A flexible, interpretive tabletop role-playing game system, Fables & Foxtales is a highly-customizable framework you can use to tell your story, your way. Whether you're weaving epic war sagas, journeys across vast distances, events of epic proportions, or just tales of everyday life, Fables & Foxtales can help you bring those tales to life, as well as create memorable moments and characters that you'll cherish for years to come.
A character-first approach to game mechanics that focuses on individuality and drawing strength from your unique capabilities.
Draw power from knowledge, experiences, beliefs, people, and objects, then use that power to enhance your dice rolls!
Straight-forward, goal-oriented character advancement lets you grow in the direction you want, for the reasons best suited to it.
A long list of planned supplementary content to expand the base rule set and cover a wider variety of both playstyles and genre preferences.
Core Mechanics
Mental - Physical - Social
Avoid - Change - Learn - Overcome
Bloom - Hone - Flourish
Playing the Game
Rounds - Scenes - Chapters
Intermission
Challenges - Taking Hits - Conditions
Recovery - Scenarios
Size - Durability - Tracking - Costs
Artifacts - Other Possessions
Defining Special Arts - Prerequisites
Capabilities - Spark - Advancement
Compendiums
Aspects - Scenarios - Special Arts
Additional Content
Optional Rules - Walks of Life
Campaign Sources
This site is a SRD for Fables & Foxtales v1.5. Copyright 2025 A. B. Ravencourt. All Rights Reserved.
Natures
The most fundamental concepts in Fables & Foxtales, Natures represent your character's inclinations, specialty and drive, and play a part in every action you take, as well as every situation thrust upon you.
There are seven (7) natures classified into two (2) categories:
Circumstance: Represents the three (3) kinds of situations or forces you are reacting to.
Mental deals with knowledge, intellect, stress, and willpower.
Physical deals with the environment, strength, agility, and health.
Social deals with dialogue, relationships, eloquence, and likability.
Method: Represents the four (4) kinds of ways that your character chooses to react.
Avoid is the ability to circumvent, dodge, or deceive your way out of challenges.
Change is ingenuity, creativity and the ability to alter situations to your needs.
Learn is the ability to draw information, find clues, reason, and adapt.
Overcome is the ability to power through, resist, or faces challenges head on.
By combining one Nature from each of the two categories above, you can address any situation or challenge presented over the course of play. However, each situation is unique, and more than one Nature may apply depending on the kind of challenge presented and the form of action your character takes.
Example: A ranger is hunting in the forest, and runs across a deer some distance away. The ranger can...
Sneak Closer: Moving towards the deer is a Physical action in which you are trying to Change the distance between you an the animal.
Observe the Creature: Watching the deer to Learn its habits and inclinations can be Physical if you want to rely on watching its movements and body language OR it can be Mental if you want to draw upon knowledge of others of its kind.
Interact With It: Attempting to Change the deer's attitude towards you might constitute a Physical or Social act of presenting yourself as non-threatening.
Shoot the Deer: The act of attacking with a weapon, such as a bow or a gun, is a Physical action, in which you are trying to Overcome it.
As you can see from the above example, there are not only many ways you can go about dealing with a situation, but a variety of ways you might interpret individual actions as well.In most cases, you're encouraged to play to your character's strengths and Awakening potential, which is discussed in a later section.
Representation
For ease of use, Natures are represented in short-hand form, and their combinations are paired together. This is how checks will be presented:
| Avoid (Av) | Change (Ch) | Learn (Ln) | Overcome (Ov) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mental (M) | AvM | ChM | LnM | OvM |
| Physical (P) | AvP | ChP | LnP | OvP |
| Social (S) | AvS | ChS | LnS | OvS |
Aptitude
If Natures are similar to statistics, then Aptitude is their associated value, representing an inclination towards or an affinity to that Nature. The greater your Aptitude for a particular Nature, the better you are at implementing solutions with that approach.
In Fables & Foxtales, Aptitude for a particular Nature is represented by a scale of progressively increasing die faces:
| Aptitude | Die Factor |
|---|---|
| Poor | d4 |
| Ordinary | d6 |
| Great | d8 |
| Exceptional | d10 |
Determining Natures
To determine Natures during character creation, use one of the following methods:
Standard Array Method: Players may use a preset list of values. These are 1d4, 1d6, 1d6, 1d6, 1d8, 1d8, 1d10. This gives players a balanced array of Natures, with both obvious weaknesses and strengths.
Point Buy Method: All Natures begin at d4. Players may increase the die factor of one Nature by 2 (a d4 becomes a d6, a d6 becomes a d8, etc.) in exchange for 1 point. Using this system, players begin play with 10 points. This system is best for characters who are supposed to be specialized.
Advancement
Unlike many systems where characters have stat progression, Natures never permanently increase or decrease. And though they can be temporarily affected up or down, the always revert back to their base when temporary effects wear off or are otherwise removed.
However, Natures can be shifted around as part of completing character Goals, representing a form of character growth and development. In this way, Natures can never exceed Exceptional (d10), nor can they be decreased below Poor (d4).
Copyright 2025 A. B. Ravencourt. All Rights Reserved.
Aspects
While Natures serve as the character's foundation, Aspects serve as the walls, representing traits that define them, experiences they have learned from, and connections they have made.
There are three categories of Aspects:
A Bond is a measure of the commitment between one character and another, defining what sort of relationship they have. Bonds might represent familial obligations, organizational ties, significant debts, romantic interests, or even social peerage.
An Expertise is the depth of knowledge, training, or experience someone has with a particular practice, profession or ritual. Expertise might represent lore on a particular subject of study, competency with some type of weapon or tool, or familiarity with the behaviors of certain creatures or cultures.
A Trigger represents a trait, ideal, or flaw possessed by the character that otherwise stands out as being particularly potent or having a strong pull on how they make decisions. Triggers can be identified in the form of fears, disabilities, driving personality traits, or even habits that they may not be fully conscious of.
Affinity
Aspects are defined by their Affinity Tier, which defines the potency in which that Aspects affects a character, or the level at which one can make use of it. For Bonds, it defines how close or involved a character is with another, while Expertise defines how capable or knowledgeable they are on a subject. Finally, Triggers are defined by how much they affect your life or your decision-making.
Regardless of what category they belong to, all Aspects can have up to four levels, or 'Tiers' of Affinity. You can learn more about the Affinity Tiers of each category by clicking their names to the left.
Determining Aspects
During character creations, players begin with 12 points with which they can use to gain and/or increase Aspects, provided they adhere to the following rules:
Obtaining a new Aspect costs 1 point.
Increasing an Aspect to the next tier costs 1 point.
All new characters must have at least 2 Bonds, 2 Expertise, and 2 Triggers.
Unless otherwise stated, no Aspect may start higher than Tier 2.
Note that in some cases, it may make sense for some characters to supersede this rule, such as when a character is married, or has a severely detrimental disability. Work with your Storyteller to find a good balance.
In some cases, such as when starting at a higher "level" of play, the Storyteller can choose to increase the number of starting Aspect points, but this is considered the 'baseline' for starting characters.
Advancement
Aspects can advance in Tier, or new Aspects can be gained through the use of Character Development Goals, which are discussed in greater detail in a later section (see: Goals).
Alternatively, the Storyteller can choose to grant your character new Aspects as special rewards during the course of play, usually as a result of Story Goals or some other source.
Finally, some effects within the game may temporarily grant your character new Aspects, or may positively or negatively affect their Affinity for that Aspect. Some examples of this might include a bonus Affinity point towards Blades when they wield an intelligent weapon, a penalty to an Aspect caused by a Mood or Condition, or a bonus related to an Aspect due to an environmental effect, like a consecrated holy ground, a magical barrier, or similar circumstances.
Copyright 2025 A. B. Ravencourt. All Rights Reserved.