Writing the first Tales of Fablecraft adventure
đź‘‹ Hello, adventurers!
Before we dive into this week’s update, let’s catch up on a few exciting things that have happened recently! First up, the Demo for Tales of Fablecraft officially released last week. If you have not already, go download that bad boy on Steam!
We’re so excited to finally share what we’ve been working on with all of you. As always, your feedback is invaluable to our team and we’ve already seen some amazing responses flooding in. So, thank you!
[h2]Look mom, we’re on IGN[/h2]
In addition to our Demo drop, we released a brand new Gameplay Overview Video – AND IGN SHARED IT!! We’re beyond thankful to IGN for the coverage. It’s thrilling to see our game out there in the world, especially within the tabletop community. 🎲⚔️
Check out the gameplay explainer, shared by IGN, here.
[h3]30k Wishlists on Steam[/h3]
Aaaaahhh!! Tales of Fablecraft now has over 30,000 Wishlists on Steam!!
This is huge you guys, and it’s all because of your support. Wishlists help indie studios like ours a lot. Your excitement for our virtual tabletop RPG means so much to all of us on the Riftweaver team. 💙🧙‍♂️
[h3]The Road to the Starfall Festival[/h3]
This week we talked to Riftweaver’s Lead Writer, Claire Purcell, about her writing process and the steps to building our starter adventure, The Road to the Starfall Festival.
The YouTube video linked below will provide you with a deep dive into Claire’s process, from Claire herself.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Take a peek behind the curtain as we go over what she had to share with us!
[h3]Starting at the beginning[/h3]
Let's rewind a bit and talk about where it all started – the world of Mythas.
Having a solid grasp on the world setting was key to bringing our adventures to life. We wanted every corner of Mythas to be alive with possibility – from long forgotten Old World Ruins to bustling Coastal towns.
When you understand the world you're playing in, you can create adventures that feel truly authentic and resonate with players on a deeper and more immersive level.
And that’s where our storytelling journey began.
[h3]Making a plan[/h3]
After laying down the worldbuilding groundwork, we created a brief for ourselves to define the player experience that we wanted to deliver. Even if you’re homebrewing, writing a brief for yourself can be a great way to stay focused on the adventure you want to create.
What kind of features did we want this adventure to have? We wanted it to be epic, of course. We wanted players to feel like heroes, embarking on a quest that felt fun and exciting!
Most importantly, we wanted our first adventure to be easy for first-time GMs to run, and to introduce all players to Fablecraft and the world of Mythas.
[h3]Crafting an adventure[/h3]
The Road to the Starfall Festival was designed to be the perfect introductory adventure to Fablecraft!
With a brief in hand, Claire created a detailed outline of each session. Looking back, that outline serves as a great reminder that, sometimes, less is more! While it’s tempting to pack all of your creative ideas into one adventure, for the sake of the players and the GM, it’s better to save some of those gems for later work.
Claire used the outline to create a full first draft of the adventure, which turned into second, third, fourth drafts and beyond! All the while, we iterated and refined our work, playtested the adventure, traded ideas, and gathered feedback, always striving to improve and enhance the experience.
[h3]Putting it all together[/h3]
Once we had our storyline fine-tuned, it was time to bring The Road to the Starfall Festival to life in the game client – and we created our Game Master Guide!
Our UX and Development teams designed and built our very first GMG - and then built a user-friendly GMG Builder so that non-developers (like Claire) could create adventures directly in Unity!
Psst… We hope to eventually make the GMG Builder available to all players for homebrew.
[h3]And voila! An adventure was born[/h3]
The GM Guide makes it super easy to run a Fablecraft adventure, even if you’ve never played a TTRPG before. Check out this deep dive into the Game Master’s Guide in a previous update, if you would like to take a closer look.
Download our newly released demo, and try running a session (or three!) of The Road to the Starfall Festival for your friends.
[h3]Wishlist us on Steam[/h3]
Your continued support makes a huge difference to us indies. Join our party on Discord and Wishlist Tales of Fablecraft on Steam!
Before we dive into this week’s update, let’s catch up on a few exciting things that have happened recently! First up, the Demo for Tales of Fablecraft officially released last week. If you have not already, go download that bad boy on Steam!
We’re so excited to finally share what we’ve been working on with all of you. As always, your feedback is invaluable to our team and we’ve already seen some amazing responses flooding in. So, thank you!
[h2]Look mom, we’re on IGN[/h2]
In addition to our Demo drop, we released a brand new Gameplay Overview Video – AND IGN SHARED IT!! We’re beyond thankful to IGN for the coverage. It’s thrilling to see our game out there in the world, especially within the tabletop community. 🎲⚔️
Check out the gameplay explainer, shared by IGN, here.
[h3]30k Wishlists on Steam[/h3]
Aaaaahhh!! Tales of Fablecraft now has over 30,000 Wishlists on Steam!!
This is huge you guys, and it’s all because of your support. Wishlists help indie studios like ours a lot. Your excitement for our virtual tabletop RPG means so much to all of us on the Riftweaver team. 💙🧙‍♂️
[h3]The Road to the Starfall Festival[/h3]
This week we talked to Riftweaver’s Lead Writer, Claire Purcell, about her writing process and the steps to building our starter adventure, The Road to the Starfall Festival.
The YouTube video linked below will provide you with a deep dive into Claire’s process, from Claire herself.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Take a peek behind the curtain as we go over what she had to share with us!
[h3]Starting at the beginning[/h3]
Let's rewind a bit and talk about where it all started – the world of Mythas.
Having a solid grasp on the world setting was key to bringing our adventures to life. We wanted every corner of Mythas to be alive with possibility – from long forgotten Old World Ruins to bustling Coastal towns.
When you understand the world you're playing in, you can create adventures that feel truly authentic and resonate with players on a deeper and more immersive level.
And that’s where our storytelling journey began.
[h3]Making a plan[/h3]
After laying down the worldbuilding groundwork, we created a brief for ourselves to define the player experience that we wanted to deliver. Even if you’re homebrewing, writing a brief for yourself can be a great way to stay focused on the adventure you want to create.
What kind of features did we want this adventure to have? We wanted it to be epic, of course. We wanted players to feel like heroes, embarking on a quest that felt fun and exciting!
Most importantly, we wanted our first adventure to be easy for first-time GMs to run, and to introduce all players to Fablecraft and the world of Mythas.
[h3]Crafting an adventure[/h3]
The Road to the Starfall Festival was designed to be the perfect introductory adventure to Fablecraft!
With a brief in hand, Claire created a detailed outline of each session. Looking back, that outline serves as a great reminder that, sometimes, less is more! While it’s tempting to pack all of your creative ideas into one adventure, for the sake of the players and the GM, it’s better to save some of those gems for later work.
Claire used the outline to create a full first draft of the adventure, which turned into second, third, fourth drafts and beyond! All the while, we iterated and refined our work, playtested the adventure, traded ideas, and gathered feedback, always striving to improve and enhance the experience.
[h3]Putting it all together[/h3]
Once we had our storyline fine-tuned, it was time to bring The Road to the Starfall Festival to life in the game client – and we created our Game Master Guide!
Our UX and Development teams designed and built our very first GMG - and then built a user-friendly GMG Builder so that non-developers (like Claire) could create adventures directly in Unity!
Psst… We hope to eventually make the GMG Builder available to all players for homebrew.
[h3]And voila! An adventure was born[/h3]
The GM Guide makes it super easy to run a Fablecraft adventure, even if you’ve never played a TTRPG before. Check out this deep dive into the Game Master’s Guide in a previous update, if you would like to take a closer look.
Download our newly released demo, and try running a session (or three!) of The Road to the Starfall Festival for your friends.
[h3]Wishlist us on Steam[/h3]
Your continued support makes a huge difference to us indies. Join our party on Discord and Wishlist Tales of Fablecraft on Steam!
