I think that if you can abstract the combat, a vital part of the game, that you could abstract wealth, too. FF was never about having enough Gil. Didn't have enough? Don't progress the story until you do. Thus, I'd make a point of checking out the Wealth system from d20 Modern.
It sure is possible. However, I found in the playtests that I did that people really love the feel of massive piles of gil, and the system of adding and subtracting numbers made it feel something like a "high score," which helps encourage the video-game style. Finding a chest with 100,000 gil in it feels different then finding a chest with a +2 wealth bonus in it, after all.
I'm generally using the 1 gil = 1 gp standard, and everything that costs less is simply abstracted (infinite backpacks, no need for "pocket control" like there is in D&D, no encumbrance).
The biggest difference is that whole "assumed wealth per level" chart. Because the things that most PC's spend wealth on (save bonuses, skill bonuses, ability bonuses, armor bonuses, weapon bonuses) are rolled into the job system in FFZ, this presents a few new issues. Namely, what do FFZ characters spend gil on? And how do these things make you more powerful, without being the things that give you simple bonuses?
In the games, wealth is spent on consumable items (potions, antidotes, phoenix downs), knowledge (teaching you abilities and magic), upgraded equipment (better armor and weapons in each town!), and accessories (which are basically bonuses that you can mix and match).
In FFZ, the last two are (generally speaking) part of your job. Your defense increases, your damage increases, your attack bonus increases, and your resistance increases as you gain levels. In standard d20, knowledge is part of normal advancement, too (while nothing else is, really) -- you don't need to spend gold to go from
Cure Light Wounds to
Cure Moderate Wounds.
Effectively, it's reconciling two different measures of character power. In D&D, if you spend 100,000 GP, you may get a helmet that lets you read minds. In FFZ, if you spend 100,000 gil, you might learn how to Auto-Regen. In D&D, you get class powers and spend gold for magic on top of that. In FFZ, you spend gold to get class powers (which reflects the games, in which you must visit magic shops, and buy weapons and armor that teach powers). In D&D, treasure may be a legendary artifact. In FFZ, treasure comes in the form of a legendary character who joins your party.
How much is a character like Orlandou "worth" in D&D terms? What about the Mimic job? Or the HP-Stroll ability? A hidden summon? Can you translate FF AP into D&D GP?
Most of my work right now is figuring that out. I think I'm leaning towards a "DM fiat" kind of wealth system, where the PC's have options of getting these powers, these characters, these "ultimate weapons," and their cost in gil or otherwise is largely put in the DM's hand. The DM's guide gives these powers, and advice on what level to do it at, and it's up to the DMs to make sure their PC's can afford it (or not), since treasure is ultimately entirely in the DM's hand.
Will races be predefined, or will you have something to create them as needed?
There will be PLENTY of predefined races, however, the things that go hand-in-hand with races are extremely easy to customize.
In FFZ, one of your souces for Limit Breaks is your race. Races also give you ability and skill modifiers. There's some racial-specific treasure/powers. And that's about it. There's no size modifiers (at least, not in any core race). There's no "quadruped vs. biped" consideration. There's no creature type consideration (all races are considered to be "humanoid," even if they're half-esper or genetic mutant or robotic cat riding a giant moogle). There are optional rules for limiting classes by race, but the racial-specific treasure/powers really take care of most of that (so that a hume ninja and a moogle ninja and a robot ninja all feel like different kinds of ninja, despite having very similar skills).
The inspiration for this was definately the abstract FF system of combat, where the major difference between a yeti and a whatever-the-heck-Gogo-is and a moogle could be expressed in the jobs they had and a handful of ability scores. Where an Ancient played almost exactly like a robot cat on a giant stuffed moogle.
So, as the preview shows, I go into nearly every FF race ever as examples. However, that's more to show off the diversity of the limit system and the remarkable similarity between the races. There's no "racial design system," but with only four or five things to decide on when you bring in the race, there doesn't really need to be. There's just a whole bunch of examples.
Ever since the warlock came out, showing how spell-like abilities work and can be balanced, I've always thought it a possible method of Blue magic. Have you been utilizing the new rules that WotC has been releasing, and have you incorporated any OGL material in your game?
I've been "borrowing liberally."
While the warlock never specifically influenced anything, I do owe a debt to Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, and more than a little to Bruce Cordell and the Expanded Psionics Handbook, especially for showing me variant magical systems. I don't remember specifically where it was from, but one of the early super hero supplements (maybe Four Colors to Fantasy?) gave me the idea for translating GP into raw powers. I've also drawn some ideas from Unearthed Arcana (the WotC release) on how to keep the various goings-on balanced with core D&D.
There's definately more third-party-thought than WotC-thought in FFZ. While not intentional, that just reflects that third parties like re-inventing the wheel, and ultimately, FFZ is a re-invention of the wheel itself.
Surprisingly enough, Elements of Magic (which went so far as to refer to its mages with colors) specifically did not help me in this project at all.
Mostly that's because their magic system is based on flexibility and verstility, whereas FF magic pretty much only does one thing, typically only related to combat.
As far as blue magic, specifically...well, in FFZ, the monsters obey the EXACT same rules as the PC's. Which means that a monster's "racial job" works just like a PC's job. What this means for blue magic is that they're basically learning another job's abilities (and they work very similar to a mimic in this fashion), specifically, they're learning the monster job's abilities. Because most job abilities in FFZ cost MP, translating them into blue magic is surprisingly simple. It merely becomes a matter of developing a "goblin job," complete with
goblin punch.
In FFZ, there is no big difference between spells and spell-like abilities (specifically, all spells are pretty much spell-like abilities -- components are for suckas). Class abilities have descriptors and schools. But the magic system has been simplified, too, to less reflect "little old men who sit in towers and never leave and learn ancient secrets" and to more reflect "little old men who sit in towers and learn ancient secrets that they then use to blow stuff up" as it is shown in the games.
Simplification has been huge in FFZ. Part of the feel I'm trying to achieve is to make the gameplay as easy as pushing buttons and getting results, freeing the players to think of story and character more than is usually even possible in normal D&D. If you have a four hour session, and the minis combat takes an hour, that's an hour not spent really developing story that much...and if your character could not be present for the three other hours because he died in the first, it steers the focus toward combat. Combat is an essential part of FFZ, but it is, at it's most abstract, a plot device. More commonly in FFZ, it will be a turning point, a bridge, an event of note...it is entirely possible to never have any campaign-reseting TPK's in FFZ. In fact, you'd have to try pretty hard (and reject optional rules like the Save Point) to make one. The game is in the shared crafting of the story and in the random chance of accomplishing goals. FFZ is designed to be a game where even failure adds to the fun, rather than bringing it to a screeching halt.
I switched into a bit of gushing, there, but I hope I answered the Q's.
Any others?
