A Game In Which You Manage A Team of RPG-Style Heroes

The Game Room
1

I guess this would be kind of like Diablo meets Fantasy Football.

This morning I was idly dreaming up an idea for a game which features Diablo or D&D or WoW (or whatever) style heroes, but in which you, the player, aren’t identified with one such hero or even a small squad of such heroes, but rather, an entire team or guild of such heroes.

You would start out small, with one or two weak heroes in your company, and as the game progresses, you would be able to hire more and stronger heroes, send groups out on more lucrative and difficult quests, add to your company’s facilities, decide how your heroes’ stats and powers should be developed and so on.

My question is, is there a game like this? Done right, I think it could be fun. I say this from the perspective of someone who likes Diablo II type games specifically for the character development mechanics (which skills to learn and when) and the piecing together of equipment sets with good synergies and so on.

In the game I was sort of dreaming up, quests would be decided algorithmically and statistically, based on the hero’s or heroes’ stats, skills and experience who go on the quest. The player would have no (direct) involvement with the process of playing through the quest, because the player’s role is not to go do quests but rather to manage the heroes in between quests.

The player’s guild or company or whatever could acquire a reputation for certain kinds of quests and certain levels of honesty or goodness or evilness or whatever, and in this way the company/guild/whatever could be customized by the player to become, eventually, any of a number of kinds of groups–such as assassins’ guilds, paladins’ sanctuaries, magical research centers, brigands, city watch, rampagin hoarde, archaeological recovery companies, or whatever. (To be clear, it’s not like a paladin’s sanctuary couldn’t use a few good thieves and magicians in its employ, so I don’t mean a company would consist only in a bunch of the same kind of hero.)

So anyway, as I was saying, I was wondering if there’s anything like this out there?

-Kris

2

I forgot to mention one other aspect–there would, of course, be other players in the gameworld running their own companies, competing for “contracts” so to speak, covertly attacking you and each other, making agreements with you and each other, and developing their own specialties, and competing to hire heros away from each other, and so on.

-FrL-

3

I’m not aware of such. There are games which sort of touch on elements of what you’re talking about… turn-based strategy games that allow you to recruit ‘heroes’ to lead your forces, like Warlords, but not with that as a focus…

4

The Freedom Force games on the PC are generally what you are looking for. I played the second one (with Nazi’s and time travel - fun but not original) and enjoyed the combination of heroes you recruit as the story line progresses and heroes you can create yourself with the points won by your game-play.

Freedom Force wiki

5

The Superhero League of Hoboken!

6

256 colours AND 2D graphics! I’m so there!

7

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I was hoping for something in the fantasy genre rather than the superhero genre, but anyway these two could give me some more detailed ideas about how a fantasy version might go, so thanks!

-FRL-

8

Just remember: “Weehawken Area” is not a euphimism.

9

I guess that sort of fantasy thing is in short supply. The nearest I know is Neverwinter Nights 2 - where you get growing team of heroes as you play the game and can control their development as they level up. You can mix and match in a party of 4 or 5 for the different quests. But it is story driven, even if you do get your own castle to develop at some point.

Maybe check out Mount and Blade? I haven’t played it but have read good things.

10

There was an old 1992 D&D related computer game called Stronghold (there was also a more recent castle building game called Stronghold, but that’s not the one I’m talking about). In it, you’d build structures and then raise an army with those structures to take over your neighbors. But as part of the game, you’d attract heroes who would lead your armies and who you could send on quests so they’d gain experience and magic items.

11

Master of Magic?

12

Hinterland
My Life as a King

Hinterland hasn’t been released yet and My Life as a King is only available as a Wii download, but both sound like the sort of thing you’re looking for.

13

Both of those look quite similar (in some ways) to the kind of thing I was wondering about. I’ll never have a Wii, but I’ll be looking forward to Hinterland. Thanks for the tips!

-Kris

14

This looks good:

Majesty 2

15

The various Might & Magic RPGs were like this, though mostly you had the same team of characters throughout - you developed them how you wanted as you went along, though. There was even such a thing as Reputation; its impact was minor but you needed to be Saintly to master Light Magic (in M&MVI), Notorious to master Dark… and if you were still Notorious when you paid an essential call on any of the rulers, you got tossed in the hoosegow for a year. In M&MVII Reputation varied from place to place according to what you’d done locally, and affected how well-disposed the local shopkeepers would be - so Stone City was a good place for trading from mid-game onwards, as you had a couple of Dwarf-friendly quests that made you quite popular.

16

Guild Wars have both heroes and henchmen. The henchies have set skills and can be recruited into any group (their level and skills depend on where you are in the game).

Heroes are partially computer controlled and can be micro controlled by the player. Heroes can configured however the player wants them to be.