Friends & Fables - Create and play AI-powered tabletop RPG adventures

What Is Friends & Fables

It was a Thursday evening when we realized something needed to change. Three of us had been trying to schedule a D&D session for two months. Life kept getting in the way—different time zones, conflicting work schedules, family obligations. We had characters ready, a compelling story hook, and endless enthusiasm. What we didn't have was a Dungeon Master who could make it work.

We weren't alone. When we started talking to other TTRPG enthusiasts, we heard the same story over and over. The desire to play was universal, but the barriers felt insurmountable. Finding a skilled DM felt like searching for a needle in a haystack. Even when you found one, coordinating five or six people's schedules was a logistical nightmare. And for newcomers? The rulebooks looked like they were written in another language—oodles of jargon, complex combat mechanics, endless stat modifiers that made your head spin.

So we asked ourselves: what if the DM could be anyone? What if you could start an adventure the moment inspiration struck, whether you had a group ready or not?

That's why we built Friends & Fables—the world's first Generative Tabletop Role-Playing Game platform. We're not just making a text adventure or a simple AI chatbot. We've created something that combines a sophisticated AI Game Master, powerful world-building tools, and a virtual tabletop into one seamless experience. Our AI Game Master, whom we named Franz, doesn't just respond to your choices—it remembers your character's history, adapts to your playstyle, and weaves your decisions into a coherent narrative that unfolds in real-time.

Franz is powered by our proprietary ACE-1 engine, which we've specifically designed for TTRPG experiences. Unlike general-purpose AI chatbots, ACE-1 understands the nuances of tabletop role-playing: it knows when to push the story forward and when to let players explore, when to reward creative problem-solving and when to present genuine challenges. It tracks complex combat states, manages NPC personalities across dozens of interactions, and maintains long-term memory that spans entire campaigns.

Today, more than 100,000 players and world-builders have joined our community. They've created thousands of unique worlds—some faithful to classic D&D settings like The Forgotten Realms, others entirely original. We've seen players build精灵森林王国 with 700+ points of interest, craft赛博朋克 2070 post-apocalyptic cities, and construct entire fantasy realms from scratch. Whether you want to explore the cobblestone streets of Waterdeep, sail the oceanic world of Aethertide, or venture through a蒸汽朋克帝国 called Skybride, you'll find a community of creators who've built these worlds and are ready to welcome you.

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Core Features That Set Us Apart

Let us walk you through what makes Friends & Fables different from anything else on the market—and why our users tell us they've finally found what they've been looking for.

AI Game Master: Your Always-Available Storyteller

Franz isn't just a chatbot wearing a DM's hat. We built him from the ground up to understand what makes tabletop RPGs magical. When you tell Franz that your half-orc barbarian has a mysterious scar from her past, he doesn't just acknowledge it—he weaves that detail into future encounters, references it at dramatic moments, and lets it shape how NPCs react to your character.

We've implemented a sophisticated long-term memory system that allows Franz to maintain consistency across sessions. He remembers the NPC your party offended in chapter one, the clever solution your wizard used to bypass a trap, and the promise your rogue made to a dying stranger. These aren't just cosmetic details—they become threads that Franz weaves into the fabric of your ongoing adventure.

One of our users, a father of three, told us he plays during his lunch break while his kids are at school. "Franz doesn't care that I can only play for twenty minutes," he said. "He picks up exactly where we left off. No judgment, no scheduling conflicts. It's like having a DM who lives in my phone."

World Building Tools: From Concept to Creation

We've packed everything you need to bring your imaginary worlds to life into one intuitive platform. The Map Maker lets you create detailed battle maps for tactical encounters—dungeons, taverns, forests, castle interiors. The Character Generator helps you build NPCs with distinct personalities, motivations, and backstories. And our Lore System? That's where the magic really happens.

Here's how it works: you import your world's lore—your homebrew rules, your original pantheon of gods, your carefully crafted political factions. Franz reads through it and, within moments, begins incorporating your creations into the narrative. We've seen world-builders create settings with 700+ points of interest, 400+ distinct areas, 75+ unique races, and 340+ NPCs. These aren't just static descriptions—Franz brings them to life, referencing them organically, having NPCs discuss them naturally, and letting players discover them through exploration.

Tactical 5e Combat: Where Strategy Meets Story

We know that many TTRPG players live for the combat encounters—the tense moments in a dungeon where every decision matters, the boss battles where your party's coordination is tested. That's why we've built a complete D&D 5e tactical combat system that handles everything: initiative tracking, damage calculations, condition management, spell resolution.

More Ways to Play

We've also built features that address specific player needs. Quests & One-Shots lets you dive into pre-built adventures with branching paths and multiple endings—perfect for trying the platform or introducing new players. Travel System lets your party venture beyond a single dungeon or city, seamlessly transitioning between regions and even entire worlds. Multiplayer support means you can play with up to six people, and our asynchronous system means you don't all need to be online at the same time—perfect for friends spread across time zones.

When you're ready for even deeper immersion, our Text to Speech feature lets Franz narrate your adventure in character, using different voices for NPCs so you can actually hear the gruff dwarf tavern owner versus the enigmatic elven sorcerer. And with Image Generation powered by our partnership with Tripo AI, you can visualize any character, location, or item that comes up in your adventure with a simple prompt.

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Who Is Using Friends & Fables

We've been amazed by the diversity of players who've found a home on our platform. Let us share who these people are and why they came to us.

Players Who Can't Find a DM

This is our origin story, and it's the story of thousands of our users. You have the passion, the creativity, the characters—but you need someone to run the game. Franz fills that role with patience and adaptability that would exhaust any human DM. You can start a campaign at 2 AM if the mood strikes you, play for fifteen minutes or two hours, and Franz will always be ready.

Groups Without Fixed Scheduling

Maybe you have friends who want to play, but coordinating six people's calendars feels impossible. Our asynchronous multiplayer lets each player contribute when convenient. Your group's paladin might reply on Monday, the wizard on Wednesday, and the rogue on Friday. Franz manages it all, keeping everyone in the loop and the story moving forward.

World Builders and Creators

You've got an entire universe in your head—maybe written in notebooks, maybe just floating in your imagination. Our Lore System lets you import those creations and watch Franz bring them to life. You can publish your world for others to explore, join our creator community, and see your imagination become interactive experiences for players around the world.

New Players Curious About TTRPGs

The barrier to entry for traditional TTRPGs can feel enormous. Friends & Fables removes that barrier. Franz handles the rules, the calculations, the remembering—so you can focus on the fun part: being your character. You don't need to memorize the Player's Handbook. You just need imagination and curiosity.

Creative Writers and Storytellers

If you've written fiction or worldbuilding content, Friends & Fables lets you experience your creations interactively. Import your novel's setting, your game's lore, or your screenplay's world—and let players (or yourself) explore it in a way that's more engaging than reading.

Dungeon Masters Seeking Support

Even experienced DMs sometimes need help. Franz can generate content on the fly, track notes and states so you don't have to, and handle the mechanical aspects of gameplay while you focus on narrative and roleplay. Think of it as having a tireless assistant DM.

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Getting Started in Minutes

Ready to begin your adventure? Here's how simple it is to start playing.

Step 1: Create Your Account

Visit play.fables.gg and sign up with your email or connect through your preferred social account. The entire process takes under two minutes.

Step 2: Build Your Character

Choose your race, class, and background from the D&D 5e options—or let our AI Character Generator create a character for you with a name, personality, and backstory that you can customize. Many new players tell us they love this feature because it removes the intimidation of starting from a blank slate.

Step 3: Choose Your World

You have options here. You can start in one of our pre-built quests or one-shots for a quick taste of what the platform offers. You can explore the thousands of player-created worlds and join one that catches your interest. Or, if you're feeling creative, you can begin building your own world from scratch.

Step 4: Start Playing

Franz will guide you through character creation if you haven't already, set the scene, and present your first choices. You don't need to know what to do—Franz provides options, remembers your preferences, and helps shape the story around your decisions.

Step 5: Invite Friends (Optional)

Want to play with others? Generate a shareable link from your campaign and send it to friends. They can join instantly. You can play synchronously in real-time or take turns asynchronously—whichever fits your group's style.

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What Our Community Says

We could tell you about our platform's features all day, but we think our users say it better.

The Friends & Fables community is active across Discord, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter—and the energy is incredible. Players share their character builds, discuss their favorite moments, and collaborate on world-building projects. Our Discord server has become a gathering place where veterans help newcomers, creative writers find collaborators, and everyone celebrates the unique adventures they're creating.

The proof is in the worlds our community has built. Consider Faladrim, a sprawling精灵森林王国 created by one of our world-builders. It boasts over 700 points of interest, 400 distinct areas, 75 unique races, and 340 named NPCs. That's not a professional production—it's a passionate creator using our tools. Or take New Vance City, a赛博朋克 2070 post-apocalyptic setting that captures the neon-drenched atmosphere of the genre perfectly. These aren't exceptions; they're representative of what thousands of creators are building on our platform.

We're in Early Access Beta, which means we're actively developing, listening, and improving based on real user feedback. Our roadmap is public, our changelog is updated regularly, and our team engages directly with the community. You won't find a distant corporation here—we're a small, passionate team that's just as excited about TTRPGs as our users.

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Frequently Asked Questions

<card type="faq" title="What counts as a "turn"?"> A turn is one message from Franz, the AI Game Master. Whether you send one message or twenty in a row, each response from Franz counts as one turn. Free users get 25 turns per day; paid plans include unlimited turns.