StoneSable

So. Fabula Ultima is my present TTRPG fixation. It captures the vibes of classic JRPGs incredibly well and is just an all-around good time. You (yes, you!) should go get a few friends together and play Press Start at the first opportunity; it’s a solid one shot that gives you a clear introduction to what the system is trying to do. (For the record: None of this is sponsored. I really just like the game.)

That said, I’m writing this as a companion and introduction to some of the core features of FU and relating them specifically to Dungeons & Dragons. This is pretty simple to do, since FU is an analog simulation that tries to capture the experience of playing classic JRPGs, which are themselves a digital simulation that tried to capture the experience of playing classic RPGs like D&D. They began their own recognizable tradition from there, but even so, that classic D&D DNA remained; which is to say they’re already in conversation, and now translating these mechanics back to be familiar to people who know D&D is a bit like closing a long, meandering loop through time and space.

The Big Picture

Fabula Ultima is a game with easy, lightweight mechanics for general gameplay and exploration, tight tactical combat rules that are dense but also snappy during play, and narrative mechanics that encourage players to influence the story directly. You’re going to be playing a character built around four core stats: Might, Dexterity, Insight, and Willpower, and choosing up to three Classes to start. Rather than discrete skills, you’ll be using your Traits (Identity, Theme, Origin) and Bonds to improve the results of your Checks.

With that bird’s eye view established, lets dive into what that means for a prospective player.

Six Four Core Stats

This is one of the most visible departures FU makes from D&D, but also relatively easy to explain. The familiar six core attributes (Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) have been condensed down to just four: Might, Dexterity, Insight, and Willpower. For the most part thinking of them as combinations of the classic D&D stats works fine:

• Dexterity is just Dexterity. It handles your Defense (AC), accuracy with lighter weapons, and any actions that need agility or finesse.
• Might is a combination of Strength and Constitution. It handles accuracy with heavier weapons, actions that require physical power or endurance, and also determines your HP.
• Insight is a combination of Intelligence and Wisdom. It covers your general ability to perceive and analyze, and your accuracy with spells and some especially precise weapons like daggers and bows. It also determines your Magic Defense, which essentially stands in for your Saving Throws in this system.
• Willpower, finally, is Charisma+. In addition to covering your ability to influence others and socially stand your ground, it is used for the accuracy of spells and also determines your Mind Points (MP), which is a common resource pool for spells and special martial abilities.

The other big difference here is that rather than a score, each core stat is represented by a die. A frail, nimble character might have d6 Might but d10 Dexterity, and so rolls a d10 when asked to roll Dex – when sneaking, for instance.

Wait, No Skills?

Correct, imagined interlocutor! Fabula Ultima doesn’t have a skill list. Instead, every check uses a combination of two Stats that may or may not be adjusted by modifiers. You’re still trying to roll high and beat a certain Difficulty, usually 10.

Let’s take a simple example of trying to get past a locked door to see how that looks in action:

• If you wanted to try to kick the door off of its hinges, that would be Might + Might.
• Attempting to pick the lock could be done with a Dexterity + Dexterity Check.
• Searching for a secret lever or mechanism to open it could be done with Insight + Insight.
• Intimidating a guard to open it for you could be Willpower + Willpower.

Our frail guy above would thus roll 2d6 (Might + Might) if they tried to kick the door down, or 2d10 (Dex + Dex) to pick the lock, trying to meet or beat 10 either way.

You can also mix and match the stats used (and in fact, many Checks will use a combination):

• You could try to sneak past a guard who has opened the door without being noticed by using Dexterity + Insight.
• You could also engage someone in conversation to learn the combination for the lock or the location of a key with Insight + Willpower.
• Or you could attempt to intimidate a guard into opening the door by smashing some furniture in the room, using Willpower + Might.

In all of these cases, you also want to think about your core Traits and how they can help you, which takes the place of skill proficiencies.

Every FU character has an Identity (a core concept like “half-orc barbarian” or “lost princess of a fallen kingdom”), a Theme (the core emotion that motivates your actions, like Duty or Ambition), an Origin (where they came from like “Riverton Palace” or “The Veldt”), along with Bonds to other people or groups that let you influence a roll, letting you do things like:

• Add +2 if one of your Traits would give you an edge.
• Reroll one or both dice if one of your Traits is related to what you’re doing.
• Add the strength of one of your Bonds to the result.

Basically, the best way to be good at something is to play to your character’s narrative strengths; even if they both have a d10 in Dexterity, someone whose Identity is a Thief is going to have an easier time sneaking into a building than someone whose Identity is a Ranger, but the latter will likely have an easier time sneaking past monsters in the wilderness.

Classes – But Wait, Can I Be A Ranger?

Yes! And no!

The other big difference between FU and D&D is how classes and levels work. Every FU “class” is a collection of 5 Skills that you can put one or more Skill Levels into, and every time you level up, you get +1 Skill Level to distribute (more or less) as you please. Every new character starts at level 5, and so you have 5 total points. The other kicker here: you must distribute them in at least 2 different Classes. This means that everyone is sort of a hybrid character, or if you like, everyone has a class and a subclass at the start of the game.

For some D&D classes this is very obvious – if you want to play a Rogue, you probably want the Rogue FU Class, which will give you access to Skills like Dodge to up your light armor Defense and Cheap Shot to do more damage to debuffed enemies. Then from there you can consider what other abilities you want to round that out. Want to be an Assassin that hits as hard as possible? Supplement Rogue with the Weaponmaster Class to improve your melee weapons. Thinking more Arcane Trickster? Entropist gives you access to controlling and tricky magic. This is all available to a starting character.

Ranger, conversely, lacks a one-to-one class here, but instead you can mix and match several Classes to make it work. There’s Wayfarer, which gives you the ability to explore the wilderness more effectively and have a companion pet, and then Weaponmaster or Sharpshooter if you want to specialize into using ranged or melee weapons, and Chimerist if nature magic (of a sort) is your thing.

I have a lot more to say about this in future pieces, but for now you can hopefully start to see how open and flexible this build system is; it’s genuinely well-designed in a way that encourages you to mix and match abilities and find synergies across classes. It’s also very digestible: every classes’ core abilities fits on a single page in the rulebook, with spellcasters and the like getting an extra page or two for their spell lists. Crystools is a fan website that has all of the Open content for the game compiled handily online, including a full list of all of the Classes and their Skills, for those who want to get a taste of what is available.

That Doesn’t Seem Like Enough Spells! And What About Items?

One thing that I really appreciate FU for is how it tries to replace a lot of individual fiddly rules with a flexible system that’s functional in play and works consistently across many different circumstanes. The two biggest examples to my mind are Rituals and Inventory Points.

The spell list is specifically a list of discrete combat spells that are meant to be used during conflicts; things like your Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt. The game encourages you to let players create minor magical effects without needing a specific spell (specifically, one example in the rules is letting a spellcaster conjure a light to follow a fleeing thief), basically covering the minor utility cantrips like Prestidigitation and Druidcraft in one fell swoop.

For more intricate utility spells, the game has a Ritual system that gives players guidelines for magical effects; if you are playing a character with ritual magic and want to discover any hidden magical properties of an object, for instance, you can check the chart and determine that this would be a minor Ritualism effect, requiring 20 MP and a Difficulty 7 Check to do. Everything works like this. In practice, it doesn’t always cover everything, but it gives enough guidance that a spellcasting player and a GM have a strong starting point to determine what the cost of the effect should be.

Consumables are also abstracted; instead of a huge list of items and encumbrance rules that you’re probably ignoring, each character has a limited number of Inventory Points, or IP. You can spend them to retrieve and drink a potion, produce camping gear for a Rest, or have some unusual piece of kit on hand, and then restock your bags by spending money to refresh your IP in town. Other classes have ways to interact with IP too, which makes it feel like part of a greater whole.

What About Combat? And Other Classes? And What Was That About Narrative Influence?

There’s a lot more to say about FU and getting into the mindset of it from the starting point of D&D, and I aim to say it. But these are the key points that relate to making a character and interacting with the system at a high level; between this and a run through of Press Start, you should be able to get a grip on what the game is doing.

Go play it! It slaps.