Fabula Ultima general thread [+]

[Aldarc]

I don't own the game. I was asking about it to determine whether I would be interested. Some posters seem to suggest these scenes are fundamental to play, which tamps down my interest.

I don't understand the hostility here.

I'm not being hostile here, Reynard. You asked. I answered.

 

[SteveC]

I'm not even an immersion person, but cut scenes the players are privy to without their characters present feels off to me.

Final Fantasy Tactics just released for PC, so I'm getting a chance to relive it. That game is full of cutscenes where you find out what the villains are up to long before you actually meet them. Fabula Ultima is trying to be that sort of game. It's emulating the source material. You can definitely not like it, but when I ran it, the fans of JRPGs really enjoyed this part as it made them feel the game was emulating a game they were playing.

Edited to add: there's no reason you have to include this in a Fabula Ultima game, but it is sort of an "acting as expected" thing. I have played JRPGs that don't have them, but I am having a hard time thinking of one off the top of my head. From a gameplay standpoint, this is one way to hand out Fabula Points, since you get one for each time a villain is in a scene. It also is expected that this knowledge is passed on to the players. Fabula Ultima takes a "you are playing a JRPG" and so you are in a different stance when playing your character--you have to integrate that "out of character" knowledge with play. And that's not something everyone likes, which is okay (of course!)

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Final Fantasy Tactics just released for PC, so I'm getting a chance to relive it. That game is full of cutscenes where you find out what the villains are up to long before you actually meet them. Fabula Ultima is trying to be that sort of game. It's emulating the source material. You can definitely not like it, but when I ran it, the fans of JRPGs really enjoyed this part as it made them feel the game was emulating a game they were playing.

Yep, its a very common trope across JRPGs for the Player to get some scenes that still remain a mystery to the Characters.

 

[SteveC]

Just to make one more comment on the cutscene mechanic. In the first chapter of Final Fantasy Tactics, you have a scene with your character where they are chewed out for being heroic. The scene continues after the group leaves, and you find out that a character who you think is an ally is really not. That's your player knowledge. You don't get to immediately fight them because, while "you" the player, may know about it, Ramza is clueless.

There's a question as to whether you want that in your Fabula Ultima game since that's not how all players like to roleplay. I expect that would be a choice the GM would work out with the players when setting up the game. It is an example of how the game is true to the source material, but that may not be to taste for everyone playing in the game.

 

[Arilyn]

I'm not even an immersion person, but cut scenes the players are privy to without their characters present feels off to me.

We've never done it because we keep forgetting. Game works great. You absolutely don't need to do the cut scenes.

 

[SteveC]

One of my favorite things about Fabula Ultima, and something that I recommend people in other games take a look at, is the Ritual system. The core spells for characters are entirely encounter/combat based. The Ritual system is for everything else. I really like how you can work out how powerful effects that are more story based work in the game world, and characters can do things they need to without sacrificing effectiveness in combat. There's so much to look at in Fabula Ultima, even if you're not intending to run the core game.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

One of my favorite things about Fabula Ultima, and something that I recommend people in other games take a look at, is the Ritual system. The core spells for characters are entirely encounter/combat based. The Ritual system is for everything else. I really like how you can work out how powerful effects that are more story based work in the game world, and characters can do things they need to without sacrificing effectiveness in combat. There's so much to look at in Fabula Ultima, even if you're not intending to run the core game.

To some extent FabU feels like a "greatest hits" collection of good mechanics from a whole bunch of RPGs, but they all mesh pretty well together rather than getting in each others' way.

 

[Gradine]

I've not delved nearly enough into FabU yet to get a real strong sense about it, and it does feel like it leans towards a more narrative focus overall, but I'm now imagining something like an Ancient Cave-style procedural mega-dungeon campaign. ala Lufia 2, and wondering if FabU could pull that kind of thing off

 

[Aldarc]

I've not delved nearly enough into FabU yet to get a real strong sense about it, and it does feel like it leans towards a more narrative focus overall, but I'm now imagining something like an Ancient Cave-style procedural mega-dungeon campaign. ala Lufia 2, and wondering if FabU could pull that kind of thing off

And this is where my relative inexperience with JRPGs does me no favors. I will say that Ema is incredibly active on their FU Discord, and you may get an answer from them there.

 

[jian]

Fabula Ultima is a fantastic game and very much the one to beat in the JRPG genre stakes. The number of character options is very impressive and they’re regularly producing more classes to cover various archetypes (Chanter, Chef, Floralist, Mecha Pilot, Symbolist etc.) which each come with their own subsystem.

As a result, it’s great at broad advancement but not so concerned with tall advancement. This is quite deliberate, I’m sure - it means that a bunch of level 5 monsters are often almost as threatening to level 20 PCs as to level 5 PCs, depending on their number - but you could argue it doesn’t simulate the very tall advancement of many JRPGs. It’s definitely not the game for that.

But yes, it’s a wonderful game. The art is excellent and thematic, the Press Start is exemplary, and the character options and atlas sourcebooks are full of inspiring material.