Usually these are played on OT, the anime gamefaqs board, but I think people would appreciate this here as well. Here's some rules/stuff (Stolen from a friend):

Rules

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Comments from the GM: 1. As always with my Wars, there are going to be some things that may seem the same compared to past Wars you may have played (even my own), but aren't. If something doesn't seem clear, or there's anything at all you're a bit uncertain about ask. If you don't even understand the rules to the game you're playing, it probably isn't going to be as enjoyable an experience as it can be. Whether you want to contact me by posting in the general topic, on your board, PM on ZB, PM on GameFAQs, or through any of my IM clients, please ask about things. 2. This War isn't your regularly scheduled entertainment from me, and I want to make that clear up front. I've gone through some pains to prepare and deliver as good a War as I can in a short span of time, but the degree of preparation still isn't the same. The balance is good but not exquisite, and the mechanics are perhaps not as finely-tuned as people may be accustomed to. If you still want to complain, you're most certainly welcome to, but I want it to be as clear as possible that this isn't War V/War of Souls. 3. Related to the comment above, since I am still working on finishing the story related to both War V and the War of Souls, this War is not going to have any story, which also makes sense in relation to the ability to create your own Masters. Public updates will be very limited when present. The focus here is on the gameplay, but should a few players get really into their characters and have a desire RP their own characters/conflicts, I'm not necessarily opposed to narrating some battle sequences if inspiration strikes me. 4. Probability plays no part in this War. Please do not sign up for this War if this bothers you. 5. This really goes without saying, but the GM is always right. If there is a need for me to disambiguate, clarify, or resolve any disputes over skills or the rules, my word is both final and absolute. 6. Don't whine if and when Comment 5 becomes relevant. 7. The logic game has had a number of disputes and issues over various Wars, but never had any problems it couldn't recover from. As a by-product of the Wars themselves, the logic game technically falls completely outside my jurisdiction, as it is something created and managed entirely by the players themselves. If I notice a blatant lie in red, I will call someone out on it, but no more. Naturally, due to various interpretation and logic loopholes, blatant lies are very difficult to establish. There will be no in-game penalties for mishaps in the logic game, but anyone caught lying in red can probably expect both expulsion from the logic game, and a lot of ill intent to suddenly be directed at them from various players. 8. As an addendum to Comment 7, I will never feel obligated to repeat anything in red or gold when clarifying rules. This is not to say that I will never use colored truths, simply that I am immune to blue, and statements made by me are assumed to be true regardless what color they may be. 9. I reserve the right to take whatever actions are necessary for the fun and benefit of my players as a whole. In general, this won't be an issue, because I have no issue with whatever sneaky/underhanded tactics anyone chooses to use. If you want to stage a conversation with Jeremiah and Yuki to try and see if you can get it into the nightly update, be my guest. Betrayals, lying, deceit in general...all are acceptable. 10. In the words of my high school history teacher: Good luck, have fun, don't cheat! Contents: Section I - General Rules Section II - Regarding Masters Section III - Regarding Servants Section IV - Regeneration Section V - Command Spells and Contracts Section VI - Alliances and Communication Section VII - Turn Progression Section VIII - Movement Section IX - The Executioner Section X - Combat Section XI - General Abilities Section XII - Move Creation Section XIII - Miscellaneous Section I - General Rules: Purpose: The Holy Grail War is a battle of wits and strategy between seven teams. These teams will consist of a Master, who will be a Magus of sort, and a Servant, a powerful being summoned using a combination of the Magus's ability, and the power of the Holy Grail. These seven teams of Servants and Masters will then do battle with each other over a selected area, in an all-out struggle to be the one to seize the Grail for themselves. Starting the Game: After such a time that fourteen players have registered, and all players and the GMs are prepared to begin, each person will be assigned to a role in the War. Players may request to be either a Servant or Master ahead of time. As long as it is possible to grant all requests of this nature, they will be granted, though if more than seven people desire a role as either Master or Servant, enough will be eliminated by chance to accommodate necessity. No other requests will be granted, aside from the choice of Servant or Master. At this time: -All players will be given access to an individual topic on the Grail War Zetaboards, including the name of the person playing on the same team, and Servant class and identity (Though not sheet). Masters will have 24 hours from the time boards are opened to create a sheet for their character. They can receive assistance from the player of their Servant, but only posts on Master boards will be counted for sheets. Additional rules for sheet creation can be found in the Master Creation topic. -After Master sheets are finalized, and another 24 hour wait will begin to select starting location. This will be the move for Night 0. During Night 0, it is only possible to select a starting location. If all teams finalize their starting location early, Night 0 will end early. -After all moves for Night 0 are in, a Night 0 topic will be posted on B8 and Servant sheets will be revealed. Moves for Night 1 will be due 24 hours after 8:00 PM EDT or 00:00 GMT the following night, starting the standard move cycle and marking the official beginning of the War. Ending the Game: At the end of each night, if one of the following conditions applies, the War will end: -Only one Master has any Servants contracted. -No Masters remain alive. -No Servants remain alive. Update Schedule and Move Deadlines: -All nightly moves must be submitted by 8:00 PM EDT or 00:00 GMT to a given team's Nightly Moves topic on zetaboards. While it is not my desire to make this a heavily enforced deadline in order to punish people who are rushing to submit move changes five or ten minutes after the time has passed, I have no intention of taking moves an hour or two later. Please keep this in mind. -Teams and/or players who submit no move will be assumed to be doing nothing, aside from any conditionals set to certain abilities or reactions. I will not make your moves for you. -Along the same lines as the above statement, I will not interpret your moves for you. If something isn't made adequately clear, I am not going to automatically give you the benefit of the doubt and make the move I think you would have made. I am around fairly often, and will certainly try to obtain clarification if I see something that doesn't immediately make sense, but I would appreciate any and all cooperation from players in attempting to make moves easy to understand. -Updates for this War will occur at or around 12:00 AM EST or 04:00 GMT. Due to the move submission deadline, they may occur earlier if I can get everything together fast enough, or later, if all of you are making adequately complex actions. Don't hold back on my account, by all means. Section II - Regarding Masters: -Masters in this War are handled differently from those in past Holy Grail Wars. This War features a character creation mechanic, allowing Masters to be customized by players within certain limits. These options are explained in detail in Section XII - Master Creation, below. -Masters will possess an array of abilities in this War as they have in every War since the second, but most will have vastly reduced combat potential, in favor of more supportive roles. -Masters begin with 3 Command Spells, which will not consume their supply of mana, but which can greatly turn the tide of battle, even seizing victory from the jaws of defeat. For detailed Command Spell rules, see below. -With the exception of Free Actions, Masters may generally only perform one action per turn, called a Turn Action. Movement does not require the use of a Turn Action. -A Master whose Servant is slain may seek refuge at the Cathedral. Though the Executioner is not pleased with the current situation in the Grail War that has been caused by them, he still wishes to minimize the loss of life. -Masters may be targetted by any attacks, though under normal circumstances attacks against them will be intercepted by their Servant, if present. That effect may be waived, if both the Master and the Servant so choose. Certain area attacks can still damage Masters, even when their Servant is present, though Protection Command Spells are capable of superseding this. -Masters may not choose to take hits for Servants in the same manner that Servants will take hits for Masters. The only means of doing this is for the Servant to be in spirit form. Section III - Regarding Servants: -Servants will provide much of the brute force on any given team, though naturally, some Servants are better at this than others. In general, all Servants are vastly more durable than Masters. -Servants will be selected as characters from anime, manga, visual novels, video games, and other related media. Specifically, Servants from this War are antagonists, villains, or rivals. -Servants have two forms, physical and spirit, and may shift between them with a fair amount of flexibility. Limitations and disadvantages to this are detailed under Section X - Combat. -Servants obtain prana from their Masters at a constant rate, and therefore take a static drain on a Master's mana regeneration every turn. While Servants are in spirit form, their Master regenerates an additional 10 mana per turn. -Servants have their actions per turn limited by their available AP and SP. Detailed information on this is in the combat rules, below. -A Servant may not directly undertake any action that would allow his or her Master to come to harm, against the Master's desires, so long as at least one Command Spell remains. However, unless a Command Spell is used, Servants have the final say on their actions in all other regards. The only limitations that exist include taking hits for their Master when able, and not being able to directly attack their Master. -Servants cannot block attack for anyone other than their Master under normal circumstances. The exception to this is the Protection Command Spell. -Servants without Masters lose 60% of their maximum mana at the end of each night, starting with the first full night after their Master's death, or their contract is broken. Section IV - Regeneration: -Regeneration occurs as the first step of every turn, before all other effects. -Both Masters and Servants will regenerate health at a standard rate, if no offensive actions were carried out against them on the previous turn. An action need not deal damage to be considered offensive, though it must have some effect that negatively impacts the character, such as lowering a stat. Offensive actions must be successful to prevent regeneration. Therefore, blocked attacks against Masters or completely ineffective attacks against Servants will not count. Neither Damage from Bleeding nor health used to pay for the costs of abilities will prevent health regeneration. -Servants will regenerate mana at a standard rate, every turn, unless an extenuating circumstance prevents it. -Servants will regenerate 1.5x their standard health rate on any turn following a turn they spend entirely in spirit form. Entering spirit form at the earliest possible opportunity in the turn is considered to be spending an entire turn in spirit form. -Servants without a Contract regenerate neither health nor mana. -Masters will regenerate mana at a standard rate, every turn, unless an extenuating circumstance prevents it. -Masters will regenerate additional 10 mana per turn while their Servant is in spirit form. -Servants may consume a civilian during their turn after moving, restoring an additional 5% of their mana on top of standard regeneration. This action cannot be used when a non-allied Servant or Master is present, and consumes the SP of the Servant for the turn. A civilian cannot be consumed twice in the same area over the course of 5 turns, without drawing attention to oneself in the Nightly update. Full details of civilian consumption can be found in Section XI - General Abilities. Section V - Command Spells and Contracts: Command Spells are the proof of a Master competing in the Holy Grail War, and are the source of the link between a Servant and Master. As such, without at least one Command Spell remaining, the contract between a Master and Servant will break. -Each Master begins the War with 3 Command Spells. -There is no limit to how many Command Spells can be used in one turn. -After a Contract is broken, as noted above, Servants will begin losing 60% of their maximum mana every night, starting at the end of the first full night following the event. -Servants without a Contract regenerate neither health nor mana. -A Master who has used up all his or her Command Spells may choose to continue supplying a Servant with prana, through a less stable link. As such, the Servant will recover mana at half of their original rate, and will immediately begin losing mana at a rate of 60% of their max per night if this supply is cut off for any reason. -There is no way to obtain additional Command Spells. Re-Contracting: -It is impossible to contract more than one Servant at a time in this War. However, Servants and Masters are free to recontract after losing their original partner in any way. Section VI - Alliances and Communication: Communication through PMs will be permitted to all parties in the same area, regardless of status as allies or enemies. Any concealed parties must make their presence known before engaging in said communications*. General communications are permitted in the main topic for all involved. Alliances will not formally exist for most intents and purposes, and will therefore not be given individual boards upon formation. Essentially, this boils down to a non-aggression pact for as long as both parties desire to maintain it. *This means notifying me by PM prior to beginning communications, so that I may add it as an update for all teams located in the area. It is not necessary to wait for me to respond before sending messages, I simply want to ensure that everything is handled in correct order.

Spoiler

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Section VII - Turn Progression: 1. Regeneration 2. Upkeep 3. Initial Phase 4. Support Phase 5. Offensive Phase 7. Prepared Effect Phase 8. End Phase Regeneration: The first phase of a turn, which occurs before all other events. Most passive recovery occurs here, and AP and SP are also granted to Servants during this phase. A detailed explanation of regeneration can be found in Section IV - Regeneration. Upkeep: A phase which occurs immediately after regeneration, Which primarily includes losses from maintaining constant effects, as well as the effects of a number of status afflictions. Initial Phase: The first phase that allows player actions. All actions that occur at the start of the turn or are capable of occurring at the earliest possible time occur during this phase. Certain Command Spells can be used with Instantaneous precedence during this phase, and surprise attacks made by targets in the same area occur at this time as well. Many Free Actions can occur during the Initial Phase, but are usually restricted by order of Agility. Support Phase: Abilities designated as being of the Support type can first be used during this phase. Offensive Phase: Abilities designated as being of the Offensive type can first be used during this Phase. Prepared Effect Phase: Abilities which are designated as Prepared Effects cannot be used before this phase of the turn. End Phase: The phase in which Movement occurs. In addition to this, other abilities can still be delayed and used normally in the End Phase, meaning that Effects that occur at the end of the turn occur at the end of this phase, meaning that delays for those both in and out of combat are counted against each other in the same time. AP and SP not used by the end of this phase are lost. Escape:: Escaping from combat occurs at the very end of the turn, past the latest opportunity for anyone to respond to anything. In general, actions in each phase of the turn are carried out in the order of highest Agility to lowest Agility with the exception of Movement, which is handled in the order of highest Luck to lowest Luck. However, options of Delaying and Reacting can alter this standard turn order, and are explained thoroughly in Section X - Combat. Section VIII - Movement: Every turn, a character has the option of moving from his or her current area to an adjacent area on the map during the End Phase. Movement is completely independent of other turn resources, and does not consume AP or SP. All movement occurs during the End Phase. Characters will move based on their Luck, from highest value to lowest; if two teams have identical Luck, then movement order will be decided by Agility. A character can take a penalty to his or her Luck to delay Movement. While doing so will not actually reduce the stat itself, it will treat the stat as a number of ranks lower equal to the desired delay for the purposes of checks related to Movement only. When moving into an area occupied by one or more other teams that are not in combat, it is possible to do one of the following: -Do Nothing: Allows communication with other teams in the area between turns. -Engage: Enter combat normally, with full AP and SP. Only Delayable attacks can be used, since Movement occurs during the End Phase. The other group can react with full AP and SP as well, but suffers from the same restrictions. If a character or group moves into an area occupied by a different character or group that isn't currently in combat, a check occurs against the combined value of each group's Agility and Luck. If the combined Agility and Luck of the group that is moving exceeds stationary the group's check by 3 or more, then your group may do one of the following actions: -Do Nothing or Engage, as defined above. -Scout: Gain brief information on who is in the area and what is occurring out what's happening in this location, then retreat back to the previous location. In order to use this option, it is necessary for the Movement check to succeed against all teams in the area being moved to. -Minor Ambush: Use one Delayable ability costing no more than 1 AP or SP as a surprise attack. Masters cannot use a Turn Action in this scenario. If this option is chosen, all other teams are unable to target the ambushing team, though indisciminate area effects will strike them normally. Conditionals to handle these scenarios should be included in nightly moves. Moving into Combat: When entering an in which at least two parties are in combat, the option to enter combat normally is not available. However, all Servants in the group have the opportunity to use 1 AP or 1 SP in the same scenario as a minor ambush, without passing the Movement check. Group Movement: Characters can choose to move in groups, by having all relevant parties identify the desire to do so in their moves. Servants and Masters are assumed to move together as a group by default. When moving in groups, the following rules apply: -Groups of size 1-2 use the highest value of Luck and Agility in the group for all Movement checks. -Groups of size 3-4 use the highest value of Luck and the lowest value of Agility in the group for all Movement checks. -Groups of 5 or more use the lowest value of Luck and Agility in the group for all Movement checks.

I won't deny that. It's not a game you can just pick up and go in. It's pretty simple to learn in the end, but you will most likely have to read through the rules.

Yeah, sure I can give you guys a summary.


Basically this is a strategy game. There are fourteen players, seven teams of two. Each team has a master, and a servant. The servant is usually derived from an anime/book/video games/famous character. I'll probably use anime for the most part, it's the easiest way to draw characters.

You move about a map, using "if then" statements to determine your actions each phase, and you battle other teams, ally other teams, or just ignore other teams. Each servant is equipped with a class, which gives them unique class perks. That's the shortened version.

Here's one of first games I played in, it's a good example of how the game works:

http://s1.zetaboards.com/OT_Holy_Grail_War/forum/1685211/

I guess you could say it's like Lab, but instead of trying to escape, you're trying to kill everyone else, and instead of saying "##Exit: West" you give a long list of "IF this happens, THEN I do this in response."

I'm not sure, it's just an idea, and I'd have to take some time to make the Servant sheets, and get the Master sheets set up.