I had an idea for a "fantasy team management" game which would be a sort of meta-game of the usual genre fantasy rpg, blended with ideas from fantasy sports games.  Players would manage rosters of heroes, the types generally found as PC's.  The players themselves would be the behind the scenes 'great powers' who direct their heroes, give them assignments and resources, and then hope they come back alive.   Each player would have a different but not necessarily competitive agenda, so several players might contribute heroes towards one mission that affects all of them, Council of Elrond style.  Players would not run their heroes directly.  That would be "below" the scale of the game.  Just influence them remotely, give them instructions, etc.  Players would design the great leader they are representing, and their choices would influence what kinds of heroes are available to them.

Warlords of Draenor in PbP? Might work because of a human GM!

But doesn't what you're talking about fit something like the stronghold and follower system of D&D? Would something like that be used for mechanics?

Not my cup of tea, but I've seen games with similar elements.

The computer strategy game series Majesty is in a fantasy setting and doesn't give you direct control over units. Instead you must use bounties of various types to motivate them. Additionally, since toes of heroes will not come to your kingdom of others are present (if you build a temple to one deity then a recall deity's followers won't serve your kingdom). Each time of hero also has certain habits; rogues will steal from other heroes and like to hang around the market, wizards will spend down time in the library, rangers explore without needing a good payment, and warriors hint monsters for fun. Also some types of heroes sell each other out and form teams without prompting from the player.

Second, I hear that Darkest Dungeon had some elements of team management. Do you send a rookie hero on this raid to level them up or do you send in your best heroes and risk losing all look them.

The X-COM 2: Long War mod also had some team management elements.

Just some thoughts for inspiration.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:59, Tue 18 July 2017.

In reply to Eur512 (msg # 1):

What input are you looking for on this? :)

Not sure.  Just thoughts, whatever random "here is what I would want to see in something like that" or "how would...?" feedback pops into people's heads.

I had a related idea, except that the players would play both the "powers" and the "agents," as I think a game just about the "powers" would be hard for me to keep interesting. Applicants would make a Power and an Agent and the idea was going to be that each player's Agent would work (possibly without their knowledge, Keyzer Soze style) for another player's Power, so that there would be some hardwired interplay.

For me this would be on a continuum towards a God Game, of which I'm a fan, or a Domain Game, moreso. I've seen elements like this and they can work but there's plenty that falls onto the shoulders of the GM and the element of remove potentially makes it harder for the player to care about the result. Where would you focus the player interaction and input?

Most versions of this kind of game I have done are actually transitions from one campaign to another, the high level characters stop being active PCs at some point when the system breaks down (about 15-18th level in most D&D versions) and fade back to ether be rulers or the power behind the throne in separate countries.

Then new PCs start up the 5th or so level 'classic adventurer' stage each working for one of the high level PCs played by a different player.  That being the twist your agenda is a two part thing.

You could still do that here.  Just do it in phases, or even just background story events where each player picks out 3 or 5 things their high level character did to be known as famous and pile all those together in one thread, then make the lower level characters as the actual characters in play, and assign each player a 'boss' from the list of now NPC high level characters.

If you want to do double blind you can have all the agenda stuff done through the GM which requires a little bit of copy paste and some keeping track of names on PM threads but very little actual work.

Sounds like Ars magica, with companion-led teams of grogs and wizards as team managers.

50 quatloosTass on the big hairy one to solve the mystery of the faerie woods!

Sounds like the board game "Lords of Waterdeep" to me...

The player interaction part would be tricky.

What if, through some hand wave, it was set up so all the "powers" could meet/communicate at any time?

And the challenges were more of the type that could effect/harm/benefit multiple players at once, so that the players were sort of like an adventuring party, but "the next level up".

Instead of "my character sneaks up to the door to listen" you have "I dispatch my best spy to investigate and report back".

What if the players are a group of gods n conflict with other groups of gods? Deities after often in conflict with each other, their designs can span multiple worlds or dimensions, and instant communication with each other is easy to hand wave.

In reply to Godzfirefly (msg # 10):

Which I'd dig seeing worked into a roleplaying game, where the "parties" sent on missions are faceless, expendable mooks but they get to do a bit more than just get returned to the bulk supply. As if it were necessary in Lords of Waterdeep to make some skill checks or attack rolls or adopt some actual strategy with the party itself, instead of just cashing in the required resources.

I like that gods idea.  keeps the player-characters in contact, gives them a reason to NOT be acting directly in the world, and also, we can assume each deity collects heroes that are more or less of their "type", so the different players have very different abilities.

If you're looking for a justification you could always use a setup like the Forgotten Realms: there's an over god who will kill the PC/NPC gods if they engage directly, or if your players engage directly and are killed then their powers are handed off to the villianous gods (but if their followers are killed then their souls go to the PC's heaven).

devil's advocate... you could offer the option, for those "can't afford to fail this mission" missions, that the players could take a direct role. however, if they choose to do so, they lose contact with the other players for the extent of that mission and can no longer sense or affect things on a grand scale. basically, they take mortal (albeit super-powerful) form and work with their heroes directly. assuming their opponent deities do not ambush them in mortal form, they most likely will auto-succeed the mission, but they might miss something important in the big picture (opponent makes major move elsewhere on the "board").

this also gives a single divine location for all the players of a given "team" to be co-located with each other to communicate and cooperate. sending their heroes out and giving directions, as mentioned in previous post.

Well, this took on a life of its own.
What started as a plan to make a game in which players "manage" heroic characters instead of playing heroic characters morphed, and now I am working on a game in which players play gods, each one of which has particular powers.

The character management is still there, but now the player gods use their divine powers to push things along, aid their characters, and create new characters.

It's a completely home brewed system- nothing available that was exactly what I wanted.  The idea seems to be working towards "next order of magnitude up" role playing.  There are still player characters, but they are gods, and have divine powers and mortals to throw into the world instead of spells and weaponry.

Mortals are a pain in the butt to work with, of course.  Stubborn, short sighted, self interested creatures.

Soon, I think, work will be complete and I will unleash this creation upon the world.  Or at least RPOL.

Thank you for assorted suggestions!

There is one game system that has something along these lines: the classic D&D rules. What started with the Basic and Expert sets eventually ran to one called "Immortals", in which the PCs ascended to godhood. It might be exactly what you're looking for.

Maybe D&D 3.5 with them going to divine rank 0 and ascending after completing objectives through their "faithful"