Grail War RPs Discussion : Troubleshooting, Best Practices, War Stories

[SeiKeo]

Then the RP turns into "how can I kill my own Amakusa".

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Verg's M/W had a good thing happening, but it was the players, as with most RPs, that let it down. One person deciding not to post can screw over everyone else and, with how many people are typically needed for a Grail War, that's almost guaranteed to happen unless you've deliberately picked people who won't stop posting or can be bullied into it.

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Actually nvm M/W died because the GM did. Just pick any other Grail War RP then.

This is why my favorite theoretical RP design doc was Fate/Extra where every poster had one Master/Servant team and also GM'd for another player

[You]

This is why my favorite theoretical RP design doc was Fate/Extra where every poster had one Master/Servant team and also GM'd for another player

how did this work?

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Guys, I got it! Apocrypha Grail Wars but both sides have been Amakusa'd!

• Competitive PvP between Factions
• Teamwork and interactions within Factions
• No need for masters since they've all been Amakusa'd, no power disparity, full servant fun
• No finger in two pies dilemma; There's only two pies and you have to be in one
• Currently relevant and contemporary

There are definitely no weaknesses with this idea.

It's actually a p bad design.
Because there's nothing holding the teams back, they just derpcharge each other and try to beamsword or whatever as many people dead as possible.

[Milbunk]

While watching teams going all out in hilarious mayhem is a pretty interesting thought it does remind me of that one fast battle focused grail war that happened a few years back.

I also like the Extra idea, it was more representative of the tournament style grail war with a higher focus on the battles at the end of the week against the gm based team. Potentially it would have had the players finally meet up near the end but they never got that far.

Also I still like grail wars as an RP concept even if it's notoriously hard to pull off, and believe me when I say I've tried again and again to get them working.

[SeiKeo]

how did this work?

It didn't, really, it was just a design draft. But the logic went like:

GMs have to post for 5-10 players, which as a rule is more than most GMs can handle. People don't post once a day.
Players getting updated every 10 days or so was slower than most players wanted.

So, cut out the asymmetry, where the GM is the single point of failure. But to do that you need something that can mostly work PvE so the individual GM-player pairs can stay isolated, and at the time that was the only close to canon TM setting you could do it in - that also carried the side benefit of being able to reshuffle GM pairings every dungeon cycle.

The sad part is that I thought this would be easier than just running an RP with a 300 word/post limit which would have solved the same problems.

[Rafflesiac]

Whoa whoa whoa, a word limit?

How am I supposed to feel horribly inadequate whenever other people post with one of those around?

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On a different note, how would people have something like a mind-reading NP, Eye of the Mind, or feints work?

[Leftovers]

Whoa whoa whoa, a word limit?

How am I supposed to feel horribly inadequate whenever other people post with one of those around?

With overcompensating CGs.

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An EXTRA-based RP always seemed like a concept worth revisiting if only because it imposed a tighter schedule and clearer goals through the setting's rules and limitations. Less time idling about in dead time doing fuck-all.

[SeiKeo]

Whoa whoa whoa, a word limit?

How am I supposed to feel horribly inadequate whenever other people post with one of those around?

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On a different note, how would people have something like a mind-reading NP, Eye of the Mind, or feints work?

Why would you take a mind-reading NP anyway in a forum RP, just read his IC posts my dude

[Leftovers]

An EXTRA-based RP always seemed like a concept worth revisiting if only because it imposed a tighter schedule and clearer goals through the setting's rules and limitations. Less time idling about in dead time doing fuck-all.

*Theoretically, always, given how long a day can last IC.

[Rafflesiac]

Why would you take a mind-reading NP anyway in a forum RP, just read his IC posts my dude

Isn't that cheating though? For the thought processes revealed, anyways?

[SeiKeo]

Isn't that cheating though? For the thought processes revealed, anyways?

well

yes but I know you've been in a BL RP before

just metagame

[Rafflesiac]

FMWR never got far enough to metagame

[RacingeR]

*Theoretically, always, given how long a day can last IC.

we've had IC days last IRL years

it really wouldn't fix speed issues

[Rafflesiac]

And Verg survived my lethal attempt to nonlethally suppress him through sheer dumb luck

[SeiKeo]

we've had IC days last IRL years

it really wouldn't fix speed issues

yeah turns out it really just did need the word limit

[I3uster]

Word limits are a windmill, some people do 5k in a day then don't post a 500 word post in several days.

[SeiKeo]

What does that have to do with windmills?

[I3uster]

remind me not to try to translate expressions

Anyway word limits wont get rid of delays, you need GM discipline and penalize non-posting. Those are the only 2 things that have been shown to work.

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this is kinda hitting non GW-RP discussions isn't it

[Rafflesiac]

You were talking about tilting at windmills, right?

[Draconic]

…you need some way to have GM agency and not just have a player dukeout arena. Once it turns either into a game of chicken or a massive battle clusterfuck the whole thing will just die. Think of a good setup and actually try to make it a story. In every Fate spinoff the war part itself is the least interesting thing about the story which is why Apocrypha is bad. Logistics are secondary to getting the basic necessities of an RP down.

So basically, what you need to do is have an overarching story taking place, and there should be non-player entities that pose severe threats, such that even if certain players are looking to duke it out between Servants, there’s always a chance that they’ll end up having to ally with one another because, just for example an anomaly opens up and drops some sort of eldritch monstrosity on them. And by the end of the encounter, they may have new priorities or loyalties.

Hell, or it could work in a similar way that it does in SE.RA.PH. Not quite the same of course: I was thinking something along the lines of if an encounter isn’t resolved within a certain number of posts (per player, and determined by various factors only known to the GM), some sort of ‘random event happens that can either alter the situation, or even move the story along.

[RacingeR]

remind me not to try to translate expressions

Anyway word limits wont get rid of delays, you need GM discipline and penalize non-posting. Those are the only 2 things that have been shown to work.

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this is kinda hitting non GW-RP discussions isn't it

So maybe I should penalize you for not posting in Titan?


But yeah back to GW RP talk.