Friends & Fables Guide (2026): How to Play, Build a Character, Level Up and Fight

Friends & Fables is a browser tabletop RPG where an AI game master called Franz runs a D&D 5e-style campaign for up to six players — on a real character sheet, a real map and a combat system that rolls the dice for you. It ties for the deepest rules on our board, and that is exactly why it needs a guide: most of what goes wrong for new players is a rule they did not know the system had.

This page is how the game works, built from three sources: the studio’s own help centre, its dated patch notes, and — where both are silent — the app’s own code. The help centre is older than the patch notes in several places, and where they disagree we follow the dated note and say so.

One thing to know first. On 4 September 2026 the studio put big new Friends & Fables updates on hold until 2027 while it works on Craft, its newer platform. Friends & Fables keeps running, and model updates have continued, but what you learn here is what you will be playing with for the rest of the year. What that means for whether to pay is covered in Friends & Fables pricing; whether the game is any good is our review.

Access disclosure: this guide covers Friends & Fables, which we have never been given comped access to. It also discusses Craft, made by the same studio, whose developers provided beta access and a subscription for our coverage of Craft. No conditions were attached, and this guide is independent and unpaid — we do not accept payment for coverage.

Your First Campaign, Step by Step

The studio’s own getting-started advice is short, and it is the right order:

Pick a featured world from the home page. These are the best worlds the studio or its players have made, and they come with characters, places and quests already built in — you learn the game before you learn the world builder.
Choose a character. Take one of the world’s ready-made characters, or build your own (next section).
Choose your starting inventory.
Invite friends, if you want them. The campaign lobby has the invite link. Your friends do not need a subscription to join you — the host’s plan sets the party size.
Start the campaign and talk to Franz. That is the whole interface. Franz can tell when you are talking in character and when you are talking “out of game”, so you can ask him a rules question mid-scene without breaking anything.

Everything else — your character sheet, the map, the world’s lore, your quests — sits in the left sidebar, and all of it is editable while you play. That is the first habit worth building: the sidebar is the truth. The studio’s own troubleshooting page puts it bluntly — “regardless of what Franz says out loud, the data you see in the UI is the truth.” If Franz says your companion has a sword and the companion’s inventory does not, the companion does not have a sword, and it will not be able to use one in a fight.

When Franz writes something wrong, you have two tools on every message: the feedback buttons that ask him to rewrite it, and a plain edit button to fix it yourself. Use both freely.

Building a Character

Open the Characters tab in your world or campaign and choose Create New Character. You get two ways in.

By hand. The full editor takes an image, a name, pronouns, race, class and alignment, then every number — ability scores, HP, AC, speed. Appearance, backstory, personality and mannerisms are free-text fields, and they matter more than they look: they are what Franz reads when he has to portray your character in a scene.

With AI. The Generate With AI button takes a description — or just a few keywords — and fills in stats, background, appearance, abilities and a portrait. Two things the help centre warns about:

It overwrites everything. Use it on a blank character or when you want a complete redesign, never to “touch up” a character you have already edited.
Say the level you want. If you are starting at level 5, write that in the prompt, or you will get whatever the generator assumes.

Inventory. You can add items from the world, your personal Workshop or the SRD, or create new ones on the spot. Equipping armour and weapons updates your sheet automatically. During play, Franz updates the inventory himself when you pick things up, buy, trade or use them — and if he gets it wrong, you fix it by hand. One practical detail from the help centre: throw a weapon at someone and it leaves your inventory; you will find it on the ground on the battle map.

Spellbook. Every spell or ability goes here. Press K to mark a spell as Known. Casters who prepare spells — wizards, for example — also press P on each spell they want Prepared, and they cannot cast it until they do. You can change known and prepared spells freely outside of fights. This is the most common “why can’t I cast this” answer: the spell is known but not prepared.

Classes and Subclasses

Friends & Fables ships the 2024 SRD classes, loaded in on 25 November 2025 with their class features, class resources and subclasses. With 5e defaults switched on in a world (the default), each class comes with:

its one SRD subclass, and
three official Friends & Fables subclasses the studio wrote on top.

World builders can add their own, and since December 2025 a class can hold up to ten subclasses, up from five.

The studio is candid that this put the game “in a slightly awkward spot between 2014 and 2024 rules”, with a plan to move fully to 2024. That plan was made before the pause. If you play 2014 rules at your own table, expect the two editions to mix — and if it matters to you, the studio’s own suggestion is to homebrew your preference.

Class resources — Rages, Focus Points (Ki), and so on — are tracked on the sheet, and Franz spends and restores them. The single most useful tip in the patch notes is about how you phrase it: name the resource when you use it. The studio’s own example is a ranger: say “I use one charge of favoured enemy and cast hunter’s mark”, not “I cast hunter’s mark”. Otherwise Franz has no way to tell a class feature from an ordinary spell, and the charge never gets spent. The same goes for anything with a pool: “I spend one Focus Point to…”.

Can You Multiclass in Friends & Fables?

No. This is one of the most-searched questions about the game, and the help centre and patch notes never mention it at all — so we checked the app’s code. A character in Friends & Fables stores exactly one class. Subclasses sit in their own list, but there is no field for a second class and no level split between two.

That rules out the 5e-style multiclass — a fighter with two levels of wizard. It does not rule out the character you had in mind, because Friends & Fables has something most AI RPGs do not: a real class builder. You can make the hybrid as a single class:

Hit die — d6 or d8 for frailer casters, d10 or d12 for the front line.
Spellcasting — pick a casting ability, prepared or known, and a depth: third caster (tops out around 4th-level spells), half caster (5th) or full caster (9th). Presets fill in the cantrips-and-spells-by-level grid for you.
Class features — each with a level, a name, Passive or Active, and rules text.
Class resources — a pool with a maximum per level and a short-rest and long-rest recovery, either a flat amount or a percentage.
Subclass level — when the subclass choice arrives.

There is a Generate With AI button for all of it. The studio’s own example prompt: “A non-magical tactician who uses exosuits and gadgets, half caster with a focus resource for burst attacks.” One gap to know about — the AI fills in features and resources, but not the spell list. You choose the spells yourself.

One detail if you build a subclass that casts: spell lists stack, progression does not. A subclass’s spells are added on top of its class’s list, but its casting type and its spells-known grid replace the class’s. A non-casting class with a half-caster subclass casts as a half caster.

Levelling Up

Friends & Fables tracks XP on a bar on your character sheet, and the value is editable by hand if the game gets it wrong. When you level, a level-up screen does the work:

Level type	What the screen shows you
Ability score improvement level	A choice: +2 ability points or a feat
Subclass level (usually 3)	A prompt to choose your subclass
Any other level	The new class features you just unlocked

Feats are the 2024 SRD feats, plus anything homebrewed in your Workshop, world or campaign. A feat can carry a minimum level, and it will not appear in your list until you reach it.

Now the part the level-up screen does not tell you. When the studio added class features and feats, it wrote that “~60% of Class Features / Feats should work” in play, and that many would run “on the honor system for now”. The patch note lists what did not work yet:

Feats and features that grant spells (Magic Initiate, for example) — add those spells to your spellbook yourself.
Anything that changes resistances or damage multipliers.
Feats that grant reactions.
Automatic stat changes. Take the Defense feat and your AC does not move. You add a stat adjustment on the character form yourself — a manual line for buffs and debuffs, which works like an item bonus.
NPCs using class features in combat. Only player characters use theirs.

That list was written in November 2025, promised as “future updates” — and those updates are now on hold until 2027. Assume every item on it still applies, and keep a stat adjustment for anything your feat is supposed to change.

Combat: Narrative or Turn-Based

Friends & Fables runs fights in one of two ways, and knowing which you are in explains most combat complaints.

Narrative combat goes through the same system as every other message. It is fast and loose, and the studio says plainly that “enemies and their stats may not be tracked accurately”.

Turn-based combat is the real one — an encounter with a turn order, a battle map and dice. It is a setting: Include Combat Encounters in the campaign’s game master settings. The help centre’s settings page, written almost two years ago, says it is off by default; the Combat V4 notes of August 2025 told players who had switched it off to switch it back on. Check the toggle before your first fight.

Starting a fight

An encounter starts when someone rolls initiative. Franz will ask for it when the story calls for it — the help centre’s examples are picking an argument with an NPC, failing a stealth check past guards, and “drunkenly stumbling through a goblin encampment”. You can also force it: open the dice menu beside the chat box and choose Initiative. In a group, only one person needs to roll — the game rolls for everyone.

You can fight monsters and NPCs, whether a world builder placed them or Franz invented them on the fly. You cannot fight NPCs in your own party; they join your side automatically.

Taking your turn

Either tell Franz — “I attack the bandit captain with my longsword” — and confirm the attack he parses out of it, or open the attack panel (the crossed-swords icon) and pick one. The system rolls to hit, rolls damage if you land it, and handles saving throws from spells. Custom attacks cover homebrew moves and modified ones, and you can save favourites so you are not rebuilding them each fight.

Monster and NPC turns run on their own, but a player has to trigger them.

What Combat V4 added

The current combat system is Combat V4, from 1 August 2025, with smarter models swapped in behind it in August 2026. It is why turn-based fights in Friends & Fables feel like a real table rather than a chat window:

Spell slots are enforced — Franz will refuse a cast you do not have the slot for.
AC follows 5e rules from your armour rather than a number you type.
Summoning works — Franz adds the conjured creatures to the encounter.
Thrown and improvised weapons update your inventory, so you pick the axe back up before throwing it again.
Grappling, opportunity attacks, and a reaction tracked per round.
Encounter notes — a fight-only memory for lasting effects like Hunter’s Mark, which Franz applies when the attack lands.
Manual dice — flip the toggle in the roll window and enter your own physical rolls.

Two gaps from the help centre that nothing since has closed: monsters have no legendary actions, and conditions with durations are handled narratively, because the game cannot tell when “ten minutes” have passed. If a condition should have worn off, ask Franz to remove it, or remove it from the sheet yourself.

To get out of a fight, say you flee — Franz sets a Dexterity DC and you roll — or use Flee in the dice menu.

Resting

Rests are how resources, hit points and spell slots come back, and both run on keywords.

Short rest — tell Franz “I take a short rest”. He asks you to roll hit dice and heals you by the result. You need hit dice left to do it, and only a long rest gives them back.
Long rest — tell Franz you take a long rest, somewhere it makes sense — the help centre’s example is a night at an inn.

The help centre’s own tip: include the literal words “short rest” or “long rest”. Class resources refill on whichever rest their recovery is set to.

Keeping Franz on Track

Almost every bad session in Friends & Fables comes back to one fact: Franz never sees your whole campaign. On any turn he gets the current scene, the plot, part of the chat history and whatever a research step decides is relevant. A memory is written every five turns, and the plot is updated every three — so the detail from forty turns ago is in a memory somewhere, but it only reaches Franz if the research step fetches it.

The studio’s own advice, which is better than most:

Name things exactly. Say “Grimelda’s Potion Shop”, not “the shop”. Name the NPC, the item, how many you are buying, where you are travelling to or how long and which way. A name is what the research step searches on.
Pin what matters. Any memory can be added to the Working Context — the editable panel of what Franz is looking at — so it is always in view. Our review singles the Working Context out as the feature that sets the platform apart; this is what it is for.
Use @-mentions. Mentioning a character, place or item with @ forces its details into that message. How many you can mention per message depends on the plan — one on the free tier, up to five on the top one.
Fix the game state, not the conversation. If Franz has put you in the wrong place, change your location in the info panel. He sees a different set of NPCs depending on where the game thinks you are.
Correct once, then stop. A quick correction triggers a special mode that updates the game state. A running argument does the opposite — in the help centre’s words, it fills the chat history with “back and forth arguments, which will likely make his outputs worse”. If you have argued for three or more messages, delete them.
Edit out the pattern you don’t want. Franz treats his last few messages as examples of the next one. If he has started writing in bullet points or repeating a description, edit it out of the recent messages and it stops.

Instructions, pacing and the settings worth knowing

Instructions go in a Working Context block of type instruction — the old custom-instructions box in campaign settings is deprecated. They change how Franz writes, never the rules. The studio’s good examples are all about voice: “[Always]: This is a pirate themed world, always talk like you’re a pirate.” Its bad examples are instructions that try to run the game — “look up existing NPCs before creating new ones” does nothing, because telling a model to look something up does not give it the tool.

Pacing sits in the settings, and on Franz’s latest message. Adventure (the default) pushes quests and exploration; Downtime gives you a slower, slice-of-life campaign.

Hide Unknown Entities keeps places and people hidden, names and portraits included, until you have visited or met them. It is on by default; turn it off and the whole world is visible.

Include 5e Defaults controls whether D&D races, classes, spells and items are available at all. Switch it off for a science-fiction or modern world.

Picking a Narration Model

You can change the model that writes Franz’s narration by clicking its name in the bar beside the send button. As of the latest patch notes:

Standard models are unlimited on every paid plan. Fenix — updated to Fenix 1.1 in May 2026 — is the default. Hy-3 replaced MiMo in May as the faster alternative, and a refreshed DeepSeek V4 Flash arrived in August with the studio suggesting Fenix players try it.
Premium models cost credits per turn. Grok 4.5 replaced Gemini 3.1 Pro in August 2026 at 5 credits a turn.

The model changes the writing, never the game. In the studio’s own words, switching “does not change things like combat mechanics or the research step”. A premium model will not fix a lost memory or a wrong location — those are fixed by the habits above. Keep premium turns for the scenes that are all dialogue and consequence. What credits cost and how you get them is in our pricing guide.

Playing With Friends

Friends & Fables is built for groups, and the numbers are set by the host’s plan: three players on the free tier, then four, five and six on Starter, Pro and Legend. Only the host pays — friends join free through the lobby’s invite link. In a fight, one initiative roll covers the table, and since December 2025, when Franz asks several characters to roll, a Roll All button does the whole party at once.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you play Friends & Fables? Pick a featured world from the home page, choose one of its characters or build your own, pick your starting inventory, invite friends from the campaign lobby if you want company, then start the campaign and talk to Franz, the AI game master. Everything else — the character sheet, the map, the world — lives in the sidebar and can be edited while you play.

Can you multiclass in Friends & Fables? No. The app’s own code stores exactly one class on a character, and neither the help centre nor any patch note documents multiclassing. The workaround is homebrew: the class builder lets you make a custom class with its own hit die, spell progression, features and resources, so a hybrid you want can be built as a single class.

How do you level up in Friends & Fables? When your character reaches a new level, a level-up screen opens. On levels where your class gets an ability score improvement you choose between two ability points or a feat; on other levels it shows the class features you have just unlocked; and at the level your class picks a subclass (usually 3), it asks you to choose one. XP is shown on a bar on the character sheet and can be edited by hand.

How do you choose a subclass in Friends & Fables? On the level-up screen, at whatever level your class chooses a subclass — level 3 for most classes. With 5e defaults switched on, each class comes with its SRD subclass plus three official Friends & Fables subclasses, and a world can add its own; a class can hold up to ten.

How does combat work in Friends & Fables? There are two modes. Narrative combat runs through ordinary messages and does not track enemy stats reliably. Turn-based combat starts when someone rolls initiative, puts every combatant in a turn order, rolls attacks and damage for you, tracks spell slots and conditions, and runs monster turns when a player triggers them. Turn-based combat is a setting you can switch on or off in the campaign’s game master settings.

Why does Franz forget things or get stuck? Franz only sees part of your campaign on any turn — the current scene, the plot, some chat history and whatever the research step decides is relevant — and a memory is written every five turns rather than every message. The fixes the studio recommends are to name things exactly, pin important memories into the Working Context, correct the game state in the interface rather than arguing, and delete any run of three or more arguing messages.

Is Friends & Fables still being updated? Only lightly. On 4 September 2026 the studio said it was putting big new Friends & Fables updates on hold until 2027 to keep working on Craft, its newer platform, while keeping Friends & Fables running. Model refreshes and fixes have continued, but the features in this guide are the ones you should expect to be playing with for the rest of 2026.

Sources: the Friends & Fables help centre (help.fables.gg) and patch notes (fables.gg/patch-notes), read 24 September 2026; the multiclass answer is from the public code of the Friends & Fables web app, read the same day. Where the help centre and a newer patch note disagree, this guide follows the patch note.

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