Is it possible to make an enjoyable Fate (Holy Grail War) rpg?
>7 players plus GM
>Each players is a mage, but can focus on other areas if at the expense of their magical abilities
>GM make the Servants to make sure it's balanced
>Players roll for summons
>Servants become NPC or PC depending on the situation (ex: in a fight, or while scouting a house, the player can control the servant, but in a situation where the servant refuses an order, the GM will control it)
>It's important that GM fully understands each servant, given that it will be required for them to take their place if the Servant turns against their master
>Using Commands will cause your Servant to displease you, especially if they are completely against the action
>Commands don't need rolls, but you only have 3
>If you servant dies, you can quit or play as a servant-less mage
>At the start, the players don't know each other, they must first identify their enemies and then murder them
>The setting is just a city
>Battles can only happen at night, and PCs must be aware that causing great damage to the city, or being caught by the citizens, will have consequences
>GMPC is the Priest who oversees the Holy Grail War
>The Priest starts off completely neutral but can be manipulated or convinced with good enough rolls, being able to hand out information or help in more active ways
>Any action against the Priest will have consequences
>While playing, PCs must be aware of their actions, surrounding and their Servant
>If they are careless, they will die quickly
>If they simply nuke half of the town, they will be hunted down
>If they displease their Servant too much, the Servant will start disobeying them and might even betray them (given their nature and stats)
These are just a few ideas a friend and I were talking about, but the biggest problem is the fact that as the game advances, it will slow down, and whoever died too early will be left out for quite awhile.
Any thoughts?
Is it possible to make an enjoyable Fate (Holy Grail War) rpg?
Can Saber be my servant
You mean Saber Saiba our just Saber Saber? Or red Saber Saiba? Or other Saber?
No, but you can have this one instead.
ALL THE SABERS
Every servant is a saberface, actual saber is Arthur (male) who has no idea what's going on.
You can only have one, talk with your nearest GM for more details on how to acquire it.
No, anything even remotely similar to the VN/Anime would be inhumanly complex.
I have that terrible feeling that it won't be very enjoyable if things are too clear at any point of the game up until the end.
You may never observe other players playing, may basically not communicate with them about the game, if possible (to get the original Fate/Stay Night-feeling) there should be mysteries surrounding simply everything. Also, you can't really use any Servant exactly like they are in canon because anybody might just know everything about them, so you either need to refrain from using that huge number of well-known or interesting heroes or you need to recreate characters for them (which might upset you or your players).
In addition, I wouldn't find it very interesting if Servants and Masters were balanced. Maybe, only maybe, if every team of Master and Servant was balanced against the others but imbalanced on the inside.
How are you imagining playing seven seperate one-player-games where PCs can interact with both NPCs and other PCs without knowing if the person is a PC until they start fighting?
I'm with Ask yourself if you can manage 7 individual campaigns simultaneously with players constantly trying to dick each other over. If you want a grail war then it might be a better idea to focus on 1-3 master-servant pairs and make everyone else an npc. It gives you some grip on the plot as opposed to just listening to everyone's powerwank.
Just think about designing the system masters PC would utilize while supporting their servant, there's like 6 different types of spellcasting systems alone which can utilize at least 3 different power sources (mana, Od, some unexplained material object value system etc).
About the Servants, the initial idea would be to make new ones, given that it's quite easy to spawn new ones, as long as you know how to balance them.
>In addition, I wouldn't find it very interesting if Servants and Masters were balanced. Maybe, only maybe, if every team of Master and Servant was balanced against the others but imbalanced on the inside.
Not sure if I understood you correctly, but of course the servant and master aren't supposed to be on equal footing, but rather their team should be as strong as the others, as long as they play to their strengths.
On the communication issue, it's indeed a problem. It is possible to keep each player in the dark about the others if using a chatroom or any online service, for that matter, and just keep moving them through rooms as necessity demands. That puts them in a situation that, no matter what, they can't know about the others unless they manage to acquire some info on them, or someone fucks up and let's information out.
Now, IRL, I can't see much of a solution that isn't overly annoying or simply not practical.
I should have made it more clear, but our idea was to make a Grail War that feels like one. You're not simply following a story that someone made, but actively fighting other players to win. And the GM's job is to keep it all in the rules, solve any problem that might (will) come up, coordinate things and generally just make sure things go smoothly, working with the PC's rolls and actions, narrating the events.
>Not sure if I understood you correctly, ...
Yes, that's not what I meant, I'm sorry. A thing I really liked about F/SN was that some Servants were obviously stronger and/or more versatile than other Servants, and some Masters were clearly more experienced and better prepared than other Masters. The way they all fought completely differently was derived from that in part as well, I believe.
Communication in chat rooms seems somewhat okay, just one scenario: A PC talks to another PC and multiple NPCs. The GM can only type for one NPC at a time, how does he keep the PCs in check so they aren't immediately obvious as PCs? Or something about characteristical typos. Hm, that's too theoretical.
For matters of making it fair, I don't think it's good to give an inherent advantage to certain players. This type of thing never translates well into PvP. Of course, because each class is different, there will be strengths and weaknesses, which will add to their own strengths and weaknesses, thus, its up to the player to quickly learn how to play with their character and Servant against the other players. Thus, the difference in power, though minimized in their creation, will appear in skill and opportunity. At least, in theory.
>A PC talks to another PC and multiple NPCs. The GM can only type for one NPC at a time, how does he keep the PCs in check so they aren't immediately obvious as PCs?
That could be solved by the GM letting ordinary actions to be used one after another, but interactions need to go through the other players, be then PC or NPC. For example:
>PC enters a bar during the day
>GM narrates the bar and talks about two guys drinking next to each other, with a spot open next to them
>The PC sits there and asks for a drink, then tries to talk with them
>GM goes to the other rooms, even if they have nothing to do with it, they play their game normally, then comes back with the NPC's actions
>If one of them is a PC, them, before coming back, the GM will narrate the encounter like a random one, for the PC, take their action and go back to the inicial PC
It would slow things down a lot, but should keep PCs guessing, at least for the NPCs that aren't obvious NPCs.
Why is it that any time I see people talking about the idea of a Grail War game, there's always this idea that the players have to play all the masters?
I'd be far more interested in exploring the idea of a Grail War wherein the party is a team fighting in it together. It seems like people often overlook the fact that in both Zero and Stay Night, characters frequently have more support than just "Master and Servant".
I could easily see a story where one player is the Master, another plays the Servant, and two others play supporting characters. Sure, usually in Fate/ those other characters would typically not be up to the challenge of fighting servants directly, but there's no reason they couldn't have mystic codes or bullshit nasuverse style abilities to justify their place. Just think about how characters like Bazett, Irisviel, or Souichirou are clearly hypercapable, even without being a part of that master/servant hierarchy.
Not to mention you can just throw in more bullshit if you want. Maybe one of the players is secretly a rogue heroic spirit brought forth because there's some sort of imbalance going on in the grail war.
Seems much more interesting, and allows for more potential antagonists, rather than just rehashing the same old model.
>A thing I really liked about F/SN was that some Servants were obviously stronger and/or more versatile than other Servants
Isn't this mostly subverted in Heaven's Feel, when Sakura takes the weakest and least versatile servant and starts destroying face with her.
It's heavily implied in Apocrypha as well that mages simply aren't capable of powering servants let alone utilizing them to their fullest capablities.
Of course, if the one with the most powerful Servant would just win single-handedly it'd be as boring as it could be. That sort of possibility is a part of what makes it great, seeing the underdog managing or the born winner fall because of pride.
It is an interesting concept for a campaign. You can even have one or two side characters to be as strong as the more weak servants, given that some characters in the Wars indeed became servants later on.
However, that would just be an ordinary campaign, and what we were looking for was an actual pvp play, and the Holy Grail War just fits in nicely.
Yes. We ran 3 different wars over the span of a few years.
We're they enjoyable? I'd be lying if I said they didn't have their problems but I think everyone had a good time over all.
>one player takes in game events way too personally
>one player takes the competitive nature of the campaign and cranks it to 11 every single time.
Fate is actually a great game for taking casualties. The attribute scale and stripped down character sheet are made in way that you are pretty much a worthy specialist from day 1, and more experience primarily yields just more items and out of spec skills. A rerolled character will be effective immediately
Can you give some insight on what works well and what doesn't? Any advice is something we'd be grateful for. Did you play online?
No because the Fate franchise is pure unadulterated garbage
No we played as a group every week at the table.
The game was mostly just us with a small sprinkle of NPCs to go against it was mostly just a pure PvP game. We ran it in HERO system so I can't really give any insight to other systems.
I can tell you that if you're group is willing to play along and can keep shenanigans to a minimum you can have a good time. The biggest issue as I mentioned was mostly just some over zealousness and a guy who can't tell the difference between being ruthless in game and personally attacking him irl.
The biggest thing I noticed that I think really helps the game along was our gm being very open to everything that happened. He let us be the plot and any other plot related stuff HE wanted to put in he'd just wait for a good opening. (Usually at the most inopportune of moments).
Hell once we completely derailed his idea of events in a war but he rolled with it and things turned out pretty cool.
>the end of that one involved a aircraft carrier and a falling international space station.
Make sure whoever gets Lancer has a dice that rolls ones thrice as often as it should.
Why thought?