I got in a bit of a Fate/Stay night craze lately after re watching Fate/Zero and it coincidentally turned out at the same time I received my copy of Ars Magika. My friends gave me the idea of trying to create a game set in a similar universe, with some liberties taken to walk around the weird and annoying stuff in fate. I though of using Ars Magika for this purpose, with players having both a Master [Magi], its servant [Boosted supernatural creature using Faeries stats] and its entourage [Grogs]. However, the more I read, the more it became clear that Ars Magika was sub-optimal for this and that I would have to do a lot of hacking to use the system for this.

I would really like for players to control both Master and Servant at the same time, adding more Master/Servant duos than the standard 7 and adding an alliance game [To justify the players working together] as the war seems to have turned into an attrition war. However, I would also be okay with all players playing Master and Servants and, if we are an odd number, one player playing a powerful human [Or a servant summoned servant?].

Is any system good for this king of play? If any, why would they be the best? I know of Ova and BESM for anime styled games, but they seems to be a bit weak when needing to display the huge difference in gameplay between the all powerful servants and the weaker masters.

Though I dislike many of them, I'm open to generic systems if you offer some additional books that cover this kind of universe.

Thanks a lot!

What is Fate/Stay night?

The fate series is an anime and "adult" Visual Novel series about a magical war for the holy grail, an artifact of immense power able to grant any wish. To decide who would wield this power, big magicians families created the Holy Grail war where seven magicians, called Masters, are chosen to fight with their summoned familiars, Servants. These Servant are heroes of ancient times and legend, like king Arthur or Alexander the Great [Sometimes highly modified]. They come into seven categories - Archer, Rider, Saber, Lancer, Caster Assassin and Berserker - one of each for each master and each having their own specialties and abilities [the name says it all, think of D&D classes]. They highly overpower the Masters who can cast a few spells for schools inspired [For the most part] from classical European magic [Hence my idea to use Ars Magika] and posses a Noble Phantasm, an ultimate ability that is the embodiment of their legend and that often uses a pocket universe or a "kill everyone" beam. Finally, each Master has three seals they can use to force their servant to obey them or summon him when he is away, when they lose them all, the Servant disappear.

They battle it out until only one master remains and wins the Holy Grail. Of course, there is a lot of intrigue, shonen like battles and shenanigans that only makes the universe more confusing, but that is the gist of it. I'd like my Master to be a bit more powerful, but if the system can handle this basic synopsis, it would be easy to improve the characters a bit to make them fun to play.

• 2

I used BESM 3rd edition to run a Fate/stay Night game before [well really just a general Nasuverse game]. It worked pretty well, just build the masters and servants on different points pools. In the game I ran the players each built a master and a servant but the servants got shuffled around the players, sort of like how the Shadow works in Wraith. You could do it with really any generic superhero system right off the bat with just the core in most cases [Mutants & Masterminds, the various iterations of Marvel, etc.]

• 3

I've been planning a Fate Stay Night alternate Grail war game for a while, using Fate, specifically the Dresden Files version. I think the nature of aspects will fit very with the nature of fitting different heroic spirits into Classes - a Cu Chulain summoned as a Caster would have that one aspect different from the one summoned as Lancer we've seen, and wouldn't necessarily have to change any others. This also allows me to have enemy servants that break the fate refresh to make them more able to fight the entire party or have Invulnerability powers that can only by bypassed once the players have determined the Servant's identity [and can therefore use that Aspect], but have less free will than the PC Servant[s] with a minimum refresh of 1.

I'm note sure yet whether there'll be more than one Servant/Master Pair in the party, but don't be afraid to have a selection of Allies of other mages - if you look at Fate Zero Kiritsugu's effectively got a party of Master, Servant, non-mage Warrior and Homunculus, and El-Melloi has a second Mage assisting him.

• 4

Well Dresden Files Fate was certainly one of the first things to come to mind that could accomodate the large power differences and overall kinks. Skill limits and supernatural powers can represent the basic capabilities of Servants nicely relative to humans, and the system is light enough to represent specialized magi fighting on a similar level [see: Kotomine, Bazett and other Executor/Enforcer sorts] with the right powers.

Taking advantage [heh] of Aspects to encourage digging for the identities of Heroic Spirits is a smart move. It always bothered me how in FSN and FZ that never ended up mattering much. Fate/Apocrypha has a better case where the identity of a Heroic Spirit as an exploitable weakness is treated the way you would expect it to because it warrants that caution.

It should be noted the setting conceits of the Fate franchise mean some characters may have magical or supernatural power that will never reach the level of others, even if that doesn't say anything about the way they use it.

Last edited: Oct 1, 2016

Oni

• 5

The very first thing that popped into my head was OVA. Maybe give the players 3 pools of points. One for the masters that caps at a combined effectiveness of +2 dice, one that caps at +4 effectiveness for servants, and a third pool to split between the two and you can either raise the master's or servant's combined effectiveness by +1.

Alternately you could just give servants a scale advantage, but maybe chop it down to +2 or +3 dice.

Also, certain NPC masters and servants are clearly bosses.

Anyway, just the first thing that came to me.

• 6

Pokemon Adventures RPG.

... what?

Slightly more seriously, Fate sounds like it might be a good match for it.

• 7

  Pokemon Adventures RPG.

... what?

I mean, FS/N basically is Pokemon, it's just that all the Pokemon trainers have just a single Pokemon.

• 8

My group were looking at the gifts and Words in Godbound, and we were joking, "Wow, it's like Fate/Stay Night!". Saber basically has the words Sword and Endurance; Archer has the Artifice, Bow and Sword, and Caster could have Sorcery, Night and Deceit [loosely based on my recollections of anime]. The summoners could be represented with heroic mortals [or for Shirou's case, just a mere mortal].

• 9

  My group were looking at the gifts and Words in Godbound, and we were joking, "Wow, it's like Fate/Stay Night!". Saber basically has the words Sword and Endurance; Archer has the Artifice, Bow and Sword, and Caster could have Sorcery, Night and Deceit [loosely based on my recollections of anime]. The summoners could be represented with heroic mortals [or for Shirou's case, just a mere mortal].

...I can see that. That could work.

• 10

  I used BESM 3rd edition to run a Fate/stay Night game before [well really just a general Nasuverse game]. It worked pretty well, just build the masters and servants on different points pools. In the game I ran the players each built a master and a servant but the servants got shuffled around the players, sort of like how the Shadow works in Wraith. You could do it with really any generic superhero system right off the bat with just the core in most cases [Mutants & Masterminds, the various iterations of Marvel, etc.]

I really like this idea of shuffling the servants around, kinda like they do in the series. I often forget that anime heroes are, in a way, superheros so I never think of using superhero systems for this. I only know Wild Talents, I should take a look at M&M.

Well Dresden Files Fate was certainly one of the first things to come to mind that could accomodate the large power differences and overall kinks. Skill limits and supernatural powers can represent the basic capabilities of Servants nicely relative to humans, and the system is light enough to represent specialized magi fighting on a similar level [see: Kotomine, Bazett and other Executor/Enforcer sorts] with the right powers.

Taking advantage [heh] of Aspects to encourage digging for the identities of Heroic Spirits is a smart move. It always bothered me how in FSN and FZ that never ended up mattering much. Fate/Apocrypha has a better case where the identity of a Heroic Spirit as an exploitable weakness is treated the way you would expect it to because it warrants that caution.

It should be noted the setting conceits of the Fate franchise mean some characters may have magical or supernatural power that will never reach the level of others, even if that doesn't say anything about the way they use it.

I've been planning a Fate Stay Night alternate Grail war game for a while, using Fate, specifically the Dresden Files version. I think the nature of aspects will fit very with the nature of fitting different heroic spirits into Classes - a Cu Chulain summoned as a Caster would have that one aspect different from the one summoned as Lancer we've seen, and wouldn't necessarily have to change any others. This also allows me to have enemy servants that break the fate refresh to make them more able to fight the entire party or have Invulnerability powers that can only by bypassed once the players have determined the Servant's identity [and can therefore use that Aspect], but have less free will than the PC Servant[s] with a minimum refresh of 1. I'm note sure yet whether there'll be more than one Servant/Master Pair in the party, but don't be afraid to have a selection of Allies of other mages - if you look at Fate Zero Kiritsugu's effectively got a party of Master, Servant, non-mage Warrior and Homunculus, and El-Melloi has a second Mage assisting him.

I must say I never though of Fate. Actually, Fate was the game I though could never work, but using aspects in that fashion seems more natural than many system I though of. It would even be possible to use aspects for mage families and such. I'll take a look at Dresden Files, my only Fate game I played was Spirit of the Century. Is there a reason Dresden File would work better than Fate Core?

Thanks for the suggestion. I though of only working with Master and Servant pairs to make sure every player had a good experience while being on different power level. Kiritsugu has his group, but they often get left out or are used as scouts when the time comes for a big fight, as only the servant can really make a difference. But thinking about it, players would probably find a way to send their Servant against another Servant and create a Master battle to make sure they get something to do.

The very first thing that popped into my head was OVA. Maybe give the players 3 pools of points. One for the masters that caps at a combined effectiveness of +2 dice, one that caps at +4 effectiveness for servants, and a third pool to split between the two and you can either raise the master's or servant's combined effectiveness by +1.

Alternately you could just give servants a scale advantage, but maybe chop it down to +2 or +3 dice.

Also, certain NPC masters and servants are clearly bosses.

Anyway, just the first thing that came to me.

I don't know much about OVA. I missed the kickstarter by a few days and I've not followed the development since. Could you describe it a bit for me? What is its resolution mechanic? how long would you think character creation would take?

Pokemon Adventures RPG.

... what?

Slightly more seriously, Fate sounds like it might be a good match for it.

I mean, FS/N basically is Pokemon, it's just that all the Pokemon trainers have just a single Pokemon.

This is actually a good idea. I read PTU and I couldn't work out a game for it, the mechanics were a bit too crunch heavy for my taste and the way trainers could hit pokemons to catch them felt... Weird. But now that you say it, it seems perfect for F/SN, it would need a bit of hacking, but a good idea nonetheless

My group were looking at the gifts and Words in Godbound, and we were joking, "Wow, it's like Fate/Stay Night!". Saber basically has the words Sword and Endurance; Archer has the Artifice, Bow and Sword, and Caster could have Sorcery, Night and Deceit [loosely based on my recollections of anime]. The summoners could be represented with heroic mortals [or for Shirou's case, just a mere mortal].

I though of Godbound, the only reason I didn't suggest it in my original post is that I'm already running a Scion game with Godbound and I wanted to try new systems