I was re-reading a game of thrones and I started thinking about Varys the Spider and the whole idea of the spy master. He's a common figure in games, books and movies: He brokers information, sells secrets and knows everything that goes on in his domain. He's never the protagonist, and the protagonist rarely trusts him, but nevertheless he has great power to do both good and evil. He is, in fact, one of the more interesting and edgy archetypes in storytelling.
Anyways, what I would like to see is a spymaster game. Not a spy game, where you stealth around and listen in on conversations (Though it could certainly include that too. I like stealth games) but a game where you start off as a spy but slowly build a network of informants and spread your influence across the land. You would buy off officials, train spies, and intercept messages. You would learn the arts of forgery, economics or war, and you could use your loyal network of "little birds" to become wealthy, to gain power or even to protect people.
Mechanics wise it would probably be focused on maps. Maybe a local area map that you could increase the scope of by gaining influence and a larger continent map that would allow you to keep abreast of broader rumors and information. maybe you could even gain influence over multiple cities and use the large map to zoom on in the small maps. The small maps would focus mostly on building and streets. So, suppose that there was a high-class inn in an important city that you wanted to keep tabs on. You would click on the city from the big map, click on the tavern and a menu would pop open. The menu may even be your avatar wandering around the room, but it could also just be a flash affair, I don't know. Anyways, you would have a few options. You could bribe the barkeep, or you could place one of your spies there as a regular or an employee (Serving Wench, Prostitute, Whatever) You could buy the inn and then replace everyone with your lackeys or earn their trust and get them to give you information, you could have the owner killed and forge a title or any number of things. You could also place your people on the streets or purchase the service of beggars or take urchins in and train them in intrigue.
Rather than dealing with individual secrets you would probably go the Echo Bazaar route, and just have different types of secrets that are treated like tradeable items. You could take contracts to find out specific secrets, or come across unique bits of information but these would still require the trading of regular secrets in some cases, or money, or actually getting an informant in a very specific place and waiting for a lead. These would probably serve as the core of the game, giving some form of narrative and making the game more than a number crunch.
These could end up being really interesting quests with intriguing rewards as well, something beyond "Go here, kill these things."
Maybe as a nod to the book I got the idea from you could have the opportunity to purchase or earn positions of power, fine estates, lordly titles and the like. Maybe you could advance in a thieves guild or an assassins guild, going from a valuable member to a scheming lieutenant and the like. You could use the information from far countries to know what to buy and sell on the market to get a hold of as many fine things for your home as you could.
Let's look at an example of what game play might be like. You may be asked to find the long lost son of a noble, and your only lead is an overheard conversation where two mysterious cloaked figures said "meet me at the corner of Kingsway and Whiteroad to discuss the matter of the heir." When you investigate you only find a mysterious rune etched into the stone there and you would have to find a scholar a scholar and convince him to come and examine the rune, but he'll only investigate the matter if you can find him some trustworthy bodyguards for the journey to and from there. You happen to own a tavern close by a prestigious military academy, and after you instruct the innkeep to funnel you relative information he comes to you a few days later and says that there are a bunch of members of a fledgling mercenary company that come in to drink. They seem respectable, and you may be able to get some leverage with them. When you speak to them, however they seem unwilling to deal with you, and so you must gather 100 Rumors of Contention to give them as an offering of good will. While you gather these from distant warring lands, you begin selling Whispers of Scandal to people in the noble district for the coin to buy the mercenaries.
Once the mercenaries are convinced and hired, they escort the scholar to the city. He investigates the rune, but before he can get back to you he is accused of a murder he didn't do and arrested, and now you must either bribe the watch with an outrageous sum of money, or collect enough evidence to catch the real killer... But if you do not hurry the lost heir may be forever lost to you.
Now, I know that I could never get this game made, but it should be really easy to make just as a web game, probably, and it would probably appeal to a lot of people. In fact, I'm almost certain there's got to be something like this somewhere.
So what do you think? Is it interesting? Have you seen it done before? If so, where? Because now I really want to play this game.
Anyways, what I would like to see is a spymaster game. Not a spy game, where you stealth around and listen in on conversations (Though it could certainly include that too. I like stealth games) but a game where you start off as a spy but slowly build a network of informants and spread your influence across the land. You would buy off officials, train spies, and intercept messages. You would learn the arts of forgery, economics or war, and you could use your loyal network of "little birds" to become wealthy, to gain power or even to protect people.
Mechanics wise it would probably be focused on maps. Maybe a local area map that you could increase the scope of by gaining influence and a larger continent map that would allow you to keep abreast of broader rumors and information. maybe you could even gain influence over multiple cities and use the large map to zoom on in the small maps. The small maps would focus mostly on building and streets. So, suppose that there was a high-class inn in an important city that you wanted to keep tabs on. You would click on the city from the big map, click on the tavern and a menu would pop open. The menu may even be your avatar wandering around the room, but it could also just be a flash affair, I don't know. Anyways, you would have a few options. You could bribe the barkeep, or you could place one of your spies there as a regular or an employee (Serving Wench, Prostitute, Whatever) You could buy the inn and then replace everyone with your lackeys or earn their trust and get them to give you information, you could have the owner killed and forge a title or any number of things. You could also place your people on the streets or purchase the service of beggars or take urchins in and train them in intrigue.
Rather than dealing with individual secrets you would probably go the Echo Bazaar route, and just have different types of secrets that are treated like tradeable items. You could take contracts to find out specific secrets, or come across unique bits of information but these would still require the trading of regular secrets in some cases, or money, or actually getting an informant in a very specific place and waiting for a lead. These would probably serve as the core of the game, giving some form of narrative and making the game more than a number crunch.
These could end up being really interesting quests with intriguing rewards as well, something beyond "Go here, kill these things."
Maybe as a nod to the book I got the idea from you could have the opportunity to purchase or earn positions of power, fine estates, lordly titles and the like. Maybe you could advance in a thieves guild or an assassins guild, going from a valuable member to a scheming lieutenant and the like. You could use the information from far countries to know what to buy and sell on the market to get a hold of as many fine things for your home as you could.
Let's look at an example of what game play might be like. You may be asked to find the long lost son of a noble, and your only lead is an overheard conversation where two mysterious cloaked figures said "meet me at the corner of Kingsway and Whiteroad to discuss the matter of the heir." When you investigate you only find a mysterious rune etched into the stone there and you would have to find a scholar a scholar and convince him to come and examine the rune, but he'll only investigate the matter if you can find him some trustworthy bodyguards for the journey to and from there. You happen to own a tavern close by a prestigious military academy, and after you instruct the innkeep to funnel you relative information he comes to you a few days later and says that there are a bunch of members of a fledgling mercenary company that come in to drink. They seem respectable, and you may be able to get some leverage with them. When you speak to them, however they seem unwilling to deal with you, and so you must gather 100 Rumors of Contention to give them as an offering of good will. While you gather these from distant warring lands, you begin selling Whispers of Scandal to people in the noble district for the coin to buy the mercenaries.
Once the mercenaries are convinced and hired, they escort the scholar to the city. He investigates the rune, but before he can get back to you he is accused of a murder he didn't do and arrested, and now you must either bribe the watch with an outrageous sum of money, or collect enough evidence to catch the real killer... But if you do not hurry the lost heir may be forever lost to you.
Now, I know that I could never get this game made, but it should be really easy to make just as a web game, probably, and it would probably appeal to a lot of people. In fact, I'm almost certain there's got to be something like this somewhere.
So what do you think? Is it interesting? Have you seen it done before? If so, where? Because now I really want to play this game.