Game Idea: Adventurer Manager

[Jayus]

I've been brainstorming a new kind of game recently, with help with friends and a person from my local gaming store, and I'd like some input from this community. I just joined today, but I've been reading posts for a little while now.

The concept: You know those sports management games or the management aspects of certain games? Instead of trying to create a successful sports franchise, you are trying to create a successful adventuring group/mercenary company.

The player plays the role of a retired adventurer, who  is now the leader of an adventuring organization. The player is given a certain amount of points at the beginning of the game (say, 50 or 100). With these points, he or she buys a group of adventurers (for the sake of argument, let's say between 10 and 20). Each is worth a certain point value, based on the level of their attributes (to be discussed later).

From this initial pool of characters, the player chooses four or so characters to form a party for a mission/adventure/dungeon crawl, based on the intelligence the player possesses on the situation (for example, what sort of terrain the party will deal with, what kinds of monsters they will face, etc.).

Each adventure will be worth a certain amount of treasure, represented by Treasure Points (TP). This represents not only physical treasure, but also experience and perhaps other things, like prestige or reputation. TP can be spent on upgrading equipment and "leveling" characters, thus increasing their value.

TP values of adventures serve also to limit the power of the party one sends in. If you "win"an adventure, subtract the party's point value from the TP total; this represents TP consumed in repairing equipment and maintaining the party's current skill level. The leftover TP that can be used for upgrading and so forth.

I am thinking that this game should be competitive, with multiple players each playing a retired adventurer with his or her own adventuring company. The combat stuff can all be done via email, but the players meet once a week to roleplay their characters meeting up at a tavern to discuss and brag about their groups' exploits and regale each other with stories of their own adventures. They could all be former allies and rivals of one another.

The stats of are up in the air, but I want a really simple conflict resolutions, so the GM could do it quickly. For example, each character could have the following stats:

Physical Combat
Getting Around (to simulate skillssuch as climbing, jumping, etc)
Magical Combat
Magical Support
Negotiation
Teamwork

Perhaps there are a number of tests within an adventure, with successes in key tests representing "winning" the adventure. The degree of success could be compared to the other players' groups, deciding who wins among them.

That's probably enough for an initial post! I'd love to hear what you all have to say about this concept.

[Vulpinoid]

This is a bit like what I'm trying to develop with the macro half of my twin games interlinked concept.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=27573.0

I'd be interested to see how someone else approaches the subject matter.

V

[Jayus]

Thanks for the reply, V!

I like the idea of having two different games affecting one another. It's not the same concept as yours, but Ben Robbins talks about an experiment in which players don't always plat at the same time, but it is a consistent world:http://tinyurl.com/6krcgy.

Compared with mine, your game seems much more high-concept. The managerial could be defined as gamist, perhaps with a bit of simulationism thrown in. The roleplaying bit, of coming together to talk about what your group did with the other managers would be virtually exclusively narrativist, and probably wouldn't even need a resolution mechanic.

Maybe that's a shortcoming of my game: I don't have a story or theme. I just have the players sending their characters to dungeons and hopefully coming back victorious, loot in hand. I'm using a couple of random class generators to makeup the different characters, and some of them imply a specific location, and that is where I was thinking I'd get some of the setting. Also, I'm thinking of random plot generators to come up with the scenario that the manager has to deal with, using his employees.

I don't know if it's too bland not having an interesting storyline or anything. It's more like "Adventurers for hire."



A little bit more on how the sending out adventurers works:
Let's say you have 20 characters. From those, you pick the four that you think would best deal with the situation, based on their particular strengths. Usually, that will mean the characters which cost the most (which offers less of a return of Treasure Points). All you get to tell them are their initial orders and what tactics you'd like them to use. Then you send them off, and you won't know how they fare until they return.

I posited a solution for not just sending out your best characters to each mission: subtract the point value of the party from the Treasure Points. Another one, given by a person I know from the local gaming store, would be to just say "the adventurers need downtime; the can't be used for X adventures." I think a less contrived way of dealing with that is saying, "Sure, you can use them again, but they take a penalty from being fatigued...you didn't let them have any downtime!" Also, their relationship with the player could be strained.

[Vulpinoid]

Maybe that's a shortcoming of my game: I don't have a story or theme. I just have the players sending their characters to dungeons and hopefully coming back victorious, loot in hand. I'm using a couple of random class generators to makeup the different characters, and some of them imply a specific location, and that is where I was thinking I'd get some of the setting. Also, I'm thinking of random plot generators to come up with the scenario that the manager has to deal with, using his employees.

Yeah, mine sounds pretty high concept. It probably is...and it's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but that's why I'd like to see where someone else would take a similar idea.

I don't want to taint your concepts by throwing too many ideas your way, but here's a couple of suggestions.

Each player controls the leader of a group in a town...the head of the assassins guild, the archbishop, the captain of the town militia, a nomad gypsy king, etc. These archetypes may choose from three or four standard character classes normally associated with their group. They can also choose to roll from a random assortment of general character classes that are available to everyone.

Once the players have a core group of characters, they can build them up through play. Every successful adventure provides a character with an advancement point (two points if that character was designated as the leader of the group or if they accomplished some special task during their mission). The character classes each two of three specialty stats that improve quickly over the course of the game. Thieves might have movement as one of their stats that can be quickly raised, but it costs twice as much to improve a combat stat; Fighters might be the reverse. You could choose to specifically raise attributes, or buy new special abilities for your adventurers...or maybe you could roll randomly for improvement on a table  (A bit like the improvement of characters after a skirmish campaign miniatures game like "Mordheim" from Games Workshop).

At the end of a session, each player archetype has a table that they can roll for one of their adventurers indicating a specific gift that this group can offer (eg. Religious training for the church which allows anyone to pick up minor paladin or cleric abilites...stealth training for the assassin's guild...etc.) A player can choose to give their factions training to one of their adventures instead of rolling. 

...I'm just bouncing ideas at the moment...

A player has to choose which of their adventurers they send out on a mission, but each of the characters has bonuses or penalties in certain situations based on a series of keywords. Scenarios for the session are randomly rolled, and each of these scenarios has key-words that interact with the adventurers. At least one mission should be rolled per player, and then you can throw in other standard missions like "patrolling the streets", "performing a hit", "digging in the mines" which can be done at any time. Missions might be single plyer affairs, or they could be contested by multiple groups (with the highest scorer at the end of the session considered to score a success).

Each mission would have a risk level, and a potential pay-off. The risk will grow higher when adventurers with certain key words are present, and reward levels may change as well. The game becomes strategic when players decide who to send out against which missions. (eg. The paladin has great combat skills, but sending him against the undead tends to drive him into a religious fury where he get's reckless and dangerous to his other team mates.)

There's lots of potential in the idea. I know of a couple of ways I'd put together a game along these lines.

So far...keep plugging away at it, and we'll see if anyone else has something to say.

Otherwise I'll just keep bombarding you with ideas...it's what I do.

V

[Jayus]

By all means, if you have anything to say, don't hesitate! Your ideas are great! They're inspiring!

The idea that each character is the head of a faction within a city sounds great for another game altogether, that maybe I'l like to dedicate an entirely new thread to! Each person controls a faction, and that faction's goal is to take sole control of the city. Each round, the players get a certain amount of Power Points which they can use to buy units, perform actions/maneuvers and so forth (such as spying on other players' communications, smear campaigns, sabotage, assassinations, and so on) to increase their power and reduce the other players'.

It sounds like a great strategic yet open ended game. Just come up with what you want to do, assign a point value, and go!

Maybe some elements of blind betting. Example: the thieves' guild has a legitimate front to cover up their illicit activities. The player assigns 16 points to this Legitimate Cover. The leader of the law enforcement faction, not knowing how many points the thieves' guild player spent, pays 15 points to investigate the thieves' guild, but does not have enough points to penetrate their cover. Had s/he spent two more points, the thieves' guild's cover would have been blowing, giving the law enforcement faction a significant power boost and reducing the effectiveness of the thieves' guild.

As far as my original concept goes, this derails it, but makes me want to make this game as well! The idea of mandatory missions for each factions would be good, such as your suggestion "patrolling the streets" and "make a hit"

Upon closer examination of your post, I see what you were saying a little bit better. I think I misunderstood and built something new out of that misunderstanding!

So, back to your suggestions:

It would be interesting to have each player represent a different faction. I was thinking that the players would represent more mercenary people, but I suppose they could choose to be anything, from archbishop, to general, to head of a mercenary company. SO, you've expanded the options a bit for me.

When you talk about the players choosing which adventurer to send out, do you mean that each sends out one and allof them work together in a single party?

They use of keywords would be useful, maybe something that grants potential benefits and drawbacks, such as the Aspect system in Fate. Like "Zealous Undead Slayer"for your paladin example.

[DWeird]

I see this thing ablaze with gamist potential.

So there are some number of players, each with a group of essentially expendable adventurers (you can always get more). Managers get leads, but there are only so many to go around, so there's competition - a group goes in, clears a dungeon, empties the chests, then gets ambushed on the way out... Fun for everyone! Except for those who get their throats sliced, 'course.

The wealth gained can be used to advance your people... Or it can be used to get more leads, sabotage your enemies, or buy up certain services from the town.

"I'm sorry, sirs, the services of the inn are unavailable to you at this time. Or any time, really. You are welcome to use the neighbouring swamplands for lodging, of course."

Now, inter-faction competition could be fun... But I think having the managers essentially being nothing more than profit and/or power-seeking entities would put more emphasis on competition, which could be just as much fun. The adventurer's in a manager's employ wouldn't be tied that strictly to a single group, and could be lured way by another player by promise of more gold, glory, or simply by obviously being less of an ass to one's hirelings...

A manager would have to balance his gains on improving the efficiency of his adventurers, his capabilities of keeping said adventurers in his employ, long term investments in real estate or information sources, and short term investments in keeping the oponent's real-estate and information sources useless.

I'm seeing this mostly as a card game - there's a pile of certain attributes of an adventure (location; adversaries/obstacles; main goal; main reward), reflecting what a manager knows about the job in question. A certain adventure is designed by different players putting cards face down on the board... So there's usually limited information anyone ever has about a job (so, aside from actually preparing for an adventure, one could always buy equipment with the intent to mislead the opponent's idea of what the adventure is).

Adventurers could be made somewhat similarly - one pile with basic archetypes (thief/mage/fighter/paladin/cleric/etc.) and another with "character" (extremelly pious/miser/bloodthirsty/crazy/calm and collectedetc.). This isn't a pure divide - all archetypes define an aspect of behaviour (all thieves are greedy) and all character cards provide some sort of mechanical bonus (being pious provides a small boost against undead).

The roleplaying in this - well, pretty much narrating your action's, that's it. Oh, and boasting. Oh, and having a little superior grin on your face instead of boasting. Which is pretty much what the manager, as a character, would do. Immersion, raw and pure.

Anyhoo. I think this idea has great potential (I'm itching to play it right now)... Hope you get somewhere with it!

[Vulpinoid]

I think it could also be cool in this type of setting to have grand heroic mercenaries who will offer their services to the highest bidder.

Everyone gets the chance to bid some of their resources toward securing one of these great heroes (the greatest swordsman in the area, the craftiest sorceror, etc.). If the player manages to secure the hero's services they get a huge boost in some particular field, halving the risk to their regular troops (or maybe even better).

But has the player left their other resources short?

Has the player bid enough gold (or favours) to secure the services of the hero? What has the guy across the table bid?

Has the player actually spent too much in comparison to the bonuses they actually end up getting from the hero? Have I spent too much just to ensure my opponent doesn't get access to the hero (because the hero doesn't do much for me, but he'd be absolutely devastating in my opponent's hands)??

This has the added benefit that it brings the "fantasy football"/"sports management" concept back into play.

Just some ideas...

V

[Luke]

Man, I hate doing this, but Jayus, you're talking about a fantasy version of the roleplaying game Inspectres. I recommend picking it up and playing through, paying close attention to how the company and stress mechanics work. The game is very simple, but deceptively subtle! You could easily use it as a starting point for a very fun fantasy game involved in running an adventurer's guild.

Also, I have not played it, but Greg Stolze's Reign apparently also does something similar, but is albeit more complex.

I'm not here plugging or shilling. I'm trying to give you some information so you can get to the heart of what you want with a little less heartbreak.

[Jayus]

Thank you all for your input.

First, DWeird: Thank you! Using a card-based system to create adventures and characters would be cool and would make the game more engaging and would make it more of a board game. That is a good direction for this to go. I should think of different ways to make the card mechanic work. I'd love any help!

The idea of leads is cool, too. And any suggestions for how to spend points (such as on leads, buying up certain services, and so forth) are more than welcome! I think player creativity should be encouraged, and so the players should be able to do practically anything they think of, and anything the rules don't cover could a.) cost a certain amount based on player consensus on the spot, or b.) work on a bidding system, with others paying to negate it. Maybe not.

I think factions could stil have an impact: as independent organizations, your relationship with each changes and makes available to you special characters that would otherwise be unavailable. They come with an added price, however: some sort of favor to the faction.

Thanks again, it would be really cool (am I saying "cool" too much?) to have a working version of this game for everyone to enjoy!





Vulpinoid! That's a fantastic idea and fits really well. Like national heroes or star quarterbacks everyone is trying to attract to come play for their team.




Abzu, don't worry about it at all. If someone's done something like this before, then maybe I should take a look. Maybe I'll like what I see, and maybe I'll find ways that I think would work better in my case.



Sorry, I don't really have anything of my own to add right now, but thank you for all your input!

[DWeird]

Well, if you want a card game to be moddable on the spot, you should probably go with blank cards + a set of coloured pencils. Takes away a bit from the nice n' crispy cardgame feel, but there's no reason you can't eventually make a "canon" set of cards with nice artwork, eh?

Oh, and when I was talking about archetype and personality cards combining to forme a single character, I was thinking of a design I saw in Capes ( http://www.museoffire.com/Games/Downloads/BlankSheets.pdf - would've linked to it before, but the website was hell to dig out for some reason). Basically, the two cards snap together, making the information provided easily available. Don't think you should use exactly that design, but hopefully it's something to think about...

As for ways to spend money... How about various vanity stuff? Pimpin' carriage with steeds of twenty horse-power, a bitchin' palace of a home, so forth... Points spent here in this area could go towards some sort of "social" win - the locals are so much in awe with the guy with all the cool stuff that they elect him Undisputed Leader of All. Other obvious ways to win are getting rid of the competition by means of manslaughter, encarceration for crimes real or not so much, buying 'em out, or magically turning them into chickens (then, probably, chickenslaughter... Then, probably, soup). You could probably also have balls or other such events that could potentially be ruined in one way or another.

If you choose to emulate monster attacks on the city in some way (danger to non-player stuff and a possibility to get points with different factions? Defend the ordinary citizens and get points to a general "Honour" statistic? Varying level of danger to the all players' holdings?), you could also spend money by improving defenses in some way.

'course, a good card game - as far as I can tell - is less about a list of features and more about the resources that the features embody. Resources that count towards a win, resources that can be used to screw your opponent, and resources that can be used to get other resources. You try to make your own vicious cycle (virtue ain't got nothin' to do with this!) and knock the teeth out of your opponents', and fun is derived when there's a little tussle and no guaranteed way to win.

Though, I haven't ever designed a card game myself, and I sometimes win poker games by accident, so I'd take that last little bit of advice with a grain of salt.

[Jayus]

So, if we run with DWeird's card idea, it puts more of the game in the players' hand,which is cool, and maybe there isn't need for a GM.

There are cards representing different elements of a dungeon:

Terrain
Monsters
Traps
Treasure
Interesting encounters, such as cards that say "A disagreement among the party has led to internal conflict. Roll X or suffer a -1 to Teamwork rolls for the rest of the adventure," or something like that

For characters, Joining cards would be interesting. I took a look at Capes. There was also a card game from Wizards of the Coast in which you combined pentagonal cards to form a creature. One thing we could do is have a card representing the character in the center with a certain number of sides. Let's say it has four sides. Then, youcan attach certain things to the sides. For example, personality cards (Example: Angry- this character gets a +1 in combat but -1 to Teamwork; Greedy- ?), special equipment cards, secrets (example: Vampiric- this character is hiding that s/he is really a vampire. I'm not sure what effects that would have), and anything else that would describe the character.

[monkey]

Ok, wow, this is awesome.  I want this made.  If you don't, I will.  I may anyway.

I'm seeing it as a boardgame done with all (or mostly) cards.  I'm thinking of something probably higher level than you are.  Not as much detail as monsters and traps and stuff.  More along the lines of having quests, each of which is represented by a single card (maybe a second for some kind of complication or something) which tells what kind of skills are needed, what kind of xp is earned, and what kind of treasure is gained.

The players are adventure managers in the same sense as any talent manager, you try to hook up your clients with good quests.  So on the one hand you have a pool of adventurers, I'm thinking you have 1-3 parties, with up to four members each.  Generally, you'd try to fill the typical roles in each party: fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard. 

Each adventurer would have a card that says how good he is at each of these jobs, and what type they are.  I like the idea of sub-role like a fighter-paladin or a rogue-thief.  Specific quests would have specific effects on each main role and sub-role.  We should probably call these classes.  I think the main stats for an adventurer are how good they are at each class/what level they are/how much xp they have, how much morale they have, and how much equipment they have or can have.  So you can make adventurers better by getting them xp or equipment.  I think morale would represent how happy they are with their manager, and also how healthy they are.  Getting hurt on a quest could be modeled as morale loss.  You can spread it out evenly, or spend it all on one adventurer and have them die.  If morale is low, it's easy for other players to pick up your talent.  Players bid over new adventurers from some kind of pool of available ones.  I see you starting out with few adventurers and gaining more later, as well as retiring some maybe for new better ones (of course, yours could have leveled up).

Having factions would be cool, where you get quests from, which represent the kinds of quests you'd get.  So there could be a Fighter's Guild, Thieves' Guild, Church, Mage's Guild, and Count/Duke/King.  Maybe some more.  I think as you reach different stages you start drawing from differnt level's of quests for each, hence the Count/Duke/King.  You start out taking quests for the Count, but eventually you're working for the King himself on much harder quests.  Players can bid for contracts with the different factions, which gives them first pick of quests from that faction.  However, it may also mean you're obligated to take on certain quests that may not be as lucrative.

I like the idea of having more freelance adventurers as well.  Ones that you can't own exclusively, but you could hire to round out your party or use for a special skill for a certain quest.  They'd be good, but expensive.  Similarly, I think players should be able to hire out individuals they control to other players' parties for certain quests.  One player doesn't have a cleric but he has an undead quest: hire one from someone else.

Maybe also have set locations that you can go to, big dungeons, that if you don't have a good quest from someone, you can just go there to do something, although the rewards are generally less.

In addition to or instead of Morale have a Fame for each adventurer.  Maybe have different adventurers want different stats: xp, equipment, or fame, which factors into their morale.

Maybe time the game by the Count/Duke/King's quest deck, maybe with a certain quest at the bottom that when completed goes ends the game.  Uncompleted quests become available to other players first, as you screwed up!

Scoring is done by money (or maybe dependent on player, with cards for your manager representing desire and special abilities), you get profit off your parties.  However has the most, wins.  However, the money is given out as cards that have abilities on them.  Either extra equipment to give to your party, or buffs, or favors, or the ability to take other characters, or get contracts.  Stuff to make you want to spend them during the game.

[Gurnard]

You had me at "Game Idea: Adventurer Manager"
I'm seeing this idea more as a computer game than a table-top though. Sort of like a Dungeon Keeper from the other side but with the same play aesthetic.
However implemented though, this tickles my fancy in all kinds of ways. Sifting through a stack of random pregenerated rookie characters, shortlisting dudes for upcoming campaigns and thinking "this dude's a bit weak all-round but perfect for this Shadow Dragon Lair crawl we have coming up, hell if he levels up a few times he might make my A-Class Allrounder Party..."
Trading off Star Heroes to other managers for items or cash...rad concept!

[Jayus]

Thanks, monkey and Gurnard! I'm glad you're so interested!

monkey:

It seems like a good way to take this game is to a board/card game.

Hmm, interesting idea, equating morale with damage. Damage can be abstract, and thus there's less to calculate separately. Bidding would be interesting, too. It would be cool to have people trying to get characters away from their fellow players. In terms of stats reflecting their skill as a certain class, I'm not sure, would you mind supplying an example?

In terms of guilds, I think it could be a cool optional idea to be allied solely with a single guild, but I think the default should be that you are independent managers who can take quests from a myriad of sources. Upon further reading, you seem to support the idea that they can get quests from various factions, as well.

Gurnard

I think your-sports oriented concepts would fit rather well! Thank you!


Mechanics

So, yesterday I played around with the idea of using a pool of d6s for the stats, as you do in your game, Vulpinoid. 1-3=failure and 4-6=a success

So, if you have:

Attack: 4
Defense: 5
Getting around: 2
Teamwork: 3
(These stats are not the end-all be-all)

You'd roll as many d6s as your score in that area.

Damage, or stress:
Damage or stress(to be more abstract) is accumulated every time you roll really poorly (a 1) or really well (a 6), If you fail the overal roll, you also take 1 stress.

Picture the stats (Attack, Defense, Getting Around, etc.) as having a certain number of boxes to be checked off (equal to the stat):

Stats are listed thus:

Attack: (_) (_) (_) (_)
Defense: (_) (_) (_) (_) (_)
Getting Around:  (_) (_)
Teamwork:  (_) (_) (_)

You also have a stress track, lets say, of six:  (_) (_) (_) (_) (_) (_)

Whenever you take a stress, you check off a box in the stress track. However, you can also check one off of your stats instead. Maybe after all of your stress boxes have been checked off, you move to your stats, representing degrading ability to due to damage or lowered morale. Maybe a character is only taken out of commission when he or she has all of his/her stress boxes checked off, you can allocate stress to your other abilities instead.

I'll have to add more later! I hope that gives everyone a little something to chew on!

[Vulpinoid]

Maybe you could use stress as an initiative in your game....the less unchecked stress boxes you have, the harder it is for you to think under pressure and the other guy thinks first.

More initial points in your stress track indicate someone who's a veteran and who has probably been in a few adventures (so they know what to expect), less points in the stress track indicate a green newbie who'll start to freak out as soon as they first see blood.

I'm just trying to think of a reason to make players think twice about whether to cross points off their stress track or their other character markers.

Just an idea...

V