Final Fantasy XIV Getting an Official TTRPG

Square Enix leaked a pre-order page for Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG Starter Set on their online store on Wednesday morning before taking it down that afternoon and putting it back up again overnight.

The order page for the new TTRPG went live on Wednesday for around 6 hours before being taken down, but not before being archived via the Wayback Machine. It's likely the game was scheduled for announcement during the Letter from the Producer event on September 23 but was posted live by mistake. As of Thursday morning, the pre-order page is live again on the site along with an announcement page confirming a player and GM core rulebook along with an official preview page.

The new game will be based on the MMORPG video game Final Fantasy XIV, which currently has over 3 million active daily players available on PC, macOS, and PlayStation. This marks the first official adaptation of the popular and long-running Final Fantasy video game franchise to tabletop RPGs. From the product description before it was removed:

Based on the hit MMO Final Fantasy XIV, the FFXIV TTRPG is a tabletop roleplaying game that lets you experience Eorzea from a whole new perspective. Step into the shoes of a heroic adventurer or assume the game master's mantle, then cooperate to forge your own unique stories within the vast and exciting universe of Final Fantasy XIV. The Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG Starter Set comes with everything you need to dive into the game and includes both the Player Book and the Gamemaster Book. Gather your friends together to explore, battle, and roleplay--the only limits are your imagination, and the only goal is to have fun. Discover a realm of adventure reborn!

The Starter Set will include a Player Book, Gamemaster Book (including three scenarios tying into the FF14 main story), four pre-generated characters (Warrior, White Mage, Dragoon, and Black Mage), Rules Summary & Strategy Guide, encounter maps, character tokens, and ability markers. The set will also include custom numeric dice - 6d20 total (two red and one each of green, blue, black, and clear) with the Final Fantasy XIV logo in place of the 20 and 10d6 (four red, two each of blue and green, and one each of black and clear). No further information about the game system is available at this time.

The set is scheduled for a May 2024 release and is available for pre-order for $59.99.

Note: This article has been edited to update with new information as the pre-order page was taken down, then put back up again, then an official announcement and preview page released.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

You obviously never played Doctors and Daleks!

Or Adventures in Middle-Earth, or the newer LotR 5E, or Esper Genesis, which shows a different version of sci-fi than Doctors & Daleks, but still works well using 5E.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm talking more about the choice for tabletop. FF14 includes so much stuff that, if they stat out most of the stuff in the video game, it'll cover anything you'd want to do in any of those. And anything that isn't covered, they could release a single sourcebook for that specific game (which would likely sell to fans of the game whether they play the RPG or not just because it would double as a world guide and artbook) and have that one covered too.

As was I. Yeld is a VERY clear lift from FF as a line. As I said, if all I needed was the classes and races, Yeld's got that covered.
But again, as someone who ...

• disliked 3/5 of the MMOs they've played (liking only Star Trek Online and Puzzle Pirates, and disliking the multi-player aspects of STO), and not counting the dozen-plus Door Games from the 90's that were interactive multiplayer...
• whose favorite game in the FF lineage is Crystal Chronicles (currently on year 6 again. Third
• who only completed FF X
• Whose favorite expression of a FF setting is Chocobo's dungeon (FF:CC is more fun to play, FF:CD being just a wonderful small scale setting game, even if it's not the best playing.
• Who is particularly picky about mechanics

I've no reason to believe FF XIV is going to provide the material for the settings that I already am invested it.

I'll also note that the relative strengths differ across the games; as does the intelligence of Chocobos.

And I won't be all that interested if it's using D&D 5E as its base mechanics, as I find them mediocre.

You're shilling for it also is making me far more reticent to even look into it; I get that FF XIV is the financially appropriate. It's also making me think XIV is definitely also "better left unplayed"... I don't even care for the remake of VII.

 

[aramis erak]

There's tons of games out there that don't need to slap a "5e" logo onto their game because, believe it or not, 5e isn't a great fit for a lot of games besides D&D.

Both Pugmire and SG1 have decent adaptations building on a stripped skeleton of 5e. Neither is direct character compatible with 5E, either. They both are close enough to speed the learning curve.
Doesn't make it automagically the right nor wrong choice overall.

Or Adventures in Middle-Earth, or the newer LotR 5E, or Esper Genesis, which shows a different version of sci-fi than Doctors & Daleks, but still works well using 5E.

I found AIME a very poor ruleset. Hard to parse in places (char gen, especially). The Travel system inferior to either that of TOR or 5E Core. An unneeded elevation of available-to-player magic.

In other words, I found AIME as poor a fit as MERP was for Middle Earth - but without the excellence as a game MERP had if one ditched the Middle Earth setting.

At least with MERP, if you dropped the Tolkien, you had Rolemaster Lite, not otherwise available at the time. (I'm aware HARP is the newer "lighter sibling of Rolemaster.")

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I found AIME a very poor ruleset. Hard to parse in places (char gen, especially). The Travel system inferior to either that of TOR or 5E Core. An unneeded elevation of available-to-player magic.

In other words, I found AIME as poor a fit as MERP was for Middle Earth - but without the excellence as a game MERP had if one ditched the Middle Earth setting.

That is too bad. I found AiME to be superior to TOR and easier to learn/teach and easier to run. And the Journey system was so good that C7 released it as a stand-alone product for 5E D&D.

 

[aramis erak]

That is too bad. I found AiME to be superior to TOR and easier to learn/teach and easier to run. And the Journey system was so good that C7 released it as a stand-alone product for 5E D&D.

It certainly says we have VERY different tastes...

 

[Zehnseiter]

There's tons of games out there that don't need to slap a "5e" logo onto their game because, believe it or not, 5e isn't a great fit for a lot of games besides D&D.

I know an wholeheartedly agree. My post was a reply to someone who considered it a mistake to not make it a 5E game.

These days I don't buy 5E versions of games that actually have their own original system. I got burned out of that habit already in in the 3E/d20 days. Also I play very few D&D 5E itself this days. I am burned out of that editiona while ago and honestly it is a game that while popular is imho not very good. I am at the point where I still will play it from time to but refuse to GM for it. (And I don't want to give WotC my money anymore. But that is not the topic of this discussion)

 

[Zehnseiter]

In other words, I found AIME as poor a fit as MERP was for Middle Earth - but without the excellence as a game MERP had if one ditched the Middle Earth setting.

At least with MERP, if you dropped the Tolkien, you had Rolemaster Lite, not otherwise available at the time. (I'm aware HARP is the newer "lighter sibling of Rolemaster.")

Well while MERP might not have been the best fit out of a rule perspective it still had some very nice sourcebooks for playing in Middle Earth.
And yes it was an is still a very good Rolemaster Light. I still liked it enough to immediately back that "Against the Darkmaster" MERP clone. in the English original and now in the German translation.

An when it comes to The One Ring vs the 5E version ? I would say that recent Moria kickstarter answered that question with hard backer numbers.

 

[DarkCrisis]

If/when I run this it will be set in the world of FF4 or maybe 6.

BTW FF1 is still a great game if you play it in a D&D mind frame.

 

[Superchunk77]

I know an wholeheartedly agree. My post was a reply to someone who considered it a mistake to not make it a 5E game.

These days I don't buy 5E versions of games that actually have their own original system. I got burned out of that habit already in in the 3E/d20 days. Also I play very few D&D 5E itself this days. I am burned out of that editiona while ago and honestly it is a game that while popular is imho not very good. I am at the point where I still will play it from time to but refuse to GM for it. (And I don't want to give WotC my money anymore. But that is not the topic of this discussion)

I think we are two peas in a pod. I'm in the exact same boat as you. I too will not be giving any more money to WotC. I'm running a dark sun 5e game for 3 of my friends currently, but that's the last 5e game I'll be involved in. I've quit two other games as well because I'm just sick of the system. The endless stream of interesting campaign settings popping up on my FB feed is always disappointing because 90% of them are made for 5e. I've got a long list of games that I am willing to run for my friends, ranging from D&D 3.5e, to Pathfinder (1e and 2e), as well as Savage Worlds, Forbidden Lands, Black Sword Hack, Conan 2d20, OSR, EZD6, ICRPG, and my newest acquisition, Crown and Skull.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

I hopped on the free trial pretty recently and it's been a lot of fun. The community is incredibly great; I got lost in a dungeon once and the other folks helped steer me in the right direction to get caught up and didn't yell at me at all and in fact still gave me commendations at the end. It's like bizarro-WoW in that regard.

The class switching is also incredibly fun

I'm waiting for the Xbox port. Which IS confirmed for next year, if that was a major hurdle for anyone.