Fablecraft Wants to Lower the Barrier for Virtual Tabletop Gaming
Fablecraft is a new RPG that will be entirely digital, created within the Steam-native Riftweaver app, and it’s currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, to great success. The co-founders of Fablecraft are David Hohusen (creator of Two Dots) and Andrew Habers, and io9 had a chance to get a hands on look at a beta version of the app.
With beautiful fantasy art and an interesting setup hoping to create an immersive visual roleplaying experience, Fablecraft was a fun, lightweight game that did a lot of the crunchier math behind the scenes, allowing gameplay to move forward easily with the narrative.
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With limited, but streamlined, character creation and an intuitive movement and combat system, Fablecraft is going to be a fantastic option for pick up and play campaigns. While I only got an hour to play, it was a fun adventure, and it’s very direct and easy to understand. Fablecraft as an app might have a lot of potential for expanding into other systems, but right now it is built exclusively for magical fantasy roleplaying in Mythas. io9 spoke to Hohusen via email for a quick interview about the game—check it out below.
Linda Codega, io9: What was the impetus behind creating Fablecraft?
David Hohusen: In some ways, Fablecraft has been a 10 year side quest. I’ve been noodling with a straightforward, low-barrier-to-entry TTRPG with enough depth for longer campaigns. COVID lockdowns revealed to me, my co-founder (Andrew Habers), and Fablecraft’s lead systems designer (Brian Aloisio) the potential of VTTs, and we’ve been going in that direction ever since.
io9: Did you design the game to fit the VTT or vice versa? What was the feedback process between those two elements?
Hohusen: The original conceit was always to marry the design, system, and platform. Having these separate but equally essential elements influence each other has worked out great thus far! Each playtest tends to nudge these parts of the game and the game’s content in the right direction. Kickstarter is building off that momentum! We’re beyond excited for our backers to play in August’s closed beta.
io9: How will Fablecraft encourage or allow homebrew content and campaigns?
Hohusen Fablecraft’s basic homebrew elements feature custom character portraits, music, background art, battlemaps, etc. Our bigger ambition is to release all our in-house development tools to the public. Then, players can make bespoke pieces of content and even entire adventures/campaigns. From there, they can share or sell their work with players on Fablecraft’s marketplace. This inspiration comes from growing up with Blizzard games (Starcraft and Warcraft 3) and being hooked on their brilliant mods.
Fablecraft has raised over 100,000 on Kickstarter and is currently expected to release in early 2024. The closed beta will be available in August.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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