I was watching delicious in dungeon the other night and in it was some conflict about a hired adventurer bailing on their contract and joining another group which gave me an idea for a neat game.
Basically, you are a solo adventurer for hire, you may hang out at a tavern and then you get hired for contracts for various and return to the tavern after your contract is done. While it is party based, you just control your character and do not manage the party or choose where to go. You can get loot on adventures or buy it at the tavern or something like that. Its basically a career simulation for an adventurer who is not tied to a certain party and where you are not the chosen one to solve the big, bad problem.
that sounds really neat. Like, letting the others do the heavy lifting, and you decide when to bail out. But what about your reputation? Who would hire a lousy adventurer?
I was thinking you could complete the contract and not have a bad rep, like the contract is to go with an an adventuring party to defeat a bandit camp and when its done, you were free again. However, I suppose if the party was supposed to defeat the necromancer lord, and after a few encounters you decided it was a suicde mission and you decided to bail, there could be some rep consequences, unless of course the party went on without you and died, then who would tell?
…and then, one of the contracts is to take out a rogue party of adventurers that used to be your old party… and your young son has joined them. Raises the dramatic element!
Or how about you’re a journalist/bard who writes the adventuring column for a paper and you go along on these contracts and your job is to simply observe details.
Occasionally an enemy will attack you, too, and you can only use defensive abilities until one of the adventurers gets the enemy off you. You’re a reporter, not a fighter!
Which means that while defending, you still must pay attention to the battle because at the end of the battle, you are given a multiple choice quiz with timed questions: “What color was the wizard overlord’s cloak?”, “What spell did your party’s sorcerer open with?”, “Who landed the final blow on the zombie captain?”, etc.
Points are given for correct answers (obviously), but also for speed in which you answer. The bonus round is a question at the end that only those paying very close attention can get right.
At the end, you are presented with sentences to put in order of events which make up your story, get the order of events wrong and this also lowers your score. There are rival reporters at competing papers you are up against. Score high on the list and you are joining the high profile expeditions taking out dragons and wizard kings. Score low, and you’re hanging around the town cryer.
The paper you write for is Hard Tymes. That could be the name of the game.
It doesn’t really hit on themes you mentioned but this reminded me of how Socerian was designed more as an adventurer career simulator, with characters you create starting out at age 16 and getting older across adventures, eventually aging out and dying of old age.
In theory (but not in practice), it’s how Gloomhaven works. Characters are distinct from the party and can be swapped in and out; they have their own equipment and finances, and will retire after a while.
Which would do what you want if there were loads of parties to choose between, but in practice you’re always with your same group because it’s a boardgame so obviously you are.
I’m picturing this as a turn-based roguelike inside of a blobber rpg. So, the other members of the party that hire you are represented as a single ai-controlled unit on the map and you either follow them or scout ahead and aggro enemies back to them, depending on the party characteristics and the class you are playing.
Hm. Might be a fun idea for a roguelike or an RPG heavy on random elements. Maybe some light party (mis)management elements (“I can’t believe you’re THAT dense!” “I SAID TRAP YOU BLOCKHEAD!” “No, don’t eat those, they’re poisonous!”) and conditions for bonus payouts (“I dragged your sorry asses out of there, now pay up, knife-ears!”).
You might be onto a fun concept here. Never seen anything quite like it. The pawn system in DD gives you the “lovable idiots”, but they lack agency by design. You need the opposite, an AI group with agency, but consisting of more-or-less idiots.
If there’s one thing everyone hates, it’s the escort the NPCs mission. So you’d definitely need a lot of humour if you want your AI companions to be idiots.
Might work well as a tactical puzzle game, actually, akin to Into the Breach.
I would double-down on the out-for-yourself mercenary angle and make ditching parties at the most strategic time and then managing the reputational consequences the core of the game. So you not only have to know the best time to bail (and make sure you’ve talked the party into splitting the loot before then!), but maybe you’re collecting a list of the screw-ups from the rest of the party so you can tell the story at the tavern of how the total party kill was all their own fault and you were lucky to get out alive.
