless]

I'm not really familiar with some of the terms your using... But I have wanted to try a game on this subforum for a while, and I play dota, so this seems obvious. I'm in.

Welcome Imperator. Anything unfamiliar, feel free to ask.

[Deathslayer7]

In.

Yes to alpha picking.
Yes to draft. Though I'm not sure how that would work here.

[Meta]

I'll update the OP with player list when I'm back at the computer, but I'll clarify what I can now from memory. Dang phone doesn't have the previous posts.

Drafting would be as follows:
Randomize who gets what power role by rolling dice.
First die = first player to draft.
That player gets a list of the roles for their faction. Choose whichever they like.
I'll tell the second player what the first player picked. Then they choose. Continues until all power roles have chosen.
The Wolves will be able to essentially pick their roles for whomever they like if Alpha pick is a go.

It sounds like an opt-in for dead town that is okay waiving their ability to sub in for inactive players is a solid way to go, but I'll wait until player list is set.

Thankfully, dota heroes have 4+ abilities and I've made sure there's no consistent pattern to which I've used for the roles. That should help minimize the amount of relevant outside info.

Imperator, you can also PM me any questions, but the folks here are very welcoming of newcomers so I think asking questions even once the game has begun is totally fine.

[Cuthalion]

Been waiting for a new GitP game. So in.

[Legato Endless]

Been waiting for a new GitP game. So in.

Oh wow. I hadn't realized how wide open the calendar is.

[Thematthew]

With a fierce heart, I (re)join the fray.

[Cuthalion]

Oh wow. I hadn't realized how wide open the calendar is.

We really haven't had many games recently, and hosting isn't quite the same.

[Duck999]

In! I need more WW!

[Pelican]

In, and I like the drafting idea very much.

[Internet Flea]

I'll join with the full knowledge that it's a bad idea.

Yes to deadchat, yes I like Alpha games, drafts sound interesting and I doubt Dota knowledge will swing things but you could make a list of possible character's roles or something if you're worried? Although thinking about it, does everyone get a role name or just the power roles?

[Fleeing Coward]

Signing up as a sub for the inevitable ALs.

[Meta]

I haven't crafted good mafia roles for all 100+ heroes (yet...) so listing just the ones available would enable some more metagaming I suppose. I can link a list of all heroes in the OP and at that point there are way too many possibilities to accurately game the roles I think. I'll link it in the OP when Day 1 starts.

I wanted drafting roles to be possible at inception, both to evoke an aspect of actual dota, creates replay-ability, and because it lets players play the sort of game they want to play. The challenge being that most vanilla mafia roles are wildly ill-balanced in regards to each other. Double-voting is just not as good as being a Seer.

Spoiler: Quick Story Time

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I originally devised a system and roles where players could both 'move' up and down the player list (including villagers) and every ability had a 'range.' This added a really, really good tuning knob for balancing. I could include scrying, baning, role-blocking, tracking, and every other role and still have them balanced against each other by limiting the range. It also added another level of deduction. Did someone move to try and screen their power role, or was it a wolf moving into position?

While good in theory (maybe?) the reality is that it added a significant increase in complexity, and would be even less fulfilling if players went inactive. I ditched that aspect of the game and a few roles that played off of it and rebalanced the remaining. I'm still reasonably confident that no roles are unpickable or auto-picks, but something was given up.

One of the things that's helped me balance the roles is everyone having two, essentially. A weaker role can be combined with a synergistic ability, or a more rawly powerful to compensate.

[Ramsus]

So are villagers still y'know... powerless villagers while the power roles apparently have multiple powers? (I think the two powers to balance against an average is a good idea, but on the other hand it just makes people without any powers even sadder.)

[Meta]

So are villagers still y'know... powerless villagers while the power roles apparently have multiple powers? (I think the two powers to balance against an average is a good idea, but on the other hand it just makes people without any powers even sadder.)

Accurate. I don't think the roles I have designed will create a bigger than usual gap between power and not. YMMV but I would say most, even with two abilities, are just a touch weaker than some of the most typically powerful roles.

[TherianTheorist]

Any room for more?

[Legato Endless]

Yes.

Meta, what's your target number incidentally?

[Meta]

Any room for more?

Of course. Added to the player list.

Legato, I was gonna give it a week for recruitment, didn't have a set number in mind. What's the usual?

[Ramsus]

Often depends on the game. Twenty is around the minimum though.

[Chessgeek]

I could play.

I like Murska's idea of players being able to opt into the dead QT at the expense of their chances to be an AL replacement. I imagine auto lynches will occur with some frequency so having a few backups available is always good. Drafting roles seems like good fun and in keeping with the theme of it being a dota game so I would support that idea. Though maybe doing a single draft type of idea to make sure multiple people don't select the same hero and slow the start of the game would be best? Having people select sequentially would have the potential to seriously slow the start. Would the alpha pick be sort of like Captain's Mode? I don't think it really matters either way but if the start is already depending on the inputs of other people, then there's no real harm (in terms of delay to the start of the game) in having an alpha draft their teammates.

[Meta]

I could play.

I like Murska's idea of players being able to opt into the dead QT at the expense of their chances to be an AL replacement. I imagine auto lynches will occur with some frequency so having a few backups available is always good. Drafting roles seems like good fun and in keeping with the theme of it being a dota game so I would support that idea. Though maybe doing a single draft type of idea to make sure multiple people don't select the same hero and slow the start of the game would be best? Having people select sequentially would have the potential to seriously slow the start. Would the alpha pick be sort of like Captain's Mode? I don't think it really matters either way but if the start is already depending on the inputs of other people, then there's no real harm (in terms of delay to the start of the game) in having an alpha draft their teammates.

Yeah, I suppose it would end up mimicking Captain's Mode exactly. That works well.

I could make it like SD, but I think I could just give the first person 12 hours or so, and if they don't make it in time, no sweat just move them down to the next spot and so forth.

Edit: I ran through some scenarios based on a 20 person game, which seems pretty achievable by the end of the week, and I believe having each randomized power player given a couple of somewhat similar options will be the best. They're unique enough that the decision (and opportunity cost) is real, but I can mold the game to not have extremely explosive and swingy occurences for either faction. If my balance ends up being sound, I can always host a similar game with an entirely open draft at a later date. Any Objections?