Holy Grail War Board Game

[Anthony Prescott]

Sometimes ideas just hit me and, regardless of how good or bad they are, refuse to go away. Recently I've started getting more and more into board games (Arkham Horror specifically, for anyone who's interested) and began wondering if the premise of the Holy Grail War might work in such a format. I highly doubt I'd ever do anything with the ideas I come up with, in fact I very much doubt anything I come up with would be even playable, but I thought I might as well share them to get them out of my head.

Some basic ideas first:
-Complexity: While it certainly will have to simplify some of the mechanics to translate into a board game, it will still end up fairly complex. Clue or Uno, this is not. Much like Arkham Horror which serves as my inspiration, it would be the kind of game that you would have to set aside an evening for.

-Secrecy: A critical part of the Holy Grail War, must be featured in some way. Movement across the board could be determined during a short planning phase, then acted on during the movement phase so that characters that move later would not have too much of a planning advantage over characters that moved earlier. Servant identities would have to be concealed some way too; perhaps putting the parameters and skills on individual cards that are only revealed when they are used?

-Overseer: Alternatively, a separate player could be selected that knows everything about all sides to keep everyone honest without having to show their Servant to everyone, of course taking the in game role of the moderator sent by the Church. This player could simply be a GM type, or perhaps might have some sort of condition that allows them to win the game separate from the other players, a la Kotomine.

-Master/Servant Players: This is the most problematic in my head. Should players control both Master and Servant as a single entity, despite this getting rid of the cooperative aspect that is integral to the setting? Have them act separately under the same player, despite the over-complexity this might add? Have them played by separate players, despite the limitations this might impose (at the very least, it would require at least four players to play a simple game, rather than two)?

Other ideas are formulating in my head, but I'll have to wait until they're more concrete to post them.

[kozeph]

I don't know that much about Table Tops but you can try and look at World of Darkness one, I liked the Old World of Darkness but I heared mechanically the New World of Darkness might be better, check them out maybe they'll help!

[Anthony Prescott]

Thanks Kozeph! I'm thinking more board game than RPG, but who knows, I might be able to come up with some ideas from that!

Well, on to the meat of what I'm imagining for this game. Each turn would be divided into phases.

1. Planning. Plotting with other Masters and Servants is always a big thing in the Fate series, so setting aside a time in which players can quietly make (and eventually break) alliances and in general plan out what they're going to do. Movements would be decided on and written down, but not acted on yet.

2. Movement. Here's where players would move. Turn order could maybe be based off of the Servant's Agility?

3. Action. Here's where, if two players end up in the same space, a fight would break out. Or, if a player is alone in they're space, maybe they could do something else. Like send familiars to spy on other players?

4. Restocking. Not sure if this should take place before or after everything. Masters should get a chance to transfer prana to Servants at some point though (assuming Masters and Servants are separate entities in this game). Oh, idea: Servants with Battle Continuation would only die if they ended their turn with no health/prana, rather than once they were reduced to zero.

As for Servants themselves, I'm thinking of having them be made up of three different types of cards. There would be the card that gives the Heroic Spirit's identity, which would have the Servant's base stats and Noble Phantasm(s) printed on it. If you want to use your Noble Phantasm, you gotta reveal your identity. Then there would be the class card, which would have the class skills printed on it as well as bonuses to parameters (Sabers would be balanced, Lancers get more Agility, Casters get more mana, etc). Finally you'd have the "attributes" cards, which would be the parameters, personal skills, and such. For simplicity and to avoid having too many cards I think all personal skills would be rankless (so you wouldn't have Battle Continuation at rank A, B, C, etc, you'd just have the Battle Continuation card).

As for how each would play:
-Saber: High magic resistance (effectively immune to magic), moderate riding (can use some mounts with a minor bonus). High base stats, but very few tricks. Straightforward and theoretically easy to play, but can get caught off guard by the tricks others are capable of.
-Lancer: Moderate magic resistance (halves magical effectiveness?). Can move really fast, basically zipping to wherever on the board they feel like. Probably best played in a hit and run style.
-Archer: Moderate magic resistance, independent action (no clue what this would do in a board game...). Capable of long ranged attacks, not very good when it comes to melee.
(I'm immediately seeing a rock-paper-scissors relationship between the three knight classes. Lancers can close the gap fast enough that Archers' range isn't very useful, Archers can pepper Sabers with shots from afar while they can basically do jack about it, and Sabers are strong enough that regardless of how much they run around, Lancers will usually be at a disadvantage when they have to fight)
-Rider: Low magic resistance (quartered magical effectiveness?), high riding (can use most mounts with a high bonus). Probably got the most variability of how they function between each Heroic Spirit. Not really sure how else they'd function in play right now.
-Caster: Item construction (can draw item cards [these will have to be a thing] at will for a prana cost), territory creation (can designate a certain area on the board that gives them more prana per turn). Sit and wait types, lots of spells and tricks to keep people away until they build up enough resources to decimate their enemies.
-Berserker: Mad enhancement (maybe something that causes the Servant to act randomly from time to time?). Strong, but if the idea for randomizing behavior doesn't work will need to think of another way to balance them out and differentiate from Sabers.
-Assassin: Presence concealment (maybe they don't have to place a piece down on the board unless they attack, they just have to keep track of what location they've written down during the planning phase). Definitely too weak to take out Servants usually, so they'd have to have some mechanic that lets them try (but no always succeed) to target and kill Masters.

[Ryo]

Now in the classes I can offer advice of how to play:

-Saber you've got the right idea
-Lancer, perhaps they can move before and after the action step provided their movement before and after does not exceed the total movement they have for the turn (So if for example the Lancer can move 5 spaces a turn, before and after their action phase they can move any combination of spaces so long as it does not exceed 5 spaces total)
-Archer, able to attack from multiple spaces/squares away
-Rider, Mount can act as a separate HP bar so it can take a hit for the owner (Ala Iskandar's chariot taking the hit of Excalibur while he jumped out)
-Caster, sounds about right
-Berserker, they probably are forced to attack any Servant on the same spot as them (like other classes could choose to not fight if neither side wants to attack the other), but they are stronger than a Saber, they also have very basic NPs that don't do a lot
-Assassin: Their NPs can have special mechanics to let them try to kill Masters.

[Anthony Prescott]

Thanks for the suggestions Ryo! Especially the Rider suggestion, that adds a strategic angle the other classes don't have.

Before looking at Masters, the more I think on it I think that making Masters and Servants separate players might just be too much for a board game. I'd still like to include the idea of Servants and Masters working together however, so I'm toying with the idea of a trust/obedience parameter on the Servants. Like in a deck of event cards (also needs to be a thing) it could say "if your Servant's Trust/Obedience/Whatever is under X..." so building up a rapport with your Servant would be a game mechanic. It would make command seals mean something in this game too: use a command seal and your Servant's Trust/Obedience/Whatever is treated as being at max value for one action, but then its actual trust is lowered.

As for Masters themselves, I think, if they are defined at all, they would be defined by a family name which gives certain bonuses rather than denote specific characters. Some examples of what I'm talking about:

Tohsaka
-Gem Magic: Player may set aside prana for specific spells. Prana set aside this way no longer counts towards the player's prana total, but can now only be used for the specific spell it was set aside for.
-Default resources: Gandr Shot (spell), Martial Arts (skill), Random spells

Matou
-Crest Worms: Player may use health as though it were prana.
-Default resources: Familiars

Emiya
-Magic User: Player cannot gain spells through normal means during the game (how would one gain spells during the game? Gotta figure that out). In exchange, the player draws cards from the spell deck until he or she draws an Epic spell (reality marbles and such), then reshuffle all other cards drawn into the deck. Player may use this spell at a reduced prana cost.
-Default resources: 2 Allies (ex: Taiga + Sakura, Iri + Maiya, etc. Not sure how allies will work yet though), Random non magical items