Hello there, everyone. Mildra here with a bit of an update.

Work on the final PDF has been progressing smoothly, as we're currently working on the final editing pass before sending it off to the graphic design team. I'm not going to promise a hard release date, but we're still shooting for early September as an estimate. I'll also note that we are putting down preliminary plans for a series of tutorial videos, but those will likely not be completed until after the PDF releases as they're not top priority at this time. Best to avoid scope creep after all.

That said, I'd like to talk a bit about the method to our madness regarding what gets put in the book and why. This is slightly inspired by a couple brief-but-energetic discussions in the Final Fantasy Tabletop discord server (which isn't mine, but the owners have granted me a space in). Final Fantasy may have plenty of recurring elements, but those elements may not always be represented in the same way between games. Much of this is due to iteration and experimentation being key to the soul of Final Fantasy, of course, but with a tabletop RPG a foundation has to be established. This results in two sets of needs that have to be satisfied as best as we can.

To that end, once we established our primary pillars to build around, we looked through as many Final Fantasy entries that we could to see what would be worth drawing from, based on several criteria:

1. Is it too setting-specific? Some abilities, jobs, etc. only appeared once, or are intrinsically linked to a given setting to fit the setting agnostic goal that we have. In the same vein, it has to be able to be interpreted in multiple subgenres. After all, Legend Edition is intended to be as viable in a more futuristic setting as it is a high fantasy setting.

For example, early in development we had a Puppetmaster job, drawing upon the job of the same name from FFXI, however we quickly realized that any of the niches it could fulfill was already fulfilled by other jobs, so it didn't have a strong enough place. Conversely, there are jobs that have only appeared once, but have a strong concept that could be utilized in numerous ways. An example of this is the Ravager, which is heavily inspired by the Paradigm Pack of the same name in FFXIII, but is built more on the idea of chaining spells than replicating them completely. In a manner of speaking, you could say that general beats specific in this one-occasion.

2. How can we focus it As mentioned before, abilities in the videogames can vary wildly depending on the context of the game they're in. What we'd aim to do is not combine all those interpretations, but to create a common thread that is more on theme than effect, while acknowledging that there are some aspects that are just incompatible with tabletop games in general or this game specifically. To that end, getting the feel of a given item is more important than replicating its appearance in one or two games. Some weapons like Ultima Weapon have had many forms and effects over the years, for instance. In a situation like that, it's best to provide a baseline that could be adjusted easily as opposed to taking a version we happen to like. This is meant to be a game drawing from the totality of Final Fantasy, not just the games we happen to like (even if we like alot of them).

It's important to remember that Legend Edition aims to not only be able to replicate what already exists in the franchise, but allow for journeys off the beaten path into directions the series hasn't accounted for (or us, for that matter). As people get more comfortable with the system, there's a nonzero chance that some of them will wanna do campaigns in subgenres that the videogames have not touched, or other console-style RPGs like Suikoden. That kind of homebrewing is inevitable, but at the very least I can work to make it easier to do so they're not flying completely blind.

Some of you reading this no doubt already have some ideas on what you wanna do with the system. I don't wanna get in the way of that creativity.

Stay Frosty!

-M