Final Fantasy Hacktics

General => The Lounge => Topic started by: Dokurider on July 24, 2010, 07:26:07 pm

Title: FFT Tabletop RPG Discussion
Post by: Dokurider on July 24, 2010, 07:26:07 pm
I have never played a tabletop in my life. I avoided them initially because at the time, they seemed so complicated and frankly, somewhat intimidating. No, I wasn't brainwashed by some Fundamentalists into believing that tabletops are the work of Satan or anything like that. In fact, I didn't even know what a tabletop was until I was 16-17, and wasn't really interested in them until this year. Tabletops started to peak my curiosity when I started reading a review of a particularly bad Tabletop called FATAL.

This review really helped me to understand what a tabletop really is, particularly what to expect from a typical tabletop, because FATAL was everything I feared that a Tabletop was (minus the rape). But this review was calling FATAL a bad tabletop because of it's over complexity and unnecessary rules. It taught me that Tabletops don't have to be reams and reams of rules and dice rolls. Because I was no longer intimidated by tabletops, I decided to indulge my curiosity and look at some good RPGs to compare, so a found a few free ones and read them. They are nowhere near as complicated as I imagined they were. They even looked kinda fun.

But the ones that I picked up didn't really interest me all that much. Nor did the lists of RPGs I looked subsequently looked through. I was really interested in playing in a tabletop, but nothing so far has really interested me enough to bother. I thought to myself, "You know what I'd really like to play? An FFT Tabletop." It hit me, an FFT Tabletop? I had a nerd orgasm just thinking about it. The possibilities for adventure were endless. I had to do this. I was going to make an FFT Tabletop. And over a month later, here are the fruits of my labor.

Now so far, the only thing I really have so far is a list of jobs/abilities for generics and even then, its far from complete. In fact, I have yet to do the Bard/Dancer, Calculator, Dark Knight, and the Mime, as well as the entirety of the Monster classes. I would just like you guys to look it all over and GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK. Tell me what you like and don't like. Do you think something OP, UP,too overly complex, just plaing unnecessary, or just dumb?

Because I am not restricted by programming or anything, I can do just about anything I want and I tried to exploit that as much as possible while trying to keep things as simple as possible. Because I changed so many classes, I encourage you to look over every class. I placed comments everywhere to help explain the changes I made. You'll find the document attached. Not any more. Outdated. Thanks.

UPDATE: On the advice of Eternal, I decided to create two topics for the Tabletop. This is now a discussion topic. Please keep the discussion in this topic. Thanks.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Pickle Girl Fanboy on July 26, 2010, 10:22:55 am
Could you link to that review?

Rolling dice and drawing cards got me thinking about random number generators.
How do you make a RNG?  For tabletop rpgs?  For card-based rpgs?  For a cryptosystem?
What are the parts that make a cryptosystem?  How can I test a cryptosystem I make?  Is it possible to disguise a cryptosystem as a card based rpg, or any other sort of game?

On topic:
What are you using to indicate randomness in this game?
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Tigerspike on July 26, 2010, 12:32:53 pm
Doku, I am interested in what you are working on.

Some of my friends and I have been talking about making a FFT tabletop game for years.  We have been playing (off and on) for years alternating between D&D rules as well as rules from the Palladium game system.  The Palladium books line owns the rights to Robotech RPGs, and the most recent one inspired me to work on a version of FFT for the Palladium system.

The thing that caught my eye was the way the new book handled character classes.  In the newest iteration you have 5 classes that are then divided into various sub-classes, each with their own unique skills.  Amongst the skills are various hand to hand fighting styles, and in another of the various books published by Palladium, there are martial arts powers that can be selected at various levels of your hand to hand style.  By combining these two elements, I believe a good FFT style game can be created.  If that sounds interesting to you, let me know.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Samuraiblackbelt on July 26, 2010, 02:29:20 pm
here you go, an RNG that decides %

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... 6_1&fsc=-1 (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Zocchihedron&x=17&y=15&ih=1_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0.2116_1&fsc=-1)
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: VampragonLord on July 26, 2010, 04:35:20 pm
just play dnd and add your own homebrew content..... Bard could be bard even! crazy concepts i know <.<

 great that you really have the creative juices flowing, just make sure you know more about what youre doing before you go off making classes and inventing rules that seem to make sense, but may be contradictory or pointless or broken.

it sounds pretty awesome, just make sure you dont set up too much work for yourself when there are easier methods.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Dokurider on July 26, 2010, 07:05:31 pm
Quote from: "Pickle Girl Fanboy"Could you link to that review?

Rolling dice and drawing cards got me thinking about random number generators.
How do you make a RNG?  For tabletop rpgs?  For card-based rpgs?  For a cryptosystem?
What are the parts that make a cryptosystem?  How can I test a cryptosystem I make?  Is it possible to disguise a cryptosystem as a card based rpg, or any other sort of game?

On topic:
What are you using to indicate randomness in this game?

Certainly. (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)

As for creating randomness, on pen and paper, it's just 2d10. I don't think there is anything in FFT that can't be decided by that. However, I'd like to RP online. I'm not sure how many of you would even want to play, but I want to able to play this with you guys. Initially, I wanted to play on the forums themselves, but Ragrias convinced me to use this one program (the name  escapes me at the moment. Game...something) that would allow us to draw up grids and play in real time and everything. Randomness online can be achieved with this. (http://www.random.org/)
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: SentinalBlade on July 27, 2010, 12:23:35 pm
http://www.fftrealm.com/content/fftinto.shtml (http://www.fftrealm.com/content/fftinto.shtml)

Anyone heard of this? There have been so many D20 conversions, and actual normal RPG elements in adaptions, it was nice to see something that looks like it is trying to keep the tactics part of Final Fantasy Tactics alive...i haven't gotten more than a few seconds to read through the documents though =(
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Pickle Girl Fanboy on July 27, 2010, 01:20:23 pm
WARNING: Disturbing perversions!
I mean, imagine opening a door to find your mother and sister raping each other with pink strap-ons. And you then realize that you've never seen their bare asses before, because you're pretty sure you would have remembered the swastikas tattooed there. And upon noticing you, they grin wickedly and give you the finger in unison.
^PGF quietly adds this scenario to list of sexual fantasies... but it has to be someone else's mother and sister.  Like this guy I knew in High School, Andy something-or-othe, his mom was Korean, and holy crap did she look good in a bikini.  Ditto his older sister.  She cooked really awesome Korean food too.

Anyways, if I'm gonna play an FFT type tabletop rpg, it has to have pieces we move around on a board, or, even better, a board with customizable height variations and overhangs and stuff like that.  A chess/FFT hybrid.  Need a board bigger than 8x8.  How would you determine each classes move type?
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: VampragonLord on July 27, 2010, 05:04:59 pm
just base move of the class?
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Pickle Girl Fanboy on July 27, 2010, 05:20:23 pm
In chess, each piece has it's own way of moving and attacking.
Rooks move and attack in the four cardinal directions, no matter how far away they are, but they can't move through enemies or allies.
Bishops are the same as Rooks, but they do everything diagonally.
Pawns can only move forward, one space at a time, except on their first move, when they can move one or two spaces.  They can only attack diagonally forward.  They cannot move through enemies or allies.
Queens are Bishops + Rooks.
Knights move in an L shaped pattern.  Look it up on wikipedia, they can explain it better than I ever can.
Kings can move and attack to any adjacent space.

Know, if you wanted to make a hybrid fft/chess, you'd break every movement and attack type into something fft related.  Battles would have to be 5x5, because keeping track of 16 individual units, each with their own unique attributes, is difficult.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Zaen on August 02, 2010, 08:36:13 pm
I remember making an FFT-ish based tabletop game. It was very baseline with just HP values, attack damage, defense percentages, and attack patters and movement. I figured I'd add in defense as a way of balancing out HP values easier. I played a few games with it in Psychology during the end of the year and I thought it was pretty polished. Sadly, I lost all information I had saved for it. It included stuff like Monks having a Spin Fist option, Samurais getting a sweep attack, and Summoner and Wizard having different types of AoEs. I even made the Priest Healing only. That was fun...
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Dokurider on September 02, 2010, 06:09:31 pm
Just thought I'd give an update on my progress.

- Revamped the entire leveling/growth system. Instead of being a dividend system, it is now a simple addition system.

- Growth no longer varies from class to class, but from whether the class is Physical, Magical or Mixed.

Physical classes growth
HPC 300
MPC 50
PAC 80
MAC 60

Magical classes growth
HPC 100
MPC 150
PAC 60
MAC 80

MIxed classes growth
HPC 200
MPC 100
PAC 70
MAC 70

If you level up in a physical class for 55+ Levels, you will gain +1 PA and higher HP, but lose -1 MA and lower MP, visa versa with Magical classes. Leveling up as a Mixed Class will gain you nothing, but you will lose nothing either. Oh, and I've taken great pains to insure that this growth system is 100% Munchkin Proof. It should be impossible to min-max your stats. I invite anyone to try.

- Tried lowering overall damage output by lowering Attack stats across the board. Highest Attack Stat you can level up to is 12 PA/MA. I can't really speak to whether this is a success or not. My initial workups indicate that damage output is still out of control, which is why I'm toying with the prospect of introducing defense stats.

Things still to do:

- Come up with a rough draft of weapons and attach WP to them

- Come up with a complete list of classes with their respective skills, along with their stats.

- Actually test out the weapons and see what numbers are generated

- Implement Defense stats

- Get to work on evasion

Attached is the new growth system
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: gojoe on September 03, 2010, 09:58:21 am
So for the board I guess you'd have to label each square with it's own height or depth.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Aensland on September 18, 2010, 10:38:28 pm
Quote from: "Dokurider"I have never played a tabletop in my life. I avoided them initially because at the time, they seemed so complicated and frankly, somewhat intimidating.
I sorta grew up with AD&D - there was a coterie of seniors in high school who had all the rulebooks and stuff, the whole shebang - and tabletops didn't really strike me as that different: kinda like us pen-and-paper RPGers except they had funky miniatures to paint (I base my observations on another group, who played W40K). All you need is a good DM and - for consistency's sake I guess - a decent ruleset.

Good luck with this, but for me tabletop gaming's not an option anymore. What I'm interested most is in a more open FFT engine; something that can generate random maps. That, plus larger scale battles and a little balancing of the classes, and I'd be one happy programmer. Been puttering around stuff like RPGMaker but haven't really found anything I could work with towards this. Oh well.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Neuromancer on October 15, 2010, 10:20:48 pm
Actually I've been working on something like this on and off for almost two years... as soon as I can get my notes together (yeah, I actually have a manuscript of this stuff), I'll post it here. In the meantime, here's a sample of how Unit cards look, for your viewing pleasure:
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5718/squiremcard.th.png) (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/squiremcard.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Dokurider on November 12, 2010, 05:52:42 pm
Quote from: "Neuromancer"Actually I've been working on something like this on and off for almost two years... as soon as I can get my notes together (yeah, I actually have a manuscript of this stuff), I'll post it here. In the meantime, here's a sample of how Unit cards look, for your viewing pleasure:
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/5718/squiremcard.th.png) (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/squiremcard.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

That's pretty cool looking. I definitely don't have a taste for graphical design at all, so I don't know what I'm going when it comes down to graphical work. Oh well...

Anywho, I came to give an update on my progress:

- Currently, I have a Freelancer class, a class that allows you to have any primary and secondary skillset you want (except MIme) as the starting class. I felt it would be a good starting class since you can't equip any item you want like the Onion Knight can. However, a chat on IRC convinced me that the Onion Knight eating the Freelancer class wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to happen provided that the stats were bad enough. So out with the Freelancer, and back in with Basic Skill, which will be both a magical and physical skillset, fitting for the starter class.

- I have no idea what to do with Mimes. I always thought that Mimes were too difficult to use to be effective. However, Mimes have to be difficult to use. If they are like they are in other FF games, they can utter RUIN the game. Currently, no one uses Mimes except to use Dance/Sing and the occasional Summon Bombing. It will be a challenge to tweak this without making Mimes useless or OP. So challenging, in fact, that I'm going to put Mimes pretty low on the list of things to do.

- My monster helper classes, the Rider and the Beast Master, don't have a lot of elaboration on them yet. Mostly because I have done nothing for Monsters yets. Just know this, the Ride mechanic is getting a promotion, and along with Monster Skill is becoming a Skillset, as opposed to a Support and universal to everyone.

I'd love to keep working on the classes, but I need to move on to actually creating the rules for the game. The rules for FFT:Tabletop will be made to emulate FFT as much as possible, so that some one who is familar with FFT can just sit down and be able to play just fine.

[attachment=1:ripua6r8]FFTClassesv2.doc[/attachment:ripua6r8]

[attachment=0:ripua6r8]Job Tree.xls[/attachment:ripua6r8]
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Neuromancer on November 30, 2010, 08:24:31 pm
I could be of assistance with the graphical design, provided I get the gist of how will mechanics work in your version.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Dokurider on December 07, 2010, 05:29:07 pm
Quote from: "Neuromancer"I could be of assistance with the graphical design, provided I get the gist of how will mechanics work in your version.

That would be nice, but could you be a little more specific?

Anyways, one of major goals was to make terrain worth paying attention to. So I came up with a list of possible terrain effects as well as some Weather Effects and Statuses

[attachment=2:2twn8n0u]TerrainandWeatherBonuses.doc[/attachment:2twn8n0u]

[attachment=1:2twn8n0u]StatusList.doc[/attachment:2twn8n0u]

[attachment=0:2twn8n0u]Boots.doc[/attachment:2twn8n0u]
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Dokurider on December 09, 2010, 07:07:22 pm
-Updated the first post
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Celdia on December 10, 2010, 05:07:04 pm
Interesting seeing this thread active again. I'm a huge fan of tabletop games myself (been actively DMing D&D 3rd Edition for ten years now) and seeing this again made me think of something I saw a long time ago and rolled across again recently. Its hardly started as far as game systems go but I found it amusing so I'll share.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Neuromancer on December 12, 2010, 01:19:40 pm
Quote from: "Dokurider"
Quote from: "Neuromancer"I could be of assistance with the graphical design, provided I get the gist of how will mechanics work in your version.

That would be nice, but could you be a little more specific?

Anyways, one of major goals was to make terrain worth paying attention to. So I came up with a list of possible terrain effects as well as some Weather Effects and Statuses

[attachment=2:13zjbh19]TerrainandWeatherBonuses.doc[/attachment:13zjbh19]

[attachment=1:13zjbh19]StatusList.doc[/attachment:13zjbh19]

[attachment=0:13zjbh19]Boots.doc[/attachment:13zjbh19]

I need to know how things will work on your game so I can help you with the unit sheets/cards: Will you use defense stats? How about Bravery, Faith, etc?.  Yeah, terrain should matter more than in the original FFT and could even open up new abilities for Geomancers (such as combat bonuses).
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Dokurider on December 16, 2010, 03:13:37 am
Quote from: "Neuromancer"
Quote from: "Dokurider"
Quote from: "Neuromancer"I could be of assistance with the graphical design, provided I get the gist of how will mechanics work in your version.

That would be nice, but could you be a little more specific?

I need to know how things will work on your game so I can help you with the unit sheets/cards: Will you use defense stats? How about Bravery, Faith, etc?.  Yeah, terrain should matter more than in the original FFT and could even open up new abilities for Geomancers (such as combat bonuses).

I strive to keep the game as close to the original as possible. It will be very similar to FFT, with only one major exception. Move is no longer an ability, but rather an equipment separate from Accessory. Boots to be precise. On the stats sheets, they'll go underneath Accessories. There will be no defense stats. Anything else?

-Reorganized First Post
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: formerdeathcorps on December 18, 2010, 05:47:33 pm
Why didn't you ask me about this earlier?

There was a topic on this in FFTR (a FFT fan/game site Zaen, Eternal, and I hail from) on precisely this.  The creator tried to implement the medieval caste system into FFT, added a ton of new nations and classes, and didn't finish everything, but I have all the notes to it, as well as some things I added, though this was before I learned how to balance games so we might need to seriously rework things.

Doku, I know you have your own ideas, but feel free to draw from anything here you might like.


NOTE: I also used this as the base for making more complicated games, usually played on a table top between friends.  If you all wish to see what I did there, I can post both mine and my friend's ideas for units and mechanics.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG
Post by: Neuromancer on December 19, 2010, 12:21:04 am
Well obviously there's plenty of systems floating around, we might as well pool resources :D
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG Discussion
Post by: Dokurider on January 18, 2011, 06:28:30 pm
So I won't be able to work on this for a while. Most of my free time is now being devoted to learning how to program. It going to take a while, at least two months or more.
Title: Re: FFT Tabletop RPG Discussion
Post by: Neophyte Ronin on July 06, 2012, 08:57:24 pm
I have conducted research on tabletops before and have discovered a massive correlation between several FF titles and the Tri-Stat system as used by the Big-Eyes-Small-Mouth Anime-themed game.  Look up BESM or Tri-Stat and see for yourself.  They look more than similar.  Titles that follow include FFV, FFVI, and FFIX.  Tactics does so, obviously.

The stats are simple: Body, Mind, and Soul.  Body affects Health, Soul affects Power, and Mind affects various abilities.  It can be as complex as possible with potential hybridized stats (put Vitality in the center in place of Constitution, Agility between Body and Mind, Wisdom between Soul and Mind, Intellect as Mind, etc.), and you can put in as many things as you like.

Brave to determine Reactions are simple: d% rolls.  CaFaith*TaFaith*Spell*Soul/10000 to determine magics.  Well, we can just add a base for each spell (positive or negative number), add to Current Faith, then roll a D%.

To resolve in the old system, your power level dice are rolled two at a time.  If you score beneath the target's relevant stat number, you score.  A D20 variant exists, updating the system.  The old system lets you use the kinds of Dice you have on hand.  Average human capability is listed as 4 at any rate, with 3 for teen, 2 for kid, and 1 for infant; 5 or above are gradients of above-average capability.  You can adjust the height of ability to affect someone with Brave or Faith.  Power attacks, for instance, can only be good as your Body*Brave/100 (8*70=560/100=5.6, or either 5 or 6 depending on your rounding policy).

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=368&it=1 (http://You'll need a free login, but since Guardians of Order tanked, their documents, still revered by fans of Silver Age Sentinels and whatnot are available for people to research and pick apart.)

I've considered the trial of conceiving a set of rules to emulate Tactics on the tabletop, and will happily provide any service towards your project's completion, whenever you're ready.