02. Information Gathering

Information gathering is one of the most important aspects of a Grail War. Simply put, when roleplaying throughout the war, take down in your notes anything that you find important. You can only take notes in threads that you are an active participant in. This information will help you keep track of your competition, and let you devise a strategy for dealing with them. Knowing the name of a Master can let you run a background check on them, for example.

Servants however, work differently. As you might have noticed (or will, if you make a Servant) there are two different Servant templates (each with a simpler and more complex variation). There is the public Servant template, which is what will be shown publicly on the site and thus only shows class, parameters, class skils and such. The private Servant template is their actual bio, showcasing their true name, personal skills, Noble Phantasm(s), the private one is posted in a board where you can only see your own posts.

The True Name is what you're after.

When dealing with enemy Servants, keep track of anything you can. What kind of weapons do they use? Do they drop any words that might seem to be a clue? Do they wear a theme that hints where they may have come from? Take note of everything, of all the information you can. But remember; you can only take notes in threads that you are an active participant in.

After all the evidence you gathered, if you think you have enough to figure out their true name, simply send me a PM with the name you are guessing, and all the evidence you are using to make that guess. If you are correct, then I will send the private bio to you, and you'll be able to see all their abilities. However, the reason for the evidence is so you can't metagame. Everyone knows the blue Saber with the blonde hairbun is Artoria Pendragon. But the characters don't. The characters need to figure it out.

There are other cases where the true name of a Servant can be distributed, and the Staff reserves the right to distribute the private bios in the event of; flagrant disregard for their identity's secrecy, they encounter another Servant whom they knew in life, information sharing between Masters and Servants, and other scenarios that may come up.

This means that for most Servants? Spamming your Noble Phantasm is a generally terrible idea. They're meant to be a trump card, not your opening move.

If your Master/Servant team has an Assassin Servant, this will be far and away the most important task of the war, as most Assassins aren't normally able to fight directly. They even excel at info gathering due to their Presence Concealment allowing them to monitor areas that some would think secure.