Fablecraft News

Welcome back to Fablecraft Friday, Mages! 🧙‍♂️ It's our first post in 2025.

Happy New Year!

In this week's video and blog, we're showcasing the upcoming update we are working on for homebrew Battlemaps.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Let's begin.

[h2]The next iteration of homebrew Battlemaps[/h2]

Last month, we released a major update for Fablecraft that included many new tools and features for homebrew, lore, and more. One of those features was the first version of Homebrew Battlemaps.

In the first version—that's still what's currently available today—GMs can upload static or animated battlemaps, indicate their grid count, and give them a name and description.

With the next major update due later this month, GMs will be able to use a painting tool to indicate traversable and non-traversable map spaces. Check it out in the video above or GIF form below.



It's worth noting that while we have this up and working in an in-development version of Fablecraft right now, it still requires some polish and bug testing that could influence its final form. It's not guaranteed that what you've seen here will match the version that ships later in January.

[h2]January's update features more, too[/h2]

We're working on more for January, though we're not quite ready to showcase it just yet. What can we share, though?

You can expect some additional homebrew Battlemap tools alongside improvements to the game for text-only players and, perhaps, some super fun emoji-based features that should make roleplay and interaction while not speaking that much nicer.

We're excited for you to get your hands on this stuff, so let us know what you think!



That's it for this week's edition of Fablecraft Friday. Next week, we'll look at some of the aforementioned emoji-based features.

Until then, pop into our Discord and find your next party for a fresh adventure in Mythas.

See you next week, Mages!

Welcome, Mages 🧙‍♂️, to the newest version of Fablecraft. This is v0.21.0, and it's a milestone update that delivers several key features, quality-of-life improvements, and bugfixes.

As always, you'll find the complete patch notes below, but we wanted to offer up a quick TL;DR for folks who want the highlights all by themselves.



[h2]What key features are new in v0.21.0? ✨[/h2]

[h3]Homebrew Battlemaps[/h3]

You can now upload custom battlemaps. You can define their grid count, give them a name and a description, and upload both static and animated versions.

This is the first phase of feature rollout for Homebrew Battlemaps. Soon, you'll be able to upload variants and paint traversable terrain.

[h3]NPC Copy & Customize[/h3]

The first wave of homebrew NPC creation arrives with NPC Copy & Customize. Open the Characters panel in the side tray, right-click on a friend or foe, select Copy & Customize and you'll use the move kit of the selected NPC to build your own monster, pet, or friend.

[h3]The Nice Dice Campaign Setting[/h3]

Fablecraft's standard dice are random. But, the way that actual randmoness works may not feel super great during combat or roleplay. True randomness comes with streaks. If you flip a penny 100 times, you'll likely see a 50/50 split of heads versus tails. However, you may have streaks where you get 10 heads in a row. Fablecraft's standard dice are no different, and those streaks feel really bad when you constantly miss in battle.

Give the Nice Dice campaign setting a shot! The dice are still random, but they respond dynamically to streaks. Build a streak of misses, and Nice Dice will increase the likelihood of a hit until the streak is over. The dice are still random, but they have a sort of mathematical weight to them to make the moment-to-moment play feel more natural and less... cursed.

Let us know what you think! You'll find the option in the campaign settings menu.






[h3]Features[/h3]

• NPC Copy & Customize has arrived! Right-click on any character in the Characters panel on your sidetray, select Copy & Customize, and start building your catalog of foes and friends (and neutrals?).
  
• Homebrew Battlemaps are here, too. Although this is the first version with some limitations that we’ll address in January, you’ll be able to upload both static and animated battlemaps. We’ve worked hard on the user experience with this one, so let us know if you find Homebrew Battlemaps tough to use.
  
• Fancy some Mythan Knowledge? The in-game lore guide is officially available from the main menu, complete with popouts and information structure that make reading and navigation easy.
  
• The Nice Dice Campaign Settings toggle is now available. What is Nice Dice? Fablecraft’s dice are truly random, but streaks of misses can feel really bad. With Nice Dice turned on, you reduce streakiness to make the game feel a bit more naturally random. If you roll 1,000 times, you’ll have the same likelihood of success and failure with Nice Dice both on and off; all Nice Dice does is reduce the likelihood of streaks. Give it a shot!
  
• GMs can now change the Combat Levels for friend and foe NPCs, affecting their HP, Power, Dice Count, Sparks, and Speed. Level 9 baddies are tough, consider that a warning.
  
• GMs can even change these levels during combat! This makes it possible to adjust battle difficulty on the fly.
  
• We added support for animated homebrew environment scenes.
  
• We’ve added the tech for in-game discounts! It’s true! We actually needed to develop the tech to put our adventures on sale. If you’re reading these patch notes on or near the day the patch released, you’ll likely find a 20% off sale happening in the game for the holidays.
  
• Speaking of holidays, we’ve updated the main menu background to feature Flint in a Santa hat. We call him “Flintmas” internally, and now you can too.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• We’ve added a message to the Closed Beta version of Fablecraft that tells players it’s over, no longer accessible, and that they can find Fablecraft in the full Early Access version on Steam.
  
• We fixed the Message of the Day on the main menu so that it actually displays the correct amount of dots relative to how many messages there are.
  
• We’ve added a button that lets GMs restore Advanced Campaign Settings to their default states.
  
• When the jukebox is paused, switching audio output devices no longer instantly resumes audio tracks. It’ll wait for you to hit play.
  
• We fixed some bugs that caused problems with leveling for the Inventor Class.
  
• We fixed the ability tooltips to show correct numbers derived from statuses, which involved lots of math.
  
• Power Breach now only applies Speed -1. We promise.
  
• Shield Bash now casts correctly.
  
• The Illusion Hound, Precarious Bookpiles, and Clockwork Custodian have been updated to provide better encounter balance and experience.
  
• GMs can now pull killed Mage tokens back out of their sidetray without them completely disappearing.
  
• We performed lots of small polish in the GM Demo, Combat Arena, GM Guide, and Homebrew upload flows.
  

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]

• If the GM is in File Explorer while selecting homebrew assets, dice rolls and other actions will pause and queue until the GM returns to the game.
  
• iPad video uploads will need to be accessible through File Picker - you may need to Share > Save to Files to access them if they are in your Photo Album only.
  
• Homebrew environment and battlemap videos can take up to 90 seconds to load. Players (non-GMs) may see a white or black screen while video is loading.
  
• Battlemaps must have a grid size minimum of 10x10 and maximum of 64x64.
  
• Battlemaps do not support variants yet.
  
• Battlemap camera zoom is limited. We're working towards zooming further back for larger battlemaps.
  
• Dragging battlemaps around stutters a bit for some users.
  
• Full Recharge doesn't work properly in battlemaps if hero levels were altered.
  
• The Game Log in older campaigns may be wiped during sessions.
  
• The Game Log sometimes shows a rogue name as you scroll backwards in time.
  
• Lore Guide and GM Guide tooltips are sometimes unresponsive for Steam users. Players can simply mouse to the far left-hand side of the screen and then mouse over the text to reveal the tooltip.
  
• Windows users may not be heard for the first 3-5 seconds after their mic is turned on. This issue resolves itself at that time.
  
• Older campaigns with lots of activity may receive an Error Syncing Campaign popup, which renders the campaign unplayable. We ask users who experience this to not delete their campaigns and message our team on Discord or via email right away.
  

Well met, Mages! 🧙‍♂️

We can officially announce that we plan to launch the next major update to Tales of Fablecraft (v0.21.0) next week. This update includes some key features that folks have been clamoring for.

Today, we’ll talk about three big features making their way into our virtual tabletop RPG: Homebrew Battlemaps, NPC Copy & Customize, and our Nice Dice campaign settings toggle.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Let’s begin.

[h2]An important note: Consider these features as entering Version 1[/h2]

One of the more ambitious goals we have for Fablecraft is to support homebrew everything, from top to bottom, with a user experience that’s simplified, intuitive, and attractive. That means design, development, and rollout take a little extra time as we polish the user experience to the best of our ability.

What you’re getting next week from our homebrew tools are early iterations. If you have thoughts, concerns, or general feedback, share them on our Discord or our feedback site. We’ll be improving these features over time.

[h3]NPC Copy & Customize[/h3]

The first stage in homebrew NPCs arrives with NPC Copy & Customize. We’re working to make this super approachable for budding and veteran GMs.

Hop into a campaign, open the characters panel, and right-click a friend or foe NPC. Select Copy & Customize, and you’ll be able to give them a name, portrait, description, token size, and more. You’ll even be able to set their level, which beefs up stats like health and damage.



Note: This is a work in progress screenshot. It could change!

You’re essentially copying their ability kits, so doing this to a Highland Dragon, for example, will mean the resulting NPC has the Highland Dragon’s move set.

[h3]Homebrew Battlemaps[/h3]

Homebrew Battlemaps arrive next week, too. Remember, this is the first version of Homebrew Battlemaps, and we’ll be implementing improvements on this system quickly.

If you’ve uploaded a custom environment, then Homebrew Battlemaps will function similarly.



Open the scenes panel and add your map. You can set names, descriptions, and tile counts, but this first iteration does not include map variants or the ability to paint traversable terrain. Both features are coming super soon, though, so stay tuned.

[h3]Finally, Nice Dice[/h3]

“What the heck are Nice Dice?” Fair question.

Despite what you or your party may believe, Fablecraft’s dice are truly random. With random odds, though, streaks happen. And nothing feels good about a streak of failures; they can slow down the combat pace significantly and even put GMs in an awkward position.

We’re adding a campaign setting toggle for Nice Dice to address this. Here’s how that works.

Right now, Fablecraft’s dice are truly random. When you roll them, you get an unweighted, random result every time. That means you’re just as likely to roll a failure as a success each time you toss the dice.

The Nice Dice setting makes Fablecraft’s dice roll pseudorandomly. With this optional campaign setting toggled on, you’re less likely to see a streak of missed rolls. The dice are still random, but they’re weighted to feel more intuitively random. The goal here is that you’ll be a lot less likely to run into a streak of sadness and stalled battles as every player misses their swings.

Give it a shot! Like we said, it’s totally optional… but it may stop your players from screaming foul, which is worth it.



That’s it for this week’s update. We’ll drop the new version of Fablecraft next week, and you can expect our typical patch notes on launch day.

Get ready!

Greetings, Mages! 🧙‍♂️

The end of 2024 is nearly upon us, and now we set our sights on the future. Today, we’re ready to reveal the most recent changes to our living – we’ll talk more about that in a second – Fablecraft development roadmap. Keep in mind this development roadmap represents the next 6-ish months, and it isn’t inclusive of all our plans.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Let’s begin.

[h2]Quickly, what do we mean by a ‘living’ roadmap?[/h2]

Our roadmap is living because we’re an Early Access game made by a small team with an active community. Most of the changes to the roadmap we’re sharing today come from requests and discussions with our community members, so we try to be upfront about exactly how much we intend for our roadmap to change.

It will likely change again, too! We have to continuously shift our focus to meet the needs of our players while also completing the vision we have set for Fablecraft. We appreciate your help and understanding in this process.

So, thank you!





[h2]What’s new?[/h2]

In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll share as much as we can about each of the entries on our roadmap here on our dev blogs and on our Discord. For instance, next week, we’ll discuss the Nice Dice campaign settings toggle and our homebrew battlemaps.

For now, we’ll share the items that we’ve added.

• Nice Dice campaign settings toggle
  
• Multiplayer matchmaking parts 1 & 2 – Yep, we’re splitting this feature up.
  
• Text-only session improvements – We know lots of folks only want to use text to chat, so we’re working on improvements to that experience.
  
• Daily single-player content
  
• Subscription support – We are working on a subscription system to give GMs and players good stuff while offsetting server costs and getting more support to make Fablecraft the best it can be.
  
• Single-player rewards
  

[h2]What did we remove or split up?[/h2]

So, what was pulled or changed up? Only two things, essentially.

[h3]GM Heroes in the sidetray, which was a stopgap[/h3]

When Fablecraft launched this past summer, we immediately heard that players wanted us to prioritize homebrew NPCs. Our initial thought was to let GMs create their own Mages and then add them to campaigns as NPCs.

This was always a half-step move that we planned to patch out with better homebrew, and that better homebrew is closer than we thought it would be. With NPC Copy & Customize dropping later this month (!), we don’t need the GM Heroes in the sidetray functionality. The NPC Copy & Customize feature is much better suited to what GMs want.

[h3]Android mobile and tablet are now independent of iOS development[/h3]

Getting Fablecraft up and running on the iPad with cross-play between PCs and Macs was challenging, but it’s now live! You could probably guess this, but it’s much easier for our team to continue down the iOS development path from iPad to iPhone than switching to a different platform entirely.

So, we’ve decided to finish our iOS port work and get Fablecraft on iPhones before shifting over to Android tablets and, later, Android phones. This decision, while delaying the Android launches, will speed up our overall development process significantly.



That’s it for this week’s update and the roadmap reveal!

Looking for your next adventure? Join our Discord. We’ll see you there!

Greetings, Mages! 🧙 We just pushed a hotfix, bringing Fablecraft to v0.20.3.

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• We performed lots of polish on Once Upon a Wildwood, including combat VFX updates and bug fixes.
  
• We also tweaked language across store pages, demos, and campaign menus for clarity.
  
• The new campaign creation button now sits at the end of the campaign menu instead of the front, making hopping into existing campaigns much easier.
  
• We also fixed a bug that caused soundscapes to continue playing even after players left to the home screen.
  
• Players will now see roll requests from GMs even when they are viewing character sheets! Hooray!
  
• Level-ups now grant full HP and full Charge. Resting through growth, who knew?
  
• We fixed a bug that would cause the inventory panel to show up completely blank.
  
• We also fixed a bug that would label inventory items with incorrect rarity values. Sometimes a normal Bubble Frog really is just a normal Bubble Frog.
  
• We’ve also made it so you can preview custom Jukebox uploads.
  

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]

• If a player switches audio output while music is paused, the music will start playing through the new output device. This only happens on the Steam version.
  
• Kai and Cali sometimes switch places in the Arena Demo. We haven't figured out why this happens yet… we think they’re haunted.
  
• The Precarious Bookpiles tooltip reads six damage, but they actually deal 13. Be prepared when in battle!
  
• Total damage in tooltips doesn't always reflect actual total damage thanks to hero levels and talent bonuses.
  
• Account deletion doesn't fully update for friends of the deleted account. Friends may need to manually remove the account from friend lists and campaigns.
  
• GMs cannot consume or delete items on behalf of a hero via their character sheet, but they can pass those items on to other players.
  
• If an item appears in several places throughout a GMG, it will appear "handed out" in all locations after the first handout.
  
• Some level-up bonuses aren't fully applying at higher levels (Inventor Level 8 doesn't receive their third Spellcraft die, for example).
  
• Game Log data does not always save from session to session.
  
• If a music track is selected in the Jukebox, it will persist when changing in and out of battlemaps. The track persists until an environment with another music default is selected or the GM selects another track (which will persist again).
  
• Power Breach caps the Elementalist’s movement to 1, regardless of speed without it equipped.
  
• GMG hover text may not consistently appear. One workaround is to click into another tab on the sidetray and then click back to the GMG.
  
• While in the Story Scene, staged character tokens show a remove button for all players, but they can only be removed by the GM. In the demos, these cannot be removed at all.