A bit more then a month ago Stephanie posted “looking forward” and asked for feedback.
I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel like the real strength of Stonehearth is that it allows you to build up the sort of village that you might encounter in an RPG nintendo game. I have no desire to see it turn into a platform to play those sorts of games (although I could see that being a fun mod) but I think you could reinforce that identity by adding adventuring parties, quests and dungeons.
Here’s how I see it working. Certain locations on the map would become “dungeons” a dungeon is a location where an “adventure” takes place. The Crypt, Goblin Chieftain’s hut, ruins and creepy cave openings are all good candidates.
You define a party, and send them on the quest, once assigned they walk across the map and disappear into the dungeon (for some length of time) after which they return with a reward. Some dangerous quests may have a chance of failure, but most of the challenge should be based on keeping your town running without them.
Once the quest is complete the dungeon is either destroyed, or goes inactive for some amount of time. (it should spawn monsters if you don’t take care of it)
This also opens the opportunity to have adventuring parties wander onto the map to remove a dungeon you’ve ignored too long, OR for you to assign a quest of your own (which will cost some of that gold that piles up) for some outside party to come in and deal with a problem (like a goblin town) allowing you to focus on something more exciting (like growing pumpkins for new Hallows eve)
Adventuring parties could be ragtag groups of assorted characters from other kingdoms, or maybe even heros that bring new quests chains once they succeed or fail the mission.
Perhaps these could also be “where” you get new people from instead of having someone random each day… one of the wandering adventures could “settle down” and move in, some might even come with a few levels in something useful.
I’m sure setting this up would be some work, but I feel like it’s more of a reinforcement of something that is already in the game then a “new” direction. One of the reasons I love stonehearth is that I’ve always been a fan of the lore behind all of those old classic games, and I love the idea of epic adventures happening in MY little city.
! It’s been a while.