Fate

[Corwin]

I'm finally going for one of the ideas I wanted to try running. Basically, this is a notice looking for a final player to join up rather than a true recruitment from scratch. If you think you like the concept and can handle what is, in the end, freestyle in the part that counts the most, please PM me over SR.

Drac, I know you like to post in every thread on SR. Please don't!

-----

It if the fifth Holy Grail War, and you are being summoned to fight in it. Your Master might want to win this war, they could be in it merely to prove themselves, or you might even land one that never knew the war was being fought. But that doesn't really matter, does it? For you have a wish only the Grail may grant, and you are not letting anyone stop you from getting it.

The game is set during an alternate Fate/Stay Night universe, and the PCs will be playing Servants. They may cooperate with one another, at least as much as their Masters allow them to, but in the end there is only one Grail and one wish to make upon it, and you all want it. That wish is your reason for participating, after all. To those completely lost by all this, the premise is that in modern times a war is being fought by several mages who summon powerful heroes from past and legend alike as their familiars, with a reality-altering wish on the line, ready for the victor to seize.

Conflicts are resolved with a variant of the Amber Diceless system. It's not particularly complicated, and I'm detailing the relevant parts below. So go over them, think it over, and if you want to play then send me a writeup of your Heroic Spirit via forum PM. Who are they, what is their wish, why did you pick them, which Master do you think they would work best with.


Fate Diceless. Just as the name implies, it is a system where conflict resolution is achieved without dice rolling. The players and NPCs alike have various stats, and in any situation, all other things being equal, the one with the relevant, higher stat wins a contest. Naturally, all other things are never equal; in the end, it becomes a game where you RP your opponents into a corner by forcing the situation to play to your strengths.

There are four attributes. Psyche, Warfare, Athletics and Endurance.

Psyche stands for willpower. Someone with a lower Psyche rating than you cannot affect you with their magic, and you are likely to prevail in any battle of will. While Servants are predisposed to serve their Masters, having a higher Psyche than your Master allows you to rebel against them to a certain degree under any regular circumstances. Your amount of magic circuits is derived from your Psyche rating. Traditionally, Caster and Saber would have high Psyche ratings.

Warfare stands for the ability to do battle. Be it by gaining a tactical advantage or via sheer skill with a blade, Warfare is the stat that decides any straightforward duels. Having a higher Warfare than another Servant means you are stronger than them in a direct confrontation, and if you press your advantage, your victory is assured. Any of the three Knight classes, Saber, Lancer and Archer, are the ones with traditionally high Warfare rankings.

Athletics stands for sheer physical might and ability. Whenever someone slips past your weapon and into grappling range, or escapes your spell via truly ridiculous acrobatic stunts, Athletics is the stat that allows them to achieve this. If your Warfare is lower than your opponent's, but your Athletics is ranked higher, you may not be able to win a duel against them, yet your chances of disengaging successfully and waiting for a chance that plays to your strengths more are quite high. Berserker, Lancer and Assassin would be good examples for someone with a high Athletics rating.

Endurance stands for stamina, and is the great tiebreaker stat. If you are locked into a magical duel, a pitched battle or in a contest of might, Endurance decides who can hold out the longer if you are otherwise tied. Endurance also dictates how fast you can recover your strength or from your wounds, and if it is ranked high enough, even allows for true regeneration. Saber and Berserker are the classes with traditionally high Endurance rating.

The system works by giving each player 100 points and then having an auction for those four stats. You may request a class for yourself, although one thing to keep in mind is that if your desired class was mentioned by having a traditionally high ranking, in any category, you must place at least second in that category to be able to qualify for it. As an aside, the Berserker class is not eligible for player characters.

So how does it all really work? All players start at Servant rank in all four stats. Even if you are nothing special in a particular field, you are still a legendary hero brought forth by the Grail. You are far above any ordinary mortals in every category across the board. For example, if Player A bid 30 for Psyche, Player B bid 16 and Player C abstained, then Player A is ranked 1st, Player B is ranked 2nd and Player C retains Servant rank.

If, for some reason, you would like to drop any of your stats to Human, you would receive a surplas of 20 points per lowered stat. Naturally, one cannot sell down a given stat after bidding anything on said stat. Also, one could raise stats with points after the bidding has ended. However, their rank would reflect this. To follow the example from before, Player C could try to raise his ranking by either paying 16 points, or 30 points, which represent the original bids. If he pays 16 points, he is now ranked 2.5 in Psyche. If he pays 30 points, he is ranked as 1.5. He will always remain a step behind the person whose bid he is matching, but he could still gain a lead on Player B if he so wishes.

Finally, a fifth stat of sorts exists, that being Luck. Luck is reflected by the amount of points you have. Positive luck means being left with points from chargen. Negative luck means you went past the allotment and found yourself in the red. Much like Endurance, when the situation is otherwise close, Luck would decide the contest. While Endurance is based on skill and staying power, however, Luck would determine whether random events resolve in your favor or not. Luck also determines initial reactions from NPCs to you, although you will have a chance to change those, for better or for worse, based on your own words and actions.


In addition to the auctioned off stats, there is a variety of powers that players can buy for their characters with their remaining points. These powers are as follows:

Reality Marble (75 points). By focusing your mind and magic, it is possible for you to affect local rules. You create special pockets in reality, always fixed around you, where natural laws may be altered or outright prohibited. You may stop guns from working, have fire produce cold instead of warmth and so on. These pockets exist only in your immediate area, never having a radius of more than a hundred feet. If invoked in the real world, you have the ability to draw anyone within that radius into the pocket you form. Your Endurance ranking must be second or higher to qualify for this power.

Territory Creation (70 points). You may reshape the surrounding area to be advantageous for you. You may create elaborate mazes and defenses to guard your home, or even shape mindless golems and constructs to aid in that defense. Unlike a Reality Marble, areas as large as a mile in diameter can be affected. Your Psyche ranking must be second or higher to qualify for this power.

Summon Servant (60 points). You may summon a Servant of your own, effectively becoming a Master in the Holy Grail War. You cannot choose your Servant's class. You cannot participate in the auction on behalf of your Servant. Your Servant starts with baseline Servant stats and any special powers granted to him by his class, and you must use your own points to raise his stats or grant him more powers.

Presence Concealment (30 points). With this power active, no mortal magi will sense your presence if you do not wish it. Fellow Servants must have a Psyche rating higher than yours to sense you, but they are unable to pinpoint your exact location until you decide to reveal yourself or attack them.

Independant Action (50 points). You may function normally even without a Master or a prana link from one, even as others would fade away after a few days. Note that this refers to regular existence. An all-out battle against another Servant using magic and Noble Phantasms would require you to have an alternate source of prana or drain your reserves, resulting in your disappearance.

Magic. Setting aside true sorcery and unique abilities, the structured magic of mortals in-universe can be divided between spells with immediate effects and time-consuming rituals. To affect a Servant with either, the caster must have a higher Psyche ranking or know their true name and invoke it during the casting of the spell or ritual.

Spells (20 points for 5 spells, 5 points per extra spell). You are able to learn a variety of magical spells. They have instanteneous results and affect a single action or the current scene at the most.

Gandr [sample spell]
By focusing prana in your forefinger, you can fire an orb of solidified prana at your enemies.
Result: The target's Endurance ranking is lowered by one for the duration of the scene. If the target's Endurance ranking is Human, they are knocked out.
Cost: 5 prana

Rituals (30 points). The shortest ritual known still takes ten minutes to prepare, and some may take as long as a week. Furthermore, while a caster may benefit from any number of rituals at any given moment, casting a ritual he already has in effect replaces the old ritual in question instead of being added to it. In effect, the caster may not have the same ritual active more than once at the same time. Rituals are the only mortal magic that can last for longer than a single scene.

Reinforcement [sample ritual]
You can inject pure prana into another's body, making it quicker and more powerful.
Result: For the next two hours, the target's Athletics ranking is raised from Human to Servant.
Cost: 10 prana. You may choose to invest 10 more prana to extend the duration to twenty four hours.
Casting Time: One hour.



Noble Phantasms. These are the powers of a hero, unique to each of them. They come into being from the legend surrounding that hero, having served him faithfully in life. To use one, the Servant must call the Noble Phantasm's name and invest his prana into it. Much like your hero concept, desired class and Master, Noble Phantasms should be submitted as concepts for evaluation, approval and pricing during the pre-bidding stage. Players are requested to stick to the following guidelines while designing their Noble Phantasms:
-The power is active rather than passive. It activates when you will it, say by unleashing Excaliber, rather than being a passive defense that comes up when you are in a certain situations, such as by reviving if you had just been overwhelmingly killed.
-The power is straight-forward and has a single concept behind it. Your Noble Phantasm should strive to achieve a very specific task, and not be a swiss army knife that can do any number of things depending on the situation. In case you have an artifact that you wish to do several different things, please submit each as a separate Noble Phantasm all using the same focus. It will be taken under consideration during the pricing.



Derived values.

Magic Circuits. As the name implies, this is your capacity for magic. If you have taken either Spells or Rituals, you may calculate this value thus: if you bid on Psyche, or otherwise bought it up, then it would be the amount of points you spent on Psyche plus 20. If you remained at Servant rank, your Magic Circuits value is 20. If you sold down to Human rank or if you didn't take either Spells or Rituals, then it is 5.

Prana is derived using the same formula as for Magic Circuits. It is applied to both the Master and the Servant, and then the sum is the Servant's Prana value. Unlike with Magic Circuits, there are no prerequisites such as Spells or Rituals.

Your Prana is recharged daily by the value of the Master's Magic Circuits. The Master has a way to recharge the Servant's Prana quickly to maximum. The Servant can also get Prana by draining the lifeforce of those within 100ft from him. This gives the Servant 1% of its full capacity back in exchange for putting the drained mortal into a weeklong coma, or 5% by draining all of their energy and killing them on the spot.

Health is calculated just as Magic Circuits, except the formula tallies up Endurance and Athletics, and then takes the average value. Unlike with Magic Circuits, there are no prerequisites such as Spells or Rituals.

Combat Readiness is derived from the sum of Health for Master and Servant. It recovers by a daily rate of the Servant's Endurance. Physical attacks, magic and Noble Phantasms erode at this value. If it drops past half of its maximum, your Warfare ranking lowers by one. If it drops to ten percent, your Warfare ranking is lowered to Human. If it had been Human from the start, you are incapacitated, becoming ineffective in battle.

[Dracos]

Neat?  IRc times?  Play by post?

*is curious/interested though I know our game times are oft far away*

[Corwin]

The game will be played over IRC. Days and times are not finalized yet, but I'm aiming for a weekly game, possibly over fridays.

[Dracos]

Intrigued, provided I can make the hours.  This is unlikely though.

I assume one can choose from various heroic spirits from history? =)

[Iron Dragoon]

I'm down for this. Provided timing works out.

[Corwin]

The spot has been filled out. Thanks, guys.