Hmm. Personally I've always thought a bell-curved roll mechanic or possibily a die pool would better reflect FF mechanics than a system like d20. Most abilities in the FF games I've played are VERY reliable, including regular attacks. You don't really get that feel with 1d20 + mods. (Have you seen the old, old document on how FF4's combat mechanics work? It's basically an opposed-roll die pool system using percentile dice. It would be a nightmare to try to do exactly in tabletop conditions, but a simplification of that would seem like the way to go to me.)
That's one thing I didn't like about the Returner RPG, too. Mind you, I can see how a percentile mechanic would appeal to someone coming in from, say, FF Tactics, which I'm only starting to play now believe it or not.
Indeed, an opposed bell curve mechanic would emulate the mechanics of the FF games pretty well. However, I saw that it was not really nessecary...an "FF Feel" comes from the story, the iconic creatures, and the jobs and abilities, and only in part from the mechanics.
The mechanics just didn't seem to be the core of the game, to me. They weren't as integral to the delight and joy derived from the game the first play through, because they were transparent. However, the d20 mechanic is integral to the feel of RPG's for me (and for most people who play a lot of D&D, I guess...
). And it also allows for a more "heroic" feel, with extreme results being more common. Because thousands of points of damage was kind of out of the realm of possibility, there needed to be something that showed this complete mastery -- critical success.
So the d20 keeps the mechanics familiar, simple, and easy to use for anyone who has played D&D before. This favors simplicity and heroics, which are both things FFZ would like to encourage (going up against villains and impossible odds? Yup!).
That said, it isn't too hard to turn a d20 into a 3d6 for a bell curve roll. UA gives some solid advice, and makes sure to note that skill ranks, ability scores, and bonuses have a much more powerful effect on a bell curve roll than on a d20 roll. I'll probably crib from UA notes when talking about how to modify FFZ for personal tastes.
So I'm curious why you are taking, as far as I can see, exactly the opposite tack with FFZ. Have more recent FFs abandoned that model? Or is there some other reason behind that decision? I'm not saying it's a bad decision, I'm just curious as to the reasoning. (It may be relevant here that I play most of my FF through emulation so I'm a generation behind, technologically speaking.)
The reason for this is one of those things I decided to do in translating a videogame to a table top. In an FF game, each combat only takes a few minutes or a few seconds. Even boss battles don't last very long, and FFT (and FFT-A) are the exceptions to this point, but they don't last more than a few minutes themselves.
Compare this to tabletop, where a combat can take fifteen minutes to an hour...and you've got a problem. If random encounters are as common as they are in most FF games, you're spending much more time at the table, and thus getting nowhere fast. Several months of real time can zoom by with nothing more than random encounters. While good in a game for building levels, this is a hassle at the table, where the meat of the game is in significant (boss-like) combat.
This problem can be mitigated by things like abstracted combat, but you're still having everyone's turn last a minute or more. It gets dull not getting anyplace (for most groups, anyway...I'm sure some have NO problem just slugging it out.
). So FFZ cuts out the boring parts. There are "random encounters" in the way that the DM rolls on a table for a monster, but this is before the session starts, usually, and the DM thinks about how the monster will encounter the PC's, and why such a monster would exist, and what kind of seeds for story and character development the monster has. It's also not entirely common...directly related to "travel distance," actually in that the farther you go, the more encounters of this type you will have, and the more treasure abilities you have a chance to get...
Anyway, the basic crux is that tabletop combat can be long and complex, and FFZ definately strives to be simpler and faster paced than normal D&D. So while there are random encounters, these are often well-planned in advance. FFZ pays attention to the real-world schedule that many gaming groups are on, and asks that the DM pay attention to it, too, in order to make the game the most effective. FFZ wants you to know approximately how many sessions you want your adventure to take, what kind of players you have, where you will time events, if holidays will interefere, where and when you play...mostly from the DM's side, but from the player's as well. And only having a few combats in each game session (3-5, normally, slightly less if there is a boss battle) helps that pacing go smoothly.
