Universe adaptation
Fate already has an established universe that more or less replicates our normal universe, but with magical societies. Because of that, I felt like the RPG adaptation had to be possible with modern elements, just like the series. As we started the main concepts we were seeking to reproduce the feeling of the anime as closely as possible, but that changed over time.
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The long term idea is to play with people that didn't watch the series or know the universe at all. And it happened that many of those are actually people who never played RPGs too.
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Based on that, we made level progression awards for classes that encourages calmer and level-up focused early game, that is ideal for learning, and a highly combat focused end game, open to full character potential exploration.
This was calculated to match the story focused on the "War of the Holy Grail", especially from the Fate/Apocrypha context, which begins as a team deathmatch and becomes pretty much a long term battle-royale until only one survivor is left. People get to know each other's capabilities before fighting.
System
Most of the system is based on Dungeons & Dragons, specifically the 3.5 version. That translated into a very rule based system, that tries to cover every aspect of the game, often with a number or calculation attached to it.
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That's why we have precise definitions for systems such as Experience and Character level, In and out of combat turn actions, Universal character status and progression and specifics for character creation. Even though all are based on D&D 3.5, they all have original changes, mostly to make it simpler or more flexible to new players.
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Some of the extra system rules that completely deviated from D&D are
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Status progression Bonus effects
An active and impactful effect for high status values.
The higher the value the stronger the effect. Resistance negates damage, charisma gives you extra dice rolls, strength adds damage to physical damage rolls, dexterity let's you alternate the types of action you still have (movement or combat) and intellect is equivalent for strength applied only for magic.
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The Divine Blessing
The magical classes have a strong appeal because of, well, MAGIC. Non-magical classes are very grounded in a regular context, so this system trait basically gives non-magical classes a much higher dice roll bonus that decreases through the upper levels. With this, magic doesn't have to be much less amazing than in the series for balance, also decreasing possible frustration from non-magical class players, allowing them to have high chances of accomplishing complex and hard actions or plans.
Characters
The main character division is between Masters and Servants.
As a player, your character is a Master who has an NPC partner, the Servant.
A master is one of the chosen to fight the war, most of them mages. Since they are all humans, there is no race variety like other RPGs. The Masters follow the regular level and status progression but the Servants all start with a status equivalent to a maxed out level player (lvl50). That is one of the main reasons for servants not to be playable characters, they lose the progression system.
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The balance in the game relies on which enemy the players decide to prioritize, the enemy team or the future foes in their own team. There is a fun intensity to explore, caused by all of them knowing they have their own mass destruction partner with them, and what that relationship will be like.
Classes
The easiest adaptation was the Servant classes, as they already existed in a very defined way. So the challenge was to maintain the original overpowered characteristics in a way that would still be balanced in the game, even if not completely balanced between the classes:
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Archer - Sees VERY far, bonus in Dexterity++ and Intellect+
Assassin - Unnoticed if not attacking, bonus in Dexterity++ and Intellect+, reduced health
Berserker - Bonus in Strength+++, Resistance++ and HP++, reduced intellect
Caster - Detects magic in a wide range, bonus in Intellect++, Charisma+ and total mana++, reduced health
Lancer - Extra action per turn, bonus in Dexterity++ and Resistance+
Rider - Exchange turns for mount's health regeneration, bonus in Strength++ and secondary status of choice+
Saber - 2 extra reactions in battle, bonus in Dexterity++ and Strength+
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Luckily, the Fate series already presents different ways to fight the war, with different magic lines of study, which were translated into detailed classes with fixed individual skill trees, much like a digital RPG, with a heavy weight on distributing skill level points up to 10 levels for each skill, but limited skill points to distribute. It's a linear, character level based progression of obtaining skills and new improvements in class-exclusive resource systems.
For Masters there are:
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Mage Classes
Enchanter - Enchants objects with effects in various ways
Necromancer - Absorbs death around them to gain power and minions
Sorcerer - Uses less specific, raw magic for wider creative freedom
Invoker - Marks, invokes and fuses beings and objects
Constructor - Analyzes, replicates and alters objects
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Non Mage Classes
Civilian - Blank page with more hobbies and magic-learning capacity
Military - Military contacts and much faster physical growth
Politician - Tactical puppeteer with many ways to control NPCs
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Because the original plot grows around mages in a mage war, non-mage characters don't apear or appeal a lot. But I missed the class variety beyond the magic casting archetypes.
I could have made re-skins of other class archetypes as other types of magic, but it felt very interesting and challenging to design and to play as a regular human, it also grants potential to see and understand conflicts between mages and non-mages.
Hobbies
Like professions or life skills in other games, hobbies grand a kind of secondary class or specialization, limited to more worldly contexts such as real professions like mechanic and biologist, or something closer to real hobbies like swimming and reading fiction. No matter the chosen hobby, it gains its own base trait and progression in agreement between the Game Master and the player. As the game happens, player actions define how they use their hobbies' traits. That allows the GM to prepare suitable skills for the player, based on that hobby, for when true leveling up begins and fitting evolution rewards are needed.
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Hobbies are the key to building non-mage characters because they have 2 hobbies and mages have 1 as standard. The one class that outmatches everyone in this category is the civilian, with 4 hobbies.
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The system encourages players to use hobbies not only to deepen personalities but to mold how your player gameplay will be.
Equipment
Rarity
Defines how much the equipment has been magically enhanced.
It goes Common>Rare>Epic>Legendary. Usually indicates possible magical effects and has a severe durability upgrade between each tier.
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Durability
Defines how much damage a piece of equipment can take.
The total durability is commonly defined by 10 times its base resistance status. For each point, the equipment can take a strike with an attack equivalent to its resistance status. The durability decreases 1 point by how many times the damage is equal to the resistance status. A single attack can break the equipment instantly if it exceeds 10 times the target's base resistance.
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Here's an example:
My sword has 5 resistance points. Therefore, 50 durability points. If it takes a 5 damage attack, it loses 1 durability point, and remains with 49 of them. If it takes 10 damage in a single attack, it loses 2 durability points instantly. Now, if it receives a 50 damage attack, instead of losing 10 durability points, it instantly breaks.
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With this system, we wanted to explore the survival aspect of the battle-royale, highlighting the possible need for repair or new/extra equipment. It also brings a new depth to every equipment, possibly making players more attached to them. Or not! It certainly reflects on the gameplay style choice.
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Equipment's Resistance
Divided into Light, Intermediate and Heavy. Respectively, they commonly have 5, 7 and 10 base resistance status. Intermediate equipment can only be used by characters with intermediate Strength and Resistance status and Heavy equipment only by those with high Strength and Resistance status.
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Defensive Equipment like armors or shields have the natural effect to grant bonus Resistance status to the user equivalent to it's own resistance status, while equipped.
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Weapon's Categories
Melee Weapons
With scaling damage based on the size, they are divided into Slashing, Piercing (both inflict bleeding) and Bludgeoning (that debilitates parts of the body).
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Firearms
Each firearm is subdivided into:
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Rate of Fire - How many shots are fired in a single action
Dexterity limitations that scale with upper rates
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Caliber - How much damage does a single shot do
Strength limitations that scale with upper rates
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Reload - How many actions and turn time does it take to reload a firearm
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I really wanted an original gun system, because it is so weird to balance in a melee focused scenario, so we split it into known, understandable categories and prepared restrictions based on physical capabilities status. Accessible but at a status build cost. Also very rewarding for its power.
Missing Updates
The system remains incomplete.
Even though playtest have been made and, especially for tabletop RPGs, improvisation can cover for missing rules and definitions, there is still a lot to be done. The main extra content I would focus on, based on previous playtests, would be
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Weapon range - Not listed and clear for players
Class status basic builds - Some players really missed having a build guide, given the big amount of info they have to deal with in this system
Spell effects - Many are still vague and open to misinterpretation
Equipment chart - Many players were confused about what items to seek
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And, lastly, although this system is a lot for numbers and rules nerds, it peeked the interest of other types of players. A simplified version with essential ground rules could be very nice for players AND developers, as it would show us some of the true values of all that complexity.