So, what kind of system could be used to run a "Grail War"

>>54134470
FATE?

>>54134807
Yeah, Fate.

Y'know, that weird franchise that's been oddly popular since the original VN came out due to the concept being pure unadulterated cocaine?

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>>54134470

>>54134865
I think he means the FATE system.

Possibly FATE Accelerated.

I feel like there has to be a PbtA based around it.

>>54134470
>Hassan isn't in the picture
Panic.jpg

>>54134898
>Expecting to see the Assassin Class Servant

Your first mistake.

>>54134470
>No PC servants
This is a mistake, Fate's combat is important (if rare) and saying 'lancer fights berserker. It's hella tight" doesn't really cut it.

>>54134990
I feel like playing as masters and establishing your relationship with your servant and that affecting combat would be more satisfying. You could spend your time bonding/strategizing with your servant, investigating and researching fellow masters, or looking for fights.

>>54134898
>>54134926
>Serenity was suicidally depressed because she was continuously building a happy, loving family with her target, then killing them and destroying everything she had built
>Hundred face had crippling DID and viewed his one hundred "personalities" as separate people, his only desire in the world was to become one single personality. The Grail said "lol, fuck that, you get to be all of them at the same time."
>Cursed Arm Hassan always felt like he was useless and had a inferiority complex that drove him to bind a demon into his own arm because it might make him feel like less of a disgrace

Is the assassin order basically just a mental hospital with really cool masks?

>>54134990
At least not always, master-only campaigns could work fine with the right players. I vote oWoD for system, good focus on strategy/social being as important as combat, no pretext of character balance which fits the setting. (Shirou vs rin, Gil vs say Dairmud)

>>54135041
Oh, definitely yes to master PCs as an option. Servants don't just do combat though, and being on the wrong end of 3 command spells is an interesting concept too.

>>54135041
I think it'd work best if the player controlled both the Master, and their Servant, if only during combat.

>>54135056
King Hassan seems like a pretty cool dude. Besides, it's not like they're the only ones with mental issues. I mean, it's probably easier to list the Heroic Spirits that *don't* have psychological issues.

>>54135113
Oh, so maybe some PC's as Masters and some as Servants?

That could be interesting.

>>54135056
I don't know who on the team had such a boner for cursed arm that Grand Order is so kind to him.

>>54134885
>Shit show
>Shit game
Now kiss!

>tfw ran an entire series of fate games
>tfw they came together to form a canon going from the 1st to 8th Holy Grail Wars
>tfw had players do 2-4 & 6-8 with 1 and 5 being background
>tfw spent too much time on this shit
If anyone cares I can pot more info on it. Form bits of info are:
>the grail was never corrupted in the way it was in the main canon, instead Hitler and the Zodiac Killer fucked it up even worse
>Holy Grail Wars can occur in various areas around the world and are now caused by 'the grail in exile'
>time loop bullshit with the throne of heroes has gotten even more convoluted than Saber's shit

>>54135225
Gimme the deets, Anon. What kind of crazy grail wars happened and what kind of wacky servants were summoned?

>>54135269
I personally have run 6 other Holy Grail wars with the 1st and the 5th being backstory wars (I ran 2-4, added 5 as a backstory war, and ran 6-8). All the previous ones were for my in person group. Most often I would take Lancer as an NPC servant in order to facilitate a better Holy Grail War. I'll give a list of previous servants:

>Saber
1st: UNKNOWN
2nd: Charlemagne
3rd: William the Conquerer
4th: Maximilian the 1st
5th: John Hawkwood
6th: Alfred the Great
7th: Sigurd
8th: John Hawkwood

>Archer
1st: Cupid
2nd: Roland Deschain
3rd: Billy the Kid
4th: Nimrod
5th: Odysseus
6th: Adolf Hitler
7th: Simo Häyhä
8th: The Freeshooter

>Lancer
1st: Vlad the Impaler
2nd: Captain Ahab
3rd: Achilles
4th: Perseus
5th: Judas
6th: Shaka Zulu
7th: St. George
8th: Hannibal

>Rider
1st: Ramessess II
2nd: Genghis Khan
3rd: Attila the Hun
4th: Paul Revere
5th: Don Quixote
6th: Attila the Hun
7th: Richard the Lionhearted
8th: St. George, The Dragon Slayer

>Caster
1st: Circe
2nd: Masamune
3rd: Geppetto
4th: Diogenes the Cynic
5th: Doctor Frankenstein
6th: John the Baptist
7th: Edgar Allan Poe
8th: H.P. Lovecraft

>Assassin
1st: Sun Tzu
2nd: Judas
3rd: Arda Mulissi
4th: The Zodiac Killer
5th: Hassan-i Sabbah
6th: Guy Fawkes
7th: John Wilkes Booth
8th: Edgar Allan Poe

>Berserker
1st: Seigfried
2nd: Cain, First Murderer
3rd: Ivar the Boneless
4th: Ragnar Ludbruk
5th: Seigfried
6th: Samson
7th: Abraham Lincoln, Raging Abe
8th: Sun Wukong

This list does not include several extra servants who wormed their way in. An example would be Maximilian the 1st reappearing during the 6th Holy Grail War. Also Caster Recursive, basically a line of casters summoning themselves, summoning themselves, summoning themselves back in a spiral that messed up the Spiral of Origin.

A lot of these happened in the 'canon' for the games long enough ago that they are no longer relevant. For instance the first Holy Grail war happened in 1802.

>>54135225
Storytime that shit, I need to now how you can possibly fuck up this stupid horseshit ritual even worse.

>>54135300
As well one of the biggest concepts I realized needed to be covered was how the Grail has been changed. Due to the 3rd Holy Grail war not happening in at all a similar manner the Grail's corruption is not present in the way it was before.

Instead there are a few things that came instead. The Fractured Grail and The Grail in Exile.

The Grail in Exile is the concept of a Holy Grail that can exist outside of the few weeks time span before and after the Holy Grail War. It was created during the 4th Holy Grail War by its winner Maximilian the 1st Whose title was King of Romans, King of X is significant in the canon fought Dominator, an extra servant caused by the fusion of The Zodiac Killer, a counter force agent with no true name, and Perseus after The Zodiac Killer devoured him. Maximilian the 1st was forced to wish using the Grail earlier than intended, and wished he could escape with it. This not only gave him a real body, but created The Grail in Exile.

The Fractured Grail was created in the 6th Holy Grail War when Adolf Hitler and Guy Fawkes tried to trigger a premature Grail awakening. The two of them each received a portion of the Grail. This caused the Grail to each grant them a twisted version of their wish. In subsequent Holy Grail Wars the Grail's awakening now required multiple pieces to be collected and forged before the full Grail could manifest. These lesser pieces essentially grant genie wishes. The moment the Fractured Grail was created was when the two of them had managed to open a path to Shangri La, supposedly one of three stems which feed the Grail power along with The Garden of Eden and the Grove of Idunn. While there they awakened The Eight Dharmapalas, the mythological defenders of Tibetan Buddhism. One in particular, Mahākāla, the Great Black One took an interest in the struggle.

(I have more, just ask)

>>54135300
>>54135329
I wanna hear how Edgar Allen Poe went from a Caster in the 7th war to an Assassin in the 8th.

>>54135320
Explained >>54135329 where Hitler and Guy Fawkes accidentally awakened Mahākāla.

it actually does get worse from here because Hitler became a Counter Force agent who fought South American rebels for a while. Also the Third Reich was in a secret war with The Clocktower for occult supremacy in Europe. After the awakening of Mahākāla the other guardians of Tibetan Buddhism became interested and caused the Counter Force to become involved directly.

>>54134807
Yeah, Fate/Stay Night, that one, but what system?

>>54135329
The Zodiac was a counter guardian?

>>54135353
That involves the Extra Servant, Saber True: Alexander Hamilton and the complicated mystery surrounding Edgar Allan Poe's real last words and Alexander Hamilton's long time rival, and both their relations to the Counter Force. Plus the identity of the Poe Toaster.

>>54134470
This dumb memeposter thinks he is good enough for the Grail War hahahahahaha

Not even in a play pretend you have what it takes, OP. Just end your life.

>>54135393
For more information, Poe died after having disappeared for a time and reappearing in a state of delirium. He then died later after calling for a man named Reynolds, Poe knew no Reynolds, and his last words being "Lord, help my poor soul". In our canon Poe was offered the chance to become a Counter Force agent before his death and spent a time on various battlefields with a fellow counter force agent, Reynolds.

Alexander Hamilton and Poe lived in the same city, removed by 20 years. Alexander Hamilton had a rival with a Reynolds including the famous Reynolds sex scandal. Alexander Hamilton had an affair with Reynolds's wife. This produced a son, that son who became a counter force agent at the same time Poe did in a twist of fate in the middle of an accident that involved both Reynolds and Poe.

>>54135329
How did the Caster Recursive thing actually go down? Messing with the Spiral of Origin doesn't seem like the type of thing that just happens without consequence.

>>54135549
Caster Recursive happened during the 4th Holy Grail War and was stopped by the sacrifice of Diogenes the Cynic. What is caused more than anything was the fall of Nazi Germany.

>>54134470
I would recommend Mutants and Masterminds. You can stay up the players with more low-key supportive skills and abilities, then have the servents themselves be sidekicks with a boatload of points shovelled into them

>>54135586
So Diogenes summoned himself, who summoned himself, who did that until something got him to stop?

>>54135637
Nazis were the ones who created Caster Recursive. The clocktower worked with the current caster, Diogenes, to stop it. The 4th Holy Grail War occurred in Berlin during WWII. The reverberations of that lost caused Hitler to become a counter force agent and the fall of Nazi Germany's occult research and subsequently the war as a whole.

>>54135041
Why not dual control of the characters in combat? The combat will be in narrative style I assume. Anime is too fast for tactical combat.

>>54135798
Well that kind of creates a scenario in which the relationship between the Master and the Servant doesn't matter, since they'll always work in perfect sync during combat since they're controlled by the same person.

>>54135814
True, I guess the other anon's idea was better.

>>54135798
Thing is, servants and masters very seldom have perfectly aligned desires and interests, even mid combat. Maybe master wants to kill enemy master quickly for a tactical victory, while servant wants to kill enemy servant and then backstab his own master so he can upgrade masters. (While feigning that he wants an honorable fight as the reason)

>>54135869
>>54135798
Th obvious solution is that each player plays a servant as well as a master.... of another player!

>>54135907
Explain to me how this would work smoothly and not generate a conflict of interest.

>>54135300
>>54135329
>>54135361
>>54135393
>>54135489
Holy fuck this is autistic.

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>>54135300
>Assassin
>not Hassan 8 times in a row

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>>54135300
>7th: John Wilkes Booth
>7th: Abraham Lincoln, Raging Abe

>>54135985
It should!

That's where the drama comes from!

>>54136217
A conflict of interest for the players, I mean.

I mean, imagine that Player A plays Saber's Master and Archer. Player B plays Archer' Master and Lancer.

Suppose Saber and Archer get into a fight, masters included.

Player A is on both sides of that battle.

>>54136276
Also there's the possibility of master A and servant b dying, then pairing the spares and again having same player controlling master and servant.

>>54136712
OEoD wraith does this though, so it can w. I just think it's better to focus on one, both masters and servants are fully capable characters, despite the power difference.

I think something that people should keep in mind is that you don't really have to be bound to much by the canon rules. If they start to become a problem just bend them. Even the VN is full of exceptions, it part of what makes it fun.

>>54135814
You could have something like a loyalty value that goes from 0 to 6.
At the start of a fight the masters roll a D6, if the result is equal or less than the Loyalty the master retain control, otherwise the servant will act by itself.

>>54137013
Ah, so it's still in a Master's best interests to get on the same page with their servant, but it's more simple and streamlined.

I like it.