Fablecraft News

Greetings, Mages! 🧙‍♂️

In case you missed it, we released a major update for Fablecraft last week. v0.20.0 rolled out iPad support, launched Once Upon a Wildwood, and introduced oft-requested features like hidden dice rolls and multiplayer safety tools.

Now, we’re ready to reveal one of our next major features. We'll also take a closer look at one of the niftier things we did in our latest campaign. Minor spoiler warning for that section, but we’ll be sure to let you know you’re about to read it.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Let’s begin.

[h2]The request for more lore that’s easier to access, heard[/h2]

The moment we launched Fablecraft into Early Access this past summer, players started asking us questions about the world of Mythas, its inhabitants, and how they exist in the Fablecraft system. Those questions persist, and for good reason!

We worked hard to build this fantastic setting, and we love that our growing community wants to know more about how it all works.

We also know that players want easy access to all of this information. Unlike a typical tabletop RPG, it’s not practical for everything written about Fablecraft to exist in a printed book (although that would be awesome 🤘) or digital PDF. We have those PDFs, by the way. You’ll find them on our GM Resources page, though beware of spoilers.

So, how are we addressing this in the near future? As I type this sentence, we’re building an in-game lore guide. ✨



The guide explores the world of Mythas, its regions, and its inhabitants. Players will be able to access the lore entirely in-game from the moment they start playing, with just a few clicks or taps through the main menu.

Curious about the four Mythan regions? Want to know more about the Pantheon of Mythan Gods? Ever considered the ancient world of Mytharia that existed pre-Shattering? It’s all here.

We’re on pace to deliver this in-game lore soon, and we’ll likely expand it over time as we introduce Mythan narrative. Until then, we’re excited to get this in the hands of players and GMs to help them tell their own tales in Fablecraft.

[h2]We’re experimenting with unique battlemap mechanics, on display in Wildwood[/h2]

Minor spoilers for an early encounter in Once Upon a Wildwood begin here.

Folks who’ve already played our latest adventure, Once Upon a Wildwood, have likely figured this out: we’re designing unique things in the combat scene players encounter in Fablecraft.

Today, we’ll take a look at the first battlemap on display in Wildwood in order to illustrate the types of mechanics we’re toying with right now. In this battle, players face off against the menacing Maulcaps (a sort of bear and mad-mushroom hybrid) in an open clearing teeming with poisonous fog.

Up until this point, battlemaps in Fablecraft haven’t featured hazards that can actually deal damage to players. The poison clouds, as their name implies, actually poison players.



Combine those poison clouds with the Maulcap’s ability kit, and you’ve got a great little meta game for GMs to play with during combat.

What’s in the Maulcap’s ability kit? A few things, but one specific ability is perfect for GMs looking to pull off a combo of pain. It’s the Vine Whip, and it gives the Maulcap the ability to push players into the poison clouds.



We’ll certainly be trying lots of other stuff with future battlemaps, too. What would you like to see?

[h2]Roadmap update arrives in two weeks[/h2]

Finally, before we go, we wanted to take a moment and share two bits of housekeeping information.

First, we won’t be here for Fablecraft Friday next week due to Thanksgiving in the United States.

Second, we’re tweaking our roadmap in response to recent community requests, and we’ll have that ready for you the first Friday in December. We're paying attention to what new and old players are asking for, and we're looking to answer those requests soon.

Until then, we’ll see you in Mythas. If you’re looking for a party, consider hopping into our Discord.

👋

Welcome, Mages, to the next major update to Tales of Fablecraft. 🧙

📢 Fablecraft is now available on iPad, with cross-play and cross-platform support. Get it here.

This is v0.20.0, and it delivers a brand new adventure, features requested by our community, and bug fixes galore. As always, you'll find the complete patch notes at the base of this post. Before we get there, we'll share more about Once Upon a Wildwood.

Want a deeper dive into the marquee features packed into this release? You'll find it in last week's edition of Fablecraft Friday, below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Break the curse. Save the forest. Live happily ever after.[/h2]

When an evil wizard inflicts a curse upon Grimersen Wildwood, it’s up to the party to break the spell. Venture deep into the woods to discover a fairytale like no other, and expect the unexpected in this whimsical-but-deadly adventure!

This adventure is recommended for Level 7 Mages, but encounters can be rebalanced to suit all levels.

Here's what it includes:

• A Game Master Guide that minimizes prep
  
• 8 Animated Environments (1 variant)
  
• 5 Animated Battlemaps (2 variants)
  
• 5 NPCs
  
• 5 Monsters with unique abilities and SFX
  
• 1 Music Track
  
• 1 Soundscape
  
• 1 SFX
  
• 11 Inventory Items
  

Now, how about those patch notes?



[h2]The Complete Tales of Fablecraft v0.20.0 Patch notes[/h2]

[h3]Features[/h3]

• Tales of Fablecraft is now available on the iPad with cross-play and cross-platform support.
  
• Once Upon a Wildwood, our newest premium five-session adventure, is available in the in-game marketplace and on Steam for $19.99. This adventure includes a complete GMG, new battlemaps, new environments, new NPCs, and new baddies complete with their own combat moves and associated VFX.
  
• We’ve added a suite of safety tools to make adventuring in Mythas more inclusive and accommodating. Players can raise a flag for their GMs whenever they are uncomfortable, block and report other players, and toggle custom content on and off.
  
• GMs will find a link to the TTRPG Safety Toolkit on the campaign creation screen, too, which provides a wealth of open-source resources for setting boundaries and expectations for your group.
  
• Hidden Dice Rolls are now available for players and GMs. A GM can opt to roll secretly, and players won’t see results. Players can also opt to roll privately, but their results will be shared only with the GM (of course, the rolling player will see the results, too).
  
• Feel like flexing the rules a bit for your next adventure? Advanced Campaign Settings are here, and this is only the beginning. With the first wave of Advanced Campaign Settings, GMs can make the following tweaks…
  - Determine the amount of Charge lost when a Mage is defeated in combat
  - Determine how much health is gained with Quick Recharge (25%, 50%, or 75%)
  - Determine if only GMs can wake KO’d Mages
  - Determine if Mages can automatically wake after combat is over
  - Determine if Mages must roll with disadvantage when pent
  - Determine if only miscast spells cost Charge
  
• Consumables can now be stacked in your inventory, so you can carry a bunch of health potions while only occupying a single slot.
  
• We’ve added support for listing Fablecraft adventures and content as DLC on Steam. This enables us to bundle goods for discounts and let players buy adventures for their GMs as gifts.
  
• We also updated the GM Guide selector so that it matches the visual style of the marketplace, making it possible for us to add more adventures and simplify browsing.
  
• While Object of My Affection is still a one-shot, we’ve broken the GM Guide down into three sections for easier navigation during play.
  
• Players can now log into Fablecraft with their Apple accounts on PC, Mac, and iPad.
  
• We’ve updated our terms of service to be more creator-friendly and added an acceptance notification when you fire up the game.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• You’ll now keep your dice and token skin selections after you log out and back into a campaign in Fablecraft.
  
• Video settings will also persist when you exit and re-enter a campaign instead of vanishing into the void of Mythas.
  
• Music and soundscapes will no longer suddenly stop when you switch to a custom environment, meaning you can maintain the mood.
  
• We fixed a bug that would clear your opening skill (and cause a bunch of other terrible issues) if you moved your token around and then reverted it to your starting position. Now, your opener will play, and you’ll be able to move freely before locking your destination in with an action.
  
• Dragons finally breathe fire (or gems, or whatever) while facing the correct direction instead of upside down, which was really bizarre.
  
• We fixed a bug that caused the Strained status to behave in unexpected ways.
  
• We also renamed “Shield” across the application to “Block,” clearing up confusion about functionality.
  
• Players who exit and re-enter the combat scene will now automatically regain control of their heroes.
  
• The GM Demo will no longer break because you decided to click on the Campaign Notes tool.
  
• We also fixed bugs that would break the Hero Demo when users dismissed roll requests.
  
• We made a slew of general tweaks and fixes that help game and camera resolutions and FPS.
  
• We’ll now auto-enable stereo sound support for players with multichannel setups.
  
• Also, if users try to use unsupported audio devices, we’ll now send them a notification that they’ll need to switch.
  
• Friend chat messages sent an hour or more apart will now show timestamps.
  
• Finally, we made a bunch of visual and text updates across the board for better clarity and readability.
  

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]

• Custom audio is not currently available for iPad; we're looking to add this in a future update!
  
• Character sheet sub-panels may open empty if entered while a hover tooltip is displaying. If this happens to the GM, they will need to restart Fablecraft. If there are three players, the non-GMs can click on each other's avatar to bypass the issue.
  
• Account deletion doesn't fully update for friends of the deleted account. If this happens, friends may need to remove the account from friends lists and campaigns manually.
  
• GMs cannot consume or delete items on behalf of a hero via their character sheet, but they can pass those items to other players.
  
• Some level-up bonuses aren't fully applying at higher levels (Inventor Level 8 doesn't receive their third Spellcraft die, for example). We're looking to address this quickly with a hotfix.
  
• While suffering from poison, you may see a seemingly random MISCAST animation play. This is a bug! You didn't (necessarily) miscast.
  

Greetings, Mages! 🧙‍♂️ Next week’s update is a big one.

[h3]Tales of Fablecraft v0.20.0 will launch on November 19th, 2024. This update includes the new Once Upon a Wildwood adventure, the iPad version of the game, and a slate of incredible new features.[/h3]

We’ll preview the new adventure and those upcoming features in today’s edition of Fablecraft Friday, and we’ll begin with Once Upon a Wildwood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87INwBs1gGk

[h2]Once Upon a Wildwood is almost here[/h2]

Once Upon a Wildwood is our first full, premium five-session adventure since we launched into Early Access in July. It will officially launch with v0.20.0 here on Steam and in our in-game marketplace for $19.99.



Break the curse. Save the forest. Live happily ever after.

When an evil wizard inflicts a curse upon Grimersen Wildwood, it’s up to the party to break the spell. Expect the unexpected in this whimsical-but-deadly fairytale adventure!

We’ll detail the full slate of what’s included in Once Upon a Wildwood next week upon release, but you can expect a complete, new Game Master Guide, animated environments, animated battlemaps, NPCs, monsters, soundscapes, and music.

[h2]DLC available on Steam? Why?[/h2]

That’s right! We’re placing all of our adventures (for starters) on Steam as purchasable DLC.

[h3]Gifts for your GM[/h3]

From the moment we launched into Early Access, we heard from players that they’d like to buy adventures for their GMs. We don’t have this sort of gifting available in-game right now, but getting the adventures up on Steam makes this possible. Of course, this meant engineering a connection between purchases on the Steam marketplace and our in-game marketplace, but that functionality is going live with v0.20.0.

Gifting adventures will soon be possible with Steam DLC.

[h3]An easy way for us to create bundles and offer discounts[/h3]

And! By making the adventures available as DLC on Steam, we can do some interesting stuff with Bundles. That starts with The Adventure Bundle.



The Adventure Bundle offers an 11% discount on the adventures within. This is a Complete the Set bundle, and that means you’ll be able to get that 11% discount on the adventures inside the bundle regardless of how many you already own.

So, for example, if you already own The House in the Manor, you can snag the rest of the adventures in the bundle and take advantage of that 11% discount as well.

We’ll have bundles in our in-game marketplace, too, but they don’t support the complete the set discount functionality available on Steam yet. We plan to bring that feature to our in-game marketplace, but it will take time.

[h2]Hidden Dice Rolls and Advanced Campaign Settings are coming, too[/h2]

Roughly three weeks ago, we shared that v0.20.0 will include many quality-of-life features in addition to the fresh adventure and iPad support. You can learn about those social and safety features here, in case you missed the post.

Today, we’re announcing two more fresh features coming with this update.

[h3]Roll dice, in secret[/h3]

Sometimes, a GM may want to obscure a dice roll from players. Other times, a GM may want a player to make a roll without the rest of the party seeing the results.

With v0.20.0, we’re introducing the ability to hide dice rolls from players.



This works two ways… The GM can roll in complete secret, and players will simply see that a hidden roll occurred without seeing the result. Or, a player can opt to roll in secret, but only they and the GM will see the roll and results.

Our Mage community requested these hidden rolls on our feedback board, so thank you!

[h3]The beginning of Advanced Campaign Settings[/h3]

One of our goals for Fablecraft is to offer a virtual tabletop system that’s as flexible as possible while remaining user-friendly. That can be a challenge.

With v0.20.0, though, we’re introducing Advanced Campaign Settings that open the door for GM and table-specific tweaks and changes. You’ll find the Advanced Campaign Settings menu in the campaign creation and editing screens.



We’ll add more toggles and selectables to the Advanced Campaign Settings menu as we move through Early Access (like friendly fire, for example!), so consider this the first step in our journey.



That’s it for this week’s edition of Fablecraft Friday! We’ll have in-depth patch notes available with the launch of v0.20.0 on November 19th, 2024, so get ready for those.

Have a question? Want to find your next party? Join our Discord.

We’ll see you next week, Mages!

👋

Hello Fable friends, Ross and Cody here, the composers and sound designers of Tales of Fablecraft. We’ve received a lot of questions about how we make the music, so we thought we’d give you a small behind-the-scenes peek into our world. First, a bit about ourselves…



We’re childhood best friends who grew up playing music together, and both became obsessed with the art of recording music. We founded our custom music agency, Upright T-Rex Music, in 2011 and have composed for commercials, short films, exhibitions, and games like Two Dots, Dots & Co, Wavelength, Specimen, and Google I/O.

Now, let’s take a look at one of our recent tracks, the main song for Once Upon a Wildwood.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here’s the full overview of the track in Ableton Live, our preferred music production software. Each colored bar contains a subgroup composed of many audio tracks, this session has around 130 tracks total.



Here’s what the bass subgroup looks like opened up:



Usually it’s not wise to use that many basses, but we sure do love it.

We use a mixture of real instruments, synthesizers, processed fake instruments, and re-sampling of things we’ve already recorded. We’re always trying to find new ways to make instruments seem less like themselves. The player should feel like the music they’re hearing actually came from another world and era.

One of the most used instruments in Fablecraft is the acoustic guitar. We tend to record a regular acoustic and then layer it with either bass ukulele, tenor guitar, bouzouki, banjolele, or even some mandolin. Combining different acoustic instruments gives it an ambiguous sound, less recognizable than just guitar.



We love synthesizers and use them in everything. They’re often hidden under acoustic instruments, so the song doesn’t feel too “electronic.” Here are a few of our favorite toys:



The tiny Casio keyboard on top of the Mini-Korg is an early consumer sampler meant for kids. It’s great for sound design, or anytime we need a blown-out/lo-fi vibe.



Another obsession is 90s synthesizer rack units (Ross can’t make a track without his trusty JV2080).



One of our most beloved instruments is this 1970s Rhodes electric piano. It uses a real harp inside (just like a piano), but instead of strings, it has small metal rods and is fully electric. Most importantly, it is also Albi’s favorite nap spot.



We love unique sounds that have age and color, so we incorporate vintage effects boxes as much as possible, especially anything that uses tape. Tape echos, spring reverbs, cassette decks, VCRs, you name it.

The gold box here is an early delay unit from 1950s Germany called an Echolette. It’s analog tubes and tape! Below is the last great tape echo ever made: the Roland 501 Space Echo. It has spring reverb and chorus (in stereo!). And above the Echolette is a trusty Memoryman delay pedal, which uses chips instead of tape (but still gets wild).



We’re also huge fans of guitar pedals, and the company Chase Bliss makes the best ones around. We use these on everything!



With percussion, we often record real instruments and then process them for a less recognizable sound. The 1980s MXR pitch shifter rack that allows you to pitch-shift instruments in real-time is a particular favorite.



We play most of the instruments ourselves (well, play them well enough), but for anything extra complicated, we hire outside help. Here’s Ross’s dad recording the bass for the Wildwood track last month:



And here he is working up a part on a Greek bouzouki, a bass mandolin. We love this thing because it sounds so unique.



We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look into how we make the music for Tales of Fablecraft! Now scram, Albi has to get back to work



- R+C

Welcome, Mages! 🧙‍♂️

This Fablecraft Friday is special. We’re here to announce the release dates for the next full Fablecraft adventure and the launch of the iPad version of our TTRPG. Here’s the best news: they’re dropping on the same day.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

So, let’s begin.

[h2]Once Upon a Wildwood and the iPad version of Fablecraft will launch on November 19th, 2024[/h2]

Prepare your parties, Mages! A new adventure and platform are arriving right before the holiday season begins.

Now’s a great time to introduce family and friends to Fablecraft; with a few tablets and laptops, you can easily get a session going in person. Just take care of the ever-changing wildwood.

[h2]What is Once Upon a Wildwood?[/h2]

Once Upon a Wildwood is a fairytale-inspired adventure in a mushroom-corrupted wildwood. Adventurers will scale thorny walls, assist blind mice, kiss slimy frogs, and negotiate with magic doors, all while resisting the effects of The Lull.



Sounds like a thrilling time, doesn’t it? This adventure features beautiful art, battlemaps, monsters, music, and more. It will run the Fablecraft-standard five sessions in length, and it will be available in the in-game marketplace and on Steam as DLC for $19.99 on November 19th, 2024.

We’re working on getting all adventures up on Steam to make them easier to find, purchase, and gift for Steam users, so stay tuned for that as well.

[h2]Prepare for the iPad version of Fablecraft[/h2]

Since Fablecraft’s inception, we’ve been working with multiplatform play in mind. Parties come in all shapes and sizes, and some folks prefer tablets and phones over PCs and laptops (and some prefer plain ol’ pen and paper, which we hope to one day address as well).

On November 19th, 2024, we’ll introduce iPads into the platform mix for Fablecraft.

Fablecraft willl support cross-platform accounts and cross-play functionality. This will remain true for all platforms that play Fablecraft. Some folks will use their tablets and mobile devices for in-person play and keep their remote sessions to their PCs and laptops, and we’re working to make that all as seamless as possible.




Whether you’re dragging and dropping scene changes or taking on a Wildwood Dragon in combat, the touchscreen controls in Fablecraft feel really good. If you own a tablet, we hope you give it a shot. You can pre-register the iPad version of Fablecraft on the App Store now so you’ll be ready for release.

[h2]A quick reminder: grab the Halloween one-shot before it’s gone[/h2]

One last note before we go, Mages. Halloween was yesterday, of course, but you might want to run this spooky one-shot even after all the candy’s been distributed.

Be sure to log in and grab the free Halloween one-shot, A Fright in Fallen Branch before it’s gone for good. We’ll remove the Halloween one-shot from the marketplace with the update that delivers Once Upon a Wildwood. Don’t worry, we won’t be taking it from your libraries if you own it, so get it now.

That’s it for this week’s edition of Fablecraft Friday. Be sure to join our Discord and discover your party for Once Upon a Wildwood.

See you soon!

👋