ToME WikiFirst off, we would need a better name than 'Story' but the idea here is to recreate the world of Middle Earth at approximately the begining of the Lord of The Rings trilogy. The player assumes the role of a single character from the story, each of which has their own goals, and their own win condition.
Gameplay itself would focus on dialogue, character interaction, and a time-based race against the ongoing actions of the other (friendly and opposing) factions. Whether the player sits in the Shire, gets lost in Moria, or anything else, real events continue to happen, with or without the players knowledge. Orcs will march, the towns of man will fall, etc. Combat, while possible, would not need to be a major part of gameplay. Instead the game would be one of politics, exploration and travel. Wars between armies would go on in several parts of the world, but your direct participation would be purely optional, and outcome of such events would be determined by the success of your preparatory actions. Left to their own, Gondor will always fall, the elves will always leave Middle Earth, the various nations of man will fail to unite, etc. But, by interacting with the various factions and npcs, you would be able to influence their decisions, and thus, indirectly, the outcome of events.
Frodo: Frodo is extremely limited in combat potential, and is unlikely to ever progress even to to point of being able to defeat a single orc. Gameplay for Frodo centers around taking the ring the Mount Doom. To that end, he may choose the path he takes, and with whom to meet along the way. Will you go on a direct path to Mordor, hoping simply to sneak in? Will you go to Rivendell, meet with the Council of Nine so as to have a party of friendlies to assist you in combat? Will you hold off on the destruction of the ring, instead focusing on diplomacy, so that the benevolent races may eventually destroy Saruman and the various orc armies, thus allowing you to later walk in to Mordor relatively unhindered? Aragorn: A competant melee combatant, but what good is a single sword against tens of thousands of orcs? Like the other good aligned characters, Aragorn's goal is the destruction of the One Ring. But unlike Frodo, he cannot carry it himself. Instead, he must focus on the things he is able to do. Uniting the forces of man, but first he must regain their trust, and perhaps...after a few towns have been raided by orcs mankind will have more incentive to trust him? But by then will it be too late? Will Aragorn be able to reclaim his status as King? For that matter, does he even want to? Perhaps there are better ways for him to serve Middle Earth than simply commanding armies? Or, perhaps not?
Gandalf: Also a competant combatant, but remember that in The Hobbit even Gandalf fled from a mere few dozen orcs on wargs. Once again, Gandalf's goal is the destruction of the ring, but he also cannot carry it. Gameplay for Gandalf is somewhat indirect, since, as a Maia, he is not a direct member of the humanoid races, and while they may consider his counsel, they will ultimately make their own choices. As Gandalf, will you simply approach the rulers of man, dwarf and elf, asking them to unite against the common foe? Will they listen? Or will you instead, seek to guide the other npcs such as Frodo, Aragorn, and others to choose certain paths? Aragorn may choose to bury his head in a bottle at the Prancing Pony if you do not convince him to take action. Frodo might deliver the One Ring straight into the hands of orcs if he has no guidance. Without the proper counsel, the Elves may leave Middle Earth, the dwarves may leave the surafce world to its fate, the humans may fail to unite, and orcs may roam freely across the lands. And what of Saruman? There is so much to do, and so little time to do it. Where will you focus your efforts, and what will fall and die for lack of your guidance?
Saruman: With the magic of Saruman, you would be a relatively potent combatant, but it would be hopeless to try to take Middle Earth by fighting for it personally. Instead, your goal would be to manipulate the other factions, hoping to keep them from uniting against you, while trying to quietly build up an army of orcs. Nation building would focus on gaining supplies and troops, but with the ever-lurking threat of growing in such a way that the good forces take notice of you. If you directly attack a human town, the rest of the humans are likely to band against you, and no army you're likely to build will ever stand up to the combined forces of Gondor and Rohan together, let alone what would happen if the Elves and Dwarves were to join them as well. Do you burn Fangorn forest to fuel a powerful industry, but risk the wrath of the Ents? Do you march your growing armies to take towns, but risk leaving Isengard undefended? And what of Sauron? He may be a powerful ally, but are you willing to give up control of two thirds of Middle Earth for the ebefit of his aid, and for that matter...do you trust him to not destroy you once your uselessness has ended?
Sauron: The most indirect gameplay, as Sauron you are completely confined to your tower within Mordor, from which you may only observe the world indirectly, and interact with npcs telepathically. Your game objective is to retrieve the ring and become able to physically manifest in Middle Earth. To that end you may remotely negotiate, lie, cheat, and manipulate factions but are prevented from ever taking any direct action yourself. You may issue direct orders to the nazgul, but may not control them directly.
Chatter
Sirrocco: I do see one concern. Specifically, the bit about how, left on their own, the nations of main fall to ruin and the badguys win. It seems then, playing as, say, Sauron, you could just sit there and wait for the nations of man to fall to ruin, and win. A PC of even moderate ability is a huge boon to any side, and there needs to be some balance for that. It seems like one of the ways to try to fix this is to have a "general darkness of the world" number - the darker things are, the more difficult it is for the goodguys to win, and the easier for the evil. It might (or might not) be difficult to code (and may well not be worth it) but if it was relatively feasible (say, by making it easier/harder to influence certain leaders, and/or giving bonuses to certain sides of the "clashing armies" equations) then it would also serve as a handy difficulty modifier - and you could have "suggested darkness" ratings for the various characters as well - saving you from the trouble of going into detail work on difficulties for each.
BucketMan: Perhaps I mispoke. The game would be always begin stacked in favor of the opposing team. So, if you play evil, without intervention on your part, the elves would stay, the humans would eventually unite, Frodo would be supernaturally sneaky, etc. As an evil player, it would be up to you to prevent all the things from happening that a good player has to struggle to make happen. All while balancing trying to quietly build an army.
Derakon: This sounds interesting, but incredibly complex. You'd have to make the gameplay very deep indeed to keep players from finding an optimal (or at least, minimally pessimal) set of actions to perform to find victory. While I'd love to try a game like this out, frankly I think it's going in a totally different direction from ToME itself, and thus has relatively little to gain by using the ToME engine (basic movement and maps, really; the combat engine, which is what much of ToME is, would need to be adjusted since you'd be as likely to be in massive battles, which ToME handles poorly, as you are to be in smaller-scale conflicts).
ShrikeDeCil I'm with Derakon. There's no 'Strategic Overview' type map system, nor any effectual political borders or ways to shift political borders. A lot of the other potential routes are primarily "Diplomatic". So, either the dialog system would need to substantially increase along the current route - or it would need to be scrapped for something more amenable to free-form text. Like the old Infocom parser of something. I'd _like_ this, both parts. It seems like something an 'End of Game Worthy' character would do alongside their epic quests for universe-shaking artifacts. But there's a heck of a lot of work to even begin in that direction. The first simple steps on this path (IMNSHO) would be some method for building a stronghold, and a fundamental rethink on the entire 'limited home inventory' thing for this module.
BucketMan: I agree with Derakon that it's a totally different direction from ToME, but I don't really see this as a problem. The dialogue subsystem from Dragonball T could easily handle the diplomatic and political aspects of the game. Shifting political borders could make use of the mimic feature, or simply cave_set_feat'ing when land masses change hands. Take a look at the 3d freeway overpasses in Bubblegum Crisis. They're far more complicated than this would need to be. Granted, it would be a lot of work, but not only is everything technically feasible, there's already functional proof-of-concept of just about everything the game would need available in other modules. I don't see this as being a Stronghold-Civilization sort of construction game, requiring the building of fortifications or city structures (though you could do this too) but rather more like the dialogue and item-handling from Star Control II, with a more harsh sense of 'if you do this you may inadvertently sabotague that' like the old dos game Hidden Agenda, set in Middle Earth, and run from a roguelike perspective where you actually have to navigate Moria, run from or fight orcs, etc. And all with a serious time impairment, like in Zombie Horror, where if you take too long things stat to go bad.
Yes, it's ambitious, but it would definitely be a neat game. Now we just need to find someone who wants to build it. 