My Thoughts on the Current Game

The game has been paused, and at least in my position, it's easy to see why.


To put it bluntly, it's a huge infuriating mess right now. The game is complicated in areas that should be simple and is simple in areas that should be complicated. Moreover, I feel what I do is restricted and that I am constantly being told "no" to things that shouldn't happen like that. At least for me, this game has stopped being a battle against other players. It's now a battle against the system and Grimwind's rulings as a GM. Now, I might be biased because I might have the biggest amount of fights with what Grimwind rulings (barring Meroy because I know he's like that), but I still feel that my complaints are entirely legitamate. Also, who better to pinpoint the rough parts in the game other than someone who isn't satisfied with what is going on.


Oh right, I'm probably going to drop out of this game now. This is so I can disclose some things without feeling regret that I'm epic boned when the game continues (even though I think it should be reset, but that's later). I'll make sure not to completely reveal important things about the other players.



What do I think is complicated? The game stats is one. You have armour, Servant armour, damage multipliers, melee types, specialization of skills, etc. etc. There's no reason why the game should be split into 20+ parts with 4 different formulas one has to constantly refer to. With my first battle, both me and the opponent started out fucking everything over partially because it was entirely different that the last battle system. However, what bugged me the most was that there were like, 5 different stats I had to keep track of in one turn. One was the melee attack stat. That affects the chance you have to land a hit. Okay, whatever, fair enough. Then you have to calculate your damage stats, which is done by multiplying your weapon damage stat by a number. Then you have to keep track of your armour, which isn't really armour when using a Servant, but Servant armour. Servant armour is found through some calculation I can't remember because I'm already lost at this point with 5 different defending options with ANOTHER calculation for three of them or something.

This is just scratching the surface. While creating my character, I literally had to pull out a calculator for the insane number of stat calculations I had to keep track of. It's pointless and only infuriates the player while adding nothing to the gameplay.



What do I think is simple? This ultimately boils down to the meat and potatoes of this RPG: the battle. If the actual flow of the battle itself was as complicated as the calculations needed to get started with it, maybe the numerous number crunches I had to do would be justified. This game is so simple to the point where it defies common sense. Defending isn't part of your turn, so you never have to pick and choose. Both players just slug it out and whoever has the most OP numbers or abilities will win. But wait, tactics and strategy will overcome this problem, right?! Nope, because even that is limited. Since defending isn't part of your turn, melee Servants are fucked the moment they leave that one square near their Master. Projectiles ignore the concept of angles and go through whatever impossible objects straight towards to headshot the Master. Servants can just run by yours and smash them in the face and you can't do anything about it since DEFENDING ISN'T PART OF YOUR TURN. You have to tank it in the face even though movement and turn order dictates your Servant would be able walk over and defend you in time. The alternative is using a command seal, but really? I'd rather just run off and make sure we're really fucking close and win with my OP numbers next time.



Where do I feel restricted? I can't have my Servant move my Master away in the same movement turn. Picking someone up requires another turn! My core ability have been neutered to the point where I don't do anything 4/5 rounds despite the fact that I built my character around that one ability. I can't use a command seal to dodge a 1000 damage NP despite the fact that Grimwind admits it's OP and any sane person would understand that movement would dodge that (yes, I couldn't even walk out of it despite being four squares away from the safe zone). This has more to do with only one GM, but I can't be told info that I found valuable when I actually need it. Finally, there's not letting me join an event for various reasons (obviously I didn't agree with them), eventually somehow being put in a disadvantageous position despite being like 5v2.



Another would be the imbalance, but I think anyone who was in that event can see that. The last two parts may seem subjective, but I feel that it's incredibly important to contrast this compared to when Rall was GMing. I realize he was a temp, but most of my events happened while he was there. It was fun to play with Rall as a GM because he let me do what I want to a certain limit. If it was reasonably possible, then it was fine. Before Rall's internet exploded, I was in a battle and I made a wrong decision. I lost, but I never felt it was his fault. He let me do what I want and I made a tiny, wrong decision. Whatever, my fault. I made the most of it.

With Grimwind, it feels like everything is his fault. No, you don't have a car. No, you can't pick up your Master in that turn. No, you can't walk out. No, you can't go up the steps in time etc.

The most incredible part was when I made my character, I dumped 45 points and discarded 1 for that secret ability. I couldn't think up anything more because my core character idea was ruined, so I let Grim do the deciding. Last I checked, he did well with people like Meroy (despite him not knowing the huge fucking gift he was given). Two days later, I go on a treasure hunt and waste a round to locate some item that was to be my secret ability. An additional round is wasted getting it. Then I'm told I don't have the skills to know what it was. Then I'm encouraged by Grim to try it anyways. Boom, surprise! You lose 100 mana for a pendant that goes against your entire character design and needs (ie. saving mana). I'm probably never going to use it because it's like the equivalent of a command seal that can only defend. And even then it's not that great if they just run away since it has an upkeep and lowers my current health. To be fair, he got rid of the -100 mana penalty in that event. But that still doesn't mean I'm refunded 60 points for something I'll never use. Now, I know Rall only GM'd for a short period of time, but he never fucking sabatoged me while playing the game. And to tell me after I spent points on an ability during character creation that I get a useless ability that does not take into consideration how it synergizes with my character is really stupid.

There's also the refusal to act upon new knowledge (e.g. Berserker can actually unlock a skill once with command seal), the refusal to finish some RP diary thing for my useless pendant (was planning to use them for RP too), and the general clashes I had with him made the game unfun. I'm not saying he's a bad GM: this is a new game and he did well as a GM in the early stages of building a game, but I feel it is important to vent out my frustrations both to relieve my irritations and to improve this game.

I also don't want to be seen as some whiner who is crying because things didn't go his way because I hope Grim will acknowledge that despite the fact I consistently clash with him, I accepted the results for the most part and made the most of what I was given. This doesn't excuse the fact that the game is like a battle against the GM rather than the players.


EDIT: k, so really quickly, a list of suggestions now that I think about it.

1) Another GM to get rid of Grimwind's work load (maybe even 2).

2) An emphasis on the player being able to do what he likes barring obvious imbalances/bullshit/impossiblity. If you can do it in real life, you can probably do it here.

3) Scrap the enormous stat system and simplify it. The route to actually getting to playing the game should be painless and simple.

4) Add depth to the battle system so numbers don't determine the victor 100% of the time (I can offer help with this, actually).


And to repeat, I think Grimwind did fine considering the circumstances. But it isn't going to be fun if this game continues like this. We should do what happened like last time and restart the game with brand new characters while ironing out the major flaws in this game. Also, I'd bet Grimwind would be more tolerant of what we want to do if he had less shit to worry about and manage in this game.

I...agree with all of this p.q
If any people go read the archives of the CoP: OF Servant Battles, you'll see the exact same thing. The only differences? Here, your GM gives you the illusion of actually being able to do anything, while in Servant Battles it was more or less public opinion how battles play out and what each character does. Here, your GM makes all decisions, while in Servant Battles it was up to a vote. This is actually WORSE than the Servant Battles' disaster.

Hi, I'm FistFullOfFlame. You may remember me from such Forum games as "[CoP:OF] Vampire Hunt, round 1" and "That Pathfinder Game that Never Launched (CoP:OF again)". If you don't, join Corenat Rovarnus' forum @ http://churchofproz.forumotion.net/ (User name there is MarthMarthy)

I've been working on my own character sheet for the 8th Holy Grail War and many of Sushi's mechanics complaints seem legitimate. For me to touch on them again would be redundant. However, something else stood out to me pretty blatantly, and that is the apparent lack of character choices available to masters. I'm going to use some of the Fate/ Stay Night masters as reference for the different kinds of masters within the Nasuverse and them compare them to how they would translate into the Rule Breaker rules.

Emiya Shirou - He's a kendo student who also has some Magus capabilities (emphasis on some) who has an uncanny knack for creation magics. He wears armor of no sort and gets penetrated by shards of metal more often than a hooker with a steel dildo, but he has wolverine-esque regeneration so getting killed doesn't make him die (contradictory to what he commonly says 8) ). Translating him into the Rule-Breaker rules is relatively easy on the surface since most of his abilities are their (with the exception of creation magic). However, since he clearly owns a servant he would be allotted 100 points, making it difficult for him to have all of his abilities that were in the VN. So lets say he uses the magic casting stats as his dump stats and focuses in melee combat. That means that in a game he would get ripped to shreds within seconds because he has no armor. His second confrontation with Lancer would have killed him in the VN since he would be unable to block using his fighting skill. And since the points are so sparse he wouldn't have many points to put into HP stats since he spent it on all that other stuff (creation magics, secret power for UBW, regen, etc). That means Zerker would have squashed him for good in that first battle. The initial 100 point doll out wouldn't be enough to support him throughout much of the campaign even if he survived due to total flukes in dice rolls. Shirou progresses and gains his powers later through experience, not by wasting points in secret power. Rule Breaker does not support any XP system which is pretty ass-backwards considering what happened in F/SN. This severely limits you during character design since you are making your character for the whole game, not just the start. You have to focus in the useful thing (armor and attack spells) or some very queer cheese strategy with no middle ground.

Tosaka Rin - She is a Tosaka family (duh) master who has a bunch of gems with mana, a red skirt and a miniskirt and some serious Tsundere. Again she has no armor, which in a game of rule breaker would mean she would be squashed instantly if a servant so much as looked too hard in her direction. In rule breaker she would be focused on attack spells and mana transfer while giving blatant disregard for her protection by only wearing a coat to protect her from the cold at night. This strategy would be legit in rule breaker IF she had some other form of protection, which she doesn't.

Kotomine Keire - A member of the Catholic Church Kick-ass division that is not much of a magus but has bullet-proof armor, a heart of cold steel, some black keys and bruce-lee level kung-fu. Again, the 100 point limit would make it impossible to be as pro as he was in the VN, even if the attack limits were set aside.

Matou Shinji - Seems to be the only master that would fit within the rule-breaker limits, since he is so generically fragile and pathetic. "But wait" you say "He was an NPC given a servant by a PC (spoiler alert)". Ok, lets cover Sakura now. Ohhhhhh boy

Matou Sakura - Where do I begin. She has an alternate form capable of om nom noming Gilgamesh, the ability to turn servants into their dark forms (and sometimes steal them), the best Bluff skill in the history of ever, and has an evil great-grandfather (sort of) watching over her implanting more powerful parasites into her which basically trade emotional control for prana. Firstly, a master of this power is by no means possible within any of the rule breaker constraints. Secondly, some of these abilities aren't even covered in the perks, but I'll talk about perk and skill limited-ness later. Thirdly she is connected in some way to a third party called the Shadow (please forgive me but I barely skimmed Heavens Feel and my brain is still recovering from it), an NPC entity of immense power. The ability to summon, communicate with or command a powerful third entity besides other masters and servants is not within the rules of Rule Breaker. Sure you have companions, but with your oh-so valuable and sparse 100 points it would be stupid to spend it on a weaker form of attack. Sakura would be totally impossible to create in Rule Breaker, and all the other masters above would have similar difficulties. In a game about creating unique masters in a unique setting it would seem important to allow freedom in build and let you emulate some of your favorite Fate/Franchise characters.

I could list more masters from F/SN and F/Zero and even 1 from F/HA, but I won't because you get the picture.

One last thing: what boils down to how powerful your character is your armor and attack, nothing else. Stealth? Forget it, servants spot you instantly. Good at recruiting/indoctrinating/summoning/creating NPC's? Forget it, their turns are guaranteed to be last, which makes them little more than map clutter. My point is that there is very little to this system other than attacking and letting your armor eat attacks (to an extent), which completely shatters the Role Playing in the Nasuverse portion of this game, which is you know, what the whole damn game is about. I've been a game master for lots of games for several years, and these flaws seem like the kind that sort of break a campaign.



Here ends my bitching and so should everyone elses. There has certainly been enough criticism (constructive and otherwise) on the rules and whatnot and now I think is time for suggesting improvements and possibly new systems. Be constructive people

The Masters and Servants in FSN should not be used as a standard of what a "stereotypical Holy Grail War" should be. For whatever reason, the source work seems to have anomolies and exceptions all over the place. A better comparison to look at would be Fate/Zero, and you can really see there how Servant and Master balance works. Apart from Saber, Archer, and possibly Rider, every Servant was balanced. NPs did play a part in the battles, but those that did do amazing damage had huge prana costs to activiate and/or conditions to fulfill. The Masters were also fairly normal and they would never hold their own against a Servant. Their abilities were interesting (like the power to control mercury as a versatile weapon), but I doubt any of it would go beyond a 40 pt special ability (Kirisugu might be an exception).

In the dev post, Grimwind suggested that what he knew about FSN should all be scrapped in the game. That isn't true. What I suspect is that he used Servants like Saber and Gilgamesh and set them as a standard for how powerful a Servant is. What we should be using as a standard to balance fun and fairness is Caster. She had quirky abilities, and the most game changing ones usually required some sort of condition. That's exactly the standard that should be taken for all Servants.

The only concrete suggestion I can suggest against making NPs too out of line are certain conditions that must be fulfilled before using. Number of people killed for their souls, health percentage, environmental conditions, etc.

I agree with the general placements of the balance in this game so far though. Servants should trump Masters unless the Master in question has given up practical usefulness for limited and situational effectiveness against Servants.

I wasn't saying a master should be able to take down or match a servant, but that they should be able to survive the first freaking round and run away unless the servant came prepared with like a lasso or something (John Wayne as a servant, lol). And they should be able to do said escape with something other than "Runs off the edge of the map". Stealth spell, or illusion, or mindscrew the servant with one of Rins crystal meth gems or something. I can't put enough emphasis on considering things besides speed armor rating and attack. We don't come here to play a ludicrously overcomplicated game of rock-paper-scissors, we have Fire Emblem for that.

And yeah your right I guess it isn't fair to list the F/SN masters since most of them are considered exceptions to the rule. I guess the only two that weren't exceptions were Bazzet and the unknown summoner of Caster, but we know what happened to them. Wait, but then whats the rule if there is only exceptions? Blaaaaaaag its like being in Chemistry all over again :(

And thinking about trying to capture the Fate/Franchise spirit, I think the PC's should have some control over the servant they summon. Kiritsugu used Avalon to attract Saber and Shirou did the same by accident, Rin used that gem thingy to summon you-know-who by accident, Bazzet used something to pick out that Lancer specifically, etc. I'm not saying they should get to write the sheet or even pick the identity or the class, but should either get to pick the feel/tone or from where the original hero lived. Like if I made a Samurai themed master it would be a bummer to get George Washington as my servant. I'd probably use a famous artifact from Japanese history to make sure it was someone in Japanese history, so that someone from Australia isn't running around with my oh so desired Japanese servant. Or maybe that Samurai guy would like to see what a warrior from another culture is like, so he uses some famous weapons as his catalyst so that he gets a hero who was a warrior (instead of a scholar or witch or something).

So for changing the mechanics, I was thinking that we should put HP on a slightly different scale. Make the math work out so that there are basically no OHKOs unless its under special circumstances. And also, we should have it that servants NPs don't get really powerful attacks but instead servants have boosted HP. That makes it so that a servant attacking a master deals damage but doesn't kill them instantly if they're at full health, but a master attack a servant has little to no chance of dealing real damage. Makes things a bit more fair, no?

I'll start with Masters as it is the area I have most experience in.

Right now Masters are required to be well planned in order to be useful under the current system as a Master that attempts to be skilled at two or more things will not be able to defend himself most of the time simply because there is too much damage being dealt. I am one of the players who planned out his character from the early stages with a focus, both with the Servantless (150 CP, 30 Stat points) and the Master (100 CP, 20 Stat points) template and I have come to the conclusion that with the current prices the Servantless template allows better diversity as you are not forced into specializing and can instead make your Master proficient at several things.

As Grimwind said, some perks are just superior to others (namely Alternate Form) but in my opinion the biggest problem lies in the cost between [Items] and [Spells]. Items will always cost 75% of their original price and can perform in many cases the same function as a spell or even more versatile (with the added bonus of [Increased Stat]). Lowering spell cost to 75% would fix this issue, as spells gain access to [Incantation] which is quite powerful. Some skills are also inferior to others so reducing the amount of skills would be useful, combining two or more skills into a single one. On a side note, I think Defects should be worth slightly more because some of them are too limiting for only a little more CP.

I already mentioned before that there is too much damage being dealt, reducing damage by a lot to make one hit kills rare would be a step in the right direction (could be done by removing combat modifiers as they are currently too good - or adding a limit to them). Area of Effect attacks are also currently too good as they cover a huge area, two things can be done about them: reducing the damage the further away they area from the impact point or just limiting AoE by making it more expensive or limiting how much Area they can cover. (Unique shapes would be an interest addition) For spells for example if they pass a certain damage limit you need to have a certain amount of [Incantation]. Another way to limit damage is to add action points, making powerful attacks be unusable for the first few turns.

Regarding the stat system I don't think it is currently too complicated but instead just needs to be explained more in depth (Servant Armor is indeed the same as regular Armor!). If one area is simplified others will have to be simplified too and it may become too simple in the end. The best way to do this is by helping Grim write more detailed descriptions and examples, there is only so much a single man can do.

The battle system is a huge improvement over the old one simply because there is movement, range and other interesting additions. By reducing damage overall tactics will appear as you don't have to be on guard for a one hit kill attack all the time and can use your Master and Servant for different tasks. Having an example of how a real battle would play out would have helped a lot during character creations and lowered the amounts of questions. An example character sheet would have also helped and I am willing to help Grim with both of these for the next game. Servant covering ranges could be increased or range for ranged weapons reduced to solve the problem with long range attacks.

The biggest problem for this RP is the event management. The only idea I have been able to come up with is to reduce the rounds per day to 2 which will result in less events but it is NOT the best solution. If you have any ideas please post them here.

The game should be finished, it would be a waste of everyone's time, especially Grim's, if it was restarted at this point. By finishing it some other flaws might appear.

There's lots of writing on these posts and I thought the best way to go through all of them would be just quote and write my opinion on each thing.


At least for me, this game has stopped being a battle against other players. It's now a battle against the system and Grimwind's rulings as a GM. Now, I might be biased because I might have the biggest amount of fights with what Grimwind rulings (barring Meroy because I know he's like that), but I still feel that my complaints are entirely legitamate. Also, who better to pinpoint the rough parts in the game other than someone who isn't satisfied with what is going on.
Yeah we've been having lots of discussion on things you don't like. All of the players have been pointing things out and been talking about possible changes. It's fine, but the way you sometimes bring the things up is frustrating. Like just insulting or repeating the same thing over and over and my hard-headed nature just won't work out a decision that would work for both.

It's with systems like these where the rules are handled and made by single person opinions will clash often. That's why I was thinking on moving some ready made system where the rules cover every possible situation and players know fully what their options are. That way we could have a fun role-playing experience with minimal drama.


What do I think is complicated? The game stats is one. You have armour, Servant armour, damage multipliers, melee types, specialization of skills, etc. etc. There's no reason why the game should be split into 20+ parts with 4 different formulas one has to constantly refer to. With my first battle, both me and the opponent started out fucking everything over partially because it was entirely different that the last battle system.
I guess that's one problem. Only one or two players figured out the battle system after reading my descriptions. Some solid examples of the situations would have been nice it seems.

However, what bugged me the most was that there were like, 5 different stats I had to keep track of in one turn. One was the melee attack stat. That affects the chance you have to land a hit. Okay, whatever, fair enough. Then you have to calculate your damage stats, which is done by multiplying your weapon damage stat by a number. Then you have to keep track of your armour, which isn't really armour when using a Servant, but Servant armour. Servant armour is found through some calculation I can't remember because I'm already lost at this point with 5 different defending options with ANOTHER calculation for three of them or something.
These calculations need to be done once really. Unless you have abilities that change stats or something like that. All you need to do is to paste the calculations on your notes or some text file where you can access them fast. As a side note Servant Armor is just normal armor.


This is just scratching the surface. While creating my character, I literally had to pull out a calculator for the insane number of stat calculations I had to keep track of. It's pointless and only infuriates the player while adding nothing to the gameplay.
I intend to make the character creation more simple for next game if we continue to develop this system. There will be less points to spend and abilities will cost even less. It's a topic we'll discuss with the VH development team when the time comes.


Defending isn't part of your turn, so you never have to pick and choose.
I'm not sure of this part what you're referring to.


Where do I feel restricted? I can't have my Servant move my Master away in the same movement turn. Picking someone up requires another turn! My core ability have been neutered to the point where I don't do anything 4/5 rounds despite the fact that I built my character around that one ability. I can't use a command seal to dodge a 1000 damage NP despite the fact that Grimwind admits it's OP and any sane person would understand that movement would dodge that (yes, I couldn't even walk out of it despite being four squares away from the safe zone).
I'm putting partially blame on your character creation. You yourself decided to nerf your stats to oblivion even though it was mentioned in rules that Agility is the main factor deciding turn order. Like I said, when an enemy makes an attack you choose a defend option against it immediately before moving to the next person on the turn order. Also I'm not saying the NP is that over-powered. I've left ways to deal with it and the servant class having that NP is some what restricted. I'll let you judge the servants after the war is over.



There's also the refusal to act upon new knowledge (e.g. Berserker can actually unlock a skill once with command seal), the refusal to finish some RP diary thing for my useless pendant (was planning to use them for RP too), and the general clashes I had with him made the game unfun. I'm not saying he's a bad GM: this is a new game and he did well as a GM in the early stages of building a game, but I feel it is important to vent out my frustrations both to relieve my irritations and to improve this game.
I can't act upon new knowledge if I don't know if it's true. I just thought you were trolling me to get an advantage in the game. Slacking on the RP is my fault but having so many posts to make is just tiring when I need to use my time for other things on the game. What you said above made me feel like a bad GM. I've only hosted one tabletop RP before this game and done some online role-playing. But being a fair and lovable GM at the same time seems like a hard job. I deny things from the other players all the time as well but they never start insulting me or insist on the topic for too long. Seems like I have long way doing this job right.


I also don't want to be seen as some whiner who is crying because things didn't go his way because I hope Grim will acknowledge that despite the fact I consistently clash with him, I accepted the results for the most part and made the most of what I was given. This doesn't excuse the fact that the game is like a battle against the GM rather than the players.
Point taken.


1) Another GM to get rid of Grimwind's work load (maybe even 2).
That would be nice. However we don't have that many players to spare for that job.

4) Add depth to the battle system so numbers don't determine the victor 100% of the time (I can offer help with this, actually).
I'm taking up on that offer. You need to start showing up at #rulebreaker so you can join the talks with the Vampire Hunt development team.


We should do what happened like last time and restart the game with brand new characters while ironing out the major flaws in this game. Also, I'd bet Grimwind would be more tolerant of what we want to do if he had less shit to worry about and manage in this game.
I'm still up for finishing this game. I want to see the other players and servants in action as well and see everything that could have happened. However it doesn't need to be a quick game. We could do a quick version or open multiple events that could have happened.
I want to hear the opinions of the players still alive on the game on this matter.



The initial 100 point doll out wouldn't be enough to support him throughout much of the campaign even if he survived due to total flukes in dice rolls. Shirou progresses and gains his powers later through experience, not by wasting points in secret power. Rule Breaker does not support any XP system which is pretty ass-backwards considering what happened in F/SN. This severely limits you during character design since you are making your character for the whole game, not just the start. You have to focus in the useful thing (armor and attack spells) or some very queer cheese strategy with no middle ground.
This system wasn't designed for multiple campaign games. There's one campaign to which people design their characters so earning XP is pointless. On a side note you could get a passive ability that boosts evade if you don't want to use armor.


I've been a game master for lots of games for several years, and these flaws seem like the kind that sort of break a campaign.
Do you have any experience with forum RPs. I could use some advice on those.


Here ends my bitching and so should everyone elses. There has certainly been enough criticism (constructive and otherwise) on the rules and whatnot and now I think is time for suggesting improvements and possibly new systems. Be constructive people
The Vampire Hunt development team thread is still up if you're interested on discussing the new rules.

The last battle system was far superior to the one we have right now. I don't know what everyone else did, but I took part in one battle before the game was reset. Despite the limited exposure I had to it, the depth of it was pretty clear from the get-go. Your agility mattered, yes, and it determined turn order. However, the Masters aren't neutered to the point where they get one turn out of ten Servant turns. Moreover, the concept of choosing between defending and attack was actually interesting. The system we have right now homogenizes all melee Servants to do the exact same thing: walk up and attack and roll for defend. You don't have to weigh your options ever in this combat system because you just get both. It makes the Servant and the gameplay incredibly boring. Moreover, movement plays a limited factor since defending not being part of your turn also randomly fucks you up. You are literally not allowed to dodge AoE attacks through movements, pretty much making Servants with AoE NPs superior to everyone else's. If anything needs to be done, it is to actually go back and revert to the style of the old battle system. One that allows you to make choices in combat and emphasizes the importance of using tactics to make up for the high-variance nature of that battle system.

As for my Master design choices, I was talking about morning to night rounds. I was entirely willing to dump all my points into that one ability, but I was not able to. Instead, I get an ability that I can only afford once a round per day. As for the new info thing, I could've easily linked it to you if you asked for a source. Here it is: http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Fate/Zero:Act_14_Part_3.

The one thing I'd like to add is that when it comes to player choices, I feel that it is important to consider 3 questions before letting it go.

1) Would it be interesting/would it be fun to see it happen?
2) Is it within the bounds of the game?
3) Would it ruin the balance?

I don't know why you keep denying stuff, but part of why I took part in the second one was because I enjoyed the experience of the first one. Rall had let me do all the shit I want as long as it seemed possible for my character and it wasn't insanely bullshit and unfair. Yes, there are rules and limitations. There is no reason, however, to limit the character's choices in a way that makes me question everything. If you denied one of my suggestions, I better have thought it was silly to ask for that also. There'd be a lot less clashes if the players were given the freedom they want. I'm sure that everyone on the forums are reasonable and the standard of "Do I think that it is silly?" would be used by all of us anyways (with the exception of Meroy, so enjoy hearing arguements from him no matter what you do).

There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs.

I'm denying all stuff that gives an advantage to the player that wasn't bought with character points. Stuff like cars that increase your movement and such. I'm guessing Rall just screwed that and let you get whatever you want. I don't know I don't remember the last events of the previous that well.

Also I'm not sure about going to back to the previous system...

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Fate/Zero:Act_14_Part_3

There was a period at the end. No, he didn't give me a car. It doesn't make sense how I can have all the money in the world but not have spent it on a car when the city is so large and I'm living in a first-world country. But whatever.

The previous system is better in all aspects. Keep the map but revert to the old battle system (or step back and put the important elements of them into that).

I'm denying all stuff that gives an advantage to the player that wasn't bought with character points. Stuff like cars that increase your movement and such. I'm guessing Rall just screwed that and let you get whatever you want. I don't know I don't remember the last events of the previous that well.

It only seems natural that I can just kill someone and steal his car. Then I have to deal with being found or not. What can be done in real life, we should be able to do in the roleplay. That is the basic of a roleplay, doing what you want to do. If I want to attack a bank to get rich using my servant, then why not? I'll have to deal with an angry supervisor and the church wanting my death.

I agree with most of the stuff Sushi said, scratch the part where he's randomly insulting me. I liked the previous system, but I like having a map too. It seems harder to balance on a map, however, as it makes melee only users have no chance against anything that has range.

Concerning the ''moving out of an AoE'', why not give Evade the ability to move one square if you succeed. (It could be more squares with perks). Basically to represent you rolling sideway or something, and then could could lose 1 action on your turn.

I intend to make the character creation more simple for next game if we continue to develop this system. There will be less points to spend and abilities will cost even less. It's a topic we'll discuss with the VH development team when the time comes.

Less points = Less flexibility. It was already a bad thing to get our character to be able to do more than one thing, we basically had to specialize on something. You told me my character tries to do too many things. Really, it only does 1 thing, because I ran out of points.

I also agree on the part where master role is too limited. While it is true my master could not anything useful of any use in the previous war, he still had turns, and as minimal as it was, I could bother Aelm's servant by dealing damage to him (Could drain like 70 prana a turn iirc, not so minimal afterall)
The system had the servant take more actions than master, but not in a way that made it seem like masters were not even part of the fight.

Anyways, I've made clear most of the stuff I thought and repeating what everyone already said would be useless.
We can adjust the rules after we finish this game. I still need to beat Belmont

Father Vincent wrote:http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Fate/Zero:Act_14_Part_3

There was a period at the end. No, he didn't give me a car. It doesn't make sense how I can have all the money in the world but not have spent it on a car when the city is so large and I'm living in a first-world country. But whatever.

The previous system is better in all aspects. Keep the map but revert to the old battle system (or step back and put the important elements of them into that).

I think I finally get the problem you're so concerned about. It's the BESM mindset I have when game-masterting. In BESM you simply can't get any new items that could be too useful for your character without spending character points. It would also make some of the perks this system was based on useless. The usual house, vehicle and weapons.

If I allowed people get new items just like that then where would it continue? Guns and such come first into mind. But I'm fearing that would lead to more hate after the game about why I allowed some people to get acces to certain items while others couldn't find any.

I'm willing to lift that mind-set for the following games. You can go rob a gun store or murder bunch of random people for all I care.

Lucid wrote:

Father Vincent wrote:http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Fate/Zero:Act_14_Part_3

There was a period at the end. No, he didn't give me a car. It doesn't make sense how I can have all the money in the world but not have spent it on a car when the city is so large and I'm living in a first-world country. But whatever.

The previous system is better in all aspects. Keep the map but revert to the old battle system (or step back and put the important elements of them into that).

I think I finally get the problem you're so concerned about. It's the BESM mindset I have when game-masterting. In BESM you simply can't get any new items that could be too useful for your character without spending character points. It would also make some of the perks this system was based on useless. The usual house, vehicle and weapons.

If I allowed people get new items just like that then where would it continue? Guns and such come first into mind. But I'm fearing that would lead to more hate after the game about why I allowed some people to get acces to certain items while others couldn't find any.

I'm willing to lift that mind-set for the following games. You can go rob a gun store or murder bunch of random people for all I care.

Build your character to be versatile that way then. I'm fine if every one of my actions will have a cost associated with it, because that'd make it fair. I'd also understand if you say no to retarded ass stuff like "I call the general of the army to nuke the city". In my opinion, the GM should allow the player to make all the decisions they want save for limitations their characters/the game will obviously have. The GM shouldn't be there to control our actions. He should be there to associate costs to actions while ignoring decisions that defy common sense and limitations.

Each and every time I see the same topic. Why I ask ... rob a gun store, drive a car, go to work, be filthy rich, nuke the city, own a house. These are ideas for a live game ... this is a forum game why not think procedural and simple?

By adding simple stuff that make sense in a way like the ones enumerated you actually make it a whole lot more complicated. I say stick to the basics and then add content based on the results. Above concepts require gameplay automation.

So stats skills(perks/spells) items map(for triggering events/fights) should suffice.
For battles a action bar could be useful with 3 (or more/less) instances. Instance #1 encounter master use action bar (attack for round 1, defend for round 2,defend,use skill xy and so on), Instance #2 encounter servant ...

Action bar can be used for a auto-select mode in case of x time inactivity or when both players filled their action bar they get compared and they get to see their results (interesting concept as you get to try and out luck your opponent but has its flaws also).

So we could team up and write a program for this or something?

Corenat Rovarnus wrote:So we could team up and write a program for this or something?

We could do that but I think Grim wants to keep it a forum based game.

you know what jad, BECAUSE WE CAN.
Another objection I'd like to add was the way that grimwind wanted us to post our actions. If there is a specific format, it feels like we're just entering commands into a machine. We might decide to change halfway through our activities, or suddenly do something on a whim. This needs to be accounted for.

I'm running my own version of Rule Breaker, now called "Heaven's Fall". I tried to fix as many of these problems as I could. Also, I'm allowing people to join as servantless masters or non participants while the game is running:
http://churchofproz.forumotion.net/t1109-open-battlefield-heaven-s-fall
Here are my changes to the rules:
http://churchofproz.forumotion.net/t824-rule-change-summary
Tell me what you think.

Father Vincent wrote:
2) An emphasis on the player being able to do what he likes barring obvious imbalances/bullshit/impossiblity. If you can do it in real life, you can probably do it here.

Still the most important part. I'm holding true to this policy in my own game.

Meroy wrote:
It only seems natural that I can just kill someone and steal his car. Then I have to deal with being found or not. What can be done in real life, we should be able to do in the roleplay. That is the basic of a roleplay, doing what you want to do. If I want to attack a bank to get rich using my servant, then why not? I'll have to deal with an angry supervisor and the church wanting my death.

Enforce consequences, just like in real life. I remember grimwind made me pass out in an alleyway because I didn't go to sleep. His rules say nothing about sleep, and apparently assumed everyone knew it was "common sense". At least explain why something is happening to somebody, don't make them whine and ask. I made sure to include "common sense" stuff like that in my rules.

Meroy wrote:
Concerning the ''moving out of an AoE'', why not give Evade the ability to move one square if you succeed. (It could be more squares with perks). Basically to represent you rolling sideway or something, and then could could lose 1 action on your turn.

Good idea, I was planning to implement this in my own game, player could choose which way to dodge.
It's the BESM mindset I have when game-masterting. In BESM you simply can't get any new items that could be too useful for your character without spending character points.[/quote]
In BESM you can also get all these ridiculously good abilities like power flux and swarm. This is not BESM, so use a different policy.

Lucid wrote:
If I allowed people get new items just like that then where would it continue? Guns and such come first into mind. But I'm fearing that would lead to more hate after the game about why I allowed some people to get acces to certain items while others couldn't find any.

Guns are perfectly fine IMO.
The thing is, magi are out of touch with the modern era, so maybe they can acquire guns but cannot aim with them very well or know how to reload them. Firearms training is not a default for everyone's character, so why do you have it that way? Make them get training if they want to use them properly and have it cost something. The only other objection I can see that you might have is that they do "too much damage", well then you need to decide exactly how much damage the guns that can be acquired do. Guns are banned to civilians in Japan so unless they remove that in the future, so the most YOU will need to define or worry about players getting are the service pistols used by police officers.

Father Vincent wrote:
I'd also understand if you say no to retarded ass stuff like "I call the general of the army to nuke the city".

Anything can happen given the correct context.