Play by PM, 8 players, PvP, 12d,
no waitlist, last man standing wins.
This RTD takes place in the Fate/Stay Night universe, during the seventh Holy Grail War (because I think but am not sure that there is already a spin-off that takes place during the sixth), although I have made a few minor changes. You are one of the 8 participating magi.
The current Holy Grail War takes place in a small (unnamed) town in northern England, but as usual, most of the magi came there for the War and used to live in other countries.
For those unfamiliar with FSN:
This is a modern fantasy setting: the action takes place in our time, but magi exist, even though magic is hidden from the humans.
During the Holy Grail War - a repeating ritual - (usually 7, we'll have 8 ) magi fight for the artifact known as the Holy Grail, which is said to grant any wish.
Each magus summons a servant at the start of the Holy grail War. A servant is a ressurected ancient hero, a familiar that's usually too powerful to control, made possible only by the magic of the Holy grail War.
Magi are just humans who learned magic. Magic is hidden from the ordinary people.
Magi are usually descendants of families that traditionally practice magic. Upon death, the parent passes all their magical power to their oldest child, so usually only one member of the family is capable of magic.
Magi, even with their powers, are much weaker than Servants, so their usual role is support - they have the advantage of being impossible to tell apart from servants so they can gather information safely and they are capable of using their magic to set traps or magic servants that have different benefits. In addition, the magi are the brains of a master-servant team and are the ones who make all the choices.
When summoning a servant, masters get a command spell. The command spell is visible as a symbol on a random part of the summoners body and has three (practically two) charges. It lets the master command their servant to do anything and even distorts reality (if you used it to summon your servant to your location, the servant would appear there instantly, even though teleportation is impossible to achieve by magic), though each use removes a charge. In addition, longer and more abstract actions receive smaller benefits, so using it to order your servant to "win" is not as effective as ordering your servant to "strike with full power".
The servant can't exist without a command spell, so the third charge is used to order the servant to retrieve the Holy Grail once the war is finished. Since magi are much weaker than servants, the usual strategy is just to kill the mage or chop off his arm to destroy the command spell and, by extension, the servant.
Servants are, as mentioned, familiars summoned to fight in the Holy Grail War.
Unlike other familiars, they have free will and sometimes a command spell is needed to make them do as you wish. They usually have a similar personality to their master, because the Holy Grail matches them with their masters on purpose.
In their life, servants used to be heroes, who chose to become servants after their death to achieve a goal they couldn't achieve when they were alive (in FSN, they are reincarnations of heroes from famous myths, for example there was Gilgamesh, Hercules, etc. , but in my game they're all going to be original characters, because I thought that was corny).
Servants can be easily recognized, but they can enter spirit form to become invisible and incapable of interacting with the physical world, except for communication with their master.
Each servant has a Noble Phantasm - a legendary weapon with unmatched power, which is a central part of each servants battle strategy.
Each servant has a class. During each Holy Grail War, there is one of each class. The classes are:
(Note: In FSN some classes are cannonicaly better than other, but PvP balance will be applied in this game)
-Saber. Wields a sword. A versatile close quarters class, good at both offense and defence, but lacks mobility when compared to others. Still the most balanced class.
-Archer. Wields a bow. A ranged combat class. Has great offense and they tend to have some of the best Noble Phantasms. In addition, they are very good at independant action and don't rely on the support of their master.
-Lancer. Wields a polearm. A more mobile and agressive close quarters class when compared to Saber. Tend to have good Noble Phantasms.
-Caster. Fights with spells. A subtle fighter, weaker at direct combat than other classes, but cunning and capable of using advanced strategy tipycally employed by the masters.
-Assassin. Uses cunning to quickly defeat foes. Compared to the other melee classes, based more on technique and skill rather than brute force. Good Noble Phantasms.
-Rider. Commands a mythical creature. Versatile, but in general weaker than the other classes. Compensates by having a powerful summoned creature and the best Noble Phantasms out of all the classes.
-Berserker. An insane warrior. They all have a curse which makes them much stronger, but at the cost of their sanity. They sacrifice all secondary skills in favour of pure strength. Very hard to control, to the point of having an infamous reputation for killing their masters. Being the strongest fighters, their main weakness is that as soon as they are spotted, they will attract a lot of attention from the other magi.
-Avenger. An evil fighter. Banned in most Holy Grail Wars because calling them specifically summons an evil hero. Their powers are very varied, but always have a dark theme. Masters try to avoid summoning them, because they are hard to control similarly to berserker, with difficulty added by their cruelty and cunning.
-*That* way of mana recharging is gone for obvious reasons...
-Servants are original characters rather than reincarnations of heroes such as Gilgamesh or Hercules and shit. I just thought it was corny.
-The stuff in the games never happened. I'm just using the setting without the actual story.
-Powers ranked by I-V instead of E-A, because it just feels more natural to me.
-All classes balanced, so there's no unfair SABER IS BEST CLASS!!!!!111!!11! bullshit. Berserker doesn't count.
The game will use a rather loose d12 system, with the consequences of the rolls dependant on the context in a "what would make sense" way.
Turns can be spent to practice skills or to search for enemies. Being the first to strike gives you a +2 modifier and attacking from stealth gives you a +4 modifier, so turtling is not an automatic winning tactic.
There are many more possible actions, but I will reveal them as we play, mostly by the skills you gain.
Players:
-Caellath
-Tiruin
-JackoftheBox (reserved?)
-zomara0292
-dermonster
-Talarion
-borno
-Toaster
Name:(Keep everything at least semi-serious, please.)
Appearance:(This is how I will describe you to those who do not know your identity, so this is important)
Personality:(For flavor. Don't skip this, because as I've mentioned, the personality of your servant will depend on this, so this will add a lot of flavor)
Background:(This may influence a few things, so don't skip it.)
Your skills will be determined by a roll at character generation and will be thematically fitting to your character.
You don't start with a servant. You will summon a servant as your first turn action. It will determine if you get the one you want and how strong and agreeable he/she is.
Don't post the turn until I officially start the game.
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Topic: Fate/Stay Night: OOC thread. (Read 49260 times)