I've played Fabula Ultima, and something you failed to mention about Fabula Points, and it's something that's both pretty important to the system, and my favorite part of the system, is that it allows the players to wrest narative control over some aspect of the story from the GM. Like, it's not complete control, the GM obviously gets the final say, but you're still able to change some aspect of the world in some way retroactively, which is really neat in my opinion. Example: In my FIRST GAME with the system, I was playing as a traveling scholar looking to sneak in and change this town's water crystal in a small way for my secret order. The GM opens the scene, stating that there's a storm on its way, and I immediately used my fabula point right there to retcon the story that my order was at fault for the storm. We diverted it towards the city as a distraction so I could sneak in... And the GM rolled with it, because it was really neat.
@@mojpiesto Mind if I ask why thats such a dealbreaker? I can very much understand it being such because the fabula point system does take some getting used to having played in it myself. Granted if you don't want to thats fine as well.
To explain it another way: You know those moments that inevitably happen in just about every TTRPG, where you 're like "hey, I'm gonna do something cool/risky/daring/etc., can I get a bonus on my roll for it?" and you have to argue with your DM over whether or not you deserve that bonus to the roll? Fabula Points are pretty much a resource you spend to do that without there needing to be an argument over it. It's your "I'm gonna have my moment in the spotlight" resource. Villains have their own version, called Ultima Points, that let them do... well, villain things, like escaping from defeat or capture, or transforming into a more powerful form. It really adds to the JRPG feeling of it all. In general, the game encourages GMs to work together with the players on worldbuilding, and even recommends asking each player to suggest something about the current narrative or plot development when you get to a new area. There's a lot of emphasis on the players and GM working together to make the whole experience better.
@@Nidrog I prefer when a gm has control over the world. If players can just change things on the fly like that it ruins my immersion as a player and as a gm, because it calls attention to the artificiality of the world
Technically you are Not allowed to Change anything that was already stated, you can only add more Details to it. As with the example of the storm, nothing was retconned her, the Player Just have an explanation for the existence of the storm. Giving your Players narrative Impact does so many good Things, it lessens the burden on the GM, it gets the Players more invested. Btw in Fabula Ultima you build the world together in Session Zero, which gets your Players even more invested in the world, something I would even recommend in other systems.@@mojpiesto
The idea of inventory points is to reduce bloat. Basically: Basic adventuring items (like torches and personal items) are free, we don't need to write them down. Stuff that actually effects your numbers, like potions, cost points. Its very streamlined. 👍
Yeah the example of a screwdriver or "mundane items" costing inventory points was odd. IP doesn't recharge very easily, so you still need to be smart about how you use them
I was in a somewhat similar boat. I was watching some dnd videos recently and randomly got reminded about Puffin recently and wondered if I accidentally unsubscribed. Nah. Just busy with schooling. An unfortunate yet common and understandable explanation.
Small Corrections / Big Addendums I'd love to mention, because FabU is my favorite system and this feels like an (unintentional) misrepresentation; Your stats do increase! At level 20 and level 40, you can choose to increase one stat by one die size up to a max of d12. Fabula Points (as rerolls) are not strictly limited just to "this is essential to my character's backstory;" they are tied to your Theme (Duty, Vengeance, Mercy, etc,) your Identity (Wayward Knight of the Marching Mountains, Exiled Princess of an Ancient Kingdom, Lightning Mage Prodigy,) and your Origin (literally where you're from.) You are allowed to reroll one or both dice in a roll by spending a Fabula Point and telling your GM how it relates to one of these three things. It should be noted that this is a system steeped in abstraction; it encourages these moments and it doesn't have to be as game-pace-breaking as the example provided in the video. It could be "my character's identity as the Dark Knight means I'm well versed in swordplay," or "My theme of Belonging means I don't want to let my allies down!" Direct quote from the game's creator - "... if the actions the character takes usually fit with their rerolls, it means they wrote their traits well and are playing into them! It's a good thing. You can easily spot when the action is going sideways by people being unable to invoke traits." But perhaps the most important thing to clarify here is the real strength of Fabula Points is they allow players to change the narrative in drastic ways! The player spends a Fabula Point and says something like "My estranged brother is present at this auction" or "We discover a travelling merchant;" "The emperor is secretly my father!" Suddenly, those things are true! (You need consent from other PCs if it affects them and the GM always has final say, but you're encouraged to lean into what is presented as a GM.) They are meant to replicate the big dramatic plot twists of JRPGs, and are crucial to the experience of the game! Other things not mentioned that are worth consideration for anyone interested in FabU: - Fabula Points are awarded in droves. You are encouraged to spend them, and your XP progression is directly tied to this. Meaning more dramatic stories lend themselves to faster progression! - Villains! What a huge touchstone to not be represented in this video. Just as heroes have Fabula Points, Villains represent crucial, plot relevant (and often character-relevant) antagonists who have Ultima Points. While they can't necessarily use them to change the narrative quite as drastically, so long as they have one Ultima Point available they can always use it for the classic dramatic getaway! That's right, prospective GMs tired of your bosses being oneshot, you can mechanically say "nuh uh" as they hop off the edge of the airship and onto the back of a dragon! Again, think big, dramatic JRPG plot twists. But what if they're out of Ultima Points? Well, then they either resign and revoke their evil ways... or they escalate, doubling down and becoming more powerful than ever before! - Customization. This game has so many optional rules designed to modify or enhance the core mechanics of the game and allows you to fully customize the game to your party's preferences. You can tailor it to pretty accurately represent the mechanics of almost any modern or classic JRPG! This is not hyperbole. - Depth of Character. This game's not actually that light... there are 28 classes, each with 5 different skils to master. The synergies are equal parts obvious and sly, and players have loads of wonderful options to choose from! Not to mention some of those skills also offer choices within choices! (See: Chanter, Dancer, Symbolist, any Spellcaster...) Not to mention, when you gain 10 levels in a class, you get access to a powerful Heroic Skill! (Plus, each new class awards a static bonus of +5 HP/MP or +2 IP, so you do have growth beyond just what Puffin mentioned!) - Consequence. This is a game of choice and consequence, and the simplest example is what happens when a PC is reduced to 0 HP. They make a choice; is this a Surrender, or a Sacrifice? If they Surrender... did they lose something important? Did they get captured? Was the village they were trying to protect burned down? Surrender does not mean your character retires; in fact, they may find even more meaning in moving forward with the weight of their failures. Sacrifice on the other hand represents an unwavering resolve, a final act of heroic glory. Sacrifice means PC retirement, permanently. There is no coming back from it... and as such, there is seemingly no limit on what a Sacrifice can accomplish. Of course, there are requirements to be met before Sacrifice becomes a viable option, and as always, you work with your GM to go overboard but not too overboard... but I've never had a player come anywhere close to too far across my 3 games. - Collaboration. The world is built from the ground up with players. What is its shape, its size? What are the Kingdoms, what do they represent, and how are they interlinked? Faith? Governments? Geography? What about the Villains of this world? The Threats known and invisible, the Mysteries that lie under the surface? It doesn't stop there, however. Visiting the region your player built? Ask them to describe the market square! Does a player have a close connection to wildlife due to their class or backstory? Let them be the expert as they guide the party through the woods, surveying the wildlife in details of their own creation. Defeat an enemy? You tell me what happens to them. Not to mention Fabula Points, the aforementioned customization of optional rules, item design... you get the point. Collaboration is the HEART of the game and I'm sad it wasn't mentioned more significantly here. - "Simple combat." One action a turn isn't a fair representation of the depth of combat that's available in this game. Ever played Magic: the Gathering? The depth of Fabula's action economy comes in an abundance of triggered options, with triggers ranging from your enemy missing a strike to you taking a specific action, to caring about a status condition being applied, and so on. One action can actually mean five different things, and that's just on your turn! There's also initiative manipulation, playing around enemy attack patterns, interacting with clocks in combat, learning the new rules of any given boss fight on the fly. The GM is encouraged to challenge "play patterns" (doing the same thing every round over and over) and design conflicts with the party in mind. FabU has, obviously, won my love. With the wrong group, the game falls flat, but with the right people, it glimmers brighter than any other tabletop I've ever played. If you like collaborative, character-driven, dramatic narratives with handtailored conflicts, thematically resonant locations and villains, seemingly infinite customization and immense, immediate consequences for your choices... look no further than FabU.
Thank you so much for this comment. While I don't think Ben was necessarily trying to make Fabula Ultima look bad, he did gloss over a lot of what makes it great and ended up giving the impression that it's a shallow game just because of the way combat works.
@@TheHellspawnHero And the combat isn't even that shallow! It seems like it's not the game for his group, and that's totally fine! But the misrepresented rules, the glossed over details, to an audience of 800k? It has an impact, and the game's already pretty niche... I'd like the impact to be more positive, haha. Or, rather, to avoid my own bias, more accurate.
@@mojpiesto the two things that caught my eye were. I don't think fabula points are that common, I've rarely seen someone with more than the one they get for starting a session without one. And the second was, while yes there are a lot of classes, that doesn't make the characters and combat not simplistic (which isn't even a negative depending on the player) since I feel most classes only have about 1 skill that does something that really changes your playstyle. Which isn't something you're getting a lot of since you can only ever have 3 unmastered classes at a time.
That tends to happen when you come first. My boomer parents were playing 1st edition d&d and I'm in my mid 30s. People forget how long things have existed.
I'm so glad more people are trying out Fabula Ultima! It's such a fun rules light system that feels similar to Japanese TTRPGs like Ryuutama and Sword World.
As someone who has actively switched from 5e and pathfinder to this, purely because i love world building and LORE building? This game is 120% recommended
@@chaosspork You build your own world and lore together with the players. GM still does a lot of the work but during world creation (Yes that's a step) Each player should add some things to the world typically things they might be interested in~ A really neat way to sneakily have the players be invested!
@chaosspork Sessions Zero is building the world together as a group, than you Pick your party theme, and than comes character creation. The collabarative world building really gets the Players invested in the world and story
@@Nidrog yeah it’s really cool! Even if I don’t use stuff like that a lot, I think it’s a super neat way of collaborative worldbuilding that gives the players a sense of ownership. It’s just one of the many awesome tools FU has.
You forgot to mention the most unique mechanic that honestly really brought my attention to the game. There is actually a world building mechanic that involves the players so that the players can have a vested interest in the main plot and will know things that are actually common knowledge to their characters. Idk having the players actually have some input into the setting they will be playing in for god knows how long helps with player fatigue in my opinion.
played it a bit, some extra ups and downs I would add : + the system let's you make a lot of wacky combos with your classes + the inventory point system feels really liberating + The Fabula points can also be used to alter the story slightly like "actually the bandits did leave my weapon in the tent next to where they held me prisoner" or stuff like that which can be quite nice to justify plot armor in a legit way + the one level/ one ability system allowa tons of varied combinaisons, which makes character feel very unique + the dual stats roll system is very convenient for improvising checks based on the DM opinion - a very weird basic roll system that assume a DC 10 is a basic difficulty, when 10 is the average you would get with your maximum possible stat until level 20, meaning that on average you are bounded to fail a lot of checks unless the DM gives you group bonuses of some sort, I would recommend treating 7 or 8 as the average DC instead to work around that - if your DM isn't holding back encounters can get very deadly very fast - if someone in the party gets into minmaxing you might quickly get an huuuuge power gap because some class combos are just objectively way better than others - no real bonus for skills outside of stats, meaning that unless your class specifically provide it (which is rare) you won't really be better at anything, like the thief will be just as good as lockpicking as the warrior if they both have 10 dexterity, which may bother some players like me who enjoys when the rp is reflected in the gameplay and vice versa - some singular skills feel way overtuned, like the extra book class pilote seems quite broken, and the guardian dual shield ability seems to be basically a must have as dual shield quickly become objectively better than any other weapons So in a nutshell a cool little game for simple fun but if you want to make big campaigns with players who are into character building it might get into issues
Fabula Ultima is a very, very fun experience if you lean into the absurdities of JRPGs in both setting and characters. I've been in a campaign in it for a bit over a year now we're just now approaching level 50 (the level cap). You do eventually have your 4 main stats go up, getting to increase one at lvl 20 and 40 iirc. Our party consists of, from most to least normal for a JRPG party: A sneaky rogue tied to a criminal syndicate, a robot who is a literal tank who fights with two shields and only knows the word protect, an anthro cat chef that fires deadly candy out of her gunblade(the gourmet class is very fun to play if a bit resource tracking heavy) and smacking things with colossal spectral cat paws(reskinned Comet capstone spell), and a cyborg fae scientist who rides around on a flying motorcycle ether 1)capturing enemies for experiments, 2)eating/absorbing energy fields larger than her head, or 3)actively destabilizing economies as a self proclaimed "ecoterrorist". Our Dm has matched our party's craziness at every turn with his setting and that's where the system shines. You could also feasibly run a less grandiose setting mimicking something like Earthbound as well in this system, it's that versatile.
I want to see a sourcebook for playing games set in the modern world, to be honest! A bit more support so I can stage the best game that's half Persona 2 and half Earthbound is all I'm asking for!!!!!
I have a campaign going for Fabula Ultima, my players really enjoy it, though one thing if you plan to run it is to be a bit careful with balancing, cause bosses tend to be very HP fat. During our test games my players were complaining how long it took to kill enemies so I had to half their HP and up their abilities and other traits to retain their threat. In terms of gameplay though, it is a very wonderful and simple recreation of the feel of those classic JRPGs where everyone lines up and you abstract combat. Just you the players describe the action being mechanically abstracted. Also one of the best GM sections I've ever seen in a TTRPG ever. Not only does it describe how to run the game, it even gives you advice about how to maximize each class, so the players feel like their choices for their character are relevant. As an example, it expressly says if a player is an elementalist, you should have enemies with a variety of elemental weaknesses so their diversity in spell damage types feels like more then just picking the biggest number.
On that last bit, I agree with. So a bit of context is my players come from 10-20 years of DND 3.5/PF1e experience. They are used to the paradigm of just attacking in combat and doing damage. So naturally in Fabula Ultima this makes combat take longer. They never really use the study action, and so there have been a combat or two that took a bit longer, because the Monster they fighting had a weakness to the damage spell that the Mage/Healer had. When he finally attacked it on his turn with said spell he realized it did a lot more damage than just attacks and the check was easier. Next I introduced an opponent who resisted that spell. Again, no PC used Study, he casts the spell. He notices that the damage was cut in half because of a resistance. Well they had enough EXP to level up after the session, and so he took a second attack spell with a different element.
Honestly, me and my D&D group have been playing Fabula Ultima for a few months now. And it's been a very fun time. One of its major benefits we've found, is that it really allows for narrative flexibility on both player and DM sides. From things like Surrender, to clocks, and your background, they all allow for the story aspect of TTRPGs to really come to life through the characters. For example, I play as what essentially is a Summoner, and I merge with the Draconic Spirits of the land. This gave the DM ammo to make the villains' goals, player goals, and abilities for me to use in a mechanical sense. One of the problems we've had has been balance in combat encounters, though that's mainly due to how unique the system is. It's kind of light on numbers, but not as light as say the Fate System. But we've managed to still make memorable and enjoyable encounters. So yeah, I recommend people try it out, it's a lot of fun, 8.5 out of 10 IMO.
This is something I had to point out more than a couple of times to my players that they can decide a lot with narrative. Such as deciding whether to be present in a scene. What they say, and reveal about the world with their character and their origin. Fabula Points to introduce things, rather than just being a combat or a check currency. It's been breaking that 3.x/PF1e mindset where the DM does most the legwork, and the party interacts with what the DM set up. I have had two potential mini-bosses resolved peacefully with a check from the party's healer. Which I enjoy because violence isn't always a solution to a problem.
I was giving your videos some annual rewatches and decided to check if anything new was posted, and I saw this vid, posted half an hour ago. Good to see you back!
that 2 attributes thing is great and an idea I'm using in a system I'm making with a friend, like surgery requires some amount of fine motor control in the form of agility along side your learning and the relevant skill, whilst first aid requires charm with learning since you need to understand your patient, treat their shock and keep them calm.
I've not run a game in it as of yet but I do love the book itself with all of its pixelart art style on the items etc, definitely leans so hard into that older JRPG aesthetic
I like the idea of mixed dice rolls for checks! It makes sense that multiple stats might be necessary for an action and does a lot to expand the variety of checks without making character sheets become a huge list of numbers. I could even see something like this being picked up by a clever homebrew playgroup for more mainstream TTRPGs.
The simplicity, the class system, and the mechanics encouraging roleplay quickly threw this into the position of my favorite ttrpg of all time, combined with me already being a massive Final Fantasy fan. We have a Final Fantasy campaign going for a little over a year now and it’s been the favorite campaign of both me and my players. I highly reccomend everyone check it out.
So cool to see you return with a game I literally just started playing! Fabula Ultima is my first long running campaign it has been a blast, especially with some of the playtest content adding a lot more stuff for down time and epic combat moments. My one critique as a player is that the game really encourages players to construct the world and narrative moments with the GM, even by forcing plot twists with Fabula Points, but I feel like that can ruin the GM’s flow. Although this is a personal thing as my GM has made no complaints so far with the mechanic.
If you're looking for "Races" in Fabula Ultima, the High Fantasy atlas & Techno Fantasy atlas books add a system called "Quirks" which gives each character something special and unique about them. While there are a few that are race or species oriented such as Flight or Elemental Soul, there's also background based ones such as starting with an airship or having a rival, etc. They're pretty neat.
Honestly that system of translating four key stats into 16 different ability roles is really ingenious. Also glad to see an upload from you puffin. I'm here to watch whatever content you make for the foreseeable future so I'm glad you're able to make these once or twice a year rather than trying to do regular uploads during school years and getting burnt out.
THis feels like the best gateway RPG I can imagine; giving the fantasy vibe without overwhelming anyone who hasn't used general RPG systems before. I'd love to use this as a pick up style game at my local game shop. :)
I really like that idea of adding different base attributes. Like it’s always sort of bothered me in DnD that archery is just dexterity, when you’d need strength to pull the arrow back.
I was just checking the channel thinking it'd been a while since I last saw a video. Couldn't have been timed better. Definitely an interesting system, might fit in with some lighter groups or as an off-night campaign system. I'll have to look into it more
Thanks for the intro to something I hadn't heard of yet! I checked out the publishers' website and found they have a free pdf available called "Press Start" that has an introductory scenario, four pregenerated characters and the "Load Game" pdf, as well. Looks like a great way to poke your nose in if Puffin's description interests you
So happy to see you back. And I'm glad you're trying out new systems. I liked Fabula Ultima, but definitely didn't love it. I found it hard to use battlemaps in the FabU system which I really like in my TTRPG system. The character creation was also overwhelming. But I gave it a solid 8 months and it was decent, but I'm personally fallen in love with Daggerheart which has very similar systems but more narrative focused with interactive combat.
Currently in a game of this and I am highly enjoying it. It's got just enough crunch to keep my mind happy, with all the class matching and such, but you can get thru so much with just how the game flows. Good theater of the mind gameplay, smooth transition between roleplay and battle. 4 hours of game we got thru 5 combats and multiple roleplay bits.
I got to try this for free RPG day, and I have to say, I absolutely fell in love with the system. That might be because it was introduced really well with easy to learn instructions. Each block is locked until the next scene, so you're never overwhelmed with information. It might be that it was a small, 2-3 hour session for each game, so I got everything from that game. But I'm hoping one of my friends will run it someday soon so I can really understand if I do love it or not.
From the way you described Fabula’s main resolution mechanic, it sounds like you might want to check out Ryuutama. Although it might be even more-so too simple for your players (as you said at the end of the vid).
I super appreciate you talking about systems like this! This one genuinely seems like something I would look further into myself and your take on it not being crunchy is helpful because I won't broach the subject with certain groups because of it, ha!
Ooo, Ben _and_ he's covering Fabula Ultima! I know he likes Final Fantasy, so odds-are dis 'gon be _guuuud!_ Plus, it'll give me a more in-depth look at the system that our group's GM _still ain't ran for us,_ despite _promising to last year!_ (yes, I'm a little bitter.)
Nice to see you again! Ran a one-shot for this game. Really wanted to like it, building your own class from all the options is fun! Didn’t like how the dice worked, didn’t like how combat worked, really didn’t like how inventory worked. Kind of a shame really
A few good option in terms of TTRPGs that feel like Anime one should look at "Shinobigami", "Tenra Bansho Zero" and "Ryuutama". They feel very Anime-like without being tied to any one Anime specifically. They use rules that emulate Animetropes really well and present interesting settings. If one is looking for that stuff, give it a try.
Nice to see someone remember Anima. I worked with Cipher Studios back when they produced the Anima Tactics line, and still have a nice stack of all that stuff lying around.
Sounds like it's definitely worth a try. I'm a pretty big fan of four-ability systems. Also, glad you're back and doing well! Always great to hear Puffin calls from the Forest.
My group once tried to play Anima, and went through character creation and then ended up going insane trying to figure out what "Raza" was on the character sheet. It wasn't anywhere in the game... Only to find out because it was a spanish RPG, it just meant race and that part hadn't been translated.
I've been running Fabula UItima for the past few months and my group has been having a blast. "Not too referential." For the most part, but I just got my hands on the Techno Fantasy splatbook which introduces an alternative character advancement in which your three starting classes are all you get innately, never taking classes as you level outside of that. But you get access to Technospheres which is straight up just Materia. You slot it, get access to new things, the technospheres level and they can be traded around the party as they wish. The High Fantasy book also introduces Zero Powers which are Limit Breaks and they're a very neat mechanic to add in and spice things up. They kinda work similarly to FFX where each character can have a different trigger to make their LB clock tick up, along side any damage they take.
Nice video! About the system itself, Fabula looks really interesting to me because I like simpler systems where you don't have to worry so much about... *stuff* (especially when you're always the DM because no matter what group you play with and how many people you meet who want to play and how long you've been playing with them no one ever wants to try DMing ever... hypothetically). However, my players like the crunchier systems because it's easier to precisely keep track of what does what and who can do this action and what that will specifically affect. I understand that viewpoint but unfortunately, I think that means I'll end up passing on this. Anyway, good luck with school and I'm glad to see you again!
But Fabula is way more crunchy than He says it is. Or at least it is as crunchy as your group wants it to be, with over 20 classes to choose from, several optional Bonus Rules you can add for extra Crunch and an Initiative system that Changes the way Combat works compared to F20
If you want races to have a mechanical component you could use quirks, an optional rule introduced in the High Fantasy Atlas. They don’t specifically mention being a different race, other than the flight and robot quirks, but saying your quirk comes from your race is a much better explanation than the suggestion given in the in the Core Rulebook where you explain that some of your class skills are from your character’s race.
One thing I like a lot about the system is that instead of HP and stat bloat, as you said, you're instead on a slow, linear incline of stats, but your arsenal of skills and abilities instead increase as you take more levels in more classes. Character power and system mastery is expressed by how you choose to expand your arsenal by picking abilities that synergize and enhance a particular playstyle. My character is a healing/support character who wields guns, but all of my Sharpshooter levels are invested in skills that let me debuff enemies and cancel their attacks rather than dealing raw damage, which my character is not good at.
Simple systems can really be refreshing at times, and they let you explore a lot more roleplay. As long as they got some roleplay hooks going for them, they can be a lot of fun.
I got a chance to try this at a game convention. LOTS of fun, but yes, very rules light. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I definitely see it as more of a palette cleanser type game to take a much needed break from much crunchier games. Also good for that, the wonderful 2 page game 'Cracker Barrel has Fallen". Good to see you back Puffin!
Glad to see you making new videos! And I'm glad, too, that you know about Anima Beyond Fantasy and are interested in jprgs. From my experience, Anima is a great and very, VERY complete JRPG tabletop game!
I love simple systems, both because I'm a writer so my focus is always on the story itself and less on the mechanics of how it happens, and because I always run games in my own setting, so the more room for homebrew, the better. I don't really have any experience with JRPGs, but I still might check out this system; it sounds right up my alley.
I like the concept of the willpower stat, even before any mechanics its a word that makes you want to take the stat "I want my character to have high willpower!" its much more alluring than having high wisdom or charisma
Hey! Glad to see a new video from you! I hope schooling is going well for you. Fabula Ultima sounds like a pretty cool game, really. But something you definitely want to watch where you abbreviate it. "Hey, me and the crew were thinking it's a good night for FU. Wanna join?" Take care of yourself, Ben. I hope to see a new video from you again soon.
I have been working on my own TTRPGs on and off for many years. My main one is a Wuxia system that breaks down combat into moment by moment combat, and after a while I realised that it is basically semi replicating the ATB system from final fantasy purely by coincidence.
My group has been playing fabula for maybe a year now, with two games on the go, and I have to say I really like it! One game is a classic "explore, fight, and find the crystals" and the other is an ancient Mesoamerican adventure. One of the big things I love which you didn't mention is the collaborative story and worldbuilding! Before the game starts, the players and DM are lead through a process to make the world and set the tone together, even seeding the main plot of the game's story-- and that's been really fun for us to get everyone on board for the adventure. The multi-class system and identity/theme system also allows for some pretty flexible character-building, without the baggage of prebuilt-class-lore that D&D sometimes has, with Warlocks and Paladins and such. It's also just fun to make a character and world that are fundamentally cartoonish and "emotional", if that makes sense. Soft magic system, you know. The choose-your-own initiative has led to some slowness for us, but the turns themselves are quick and snappy, so it's no huge timedrag. ("who's next?" *pause* "Can I go? Or does someone else want to?" *pause* "okay I'm going to go if that's okay." *pause*. This took us a while to shake off lol) We still haven't used our FP for any huge character moments, just because I don't think any of us want to be disruptive-- that said, our DMs are ready for it. It's just something you gotta warm up to, if you're not used to it. I imagine the level-ups will get boring at the medium-level stage, and then interesting again once you can start taking 4th and 5th classes/Heroic skills. All in all, I think Fabula is great for a really creative group. It can be very whimsical and imaginative, if you bring that into it.
FYI, your stats do improve. At level 20 and level 40, "choose one of your Attributes and increase its base die size by one step, up to a maximum of d12." pg 227 core book. It happens only twice, but it does happen
Fun Fact: "Fabula Ultima" is a Latin phrase that means "Last Story," or translated more poetically, "Final Fantasy."
thats actually really clever
So Aesops Fables literally just means Aesops Stories
@@erikjohnson7141I mean yes, but also “fable” is a word in the English language and a synonym of “story”
Literally outwardly said “hey! I havent seen him in a while!”
Good to see ya buddy!
I was thinking yesterday about his old videos and was wondering when he would come back lol
Trying to cross the border, right?
I said “what the hell???? Puffin is that you???” Out loud at a family gathering and everyone looked at me weird.
I went "ayyyy it's puffin forest! Wait... was that the right name? What corner of my brain did I pull that out of?"
He has returned to us!!!
As was foretold in the legends of old!
After so many months!
I thought he was coming back last month BUT IT WAS A DECEPTION!!! 😅
@@Bigfeats1337We all rolled Nat 1 on Insight. 😂
Bless all Gods; our Faith is not in vain!
I've played Fabula Ultima, and something you failed to mention about Fabula Points, and it's something that's both pretty important to the system, and my favorite part of the system, is that it allows the players to wrest narative control over some aspect of the story from the GM. Like, it's not complete control, the GM obviously gets the final say, but you're still able to change some aspect of the world in some way retroactively, which is really neat in my opinion.
Example: In my FIRST GAME with the system, I was playing as a traveling scholar looking to sneak in and change this town's water crystal in a small way for my secret order. The GM opens the scene, stating that there's a storm on its way, and I immediately used my fabula point right there to retcon the story that my order was at fault for the storm. We diverted it towards the city as a distraction so I could sneak in... And the GM rolled with it, because it was really neat.
Ok thanks for telling us that, that makes it an absolute dealbreaker, I am not gonna play this game now
@@mojpiesto Mind if I ask why thats such a dealbreaker? I can very much understand it being such because the fabula point system does take some getting used to having played in it myself. Granted if you don't want to thats fine as well.
To explain it another way: You know those moments that inevitably happen in just about every TTRPG, where you 're like "hey, I'm gonna do something cool/risky/daring/etc., can I get a bonus on my roll for it?" and you have to argue with your DM over whether or not you deserve that bonus to the roll? Fabula Points are pretty much a resource you spend to do that without there needing to be an argument over it. It's your "I'm gonna have my moment in the spotlight" resource. Villains have their own version, called Ultima Points, that let them do... well, villain things, like escaping from defeat or capture, or transforming into a more powerful form. It really adds to the JRPG feeling of it all.
In general, the game encourages GMs to work together with the players on worldbuilding, and even recommends asking each player to suggest something about the current narrative or plot development when you get to a new area. There's a lot of emphasis on the players and GM working together to make the whole experience better.
@@Nidrog I prefer when a gm has control over the world. If players can just change things on the fly like that it ruins my immersion as a player and as a gm, because it calls attention to the artificiality of the world
Technically you are Not allowed to Change anything that was already stated, you can only add more Details to it. As with the example of the storm, nothing was retconned her, the Player Just have an explanation for the existence of the storm. Giving your Players narrative Impact does so many good Things, it lessens the burden on the GM, it gets the Players more invested. Btw in Fabula Ultima you build the world together in Session Zero, which gets your Players even more invested in the world, something I would even recommend in other systems.@@mojpiesto
The idea of inventory points is to reduce bloat. Basically: Basic adventuring items (like torches and personal items) are free, we don't need to write them down. Stuff that actually effects your numbers, like potions, cost points. Its very streamlined. 👍
Yeah the example of a screwdriver or "mundane items" costing inventory points was odd. IP doesn't recharge very easily, so you still need to be smart about how you use them
I literally thought today." Geez I miss puffin." This is the second time this has happened when I've thought that this month.
I was in a somewhat similar boat. I was watching some dnd videos recently and randomly got reminded about Puffin recently and wondered if I accidentally unsubscribed.
Nah. Just busy with schooling. An unfortunate yet common and understandable explanation.
Well do it more.
So awesome seeing you cover this game. Been playing it with my friends and we love it.
I'm a teddy bear in a mechsuit named "Rumpkin Pu de bar"
I got to throw the teddy bear at an enemy once! Much fun was had ^^ -Krystover Obbin
Small Corrections / Big Addendums I'd love to mention, because FabU is my favorite system and this feels like an (unintentional) misrepresentation;
Your stats do increase! At level 20 and level 40, you can choose to increase one stat by one die size up to a max of d12.
Fabula Points (as rerolls) are not strictly limited just to "this is essential to my character's backstory;" they are tied to your Theme (Duty, Vengeance, Mercy, etc,) your Identity (Wayward Knight of the Marching Mountains, Exiled Princess of an Ancient Kingdom, Lightning Mage Prodigy,) and your Origin (literally where you're from.) You are allowed to reroll one or both dice in a roll by spending a Fabula Point and telling your GM how it relates to one of these three things. It should be noted that this is a system steeped in abstraction; it encourages these moments and it doesn't have to be as game-pace-breaking as the example provided in the video.
It could be "my character's identity as the Dark Knight means I'm well versed in swordplay," or "My theme of Belonging means I don't want to let my allies down!"
Direct quote from the game's creator - "... if the actions the character takes usually fit with their rerolls, it means they wrote their traits well and are playing into them! It's a good thing. You can easily spot when the action is going sideways by people being unable to invoke traits."
But perhaps the most important thing to clarify here is the real strength of Fabula Points is they allow players to change the narrative in drastic ways! The player spends a Fabula Point and says something like "My estranged brother is present at this auction" or "We discover a travelling merchant;" "The emperor is secretly my father!"
Suddenly, those things are true! (You need consent from other PCs if it affects them and the GM always has final say, but you're encouraged to lean into what is presented as a GM.)
They are meant to replicate the big dramatic plot twists of JRPGs, and are crucial to the experience of the game!
Other things not mentioned that are worth consideration for anyone interested in FabU:
- Fabula Points are awarded in droves. You are encouraged to spend them, and your XP progression is directly tied to this. Meaning more dramatic stories lend themselves to faster progression!
- Villains! What a huge touchstone to not be represented in this video. Just as heroes have Fabula Points, Villains represent crucial, plot relevant (and often character-relevant) antagonists who have Ultima Points. While they can't necessarily use them to change the narrative quite as drastically, so long as they have one Ultima Point available they can always use it for the classic dramatic getaway! That's right, prospective GMs tired of your bosses being oneshot, you can mechanically say "nuh uh" as they hop off the edge of the airship and onto the back of a dragon! Again, think big, dramatic JRPG plot twists. But what if they're out of Ultima Points? Well, then they either resign and revoke their evil ways... or they escalate, doubling down and becoming more powerful than ever before!
- Customization. This game has so many optional rules designed to modify or enhance the core mechanics of the game and allows you to fully customize the game to your party's preferences. You can tailor it to pretty accurately represent the mechanics of almost any modern or classic JRPG! This is not hyperbole.
- Depth of Character. This game's not actually that light... there are 28 classes, each with 5 different skils to master. The synergies are equal parts obvious and sly, and players have loads of wonderful options to choose from! Not to mention some of those skills also offer choices within choices! (See: Chanter, Dancer, Symbolist, any Spellcaster...) Not to mention, when you gain 10 levels in a class, you get access to a powerful Heroic Skill! (Plus, each new class awards a static bonus of +5 HP/MP or +2 IP, so you do have growth beyond just what Puffin mentioned!)
- Consequence. This is a game of choice and consequence, and the simplest example is what happens when a PC is reduced to 0 HP. They make a choice; is this a Surrender, or a Sacrifice? If they Surrender... did they lose something important? Did they get captured? Was the village they were trying to protect burned down? Surrender does not mean your character retires; in fact, they may find even more meaning in moving forward with the weight of their failures. Sacrifice on the other hand represents an unwavering resolve, a final act of heroic glory. Sacrifice means PC retirement, permanently. There is no coming back from it... and as such, there is seemingly no limit on what a Sacrifice can accomplish. Of course, there are requirements to be met before Sacrifice becomes a viable option, and as always, you work with your GM to go overboard but not too overboard... but I've never had a player come anywhere close to too far across my 3 games.
- Collaboration. The world is built from the ground up with players. What is its shape, its size? What are the Kingdoms, what do they represent, and how are they interlinked? Faith? Governments? Geography? What about the Villains of this world? The Threats known and invisible, the Mysteries that lie under the surface? It doesn't stop there, however. Visiting the region your player built? Ask them to describe the market square! Does a player have a close connection to wildlife due to their class or backstory? Let them be the expert as they guide the party through the woods, surveying the wildlife in details of their own creation. Defeat an enemy? You tell me what happens to them. Not to mention Fabula Points, the aforementioned customization of optional rules, item design... you get the point. Collaboration is the HEART of the game and I'm sad it wasn't mentioned more significantly here.
- "Simple combat." One action a turn isn't a fair representation of the depth of combat that's available in this game. Ever played Magic: the Gathering? The depth of Fabula's action economy comes in an abundance of triggered options, with triggers ranging from your enemy missing a strike to you taking a specific action, to caring about a status condition being applied, and so on. One action can actually mean five different things, and that's just on your turn! There's also initiative manipulation, playing around enemy attack patterns, interacting with clocks in combat, learning the new rules of any given boss fight on the fly. The GM is encouraged to challenge "play patterns" (doing the same thing every round over and over) and design conflicts with the party in mind.
FabU has, obviously, won my love. With the wrong group, the game falls flat, but with the right people, it glimmers brighter than any other tabletop I've ever played.
If you like collaborative, character-driven, dramatic narratives with handtailored conflicts, thematically resonant locations and villains, seemingly infinite customization and immense, immediate consequences for your choices... look no further than FabU.
Thank you so much for this comment. While I don't think Ben was necessarily trying to make Fabula Ultima look bad, he did gloss over a lot of what makes it great and ended up giving the impression that it's a shallow game just because of the way combat works.
@@TheHellspawnHero And the combat isn't even that shallow! It seems like it's not the game for his group, and that's totally fine! But the misrepresented rules, the glossed over details, to an audience of 800k? It has an impact, and the game's already pretty niche... I'd like the impact to be more positive, haha. Or, rather, to avoid my own bias, more accurate.
I've been playing the game, i think there are some strong exaggerations in this comment.
@@EasilyBoredGamercan you elaborate and give examples?
@@mojpiesto the two things that caught my eye were. I don't think fabula points are that common, I've rarely seen someone with more than the one they get for starting a session without one.
And the second was, while yes there are a lot of classes, that doesn't make the characters and combat not simplistic (which isn't even a negative depending on the player) since I feel most classes only have about 1 skill that does something that really changes your playstyle. Which isn't something you're getting a lot of since you can only ever have 3 unmastered classes at a time.
I do find it amazing how so many RPG games trace lineage through Dnd, Wizardry, and Ultima.
I'm pretty sure the Ultima in Fabula Ultima is a reference to the Final Fantasy spell and not the Ultima games.
@@CitanulsPumpkin
"Fabula" translates to "Fantasy"
"Ultima" translates to "Final"
...do the math
That tends to happen when you come first. My boomer parents were playing 1st edition d&d and I'm in my mid 30s. People forget how long things have existed.
Fabula is awesome system for more narrative/roleplay heavy groups. And the tools that let you build your whole new world as a group are super useful.
Thanks for showing this tabletop to more people, it looks very interesting and I hope my group will be willing to try it out.
I love the little puffin crab.
When the world needed him most...
*HE RETURNS*
I absolutely love this game. It’s simple and easy to pick up but got enough depth to keep things varied.
I'm so glad more people are trying out Fabula Ultima! It's such a fun rules light system that feels similar to Japanese TTRPGs like Ryuutama and Sword World.
Ryuutama needs more love
Was about to comment that the dice/stat system seems similar to Ryuutama
@@derultimativenachahmer74 It really does.
@niman2476 That was the same thing I thought! Only difference is that there's no d4 dice for stats. D6 is lowest.
As someone who has actively switched from 5e and pathfinder to this, purely because i love world building and LORE building? This game is 120% recommended
Interesting. So, is it the game's lore that you like, or are you building your own lore?
@@chaossporkit’s kind of a collaborative thing: the player can introduce lore and story elements through the mechanics
@@chaosspork You build your own world and lore together with the players. GM still does a lot of the work but during world creation (Yes that's a step) Each player should add some things to the world typically things they might be interested in~ A really neat way to sneakily have the players be invested!
@chaosspork Sessions Zero is building the world together as a group, than you Pick your party theme, and than comes character creation. The collabarative world building really gets the Players invested in the world and story
@@Nidrog yeah it’s really cool! Even if I don’t use stuff like that a lot, I think it’s a super neat way of collaborative worldbuilding that gives the players a sense of ownership. It’s just one of the many awesome tools FU has.
You forgot to mention the most unique mechanic that honestly really brought my attention to the game. There is actually a world building mechanic that involves the players so that the players can have a vested interest in the main plot and will know things that are actually common knowledge to their characters. Idk having the players actually have some input into the setting they will be playing in for god knows how long helps with player fatigue in my opinion.
Yeah I really wish that was mentioned. It's one of the coolest parts.
YOU'RE BACK!!! We missed you!
It's been 84 years...
Sure sure, now just hand over the rock and nobody gets hurt. 😂
Neeear, faaar. Wherever you aaare...
Somebody must have frozen his channel in time to keep it good forever.
@@masiethespiral ayyyy, the reference!
@@laziwastaken yeah I saw the pfp and was like "ISAT Spotted"
I’m glad you discovered a rules light game for once. Opens the world up
These videos where he just discusses an rpg or group of rpgs are always so nice
"Somehow, Puffintine returned."
played it a bit, some extra ups and downs I would add :
+ the system let's you make a lot of wacky combos with your classes
+ the inventory point system feels really liberating
+ The Fabula points can also be used to alter the story slightly like "actually the bandits did leave my weapon in the tent next to where they held me prisoner" or stuff like that which can be quite nice to justify plot armor in a legit way
+ the one level/ one ability system allowa tons of varied combinaisons, which makes character feel very unique
+ the dual stats roll system is very convenient for improvising checks based on the DM opinion
- a very weird basic roll system that assume a DC 10 is a basic difficulty, when 10 is the average you would get with your maximum possible stat until level 20, meaning that on average you are bounded to fail a lot of checks unless the DM gives you group bonuses of some sort, I would recommend treating 7 or 8 as the average DC instead to work around that
- if your DM isn't holding back encounters can get very deadly very fast
- if someone in the party gets into minmaxing you might quickly get an huuuuge power gap because some class combos are just objectively way better than others
- no real bonus for skills outside of stats, meaning that unless your class specifically provide it (which is rare) you won't really be better at anything, like the thief will be just as good as lockpicking as the warrior if they both have 10 dexterity, which may bother some players like me who enjoys when the rp is reflected in the gameplay and vice versa
- some singular skills feel way overtuned, like the extra book class pilote seems quite broken, and the guardian dual shield ability seems to be basically a must have as dual shield quickly become objectively better than any other weapons
So in a nutshell a cool little game for simple fun but if you want to make big campaigns with players who are into character building it might get into issues
Fabula Ultima is a very, very fun experience if you lean into the absurdities of JRPGs in both setting and characters. I've been in a campaign in it for a bit over a year now we're just now approaching level 50 (the level cap). You do eventually have your 4 main stats go up, getting to increase one at lvl 20 and 40 iirc. Our party consists of, from most to least normal for a JRPG party: A sneaky rogue tied to a criminal syndicate, a robot who is a literal tank who fights with two shields and only knows the word protect, an anthro cat chef that fires deadly candy out of her gunblade(the gourmet class is very fun to play if a bit resource tracking heavy) and smacking things with colossal spectral cat paws(reskinned Comet capstone spell), and a cyborg fae scientist who rides around on a flying motorcycle ether 1)capturing enemies for experiments, 2)eating/absorbing energy fields larger than her head, or 3)actively destabilizing economies as a self proclaimed "ecoterrorist". Our Dm has matched our party's craziness at every turn with his setting and that's where the system shines. You could also feasibly run a less grandiose setting mimicking something like Earthbound as well in this system, it's that versatile.
I want to see a sourcebook for playing games set in the modern world, to be honest! A bit more support so I can stage the best game that's half Persona 2 and half Earthbound is all I'm asking for!!!!!
Damn... mentioning two of my favorite TTRPG systems with Fabula and Anima. Glad you gave Fabula a try!
I have a campaign going for Fabula Ultima, my players really enjoy it, though one thing if you plan to run it is to be a bit careful with balancing, cause bosses tend to be very HP fat. During our test games my players were complaining how long it took to kill enemies so I had to half their HP and up their abilities and other traits to retain their threat.
In terms of gameplay though, it is a very wonderful and simple recreation of the feel of those classic JRPGs where everyone lines up and you abstract combat. Just you the players describe the action being mechanically abstracted. Also one of the best GM sections I've ever seen in a TTRPG ever. Not only does it describe how to run the game, it even gives you advice about how to maximize each class, so the players feel like their choices for their character are relevant. As an example, it expressly says if a player is an elementalist, you should have enemies with a variety of elemental weaknesses so their diversity in spell damage types feels like more then just picking the biggest number.
On that last bit, I agree with. So a bit of context is my players come from 10-20 years of DND 3.5/PF1e experience. They are used to the paradigm of just attacking in combat and doing damage. So naturally in Fabula Ultima this makes combat take longer. They never really use the study action, and so there have been a combat or two that took a bit longer, because the Monster they fighting had a weakness to the damage spell that the Mage/Healer had. When he finally attacked it on his turn with said spell he realized it did a lot more damage than just attacks and the check was easier. Next I introduced an opponent who resisted that spell. Again, no PC used Study, he casts the spell. He notices that the damage was cut in half because of a resistance. Well they had enough EXP to level up after the session, and so he took a second attack spell with a different element.
Honestly, me and my D&D group have been playing Fabula Ultima for a few months now. And it's been a very fun time.
One of its major benefits we've found, is that it really allows for narrative flexibility on both player and DM sides. From things like Surrender, to clocks, and your background, they all allow for the story aspect of TTRPGs to really come to life through the characters. For example, I play as what essentially is a Summoner, and I merge with the Draconic Spirits of the land. This gave the DM ammo to make the villains' goals, player goals, and abilities for me to use in a mechanical sense.
One of the problems we've had has been balance in combat encounters, though that's mainly due to how unique the system is. It's kind of light on numbers, but not as light as say the Fate System. But we've managed to still make memorable and enjoyable encounters.
So yeah, I recommend people try it out, it's a lot of fun, 8.5 out of 10 IMO.
This is something I had to point out more than a couple of times to my players that they can decide a lot with narrative. Such as deciding whether to be present in a scene. What they say, and reveal about the world with their character and their origin. Fabula Points to introduce things, rather than just being a combat or a check currency.
It's been breaking that 3.x/PF1e mindset where the DM does most the legwork, and the party interacts with what the DM set up. I have had two potential mini-bosses resolved peacefully with a check from the party's healer. Which I enjoy because violence isn't always a solution to a problem.
I was giving your videos some annual rewatches and decided to check if anything new was posted, and I saw this vid, posted half an hour ago. Good to see you back!
He is alive! Will be cool to see if his studies will influence his videos.
Honestly, this is one of the ttrpgs I'm the most interested in.
I do hope my group want to try out Fabula Ultima once I get my hands on it.
It’s best to Order it from your Local game store, if possible.
that 2 attributes thing is great and an idea I'm using in a system I'm making with a friend, like surgery requires some amount of fine motor control in the form of agility along side your learning and the relevant skill, whilst first aid requires charm with learning since you need to understand your patient, treat their shock and keep them calm.
I've not run a game in it as of yet but I do love the book itself with all of its pixelart art style on the items etc, definitely leans so hard into that older JRPG aesthetic
I like the idea of mixed dice rolls for checks! It makes sense that multiple stats might be necessary for an action and does a lot to expand the variety of checks without making character sheets become a huge list of numbers. I could even see something like this being picked up by a clever homebrew playgroup for more mainstream TTRPGs.
I am very intrigued by these mechanics and would love to see them in action.
Was rewatching his older vids just a week or two ago and suddenly he's back!
My group absolutely adores this game. Really happy to see this covered.
The simplicity, the class system, and the mechanics encouraging roleplay quickly threw this into the position of my favorite ttrpg of all time, combined with me already being a massive Final Fantasy fan. We have a Final Fantasy campaign going for a little over a year now and it’s been the favorite campaign of both me and my players. I highly reccomend everyone check it out.
So cool to see you return with a game I literally just started playing! Fabula Ultima is my first long running campaign it has been a blast, especially with some of the playtest content adding a lot more stuff for down time and epic combat moments. My one critique as a player is that the game really encourages players to construct the world and narrative moments with the GM, even by forcing plot twists with Fabula Points, but I feel like that can ruin the GM’s flow. Although this is a personal thing as my GM has made no complaints so far with the mechanic.
I absolutely love fabula ultima! Im happy to see someone talk about it!
If you're looking for "Races" in Fabula Ultima, the High Fantasy atlas & Techno Fantasy atlas books add a system called "Quirks" which gives each character something special and unique about them. While there are a few that are race or species oriented such as Flight or Elemental Soul, there's also background based ones such as starting with an airship or having a rival, etc. They're pretty neat.
Honestly that system of translating four key stats into 16 different ability roles is really ingenious.
Also glad to see an upload from you puffin. I'm here to watch whatever content you make for the foreseeable future so I'm glad you're able to make these once or twice a year rather than trying to do regular uploads during school years and getting burnt out.
THis feels like the best gateway RPG I can imagine; giving the fantasy vibe without overwhelming anyone who hasn't used general RPG systems before. I'd love to use this as a pick up style game at my local game shop. :)
I really like that idea of adding different base attributes. Like it’s always sort of bothered me in DnD that archery is just dexterity, when you’d need strength to pull the arrow back.
I was just checking the channel thinking it'd been a while since I last saw a video. Couldn't have been timed better. Definitely an interesting system, might fit in with some lighter groups or as an off-night campaign system. I'll have to look into it more
WOOOOOT HE"S BACK!!!!!!!! I stumbled across your channel in 2018 and love your animation style and story telling
Thanks for the intro to something I hadn't heard of yet! I checked out the publishers' website and found they have a free pdf available called "Press Start" that has an introductory scenario, four pregenerated characters and the "Load Game" pdf, as well. Looks like a great way to poke your nose in if Puffin's description interests you
It is so awesome to see you back. Everyone time my son and I get in the truck he asks,”’any new puffin?” And I was happy to tell him yes today.
So happy to see you back. And I'm glad you're trying out new systems. I liked Fabula Ultima, but definitely didn't love it. I found it hard to use battlemaps in the FabU system which I really like in my TTRPG system. The character creation was also overwhelming. But I gave it a solid 8 months and it was decent, but I'm personally fallen in love with Daggerheart which has very similar systems but more narrative focused with interactive combat.
Currently in a game of this and I am highly enjoying it. It's got just enough crunch to keep my mind happy, with all the class matching and such, but you can get thru so much with just how the game flows. Good theater of the mind gameplay, smooth transition between roleplay and battle. 4 hours of game we got thru 5 combats and multiple roleplay bits.
It's so good to have you back and bringing your spice to tabletop gaming! :D
I got to try this for free RPG day, and I have to say, I absolutely fell in love with the system. That might be because it was introduced really well with easy to learn instructions. Each block is locked until the next scene, so you're never overwhelmed with information. It might be that it was a small, 2-3 hour session for each game, so I got everything from that game. But I'm hoping one of my friends will run it someday soon so I can really understand if I do love it or not.
From the way you described Fabula’s main resolution mechanic, it sounds like you might want to check out Ryuutama. Although it might be even more-so too simple for your players (as you said at the end of the vid).
Good luck with the school stuff, Ben! 😊 Thank you for gracing us with a video in the meantime!
Welcome back! Missed you ❤
Frfr Fabula Ultima has been THE banger fantasy TTRPG to play these days for me. So easy to play but so engaging and flexible, and importantly fast
I super appreciate you talking about systems like this! This one genuinely seems like something I would look further into myself and your take on it not being crunchy is helpful because I won't broach the subject with certain groups because of it, ha!
Ooo, Ben _and_ he's covering Fabula Ultima! I know he likes Final Fantasy, so odds-are dis 'gon be _guuuud!_
Plus, it'll give me a more in-depth look at the system that our group's GM _still ain't ran for us,_ despite _promising to last year!_ (yes, I'm a little bitter.)
Nice to see you again!
Ran a one-shot for this game. Really wanted to like it, building your own class from all the options is fun! Didn’t like how the dice worked, didn’t like how combat worked, really didn’t like how inventory worked. Kind of a shame really
Welcome back, Ben! We missed you!
A few good option in terms of TTRPGs that feel like Anime one should look at "Shinobigami", "Tenra Bansho Zero" and "Ryuutama". They feel very Anime-like without being tied to any one Anime specifically. They use rules that emulate Animetropes really well and present interesting settings. If one is looking for that stuff, give it a try.
Nice to see someone remember Anima. I worked with Cipher Studios back when they produced the Anima Tactics line, and still have a nice stack of all that stuff lying around.
Sounds like it's definitely worth a try. I'm a pretty big fan of four-ability systems. Also, glad you're back and doing well! Always great to hear Puffin calls from the Forest.
I wish you talked about the communal worldbuilding more, it's one of the coolest things about it.
I’m so happy someone within the dnd community talking about my new favorite system!
Finally. My tabletop game fix is here! No but for real, I’ve loved your content for awhile, so I’m glad your back :3
It's Ben Puffin Forest again!
My group once tried to play Anima, and went through character creation and then ended up going insane trying to figure out what "Raza" was on the character sheet. It wasn't anywhere in the game...
Only to find out because it was a spanish RPG, it just meant race and that part hadn't been translated.
Heeey it's Puffin!
This is like seeing an unicorn, glad to see another TTRPG animator that's not just DND
I've actually been reading the rules for this recently, so imagine my surprise seeing this video come up!
I've been running Fabula UItima for the past few months and my group has been having a blast. "Not too referential." For the most part, but I just got my hands on the Techno Fantasy splatbook which introduces an alternative character advancement in which your three starting classes are all you get innately, never taking classes as you level outside of that. But you get access to Technospheres which is straight up just Materia. You slot it, get access to new things, the technospheres level and they can be traded around the party as they wish. The High Fantasy book also introduces Zero Powers which are Limit Breaks and they're a very neat mechanic to add in and spice things up. They kinda work similarly to FFX where each character can have a different trigger to make their LB clock tick up, along side any damage they take.
Nice video! About the system itself, Fabula looks really interesting to me because I like simpler systems where you don't have to worry so much about... *stuff* (especially when you're always the DM because no matter what group you play with and how many people you meet who want to play and how long you've been playing with them no one ever wants to try DMing ever... hypothetically). However, my players like the crunchier systems because it's easier to precisely keep track of what does what and who can do this action and what that will specifically affect. I understand that viewpoint but unfortunately, I think that means I'll end up passing on this.
Anyway, good luck with school and I'm glad to see you again!
But Fabula is way more crunchy than He says it is. Or at least it is as crunchy as your group wants it to be, with over 20 classes to choose from, several optional Bonus Rules you can add for extra Crunch and an Initiative system that Changes the way Combat works compared to F20
If you want races to have a mechanical component you could use quirks, an optional rule introduced in the High Fantasy Atlas. They don’t specifically mention being a different race, other than the flight and robot quirks, but saying your quirk comes from your race is a much better explanation than the suggestion given in the in the Core Rulebook where you explain that some of your class skills are from your character’s race.
One thing I like a lot about the system is that instead of HP and stat bloat, as you said, you're instead on a slow, linear incline of stats, but your arsenal of skills and abilities instead increase as you take more levels in more classes. Character power and system mastery is expressed by how you choose to expand your arsenal by picking abilities that synergize and enhance a particular playstyle. My character is a healing/support character who wields guns, but all of my Sharpshooter levels are invested in skills that let me debuff enemies and cancel their attacks rather than dealing raw damage, which my character is not good at.
Simple systems can really be refreshing at times, and they let you explore a lot more roleplay. As long as they got some roleplay hooks going for them, they can be a lot of fun.
I got a chance to try this at a game convention. LOTS of fun, but yes, very rules light. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I definitely see it as more of a palette cleanser type game to take a much needed break from much crunchier games. Also good for that, the wonderful 2 page game 'Cracker Barrel has Fallen". Good to see you back Puffin!
Oh damn, you're alive!
Anyway, this does sound super interesting. I definitely think I'll have to try this out. Thanks for the review man!
Fabula Ultima is FANTASTIC! The creator had an idea and executed it near perfectly
Glad to see you making new videos! And I'm glad, too, that you know about Anima Beyond Fantasy and are interested in jprgs. From my experience, Anima is a great and very, VERY complete JRPG tabletop game!
I don't know why but the sudden amusing idea of seeing you describe your first playthough with palworld came to mind might be hillarious.
Yay, Ben's alive!
I rewatched your archive this past weekend, was wondering where you were, then POOF!
Hey guys, uhh, Ben's here...Interesting system. Welcome back. Liked and made sure I was set to "all" before I skipped the ad.
I love seeing new content uploaded on the channel!
I love simple systems, both because I'm a writer so my focus is always on the story itself and less on the mechanics of how it happens, and because I always run games in my own setting, so the more room for homebrew, the better. I don't really have any experience with JRPGs, but I still might check out this system; it sounds right up my alley.
I like the concept of the willpower stat, even before any mechanics its a word that makes you want to take the stat "I want my character to have high willpower!" its much more alluring than having high wisdom or charisma
i went looking for new vids a week or so ago. glad i found this now!!
My wife made the VTT version for foundry so fun to hear you talk about this game
Welcome back, we always enjoy your vids even if they are short.
Puffin: "BESM is like GURPS"
Me: "YOU TAKE THAT BACK!"
Hey! Glad to see a new video from you! I hope schooling is going well for you. Fabula Ultima sounds like a pretty cool game, really. But something you definitely want to watch where you abbreviate it. "Hey, me and the crew were thinking it's a good night for FU. Wanna join?" Take care of yourself, Ben. I hope to see a new video from you again soon.
I can't believe Puffin has started an Ultima I playthrough, just amazing
I have been working on my own TTRPGs on and off for many years. My main one is a Wuxia system that breaks down combat into moment by moment combat, and after a while I realised that it is basically semi replicating the ATB system from final fantasy purely by coincidence.
Me and my group have been interested in trying Fabula Ultima, can't wait to hear your thoughts on it!
We miss you Ben!
Never leave us without hearing from you again.
NEVER!!!
i checked this channel for new videos for the first time in ages, literally hours before this dropped
My group has been playing fabula for maybe a year now, with two games on the go, and I have to say I really like it! One game is a classic "explore, fight, and find the crystals" and the other is an ancient Mesoamerican adventure.
One of the big things I love which you didn't mention is the collaborative story and worldbuilding!
Before the game starts, the players and DM are lead through a process to make the world and set the tone together, even seeding the main plot of the game's story-- and that's been really fun for us to get everyone on board for the adventure. The multi-class system and identity/theme system also allows for some pretty flexible character-building, without the baggage of prebuilt-class-lore that D&D sometimes has, with Warlocks and Paladins and such. It's also just fun to make a character and world that are fundamentally cartoonish and "emotional", if that makes sense. Soft magic system, you know.
The choose-your-own initiative has led to some slowness for us, but the turns themselves are quick and snappy, so it's no huge timedrag.
("who's next?" *pause* "Can I go? Or does someone else want to?" *pause* "okay I'm going to go if that's okay." *pause*. This took us a while to shake off lol)
We still haven't used our FP for any huge character moments, just because I don't think any of us want to be disruptive-- that said, our DMs are ready for it. It's just something you gotta warm up to, if you're not used to it.
I imagine the level-ups will get boring at the medium-level stage, and then interesting again once you can start taking 4th and 5th classes/Heroic skills.
All in all, I think Fabula is great for a really creative group. It can be very whimsical and imaginative, if you bring that into it.
Nice to see you, saw this and thought “hey! I havent seen him in a while!” ❤❤❤
It's good to have you back puffin. 😊
HELL YEAH FABULA ULTIMA
FYI, your stats do improve. At level 20 and level 40, "choose one of your Attributes and increase its base
die size by one step, up to a maximum of d12." pg 227 core book. It happens only twice, but it does happen
Getting ready to run my first game with this system soon. So excited!