I’ve been toying with the idea of making a Final Fantasy version of Fellowship. I’m trying to compile a guide for collaborative world building that can capture the spirit of a FF story:
Let me know what you think, did I miss something? Did I misinterpret something? How can I improve it?
I think everything you have here is spot on!
You could maybe include something to clarify like what kind of sub-genre the group is imagining? Like you have the kind of classic medieval fantasy settings of the earlier games, but there’s also a lot of modern science-fantasy or even kind of cyberpunk(?) stuff with FF 7, 8, 13, 15, etc. It might be useful to clarify what your group is aiming for there when you all decide ‘let’s play FF Fellowship.’
On a similar note, this might bog down a collaborative exercise like this, but I feel like each FF game always has some like… core narrative x mechanical gimmicks? Like in FF7 people don’t use magic naturally, they have to use materia, which is actually the crystallized essence of blah blah blah… FF8, people draw magic from natural sources and junction it to use para-magic, etc etc etc. You already have divinities/summons in the Great Powers section, so maybe it’s an expansion of that?
You could do some silly little details that are staples in FF, like “what is the lovable, strange animal that people ride in this world?”
I’m not an expert in Final Fantasy, having skipped several and only watched several more, but this seems pretty on target to me as far as it goes. I tend to feel like FF games/worlds don’t actually have that much in common other than some themes, so what you’ve got here probably gets most of it.
I like what you have here, and I’m in agreement with @DeusExBrockina about FF usually having a unique mechanic / magic system per game, but that feels like a hard thing to just have an open ended question about. Ideally, mechanics like that would be built into the game, and it’s hard to just hand that over to the players.
I read FELLOWSHIP recently, and realized the game I’m designing has a lot of similarities. I’m curious how other tables respond to world-building with a list of questions. I had some positive feedback on my questions for a science fantasy setting, but in playtesting it’s felt a bit lacking. My impression is that some players need more specific directions and feel put on the spot. I’m also playing with the idea of gamifying it more, to make it more engaging. I let some players state truths, then others add rumors or limitations.
Don’t know if that’s something you’d like to work with, but I’m happy to bounce ideas.
Hi @pizzazzeria , I’m glad this got you inspired. I must confess this is an idea I tend to work in cycles and It’s been some time now I haven’t tought about it much.
This doc here was just about the worldbuilding so ideally it would be system agnostic. That said, if you wanted to run a FF game in a system similar to Fellowship or DW (or a later hack of it), you can certainly see how the questions aim towards creating:
While reading it again however I don’t feel this would be enough to make a FF-feeling game. It can certainly aid in making a game that can “look” and “sound” like a FF inspired game:
A: “…yesterday’s session was great, we reclaimed the air crystal from the machine emperor!”
B: “Yep that sounds like Final Fantasy. But did it FEEL like playing a FF game?”
I think I’m tending more towards mechanics that would capture the recurring story beats. Here’s just a few of the things I would like to invoke with some form of mechanism, and I’m not confident I’ll ever get a comprehensive list:
This probably isn’t entirely relevant, but I put together a game about JRPG…stuff that I finally dubbed “at least ready to call ‘in beta’” not too long ago that might have some relevant processes and procedures. It’s more Kiseki than Final Fantasy though.
Yes, this is a small plug, but I actually do think it’s relevant. The next version is probably going to contain both “bonds” with communities and some sort of “Crisis of Trust” mechanic for when a character does something foolish because they’re unwilling to call upon their friends for whatever reason.
Somehow I didn’t realize this post was a year old when replying to it… I think I was just doing Google searches to read more about Fellowship, and when I landed here with a million windows opened I assumed it was a newer thread.
I’m actually working on ideas for some of the things you brought up. I don’t think of my game as Final Fantasy, but it’s a mixture of tech and fantasy, with mysterious ruins, and I played a lot of FF growing up… so maybe it’s not that surprising.
Adult Themes: Lines and Veils are a part of Session 0, and one of the end of session level up questions asks if they’ve learned a detail that helps answer a thematic question tied to the “Cosmic Threat”. My game has a few options. Interstellar Authority: What is the price of freedom, and how do we fight for it? All-Powerful Destroyer: How can we be significant when we are so small? Ravenous Multitudes: How do we face our fears and our mortality?
Silly scenario for healing: Playing with that kind of. Choices include dance contests and driving lessons, like that episode of Dragonball Z.
To level up a Bond, you have to go through an “ABC cycle”. Announce how you see them. Break the mold you’re forcing them into. Create a new vision.
I think the way you’re talking about these things has a bit more nuance though, and sounds really interesting. It sounds like a game I’d love to read / play.
Hi Airk, this seems pretty involved! I’m not familiar with the IP it’s based on but I certainly got the impression of several interlocking systems.
I must admit I haven’t read the whole document from top to finish so I might have just missed it but what would you say is the core game loop? Actually I’m not sure if “core game loop” is the right expression here, what I mean is: what are the main story “ingredients” you are trying to go for? (You know how in dungeon world is recruit > supply > travel > dungeon crawl > carouse > repeat)
Glad to here you’re working towards something similar, at least thematically.
Having brought a bit more of the big picture back to mind again I can say that this thread was meant just as a first step. I was trying to approach the problem from two sides and I still think it might be a good idea: Color and Theme.
The document in the OP is mainly about Color answering the question what makes a story look and sound like a Final Fantasy. In this instance things like iconic monsters, disproportionate weapons, mixing medieval style melee with space technology are all things that tint a setting Final Fantasy color.
On the other hand what I mean by Theme is what guides the players into role play characters that act the way you would expect of a Final Fantasy character. (there’s probably a better way to phrase that). This is where I think the real difficulty is and mainly because of the following:
This for me is what ruins most attempts at creating video game inspired TTRPGs. The writers too often try to meticulously port all the rules and mechanics of the gameplay, which is mostly combat and magic systems. They spend little time breaking down the setting because supposedly you would know that having played the video games. But more importantly they give you no tool or incentive geared towards recreating the type of stories you would expect out of title of that series.
I don’t think I’ve solved this problem myself. I don’t even think I captured all the necessary story beats that need to be pushed towards. But this is what I’ve got so far:
This is getting too long 
. Let’s just cut it here and see what happens.
My “core game loop” is probably:
Visit Community > Talk to People > Investigate their problems > Solve them > Possibly find more problems
The way the ‘prep’ is structured right now is fairly “quest based”; The PCs arrive at a community, find out what their “tasks” are, and get rewarded for “completing” them. But there’s a hopefully interlocking loop where the PCs have Trust values towards each other that reflect the strength of their bonds, and as those values increase (via helping each other and/or sharing quiet moments) they become more effective at helping each other, hopefully resulting in some literal “Power of Friendship”; There are also XP rewards around revealing new information about yourself, and for having scenes around your character’s “issue” (each not-really-a-playbook comes with one). And, well, the "how to not die’ system focuses on a character’s Resolve, which is restored by talking to other characters and completing Tasks for NPCs moreso than by resting/healing. There are also actual, real wounds, because one of the things that happens in the source material is that someone gets Actually Like Really Hurt in a fight and chooses to keep going anyway (which you can do).
So maybe the “full” core cycle is:
Visit communities > Struggle Together to Solve Problems > Grow in Trust > Solve Problems > Mature.
I’m still working on that last bit – right now, characters XP triggers change over time to reflect them being more mature and responsible, but I think some more work around that aspect of the game is in order. It’s not something I had really realized I wanted when I started.
I agree with your division of Color and Theme; And I agree that a lot of games focus on the “color” so you end up with stuff that models the FF magic system(s) with White/Black/Red mages, crystals, chocobos and stuff, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything yet that tries to drive towards the Theme of Final Fantasy – this is actually why I posted my game, because I feel like I’m making some effort to hit a similar but not identical kind of theme, but I was going for trying to represent more of the “total game experience” rather than just “You spend almost all your time playing what would be cutscenes”. My source material has a certain emphasis on “Getting to know NPCs” and also on “villains whose motivations you can sympathize with” so I felt that talking to NPCs and also, yes, fighting villains is an important part.
I think you should be careful of making an FF game that is TOO focused on “cutscene” type interactions, simply because those aren’t the whole game by themselves. I certainly don’t advocate for long battles or random encounters, but you can’t have Final Fantasy without a confrontation with a Boss that feels like a challenge. I’m still not super sure about Fellowship-style combat, but I may come around to it later.