Grand Magic Games: A Rough Idea

The Grand Magic Games

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One of the greatest parts of any anime is that of the Tournament Arc, and Fairy Tail was no different with the introduction of the Grand Magic Games. The games were made as a way to find out who the top guild in all of Fiore was, or at least for the legal guilds but that’s neither here nor there. Of course, such a thing is certainly strange to have within a service such as FTRP, where you have a bunch of real people and their real lives and the pain and suffering of the dreaded writer’s block. So, how would one go about introducing such a feat? Well, I’ll certainly tell you with this handy-dandy suggestion!

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Part 1: The Basics

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So in canon, the GMG took place over the course of just one week. That’s...uh...kinda impossible to have, so we’re going to extend it to the course of three months. Different days will run concurrently, and it’s just a leisurely stroll through those three months. Given that I personally am in school and my future job will be that of a teacher, it makes the most sense for me as well as any other members of the server that are students to have this take place during the summer, specifically June, July, and August. In the future, once I or whatever gamesmasters that join in the administrative process find a way to streamline and improve the system, it would be nice to add a Winter GMG a la the Olympics for likes November, December, and January, but that could of course be changed though should it get to that point.

Let’s start with some preliminary things. Just as with the actual GMG, Guildmasters are not allowed. Not really any particular reason for that other than just fitting in with canon. Each guild will have two weeks prior to the GMG’s beginning to choose up to 7 members (number subject to change) but at least 5 for the “last day” squad strike. And when I say each guild, I mean EACH guild. Dark, Indie, and Legal are all permitted. Guildless mages are also able to join in on the festivities should they want to. As long as enough teams are made to make an even number of guildless, then it’s perfectly fine. There just need to be at least 5 guildless wizards who agree to join a team, they’re allowed. Also, one user can have multiple accounts present. For example, should the GM of Silver Wolf choose my main, Jin Auri-El / SlayerMathis_, that does not exclude the GM of Sabertooth from choosing my alt, Mai Stormschild. Oh, speaking of, GMs are choosing the teams. Obviously, the participants can deny the role, and that’s perfectly fine, but by the end of the two weeks, all participants must be DM to a gamesmaster either via Discord or on-site DMs.

Now the question is, why would people want to do this? Well, I’ll tell ya. This is a long post, I got a lot of explaining, so let me explain, ya dig? First things first, all members that participate in any event are given a free 1 000 experience. No ifs, ands, or buts. They’re the cream of the crop, and they deserve whatever they can. In addition, every point that someone earns translates into an additional 100 experience per point gained. This means that winning an event or battle gets you another free 100 experience, free of charge. Alternatively, this experience can be translated into Jewels, though I’m not sure what the transfer rate would be. Speaking of Jewels, however, that’s another thing. There’s a huge pot of Jewels at store for the winners. I was initially thinking 4Mil to the winner, 2Mil to Second, 1Mil to third, and each place down gets half the higher place’s prize. This is added directly to the Guild’s Coffers and can be distributed as needed. Guildless teams will automatically have their winning pot distributed evenly between each of the members. That number could obviously change, as a lot of this is super WIP.

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Part 2: Battles & Threads

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Of course, life happens, and some people might have to go on an unexpected hiatus. Don’t worry, I have a plan to get that covered. Essentially, for every event, I would like for the participants to discuss with each other who should win the event and send the result to a gamesmaster for commentary and scorekeeping purpose. “But wait,” you might say. “What about posts? If the decision is already made, what does it matter?” Ahahaha! Fear not! I gotchu too! GMG-Related Posts that are turned in during the three months (though could be extended to another month past the GMG’s close) are granted an additional 50% more experience and jewels as a normal job of that rank would be given. Because of the time constraints, this will automatically go to the closest level of multiple-person freeform rank and it rounds up. At the end of the period, all jobs not turned in will automatically be finished in terms of being turned in at the same rules.

In addition, I would like people to be reasonable about losing events. Yeah, it’s a blow to pride if you lose an event, but be reasonable about it. However, should the two not be able to come to a consensus, I still have thought something through. It’s very rudimentary at the moment, but essentially I’ll have a 0-100 random dice roll for battles. 50 is a draw, where both teams gain 5 points. Otherwise, one character is assigned numbers less than 50 while the other is more than 50. However, battles are not entirely about luck, there is skill involved as well. There are modifiers that effect the flow of battle. Each rank that a person is above their opponent is an additional 10 numbers. Rising Stars, Coming Storms, and Aces are given an additional 5 numbers. Warlords of Fiore and Wizard Saints are given another 10 numbers. Gods of Ishgar are given another 5 numbers on top of their 10 from status as a Wizard Saint. However, these modifiers cap at 95. As the source material proved, underdogs can win. Is it realistic for a B-Rank wizard to defeat a God of Ishgar? No. Is it realistic for Laxus to wipe the floor with Jura? No. 5 numbers as a minimum leaves room for change in the event that a consensus on victory cannot be met.

Moving on to tag team battles, same situation applies. Two combatants from each team are selected, and I would like the two to come to a consensus on the winners. Modifiers are still given based off of team strength, but that number caps at 90 instead of 95 due to multiple combatants. I’ll get to the Survival Battle later, ‘cuz that has some weird things to it.

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Part 3: Events & Choosing Participants

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Of course, the GMG are not just battles. There are Olympics-styled events as well. Again, I would like people to discuss who should win such events. Admittedly, I haven’t really determined how I will dig through a non-consensus victory, but I’m open to suggestions. This is WIP. If there are 10 or less teams, then the max points per event will be 10 for a victory. That number changes to 20 if there are...uh...10-20 teams. That will also apply to battles and their scores, by the way.

Now, choosing participants. I would like the member of your team that would be participating in the first event to be submitted by the end of the first week of the first month of action, and the second and third events follow likewise. Of course, they can be chosen beforehand, and the event will begin as soon as all participants have been chosen. Battles will follow much the same format, however the gamesmasters will announce which teams will combat who during the first week of the first month.

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Part 4: Survival Battle

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Finally, the last event: the survival battle. This is probably the strangest thing to work through. I haven’t done it yet, but essentially I was thinking that this would take place over the course of the entirety of the three months, and it’s gonna work a bit weird. I haven’t done this yet, but I was eventually going to make a grid-based map, and each day the users have up to 5 moves they can make. The turns will happen concurrently and movements finish at the end of each day. If, at any point during the movement, people from opposing teams collide, a battle will ensue. Same rules as other battles: either come to a consensus or leave it to fate. Because there are no ties, the dice goes from 1-100. In a case of three teams colliding, the numbers switch from 50/50 to 33 / 33 / 33 and so on and so forth. If two people of one team encounter another, it turns to 67 / 33, and other things like that. Because of the more amorphous nature of this, the rewards increase. Rather than a 50% increase in jewels and experience, it changes to 75% increase, and a point translates to 200 xp, not 100 xp during this run.


Obviously there are a LOT of things that need to be worked on with this, and I’m open to taking more suggestions for improvements or feedback or really anything. This was a brainchild I came up with at 2 in the morning, so there’s probably a lot of flaws and logistical shenanigans that can’t be deal with easily, but hey it’s an idea.

There are several issues I can see in this.

- Time limits... my guild as well as several other guilds are in the middle of a cross guild scale that has been going on for almost a year. People get busy, people get writers block and/or things come up suddenly so were as putting a time limit in is helpful it is also constricting. Many people struggle to get events that have 2 - 4 weeks in and given that if we do go by cannon there are going to be events were the same character would be having to be doing more than one which can make this even more difficult.

- Denying GM's the ability to take part because that is part of cannon. This is a non cannon site and were some GM's may not want to take part they shouldn't be denied just because they are the leaders of a guild.

- GM's choosing who takes part. This can come off as favouritism even if it isn't we could end up with five H ranks from one guild and a mixed bag of mostly mid to low ranks in another, not to pvp friendly on that occasion if it comes to pvp.

- Player vs Player. As said above you could end up with teams that are imbalanced as no one knows who the other guilds would be sending until the list is released. There is also the issue of non stat magic or those who's chars have no magic and rely on equipment making it a bit unfair in that regards.

- Players having multiple chars taking part. That can put stress not on the player to get posts out but could take a spot from someone else who might be wanting to take part because someone who is already taking part in another guild has taken a spot in a second.

- Prizes. Wouldn't that come down to the staff to decide? Also this would be unfair as only a select few per guild take part and again there is the issue of stats vs statless to take into consideration.

- Guilds. You state that the guildmaster decides, who decides for guildless and it would be unfair to allow more than one guildless team as every other guild would only be allowed 5 candidates to do this event on their behalf.

- The example of Luxus vs Jura. Remeber Jura also fought someone else at that time and that both Luxus and Jura were both S rank mages in the anime so there is a bit more to it there.

- Deciding winners outside of the thread. Where this is a good idea for plot based stuff in actual event pvp, people will generally always look at the stats. For example, Johann and I are both Gods of Ishgar and we are of the same rank. We could decide ooc that it is going to be a draw or that Ruvel would win bit I can say without a doubt if it came to stats Johann would be the clear winner and in this case I personally would rely on stats.

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That all being said it does have potential but it has a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. This isn't personally isn't my cup of tea as I don't do anything but plot pvp, things like this can make a salt mine jealous. I'm also personally against an event that only allows a small percentage to take part as it just isn't fair to everyone else on site. Good read though.

Eh fair enough on all of those. Again, it was something I just thought up when I was supposed to be sleeping right after I had finished the arc in the anime, and getting a tournament arc IRL is a bit difficult. I tried thinking of some ways to make it a bit more plausible, but yeah not really a chance of it going down.

Ah well. Maybe in the future there'll be enough people on-site to get something going, but if not that's fine. Worth a shot

Oh no, there have been people that have been wanting a GMG event for years, so fair play there. I'm just wanting to point out potential flaws that could be worked on. Hell even if it doesn't work for a site event perhaps pitch it to one of your gm's and it could make a decent guild event. ^^

Let me jump in on behalf of the staff team to say that we are not unaware of the potential that is held by the Grand Magic Games and that we have given careful considerations to potential rules and systems that could possibly be used for such an event in the past. Continuing with my personal opinion: While your suggestion is certainly helpful and, to be honest, much appreciated, there are some systems and suggestions you bring forth that are hard to pull off, as you have already acknowledged, and some I find myself agreeing with. I also disagree with some and agree with Ruvel on others, but that is a matter for personal preference and debate. Let me, however, say this: If/When the GMG would come, we have a well-balanced PvP system that is meant solely for this kind of event, and I personally feel like it would be a waste not to use it for such a scenario. Back to my opinion as a staff member: While you raise good points and present ideas which you have obviously given some thought to, some things will have to be done differently and changed for gameplay and balancing reasons. If we would implement some of these suggestions, they would most likely be drastically different from what is presented and balanced in an entirely different manner to better fit our overall system and the players that use it. I would also guarantee, for the people who care to read this, that everyone would have the same chance to participate in these kinds of events, as that is a fundamental pillar of our event system. That's pretty much it for my input on the matter, though, if anyone else wishes to jump in and present some points or have a talk/discussion I am very curious to see where this leads. Good suggestion!