I've been workshopping ideas for a Fate RP for a while now. It would be an AU within Fuyuki during the beginning of the fifth Holy Grail War. All of the noble mage families would still exist, but most canon characters related to Fate/Stay Night wouldn't exist/were killed off earlier in the timeline. For one reason or another, the players would be working together as hired mercenaries, loyalists or whatever else they want their origin to be, under an organization or mage family enlisted in the fifth Grail War.

This will very much not be a PVP RP where everyone gets a servant and you all try to kill each other. Rather, you're a more traditional party working together to take out the other factions. Each faction, including your own, will have a Servant tied to them, of which I will control. It'll be less about playing as Servants and more about the magecraft of the Fate universe, as it applies to combat for players. You could choose to have your Servant accompany you on missions to raid another faction's HQ and attract the attention of other factions and their Servants in the process, or be more subtle without your Servant but at the risk of being worse off if you get caught, and so on. You could also not be a particularly talented magus at all and be participating for a reason unrelated to claiming pride for your own family. It's up to you.

I would be acting as a DM of sorts, guiding NPCs and enemies. The possibility of character death or permanent damage is there, as a fair warning, considering the nature of how brutal combat can get in this setting.

After everyone has made their characters, I will randomly pick one among the party and PM them. That person will be a traitor, working for another faction. For one reason or another, they are so skilled at passing background checks and knowing the right people that they have infiltrated your faction flawlessly. Nobody knows IC that there's even a traitor at all, at least in the beginning. That person will get 1 "hidden action" of sorts per week IC that can be done in secret to sabotage the faction they're pretending to work for. These actions can be minor or major, although direct assassination attempts on fellow players would go from being private to public affairs between the traitor and target and are less likely to succeed assuming it happens at the faction HQ. Actions that would be obvious or easily discovered will also go public rather than stay as a private action. More details will be discussed with the traitor in private after they're chosen.

That's about the gist of what I'm thinking. I'm looking for 5 dedicated players for this. Any interest?

I'm at least tentatively interested in the idea. It could be interesting, but I'd rather have more information before making a decision.

On the other hand, if I join, I'll be looking forward to the Archer Class. I've been itching to use an Archer for a while.

Like KoL, I am tentative as well. It's an interesting idea. But I feel most people join these to play as the servants, so making them NPCs and making everybody else play Masters is gonna be the real sticking point.

Hmm, it seems like I may have misread this at first. If the intention is for the players to not play any Servants, then I don't have much interest in this.

Playing Servants is like the things to look forward to in these kinds of RPs with Masters being boring luggage more often than not. Especially in a HGW with multiple factions.

I'll wait for a reply, before deciding anything for good.

See, I was initially thinking about making it a more classic Fate system. But I don't even know how doing it like the regular series would work? If it was the more conventional 1 Master + 1 Servant system, it would be more like a PVP RP where characters are all throughout the city mostly doing their own thing in condensed solo-arcs and then occasionally meeting up for battles/alliances. That sounds like grounds for swift RP death, but I'd be happy to hear any suggestions that could save a system like that.

I suppose I'm in the minority for having more fun playing as the Master in a Fate setting.

I'd like to toss my two cents in here, because I think the idea is actually kind of neat.
The Fate series has a really interesting variety of Magecraft, etc in it, and if you've seen Apocrypha (which most people seem to loathe) you'd find that experienced Masters are actually pretty damn fun to watch fight. Heck, Kairi (Saber of Red's Master) actively participates in the battles, so he's not really dead weight at all.
I think playing as a Master could potentially be a lot of fun, with a lot of development for their personalities and their skill sets. It's all about your perspective, I'd wager.

Though I do think not being able to play a Servant could gimp the idea considering most people want to jump in right off the bat with that.
From my understanding, every roleplayer is working for the same one of the five factions, trying to eliminate the other factions (and the NPC parties they employ)? Basically a HGW but with a Servant split between a group of Masters instead of only a single Master?

I think the biggest obstacle is letting players play as Servants. As @KoL said, it's kind of the biggest thing that attracts people to the Fate roleplays. That being said, you could totally delegate a Servant to a person entirely separate from the people playing the Masters in order to keep them from being dragged around by a single person.
That said, though, the issue of people going off and walking around is going to be there regardless. You could totally enforce some sort of buddy system that demands that the Masters all travel together to make any retaliation either impossible or an even fight, which I think could lead to a sweet moment when the traitor finally decides to go turncoat and turn the odds from 5v5 to 6v4.
Oof. I'm kinda excited for this lmao.

That said, I'll refer to Apocrypha again in that I personally think they had a decent setup. Keeping the factions so the players don't have a reason to go at each other (except the traitor) while also giving them a sort of hub to stick around, but then also allowing each player to have their own Servant/the single Servant depending on whatever you want.

These are just ideas, but I like the idea of having the battles focus a little more on a Master, since the stakes are so much higher and they're arguably the more important in the Master-Servant relationship.
I think it'd be fun to narrowly escape an assassination attempt by an enemy Stand Servant as a Master, only to summon your own Servant at the last minute and turn the tables.

This is just me rambling like an idiot, though, so I'm sorry if I'm being overbearing or being silly~
I like this idea, though, so I'd like to help iron out the problems so it can succeed.

I'd like to toss my two cents in here, because I think the idea is actually kind of neat.
The Fate series has a really interesting variety of Magecraft, etc in it, and if you've seen Apocrypha (which most people seem to loathe) you'd find that experienced Masters are actually pretty damn fun to watch fight. Heck, Kairi (Saber of Red's Master) actively participates in the battles, so he's not really dead weight at all.
I think playing as a Master could potentially be a lot of fun, with a lot of development for their personalities and their skill sets. It's all about your perspective, I'd wager.

Though I do think not being able to play a Servant could gimp the idea considering most people want to jump in right off the bat with that.
From my understanding, every roleplayer is working for the same one of the five factions, trying to eliminate the other factions (and the NPC parties they employ)? Basically a HGW but with a Servant split between a group of Masters instead of only a single Master?

I think the biggest obstacle is letting players play as Servants. As @KoL said, it's kind of the biggest thing that attracts people to the Fate roleplays. That being said, you could totally delegate a Servant to a person entirely separate from the people playing the Masters in order to keep them from being dragged around by a single person.
That said, though, the issue of people going off and walking around is going to be there regardless. You could totally enforce some sort of buddy system that demands that the Masters all travel together to make any retaliation either impossible or an even fight, which I think could lead to a sweet moment when the traitor finally decides to go turncoat and turn the odds from 5v5 to 6v4.
Oof. I'm kinda excited for this lmao.

That said, I'll refer to Apocrypha again in that I personally think they had a decent setup. Keeping the factions so the players don't have a reason to go at each other (except the traitor) while also giving them a sort of hub to stick around, but then also allowing each player to have their own Servant/the single Servant depending on whatever you want.

These are just ideas, but I like the idea of having the battles focus a little more on a Master, since the stakes are so much higher and they're arguably the more important in the Master-Servant relationship.
I think it'd be fun to narrowly escape an assassination attempt by an enemy Stand Servant as a Master, only to summon your own Servant at the last minute and turn the tables.

This is just me rambling like an idiot, though, so I'm sorry if I'm being overbearing or being silly~
I like this idea, though, so I'd like to help iron out the problems so it can succeed.

@KoL@Reflection@Kuroakuma

There's three ways I can think of doing this then.

First: as in the OP, but it seems like that's an unpopular choice. Five players, 1 Servant who is NPC-controlled with input shared between each Master at the cost of a Command Spell. This idea will be on the backburner for the immediate moment.

Second: Seven players, everybody gets a Servant Apocrypha-style and controls both. I'm personally not a fan of this one though as I tend to prefer players each playing a single character. It also makes interactions more interesting between Master and Servant if one player isn't controlling both of them.

Third: Six players. Three Servants, three Masters. Faction system still exists. Each faction gets all seven Servant classes to make it a really massive war. For the sake of the player size not being bloated to ungodly proportions, the remaining four Servant/Master pairs within the friendly faction as well as the enemy Servants and Masters would be NPC controlled. Due to the volume of Servants that would be required for this option, canon Servants would be allowed with some of the more OP choices like Gilgamesh or Hercules not being allowed. If this happened though, the traitor would also need to be a Master. Because a heroic spirit that was summoned and had no interaction with the enemy at all and being supervised by the faction the entire time being a traitor makes no sense. To keep it fair, when I roll to decide who the traitor is I'd include the other four NPC Masters to keep the odds as to who it is vague.

The more I talk about option 3, the more I kinda like the sound of it. Again it would still mean three players would need to be Masters, but I'm certain there are some people out there that would enjoy creating their own custom Magecraft like I do.

Interested!

Option three sounds pretty lit, honestly, but that's a lot of NPCs to be carrying around.

Also, you mentioned 'a secret action per turn'. Whaddaya mean by 'per turn'?
Also, with option three, are we playing the Master/Servant combo, or could you have one person as a Master and another as their Servant?

Also is Kid Gil available or does he count as too op? :^)

@Arondight

I'm not saying that you have to follow the herd, but if you did idea 2, you could just do like everyone who runs Fate RPs here does and have every player Master pair up with a Servant controlled by another player. This is usually the source of most nice interactions in Fate RPs that tend to happen on this site.

You don't need to have all seven slots be PCs, of you want a reduced cat as well, just as many as you think you'll need to have. In a Great Holy Grail War style conflict, the issue of PVP is also a non existent concern as well.

In fact, that was what I had in mind when I first expressed interest. Since PVE Grail wars are a common thing here.

Also, I may have said it in the wrong way before. Masters/Magic are interesting (Case Files and KnK are my favorite Nasuverse works for a reason) and I always place effort on making a good one for a RP. It's just that clashes between legends of the past revived as Servants are the actual main draw of a HGW. Not getting to play them is very disappointing when you consider the lost opportunity.

Option three sounds pretty lit, honestly, but that's a lot of NPCs to be carrying around.

Also, you mentioned 'a secret action per turn'. Whaddaya mean by 'per turn'?
Also, with option three, are we playing the Master/Servant combo, or could you have one person as a Master and another as their Servant?

Also is Kid Gil available or does he count as too op? :^)

The hidden action? I wrote that as per week. As in per IC week the traitor would be assumed to have done something to sabotage from within the faction assuming they have downtime at HQ where it would make sense for them to have the time to do it.

Option three is six players divided as three Servants and three Masters. So a player wouldn't play as the duo, but would find a partner OOC to be their Servant/Master depending on which role they themselves choose to play as. So three pairs of Servant/Master duos divided among six players.

Kid Gil should be fine if you wanted to, due to his more limited moveset and weaker physical stats.

@Arondight

I'm not saying that you have to follow the herd, but if you did idea 2, you could just do like everyone who runs Fate RPs here does and have every player Master pair up with a Servant controlled by another player. This is usually the source of most nice interactions in Fate RPs that tend to happen on this site.

You don't need to have all seven slots be PCs, of you want a reduced cat as well, just as many as you think you'll need to have. In a Great Holy Grail War style conflict, the issue of PVP is also a non existent concern as well.

In fact, that was what I had in mind when I first expressed interest. Since PVE Grail wars are a common thing here.

I think the happy medium that is option 3 is working out best in my head, for the purpose of player interactions. Thoughts?

<Snipped quote by KoL>

I think the happy medium that is option 3 is working out best in my head, for the purpose of player interactions. Thoughts?

Well, that could be as well. The main difference between them is whether or not everyone can have Master and a Servant, or just one of the two.

I've never seen any RP here going with this approach, but it only means that you would be the trailblazer.

<Snipped quote by Arondight>

Well, that could be as well. The main difference between them is whether or not everyone can have Master and a Servant, or just one of the two.

I've never seen any RP here going with this approach, but it only means that you would be the trailblazer.

Yeah, when it comes to partner-based RPs like Fate, Digimon, Soul Eater, etc. I prefer when the duos are played by separate players so that it isn't just a player basically talking to themselves IC. I'd like to keep the party to six players maximum to start, so a player making multiple characters wouldn't be something I'd allow. Though if their character dies I'd be fine with them making a new one.

That being said that means that three players would need to play Masters and not Servants, so hopefully there'll be some joining that are okay with that.

Whoops, my bad, I read that wrong smh.

I'm down to play a Master, though. Honestly, I'm better making up my own characters than trying to accurately portray previously established ones imo, so..

@Arondight
I guess that, under these circumstances, I can give this a try, if it gets off the ground.

In that case, I'll continue being interested on being the Archer, having either Atalanta or Tristan as a Servant.

I'd join as a servant, or a Master. I have a sheet for both. With my master being a descendant of Russian Santa, and my servant options being rather numerous. (I have options for a Caster or a Berserker. Both of which are usually pretty fun.)

My sword is better than your sword...

(I can play either a Servant or a Master...)

I'm definitely interested! I would love to play as a master. I wouldn't mind playing a servant either, though I would prefer to create an OC servant than to play a pre-established one (though I could do that too)... but it looks like you would have plenty of people already filling servant roles.

As a follow-up, Arondight, if you were to end up with say, 4 out of 6 players really wanting to play a servant could they not be paired up with an NPC master? It would be more work for you as the GM but it would help to keep everyone happy. As I said I would love to play as a master so it doesn't bother me personally, just thinking!