#ttjrpg

[maxdegames]

Have been sick these past few days, but being unable to work is depressing so I tried to kill time by making scenes in Foundry for Fabula Ultima. I think the results are turning good so here's a breakdown (as well as links for the ressources and modules used) for people who would be interested. The basis is generaly 2 to 4 tiles to represent the background, as well as a tile used as a roof tile for the character portraits.

The sort of character portraits menu is made of different interface items from Fire Emblem Three Houses. The portraits themselves are easily swappable placeholders, these ones are from Final Fantasy War of the Visions. Each portrait has an invisible tile which opens a corresponding character sheet using Monk's active tile trigger.

The backgrounds come from Fire Emblem Heroes. They all come already separated in several layers, and surprisingly most of them loop perfectly when it comes to overlays (such as dust or smoke) and underlays (ie. clouds, skies). They're an incredible ressource for Fabula Ultima combat screens! To have the skies and overlay move, I used Ripper's Tile Scroll module. It's super easy to use. If you have several overlays (like in the factory scene), placing the moving one between the immobile ones adds a sense of depth to the scene with very little effort.

For the rain and the snow, it's simply using ghost's FXMaster module. The FEH backgrounds also have a few panels of snow, cherry blossom petals, flowers, motes of light, etc... I don't think they'll look as good, but some of them can have their use. In a volcanic environment, having motes of fiery lights constantly raising from the bottom of the screen to the top using tile scroll could work to denote heat.

As for the tokens, I simply used the ones made for the quickstart by Tiny-Overlord. Flying Minotaur's portrait maker is also an incredible ressource for this kind of setup. As the name states, it can even be used to make portraits and not just token, so you could make your NPCs with it too. The mech on the left comes from Final Fantasy VI.

Have fun saving the world, adventurers!

[clementinestan]

Has anyone played Fabula ultima yet how's it like. I'm almost dome with the book and I really like it so far

[ritunn]

Fabula Ultima Halloween Drop 2024

As is tradition, Need Games has released a new set of fun stuff for Halloween this year thanks to hard work from writer, Emanuele Galletto! 2022 brought us a whole new class in the Necromancer and 2023 gave a set of various spooky quirks, but this year there's over a dozen of horrifying heroics inspired by Halloween and horror folklore from around the world!

Become a masterful monster hunter like the infamous Van Helsing with Hunter's Trick!

Or perhaps imitate the tactics of the brutal Vlad the Impaler with Impaler Dragon.

Perhaps you have a scientific side? In that case, take a bit of inspiration and bring the construct companion you created to new heights with It Lives!

And this is just a sample! Download the full bonus content booklet for free at Need Games' website along with any holiday bonuses you may have missed.

[sleepytenny]

[ Throwback Thursday ] I drew this for a Fabula Ultima oneshot I wanted to join in 2023. Unfortunately, it never came to be. I think the DM already forgot about it. 😅 ===== Artemis Fletcher and artwork © @sleepytenny Please do not steal. Usage with generative AI and NFT prohibited.

[jeffs-gamebox]

#RPGaDay2023 Day 4: Most Recent Game Bought.

Fabula Ultima is my most recent acquisition. #RPGaDay2023.

Fabula Ultima, the TTJRPG by Need Games Here’s the link to my review. I’ve just recently been able to start buying a few games here and there again. I’d been eyeing Fabula Ultima for quite a while. I am infatuated with a lot of the anime and TTRPGs that it is based around. I have been very impressed so far. Thanks for stopping by. I might be slowing down a little on content. I have one eye on…

[impernious]

I've been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support for At the Gates. Everyone who has backed so far and read the first preview has had nothing but kind words for it.

I really want this project to get to the people who will love it best. So please share and pledge!

I have been working for the past week on a rush project for a client that I am so fucking excited about and I can't wait until they hit the stretch goal on the BackerKit so y'all can see what I've been working on bc it fucking rocks and I'm so excited that @impernious brought me in on this.

But maybeeeee y'all can help this happen & also get a totally fucking awesome RPG written & illustrated by some of the best people I know.

So if you:

Like JRPGs

Like a fluid, compact and easy-to-use mechanical system

Like seeing queer content made by queer people

Want to see this project succeed wildly so that we get more of this

You should back At The Gates!

And even if you don't like those things, or you're not sure, you can always back the campaign for $5 just to help out & to get the preview chapters. One of the coolest things Onyx Path does is release the entire text of the book as it is at the time of the campaign over the course of crowdfunding. It has no art, and the text isn't final - it's still in process - but by the end of the campaign, you will be able to play At The Gates in its current form while you wait for the final book!

If you want to watch @impernious play Chrono Trigger & answer questions about At The Gates, you can do that here!

Back this game, omg I want y'all to see what we've been working on. I was up all night 2 nights ago getting stuff ready. @theonyxpath and D (and the rest of their team!) have cooked up some really, really good stuff, and I'm so excited that I got to play, too.

[ultraflavour]

7 Fantasy RPGs to fill the D&D-shaped Hole in your Life

So. It finally happened. Either Hasbro, or Wizards of the Coast, or someone else associated with Dungeons & Dragons finally did something so fucked-up that you've decided to swear it off entirely.

The problem is that for decades, there has been one obvious answer to the question of "What game with Dwarves, Longswords and Wizards in it should we play" and that was D&D, every time. Even their strongest rival in the past couple of decades was just an older version of D&D with a spit shine.

Now you find yourself adrift in a sea of possibility, with no signposts. There are names you've heard, but you have no idea which ones you'd actually be interested in, because you had always just assumed you'd be playing D&D until the heat death of the universe.

So let's take a look at a few games that want to fill that D&D-shaped hole in your gaming life, and examine what they're offering.

Disclaimer: I'm not covering the entire breadth and depth of the TTRPG industry here. I'm specifically going to be covering Fantasy RPGs that should appeal to D&D fans here. So if I didn't cover your favourite indie RPG, sorry. But there has to be a "First step" outside of the D&D bubble, and each of these games should fulfill that need.

The Other "Kitchen Sink" Game: Pathfinder

If you can't bring yourself to keep playing the corporate game, but you still want something that offers as close to that gameplay experience as you can possibly get, your best bet at the time of this writing is probably Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

I say this as someone who very much did not vibe with the original Pathfinder, or its "D&D in space" sister product Starfinder. But at this point, I'd absolutely tell a newcomer to jump into Pathfinder 2E before I recommended they buy any WotC product.

To their credit, the 2nd Edition of Pathfinder does much more to, uh, find its own path by diverging from 3.5 edition and implementing new systems that take it into uncharted territory. The "Two Actions Per Turn" paradigm is often cited by its proponents as being a meaningful improvement over the 5E way of doing things.

The "TTJRPG": Fabula Ultima

One of the biggest success stories of the early 20's was Fabula Ultima from NEED Games in Italy. It came seemingly out of nowhere to win the ENnie Gold Award for Best Game of 2023. Since then it's become notoriously difficult to find in print, though it's still freely available as a PDF.

Fabula Ultima is a "TTJRPG," modelled after Japanese fantasy video games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, Breath of Fire, etc. While it's firmly planted in the Fantasy genre, its gameplay will also very recognizable to fans of those types of games.

The major benefit of this conceit is that you can probably already picture how combat in FabUlt works in your mind: Two rows of characters take turns jumping and slashing at each other, or casting magical spells to harm, heal, or apply status conditions. There's no concept of "Spacing," but the game still manages to be mechanically intricate with lots of varied class abilities and status effects to apply.

D&D refugees looking for a game where you simply pick a class and fight some monsters, but aren't too particular about how they do that, will find a lot to love here. FabUlt leans much more heavily on storytelling mechanics than D&D does, so players who've been looking for something a bit more "Theater of the Mind" should be well taken care of here.

Final Fantasy Lancer: ICON

Like Fabula Ultima, ICON is a TTRPG that takes heavy inspiration from JRPGs, specifically tactical games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. It's from Massif Press, who also authored the surprise indie Mech combat hit Lancer.

And like Lancer, ICON is a game with two very distinct rulesets: Outside of combat, a "Fiction-first" narrative system inspired heavily by Blades in the Dark; In combat, a grid-based tactical skirmish game reminiscent of D&D 4th Edition. All backed by the gorgeous art of its author Tom Parkinson-Morgan, who also writes and illustrates the comic Kill Six Billion Demons.

ICON separates its "narrative" class system from its combat class system, giving each character two distinct character sheets that come into play at different times. Because those two systems don't have to cross over very much, each can be as intricate or as rules-light as it needs to be to promote the type of gameplay most appropriate for the situation.

The Old-School Gateway Drug: Shadowdark

If you ever took a few steps outside of the walled garden that is D&D in the past few years, you will likely have read or heard of the OSR, or "Old-School Revival/Renaissance." Proponents of the OSR are players who yearn for an older style of Dungeon Crawling Survival Horror game that hearkens back to the early days of D&D, before the players became akin to superheroes.

Shadowdark aims to be a game that bridges the gap to that style of gameplay, without being totally unfamiliar to players who only ever learned 5th Edition mechanics. It's "Old-School gaming, modernized."

Aside from simply being a modern take on a D20 fantasy game, it freshens up gameplay using a mechanic called the "Torch Timer." It turns light into a resource that dwindles in real time. This serves to elevate the tension of the game as every minute that passes is one less minute of light on your torch. And when the torches run out, well... You can probably guess what happens next.

5th Edition with the Serial Numbers Filed Off: Tales of the Valiant

Tell me if you've heard this one before: Wizards of the Coast introduces sweeping changes to its "Open" license model, leading existing 3rd-party content creators to create their own version of an older ruleset to protect the viability of their backlog. It happened in the past, but what are the chances that happens a second time? Ha!

Well... It did happen again. This time, playing the role of the "Paizo" in this scenario is Kobold Press, who loudly declared that they were "Raising the Black Flag" in response. In order to ensure that there would always be a "Core Fantasy" ruleset that would remain compatible with their content, they announced Tales of the Valiant, which would essentially duplicate the 5th Edition ruleset with a bit of a spit shine, in much the same way that Pathfinder did for 3.5 Edition.

Tales of the Valiant will be the game for the D&D player who just wanted a rules refresh of 5th Edition, but also doesn't want to keep throwing money at the corporate hegemony. It should end up being "The 5E you can feel good about supporting," and that matters right now.

Matt Colville's Big Bet: The MCDM RPG

Kobold Press was not the only publisher of third-party D&D content to have a strong reaction to the OGL fiasco. Unlike Tales of the Valiant however, Matt Colville's response was to announce a fully new Fantasy RPG system, with no expectation of backwards compatibility with any edition of D&D.

MCDM's sights are firmly set on the "Post-Kitchen-Sink" future, and to that end their game is explicitly not trying to be the one game for every possible playstyle. It's Tactical, meaning you'll need a grid to play it on, and it's Heroic, meaning characters should feel powerful, and not like they're constantly one critical hit or failed trap-sensing check away from being decapitated.

This approach might seem like a massive risk considering how insanely powerful 5th Edition became at its peak. But a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign backed by over 30,000 people shows that there is at least an appetite for something new, and that there is a like-minded community of players ready and waiting to join you.

The Critical Role Game: Daggerheart

If the Kobold Press announcement was a shot across the bow, and the MCDM crowdfunder was a bomb dropped, then Daggerheart is a full-blown asteroid, streaking straight towards Wizards of the Coast HQ.

Daggerheart is an original Fantasy RPG from Darrington Press, the publishing arm of the Critical Role media company. That by itself should mean something considering how important CR is to the D&D brand, but there's more to talk about here. Though it superficially resembles D&D in a lot of ways, it has some extremely important differences. Namely, its use of "Powered by the Apocalypse" mechanics such as "Fail Forward" dice rolling and "No Initiative" combat.

While "PbtA" has become somewhat of a loaded term in the D&D community, Critical Role has an opportunity to overcome that stigma with the sheer force of their platform. I've made this case already in the past, but if they were to use their power to do for themselves what they did for 5th Edition, it would be the most significant threat to the Hasbro Hegemony to emerge since Pathfinder. Let alone taking just a slice, Daggerheart has the long-term potential to take the whole damn pie.

And more!

The games I've listed here are all theoretically capable of replacing the Corpo game as your "go-to" long-term game. Not all of them are fully playable as of this writing, but they all represent one possible future for the "Sword and Sorcery" RPG genre.

There are of course a whole plethora of other games out there beyond the limited scope of "Medieval Fantasy" that are just as valid and just as viable, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous.

If you're looking for something explicitly tactical like a miniature skirmish game, but still in the RPG genre, and you're willing to expand your choice of genre beyond Euro-centric Medieval Fantasy even further beyond ICON, you might be interested in Gubat Banwa or the aforementioned Lancer.

If you want a game that promotes a slightly more streamlined, less mechanically-intricate approach to combat while still giving you tons of monsters to kick the shit out of, you might want to check out the "Illuminated by LUMEN" family of games inspired by the games LIGHT and NOVA from Gila RPGs. It might even inspire you to write your own RPG!

If you're more interested in the Old-School Renaissance, you might want to check out Forbidden Lands, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Old-School Essentials, or MÖRK BORG.

If you like the idea of "Old-School Roleplaying" but are also willing to step outside of the fantasy genre into Sci-fi territory, you might be interested in Stars Without Number, its Cyberpunk sister product Cities Without Number, or Mothership.

Finally, if you just want a game that focuses on telling the best story rather than mindlessly killing monsters and acquiring loot, you might want to check out Blades in the Dark, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Girl by Moonlight, Coyote and Crow, and many more Fiction-First games in the Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark genres.

But most importantly: Just play more games! Don't just buy them, play them! The point of this whole exercise is to replace the monopoly with a plurality, for the sake of the health of the tabletop gaming industry.

Because the next time Hasbro lays off a bunch of WotC employees, there should be a much stronger, more diverse industry for them to land in feet-first. We should all want for the people who build the games we love to feel safe in their career choice. Not just for the sake of the ones who are already there, but for future prospective designers and artists who want to make their mark.

It should be viable to be a tabletop game designer outside of just making more D&D stuff forever, because as we've seen, it's not safe to assume that we can all just keep doing the same thing we've been doing and not get bit on the ass by it.

If we want that future, we have to take it into our own hands and build it ourselves. But if there's one group of people that knows about building something very big from very little, it's TTRPG players.

[krawkpaladin]

I've been continuing to work on Winning the Peace for the past few months, though life has gotten in the way a lot. Very busy with a surgery, planning a wedding, running two games, general exhaustion, etc.

It's been mostly working on layout and making player sheets and references. While the game jam was very good for getting the content written, it really did not prepare me to actually put it together into something more readable, which really doesn't make for good update posts. Also, the events oracle is like 20 8.5" x 11" pages, so it's very unwieldy in its current state, so I'm making a truncated reference that basically just has the mechanical effects.

I did get the opportunity to playtest it though with my local group due to some scheduling issues meaning we couldn't do our planned Girl by Moonlight game. A lot of things went well. The core voting system worked really well, and community creation runs smoothly. It looks like each year will take about an hour of play, so a full story/campaign should take roughly 3-4 sessions of 3-4 hours each. Some of the moves needed clarification, and a few need complete reworks of their fictional triggers. There's a few sections that need updates though.

In their current state, Representatives are functioning less as characters and more like stat sticks. I'm playing around with a few ideas to make Representatives more impactful and actual characters, and I'm playing around with a few things with that. One part of that is limiting the number of Debate Moves that can be used per year to make the choices more meaningful. The other part I am workshopping right now is having players define Representative's drives/personal values, and having those interact with the dice rolls for Debate Moves. Basically, if a Representative is taking an action in line with their personal beliefs, the roll is improved, while taking an action in opposition makes the roll worse. And these values aren't necessarily aligned with the Community's interests or needs, and don't affect the placement of votes, only Debate Moves. Still workshopping the exact mechanic though.

The other part I want to look at is the Event resolution. Currently, Events are resolved in whichever order the table chooses, largely because I was concerned about difficulty, but the issue is that a lot of Community Moves will then almost never trigger. So I'm planning on testing events drawn in order, or maybe having events resolve in suit order. Again, it's going back to the drawing board.

Once I have these changes written up, alongside the play materials, I'll post another update and get everything uploaded to Itchio. Life is going to continue to be super busy for the next few months, but I am hoping to have all of this done by June/July. So keep an eye out for all that.

Hope to have some more updates soon! Please enjoy Julius doing his best impression of me over the past several weeks.

(Also, on a completely unrelated note, I got to meet the official artist for the Fabula Ultima ttjrpg at C2E2 and got my book signed! Huzzah!)

[ak-illustrate]

Making a Fabula Ultima TTJRPG character, thinking "What if I made Tales Series Skit style talk portraits for him" and getting extremely carried away.

[impernious]

We need 15 more people to get the first pin goal. They are adorable.

I want them all.

Please help.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/onyx-path/at-the-gates/updates/6817#top

At the Gates

Is live on Backerkit now! Please go check it out. When you pledge to the campaign, you gain access to manuscript previews that we release throughout the campaign. The manuscript is fully written. We fund to get money for a traditional print run. So this game is getting made one way or another, but with your help, we can get the book into distribution, get gorgeous deluxe editions printed, and cool swag made!

You also get to see beautiful art by Mel Uran. And if you fund this, we can also afford some of the other amazing artists that I've been eyeballing who I know can knock out the style of art this game deserves.

Also, also, I will love you forever!

[educationaldm]

Love Final Fantasy / Anime / JRPGs and want to play it as a Tabletop Roleplaying Game? Try Fabula Ultima.

[amtrax]

Have you heard of Fabula Ultima?

I only heard about it some few months ago, and I'm infatuated by it. It's a TTJRPG that's incredibly freeform in design while still retaining some structure, and allows both the GM and the players to shape the world they play in, harmoniously.

Interesting

[ritunn]

Fabula Ultima: High Fantasy Atlas Review

Emmy award winning TTJRPG, Fabula Ultima, just released its first sourcebook in English! The High Fantasy Atlas is already a best Electrum seller on DriveThruRPG and at the time of writing, the best selling book on the platform this week... all within one day! But, if that hasn't convinced you, let me offer you my review.

What do you get in the High Fantasy Atlas? Well you'll find the following:

Chapter 1 - Introduction: This section covers how the pillars of JRPGs work in High Fantasy games and offers more details and examples on how to implement them. Very useful for session 0 world design.

Chapter 2 - The World: This introduces 10 sample high fantasy locations you're likely to explore in a high fantasy world of Fabula Ultima game along with advice for creating new Arcanum for the Arcanist class, details concerning the creation of gods and demons, how the Stream of Souls functions, and info on tech and magic. The latter part of the chapter has new rare item rewards and artifacts you can give players!

Chapter 3 - Protagonists: This chapter includes sample PC ideas with info on them along with the new custom weapon, quirk, and zero power optional rules. The latter part of the chapter includes 4 new classes, the chanter, commander, dancer, and symbolist, along with heroic skills for classes new and old.

Chapter 4 - Antagonists: The first part of this chapter explores how to use antagonists in High Fantasy games while the latter half offers 5 villains from levels 10 - 60 you can use in your game or as a jumping off point to make your own!

Overall, 200 pages of content useful for not just High Fantasy games, but any really! Let's go over some of my favorite bits in each chapter.

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter, though the shortest, is incredibly helpful. Having examples and additional explanation for how to implement the pillars is useful for groups, especially those coming from systems like D&D and Pathfinder who might not be used to having such power to shape the world. Otherwise, it offers a solid introduction to the genre as well.

Chapter 2: The World

By far the longest chapter, there's a few notable things that aid immensely, but let us begin with how the sample locations work.

Each of the 10 locations starts off like this with an intro and an "at a glance" sidebar. This really helps you conceptualize what the area is supposed to invoke feelings wise and offers you nice reference for travel rolls and what kind of enemies and discoveries you may find here. I highly recommend doing this for locations in general your group makes, it helps a ton.

After this, each location has some example quests and questions to ask your players to flesh out this area and areas like it. Perfect for giving others the ability to add their own flair to the area and to get them started with playing when they enter the area. These story hooks also often have a villain described with tactics they use and any relevant clocks, but they have no stat blocks, so you can make them to fit with your group's playstyle for combats.

Afterward is a section on how to run conflicts and make them memorable, helpful if that is something you've been struggling with. It also has some nice ideas regarding how to run fights against armies, which is certain to come up here and there in games.

Lastly, we explore the magic and tech of High Fantasy. The advice for making new Arcanum, whether for world building themes or for the Revelation heroic skill, is greatly appreciated as it's one of the hardest things to balance and get right without a good understanding of the game. Advice on how the afterlife and Stream of Souls works thematically in your game is also useful and it offers some nice plot hooks you can use with the ideas presented I've put into practice even before the release of the Atlas to great effect. Lastly, the section on technology is short but appreciated, exploring how it differs from a Techno Fantasy game.

The new rare items are mostly geared towards enhancing specific skills for classes rather than general use, but it's handy for figuring out how to price similar items focused on certain skills when making your own. The new artifacts are also grandiose and powerful additions to any game, magnificent rewards if your party can acquire them. My favorite is a book that contains all knowledge up to the present moment in time, but was sealed away in the far reaches of space... supposedly.

Chapter 3: Protagonists

The main course! This has the 4 new classes and a bunch of optional rules we saw in the playtest. But, first I want to take a look at the sample PCs.

Each of the 10 sample PCs has a profile like such. It covers the usual Identity, Theme, and Origin, along with a Quirk and signature weapon. Quirks are a new rule that work as backgrounds, but suped up with powerful game changing and character altering effects ranging from gaining some spells to being able to choose to make costs for a spell or Ritual free at the cost of eventually summoning a supreme villain... that will come eventually whether you like it or not. Ones like those typically give you a free heroic skill when the big event comes and you lose the quirk. Preparing you to face a new horizon or final foe.

Back to Raisa however. As we can see here, it has info on her backstory, classes, what she gets to decide about world building wise, and how they'll grow in their own character arc. Useful for someone who wants to jump right in with a somewhat premade character, but even more useful for showing your players what you need to know about their characters if you're a GM. This should also help direct and inspire players during world creation. Which I greatly appreciate. Now, for the new optional rules (besides quirks).

Custom weapons are pretty simple. They're essentially weapons you design mechanically as a player. They're always two-handed, cost 300 - 400 zenit, can be any weapon type you want along with being melee or ranged, and deals [HR + 5] physical damage with a [DEX] + [INS/MIG] accuracy check depending on what you choose. You can then pick a few traits, like Powerful for extra damage, Defense Boost for extra armor and to make it count as a shield, or Transforming to let it switch between two different modes. Depending on what traits you pick, it may also become martial. This rule can be used by anyone who wants to use it without fuss unlike quirks and zero powers, as it adds no extra power and is fairly balanced. Some people could play with custom weapons, some without. But, it allows for you to add a lot of style to your character if you choose to do so.

Lastly, zero powers are a mechanic I've been using for half a year from the playtest and it's loads of fun! Want a limit break or perhaps combo attack in vein of Tales of Arise? Zero powers have you covered. When using this rule, you gain a 6 point clock that fills whenever taking damage, spending a Fabula Point to invoke a trait or bond, or via special Zero Trigger you pick when making your power. Then you pick an effect to go with the trigger you can unleash with an action when the clock is full, like Zero Limits which boosts all your stats by 1 die size or Zero Triangle to allow you and 2 allies to make a free attack with a +5 bonus to accuracy. Zero Powers are loads of fun and you can even allow for players to charge them up together for combo attacks with a variant rule for 4 or less player parties.

Welcome to the show! The Chanter is your premier bard. Chanter's main skill is Magichant, which allows them to sing or play songs you compose yourself by picking a volume (to determine number of targets), key (to determine damage types, attribute, status effect, HP/MP), and tone (to determine the effect with info filled in by your key). It's an amazing support class with high MP usage, but they can easily target enemy Vulnerabilities or act as a debuffer too to tear their foes apart. Their other skills allow them to perform hearing-based illusion Rituals, increase damage or regain MP when enemies are hit, give damage reduction to themselves, or get a free attack with low and medium volume magichants.

Being a chess master is the name of the game with Commander. Gaining access to martial weapons of all types, the Commander has skills focused on creating conflict scene wide buffs and debuffs to everyone. Use Bishop's Edict to double MP costs or increase all damage or King's Castle to increase HP/MP recovery or null it entirely. Their other skills allow them to command allies to make free attacks with handy bonuses and chain together their skills when doing so, leading to a flurry of activations. But be careful, one wrong move can lead to your downfall. Commander works best as a sort of Warlord class, they're a support martial pure and simple, but if the player using it isn't very smart about how they use their skills they can put everyone in a heap of trouble.

Swift of step, Dancer's main skill is well... Dance! Dance allows you to spend 10 MP before or after an action to perform a dance (5 MP if you used Dance last turn). Dances provide a variety of effects but most give you resistance to a damage type or allow you to alter all your damage to that type until the end of the turn or give the enemy a status condition, or another different one if they already have it. There's also healing and haste dances if you want those too! Their other skills allow them to apply dances to others they have affection towards, dance and use the equipment action for free, get bonuses towards rolls involving acrobatics for Objectives, or increase the damage of their weapons or spells after dancing. Dancer is primarily another support class, but their ability to change damage types and increase damage makes them amazing at targeting Vulnerabilities and denying enemies damage by gaining Resistance.

Symbolism has always been the heart of magic and the Symbolist knows this best. An IP focused class like Tinkerer, Symbolist's main skill is Symbolism. By spending 2 IP, you can create a symbol and attach it to an ally or make a free attack and apply it to every enemy you hit (amazing with multi). Symbols range in effect from halving recovery, providing one free IP expenditure, or even changing the creature type. Their other skills allow allies with a symbol cast your spells, make sight-based illusions with Rituals, track enemies with symbols, and increase damage or recovery on those with your symbols. The Symbolist, like the Tinkerer, is focused on IP usage and as such will need a class like Rogue, Merchant, or Wayfarer to help keep that up. However, symbols allow for a lot of strategy and creativity in character building that you can use to your benefit. Picking your symbols will be paramount to your build, so be smart about what you pick and smarter about who you apply them too. Sharpshooter and Weaponmaster are also great picks if you intend to apply symbols to enemies.

Lastly, the new heroic skills are all solid. Most focus on using specific types of weapons, now rewarding you for sticking to them as your signature weapon. There's even a few only available to level 30 and higher, notably, Bimagus, which let's you dualcast spells and Grand Summon, which allows you summon Arcanum as separate entities to help you rather than merging.

Chapter 4: Antagonists

Compared to the last two chapters, there's less to say here but there is some great content. This chapter includes 5 villains of levels 10, 20, 30, 40, and 60 that make for fun inclusions in any High Fantasy game. The villains range from a pirate queen to the incarnation of narrative tragedy itself and each comes with a statblock, minions (if they have any), and advice on how to run their encounters. Some even have multiple phases, which is a great example of how to build your own multi-phase boss fights, after all... this isn't even their final form!

One thing to remember when using these enemies (and the book points this out thankfully) is that Fabula Ultima is designed in a way where you, the GM, have to make monsters your party can reflect upon and has the tools to fight effectively. So, when using these, change up the affinities, give them a makeover to connect to the heroes if needed, and use them as you see fit!

Final Thoughts

If you have been loving Fabula Ultima, pick up this book. There's so much great advice for running games and new content for players and GMs alike. You won't be disappointed! There's also some more beautiful JRPG style art within just like the Core Rulebook. If you enjoyed Bravely Default, FFIV, FFIX, FFX, or Tales of Arise, this book will let you live out the same fantasies and journeys featured in those games and gives you even more tools to be your very own heroes of High Fantasy and challenge tragedy itself on the Final Days.

You can purchase it on DriveThruRPG for $14 USD ($20 CDN).

[sleepytenny]

"Isn't fire just invigorating?" ===== I rarely use Artemis. So I decided to use her for a Fabula Ultima oneshot I'll be joining. It was fun to draw her outfit again while tweaking a few things to make her more phoenix-like. ===== Artemis Fletcher & artwork © @SleepyTenny Please do not steal. ===== Want me to draw for you? My commissions are open!

[aurum-k-chatters]

So because of recent events in the TTRPG space regarding a certain dragon game and a certain OGL, a lot of people have been looking into new and different systems.

One that I stumbled upon in these quests for new TTRPG game is Fabula Ultima TTJRPG, and it absolutely looks like something worth checking out if you enjoy the story telling and more video-gamey aspects of D&D. As well as potential for home-brewing and world building.

Fabula Ultima borrows a lot from JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Tales of, and Persona. It's got turn based combat, stats, action checks, a character bond system (Yosuke will now die for you), and an EXTREMELY hefty character class tree system.

It's similar enough to D&D that someone coming off that system probably wouldn't feel too terribly lost. I remember my first TTRPG coming off of D&D was Monster of the Week. And while that game is very good, I definitely struggled with it as my first foray into other games. Fabula Ultima, because it's based off of JRPG Video games, feels like it would not have that problem for people exiting the D&D space. And if you enjoy Actual Plays like Critical Role or Dimension 20, where the players put a lot into their characters and their interactions, and the DMs put a lot into their world building, then you will be pleased to know that Fabula Ultima has mechanics that encourage that type of play.

It's also extremely customizable. The way items and enemies are designed make home-brew easy, and the class tree system is so flexible and immense that you can easily get the flavor for that specific character idea you had in mind.

It's packed with content. But it's also simple enough to pick up quickly. And I know I personally would love to see people play it should anyone use it in their actual plays.

I'm personally hoping I'll be able to play it soon myself!