‘Fablecraft’ is an RPG Meant to Be Played Virtually – A VTTRPG
Indie gaming studio Riftweaver recently announced a new “digital-first” ttrpg Fablecraft. We spoke with them about their upcoming project.
Earlier this week, indie studio Riftweaver announced a new project. A “digital tabletop roleplaying experience” called Fablecraft. Now, that’s a lot of buzzwords for a single thing. But in a nutshell, Fablecraft is both its own RPG system and the virtual tabletop upon which you’re meant to play it.
It’s “digital-first” meaning that the whole thing is designed to be played via an app. A virtual tabletop ecosystem that’s bespoke for the game. Because Riftweaver envisions Fablecraft as both a game and a platform.
An experience that allows them to reach out beyond the normal ttrpg crowd, hoping to draw folks in who are curious about RPGs but who haven’t taken the plunge. We spoke with them about Fablecraft and about their overall goals for the platform/rpg and got to hear firsthand what they’re trying to do.
Fablecraft – A Virtual Tabletop RPG
We spoke with David Hohusen and Andrew Habers, co-founders of Riftweaver, about Fablecraft. Fablecraft started off as a plan to make ttrpgs more accessible. Hohusen explained that one of the best parts of ttrpgs is playing with new players:
“My favorite time to play the game with folks is with new players. I love DMing for new players, they get excited and have this enthusiasm, unlike more experienced folks. A big part of Fablecraft has been about trying to make, not just our game, but the entire genre more accessible to folks.”
Which is why Fablecraft is its own ttrpg system. It’s got its own IP, its own characters. It’s all set in the world of Mythras.
Hohusen explained that the new system involves more than just simple math that’s handled by the digital dice. Though, more on that in just a moment. But what makes Fablecraft appealing, even to veteran players, is the flexibility of its character creation system.
“We have five classes in the game, and we have three ‘combat styles’. The combat styles are your bread and butter: Tank, Dps, and Healer. For example, you could be a Rogue/Healer in our game. Or a Rogue/Tank. And the Rogue element is more about the storytelling aspect of the game: your character is sneaky and good at picking locks.”
All of this is made possible by the custom ecosystem that Riftweaver is working on implementing for the coming game.
Fablecraft’s Virtual Table
One of the big things you’ll see in the trailer is the virtual world. But what you might not realize is that it’s all one app. And it’s one app designed to run on any device. Whether that’s your high-end gaming laptop, or your phone or tablet, and, one of the problems that Habers tackled, is making sure you can switch seamlessly from one to the other.
So when your phone runs out of battery because you can never keep your phone charged about 24%, say, you can pick things up on your laptop, which you never unplug from the wall despite its whole purpose being mobile computing.
But the app also handles integrated video calls, which is extremely difficult, and all of the gruntwork of running the system. The math, the dice rolls, and all of it can be done through the app. So that all you have to do is decide you’re attacking that giant arcane crab, say.
Combat, especially, should be easy to handle. Hohusen and Habers both expressed wanting to take some of the burdens off of the GM. And with the app handling things, combats can get bigger. A fight with fifteen combatants no longer needs to take three+ hours to run through.
Coming to Kickstarter Soon
Of course, all of this isn’t out yet. Fablecraft kicks off with a big Kickstarter campaign coming in May. There you’ll find out all the stretch goals they have in mind. But, one of the big reasons you might want to see this is for the creation tools.
Habers and Hohusen both spoke about Neverwinter Nights as an inspiration:
“Whatever we use, we want you to be able to use. Creating a custom item should be an easy task.”
But because of the unique nature of this system, you’ll also be able to customize animations or other aspects of both the system and app. Which sounds exciting, but challenging to pull off.
You can see it in action in the trailer above. But if you really wanna see what they can do, be sure and check out the Kickstarter when it launches in May.
Fablecraft launches on Kickstarter May 9th
