Battles will be regulated, as that while most hits will take as if not moderated at all some will fail if too outlandish. Basically, I will merely be controlling the monsters and you can do your thing within reason. As for the plot, I will urge you forward with events but that too will be up to you, say you hear that an enemy is attempting to destroy a town, you can go to the town itself, try to find the enemy before they get there or just ignore it and continue what you were doing and wait for the result because that enemy is too strong or scary for your taste. Battles will indeed be turn-based, to be more manageable.

I can think of two ways to start, your characters will all come from the same wandering tribe or from different areas, depending on who you all want to be.