Dungeon Manager

Another game idea by Ross Andrews

The dark lord Kralgath is building his empire to take over the land. He has thousands of minions, tons of gold and gems, and hundreds of valuable artifacts. These are all stored in dungeons dozens of levels deep, filled with unspeakable horrors guarding treasures the eyes of mortals have never seen. The corridors are littered with the charred bodies of the adventurers sent to retrieve them.

That's not the kind of dungeon you manage.

Far at the northern edge of Kralgath's empire is the tiny village of Aponar, and just outside it are the caverns of torment. Three levels, staffed with about two dozen orcs, and one dungeon manager who just got his MDA (masters of dungeon administration) last year. You're destined for big things, though. Big things...

Dungeon Manager is the opposite of a Roguelike

In DM, your job is to expand your dungeon and level up your minions, to guard ever more valuable artifacts. Every round, you allocate your resources toward hiring new minions, buying gear and traps, and digging new levels. Then, an adventurer comes, and destroys most of it.

Each level is a row of objects that the adventurer deals with, left to right, top to bottom. If he gets killed by one (trap, or minion) then his loot enters your coffers, and you can buy more things next time.

The last square of floors 3 and down is an artifact. When you finish digging a new level, Kralgath will send you a new artifact to put in it. Every round, you get funding from Kralgath based on how many artifacts are in your dungeon, and their values. If you lose your last artifact, you get the axe. Like, in the head.

Managing creatures

Creatures in the dungeon can be hired, or trained. Any creature that survives the round will get XP, the creature that actually kills the hero will get XP and a free level. All creatures start as plain Orcs, but as they level they will randomly show interest in other areas, so an Orc guard might become an Orc Adept at level 2, then an Orc Magician at 3, then an Orc Necromancer at 4.

The bad news is that creatures want more money as they level, and they want challenging work. So a level 5 creature won't sit anywhere in a dungeon except level 5 or 6, and if your dungeon is only 3 levels deep, then they'll quit and go find work in Kralgath's deeper departments.

So, there are two sources of churn: creatures dying on the upper levels, and creatures leveling out of the lower levels (or being laid off because you can't afford them any more). And of course the adventurers you get increase every round, both in value and in difficulty.

Combat

I was thinking of using the CombatSystem system, slightly modified. No spells on the player side, and only very simple stuff on the monster side: a minion that gives a bonus to everything on the same floor, etc.

Obviously both sides would just attack until one died, maybe with minions having as many HP as levels. It would be hidden from the player, so all they see is the attack/defense specs (5d6 attack, 2d6 defense, whatever) and health bars that slowly decrease.

Traps

Traps kill adventurers more effectively than creatures. However, none of your creatures get the level for the kill, and the trap is destroyed after it's sprung. And it may not kill an adventurer anyway. Some adventurers have immunity to different kinds of traps, or might just have too much HP. 

Creature types

There are two general kinds of creatures: orcs, and anything that isn't an orc.

Orcs get bought at level 1 for cheap. They're super easy to kill until they level. After leveling, they randomly pick either military or magic track:

As they age, they get totally different abilities. Grunts are a couple dice and that's it; adepts are better dice and a bonus to the creature before them, mages/sergeants are bonuses to the same level, necromancers/captains are bonuses to all orcs in your dungeon. The bonuses differ between magic track and military track, so that magic gives better offense abilities and military better defense.

I think orc salaries should follow something like the Fibonacci series, like 2/3/5/8 or 1/4/9/25 (Fibonacci squared).

The other kind of creature is the hired minion. You can buy these, but they don't change as they level, they just get better dice and HP. They also always start at at least level two. Examples:

The Adventurer

The more I think about it, I think the adventurer should be unpredictable, and have a little AI.

Every level should have one ladder down somewhere on it. Once you build into a new level (build a ladder down from the previous one, that is) you should get the option to place a treasure on that level. Of course, unplaced treasure doesn't earn income.

The adventurer should do a shortest-path algorithm to the next treasure available. But, he should be willing to retreat if he's about to die.

An adventurer starts with some number of health potions. He'll drink one after a combat if his health is low enough. If he's nearly dead, or thinks he'll die if he goes further, he should turn back and retreat.

"Thinks he'll die if he goes further" is a place we can add some randomness. Each adventurer will have some amount of courage, dependent on his level and how many times he's been in this dungeon before (a retreating adventurer gains a level and just comes back later with more potions).